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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20612-h.zip b/20612-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b855ef --- /dev/null +++ b/20612-h.zip diff --git a/20612-h/20612-h.htm b/20612-h/20612-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21c230f --- /dev/null +++ b/20612-h/20612-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8961 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fort Amity by A. T. Quiller-Couch</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {background:#fdfdfd; + color:black; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + font-size: medium; + margin-top:100px; + margin-left:12%; + margin-right:12%; + text-align:justify; } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; } + p {text-indent: 4%; } + p.noindent {text-indent: 0%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + hr.narrow { width: 40%; + text-align: center; } + blockquote.footnote { font-size: small; } + .caption { font-size: small; + font-weight: bold; } + .center { text-align: center; } + .ind1 {margin-left: 1em; } + .ind2 {margin-left: 2em; } + .ind3 {margin-left: 3em; } + .ind4 {margin-left: 4em; } + .ind5 {margin-left: 5em; } + .ind6 {margin-left: 6em; } + .ind7 {margin-left: 7em; } + .ind8 {margin-left: 8em; } + .ind9 {margin-left: 9em; } + .ind10 {margin-left: 10em; } + .ind11 {margin-left: 11em; } + .ind12 {margin-left: 12em; } + .ind13 {margin-left: 13em; } + .ind14 {margin-left: 14em; } + .ind15 {margin-left: 15em; } + .ind16 {margin-left: 16em; } + .ind17 {margin-left: 17em; } + .ind18 {margin-left: 18em; } + .ind19 {margin-left: 19em; } + .ind20 {margin-left: 20em; } + .large {font-size: large; } + table { font-size: medium; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fort Amity, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fort Amity + +Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +Release Date: February 17, 2007 [EBook #20612] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORT AMITY *** + + + + +Produced by Lionel Sear + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<h2>FORT AMITY.</h2> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch.</h2> +<br><br><br> + +<h5>1904</h5> + +<h5>This etext prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1904</h5> +<br><br><br><br> + +<h3>TO HENRY NEWBOLT.</h3> + +<p>My dear Newbolt,</p> + +<p>Two schoolfellows, who had sat together in the Sixth at Clifton, +met at Paddington some twenty years later and travelled down to +enter their two sons at one school. On their way, while the boys +shyly became acquainted, the fathers discussed the project of this +story; a small matter in comparison with the real business of that +day—but that it happened so gives me the opportunity of dedicating +<i>Fort Amity</i> to you, its editor in <i>The Monthly Review</i>, as a +reminder to outlast the short life granted in these days to novels.</p> + +<p>Yet if either of our sons shall turn its pages some years hence, +though but to remind himself of his first journey to school, I hope +he will not lay it down too contemptuously. The tale has, for its +own purposes, so seriously confused the geography of Fort Amitié, +that he may search the map and end by doubting if any such fortress +ever existed and stood a siege: but I trust it will leave him in no +doubt of what his elders understood by honour and friendship.</p> + +<p>Of these two themes, at any rate, I have composed it, and dedicate it +to a poet who has sung nobly of both. "Like to the generations of +leaves are those of men"—but while we last, let these deciduous +pages commemorate the day when we two went back to school four +strong. May they also contain nothing unworthy to survive us in our +two fellow-travellers!</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> + +<span class = "ind15">A. T. QUILLER-COUCH.</span><br> + +<span class = "ind15">The Haven, April 20th, 1904.</span><br> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> +<p><a name="1"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>PREFACE</h3> + + +<p>More than once, attempting a story of high and passionate love—in +this book, for example, and still more recklessly in my tale of +<i>Sir John Constantine</i>—I have had to pause and ask myself the +elementary question: Can such a story, if at once true and exemplary, +conclude otherwise than in sorrow?</p> + +<p>The great artists in poetry and prose fiction seem to consent that it +cannot: and this, I think, not because—understanding love as they +do, with all its wonder and wild desire—they would conduct it to +life-long bliss if they could, but simply because they cannot fit it +into this muddy vesture of decay. They may dismiss us in the end +with peace and consolation:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">And calm of mind, all passion spent.</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>And we know or have known that of its impulse among us lesser folk it +holifies and populates this world. But our own transience qualifies +it. Only when love here claims to be above the world—"All for Love, +and the World well Lost"—we feel that its exorbitance must wreck it +here and now, however it may shine hereafter. That is why all the +great legends of love—the tale of Tristan and Iseult, for instance— +are unhappy legends: as that is why they still tease us.</p> + +<p>I hope these remarks will not be deemed too pompous for the preface +to a story in which true love is crossed by a soldier's sense of +honour. The theme is a variant on a great commonplace: and, +following my habit, I let the incidents and characters have their own +way without the author's comment or interference.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent"> +<span class = "ind20">Q.</span> +</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> + + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> +<p> </p> +<center> +<table cellpadding="1"> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">Chapter </td> <td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td> <td><a href="#1" >PREFACE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">I. </td> <td><a href="#2" >MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T'EN GUERRE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">II. </td> <td><a href="#3" >A BIVOUAC IN THE FOREST.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">III. </td> <td><a href="#4" >TICONDEROGA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">IV. </td> <td><a href="#5" >THE VOYAGEURS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">V. </td> <td><a href="#6" >CONTAINS THE APOLOGUE OF MANABOZHO'S TOE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VI. </td> <td><a href="#7" >BATEESE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VII. </td> <td><a href="#8" >THE WATCHER IN THE PASS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">VIII. </td> <td><a href="#9" >THE FARTHER SLOPE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">IX. </td> <td><a href="#10" >MENEHWEHNA SETTLES ACCOUNTS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">X. </td> <td><a href="#11" >BOISVEYRAC.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XI. </td> <td><a href="#12" > FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XII. </td> <td><a href="#13" >THE WHITE TUNIC.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XIII. </td> <td><a href="#14" >FORT AMITIÉ.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XIV. </td> <td><a href="#15" >AGAIN THE WHITE TUNIC.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XV. </td> <td><a href="#16" >THE SECOND DISPATCH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XVI. </td> <td><a href="#17" >THE DISMISSAL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XVII. </td> <td><a href="#18" >FRONTENAC SHORE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XVIII. </td> <td><a href="#19" >NETAWIS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XIX. </td> <td><a href="#20" >THE LODGES IN THE SNOW.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XX. </td> <td><a href="#21" >THE RÉVÉILLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXI. </td> <td><a href="#22" >FORT AMITIÉ LEARNS ITS FATE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXII. </td> <td><a href="#23" >DOMINIQUE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIII. </td> <td><a href="#24" >THE FLAGSTAFF TOWER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIV. </td> <td><a href="#25" >THE FORT SURRENDERS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXII. </td> <td><a href="#26" >THE RAPIDS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIII. </td> <td><a href="#27" >DICK'S JUDGEMENT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIV. </td> <td><a href="#28" >PRÈS-DE-VILLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIII. </td> <td><a href="#29" >EPILOGUE—I.—HUDSON RIVER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top">XXIV. </td> <td><a href="#30" >EPILOGUE—II.—THE PHANTOM GUARD.</a></td></tr> + + +</table> +</center> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + + + + + + +<h2>FORT AMITY.</h2> + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="2"></a> </p> +<br> + +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T'EN GUERRE.</h4> + + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent"> "So adieu, Jack, until we meet in Quebec! You have the start of + us, report says, and this may even find you drinking his + Majesty's health in Fort Carillon. Why not? You carry Howe, + and who carries Howe carries the eagles on his standards; or so + you announce in your last. Well, but have we, on our part, no + <i>vexillum?</i> Brother Romulus presents his compliments to Brother + Remus, and begs leave to answer 'Wolfe!' 'Tis scarce + forty-eight hours since Wry-necked Dick brought his ships into + harbour with the Brigadier on board, and already I have seen him + and—what is more—fallen in love. 'What like is he?' says you. + 'Just a sandy-haired slip of a man,' says I, 'with a cock nose': + but I love him, Jack, for he knows his business. We've a + professional at last. No more Pall Mall promenaders—no more + Braddocks. Loudons, Webbs! We live in the consulship of Pitt, + my lad—<i>deprome Caecubum</i>—we'll tap a cask to it in Quebec. + And if Abercromby's your Cæsar—"</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Here a bugle sounded, and Ensign John à Cleeve of the 46th Regiment +of Foot (Murray's) crushed his friend's letter into his pocket and +sprang off the woodpile where he had seated himself with the +regimental colours across his knees. He unfolded them from their +staff, assured himself that they hung becomingly—gilt tassels and +yellow silken folds—and stepped down to the lake-side where the +bateaux waited.</p> + +<p>The scene is known to-day for one of the fairest in the world. +Populous cities lie near it and pour their holiday-makers upon it +through the summer season. Trains whistle along the shore under its +forests; pleasure-steamers, with music on their decks, shoot across +bays churned of old by the paddles of war-canoes; from wildernesses +where Indians lurked in ambush smile neat hotels, white-walled, with +green shutters and deep verandas; and lovers, wandering among the +hemlocks, happen on a clearing with a few turfed mounds, and seat +themselves on these last ruins of an ancient fort, nor care to +remember even its name. Behind them—behind the Adirondacks and the +Green Mountains—and pushed but a little way back in these hundred +and fifty years, lies the primeval forest, trodden no longer now by +the wasting redman, but untamed yet, almost unhandselled. And still, +as the holidaymakers leave it, winter closes down on the lake-side +and wraps it in silence, broken by the loon's cry or the crash of a +snow-laden tree deep in the forest—the same sounds, the same aching +silence, endured by French and English garrisons watching each other +and the winter through in Fort Carillon or Fort William Henry.</p> + +<p>"The world's great age begins anew."… It begins anew, and +hourly, wherever hearts are high and youth sets out with bright eyes +to meet his fate. It began anew for Ensign John à Cleeve on this +morning of July 5, 1758; it was sounded up by bugles, shattering the +forest silence; it breathed in the wind of the boat's speed shaking +the silken flag above him. His was one of twelve hundred boats +spreading like brilliant water-fowl across the lake which stretched +for thirty miles ahead, gay with British uniforms, scarlet and gold, +with Highland tartans, with the blue jackets of the Provincials; +flash of oars, innumerable glints of steel, of epaulettes, of belt, +cross-belt and badge; gilt knops and tassels and sheen of flags. +Yonder went Blakeney's 27th Regiment, and yonder the Highlanders of +the Black Watch; Abercromby's 44th, Howe's 55th with their idolised +young commander, the 60th or Royal Americans in two battalions; +Gage's Light Infantry, Bradstreet's axemen and bateau-men, Starke's +rangers; a few friendly Indians—but the great Johnson was hurrying +up with more, maybe with five hundred; in all fifteen thousand men +and over. Never had America seen such an armament; and it went to +take a fort from three thousand Frenchmen.</p> + +<p>No need to cover so triumphant an advance in silence! Why should not +the regimental bands strike up? For what else had we dragged them up +the Hudson from Albany and across the fourteen-mile portage to the +lake? Weary work with a big drum in so much brushwood! And play +they did, as the flotilla pushed forth and spread and left the +stockades far behind; stockades planted on the scene of last year's +massacre. Though for weeks before our arrival Bradstreet and his men +had been clearing and building, sights remained to nerve our arms and +set our blood boiling to the cry "Remember Fort William Henry!" +Its shores fade, and somewhere at the foot of the lake three thousand +Frenchmen are waiting for us (if indeed they dare to wait). Let the +bands play "Britons strike home!"</p> + +<p>Play they did: drums tunding and bagpipes skirling as though Fort +Carillon (or Ticonderoga, as the Indians called it) would succumb +like another Jericho to their clamour. The Green Mountains tossed +its echoes to the Adirondacks, and the Adirondacks flung it back; and +under it, down the blue waterway toward the Narrows, went Ensign John +à Cleeve, canopied by the golden flag of the 46th.</p> + +<p>The lake smiled at all his expectations and surpassed them. +He had imagined it a sepulchral sheet of water, sunk between +cavernous woods. And lo! it lay high in the light of day, +broad-rimmed, with the forests diminishing as they shelved down to +its waters. The mountains rimmed it, amethystine, remote, delicate +as carving, as vapours almost transparent; and within the rim it +twinkled like a great cup of champagne held high in a god's hand—so +high that John à Cleeve, who had been climbing ever since his +regiment left Albany, seemed lifted with all these flashing boats and +uniforms upon a platform where men were heroes, and all great deeds +possible, and the mere air laughed in the veins like wine.</p> + +<p>Two heavy flat-boats ploughed alongside of his; deep in the bows and +yawing their sterns ludicrously. They carried a gun apiece, and the +artillerymen had laded them too far forward. To the 46th they were a +sufficiently good joke to last for miles. "Look at them up-tailed +ducks a-searching for worms! Guns? Who wants guns on this trip? +Take 'em home before they sink and the General loses his temper." +The crews grinned back and sweated and tugged, at every third drive +drenching the bowmen with spray, although not a breath of wind +rippled the lake's surface.</p> + +<p>The boat ahead of John's carried Elliott the Senior Ensign of the +46th, with the King's colours—the flag of Union, drooping in stripes +of scarlet, white, and blue. On his right strained a boat's crew of +the New York regiment, with the great patroon, Philip Schuyler +himself, erect in the stern sheets and steering, in blue uniform and +three-cornered hat; too grand a gentleman to recognise our Ensign, +although John had danced the night through in the Schuylers' famous +white ball-room on the eve of marching from Albany, and had flung +packets of sweetmeats into the nursery windows at dawn and awakened +three night-gowned little girls to blow kisses after him as he took +his way down the hill from the Schuyler mansion. That was a month +ago. To John it seemed years since he had left Albany and its +straight sidewalks dappled with maple shade: but the patroon's face +was the same, sedately cheerful now as then when he had moved among +his guests with a gracious word for each and a brow unclouded by the +morrow.</p> + +<p>Men like Philip Schuyler do not suffer to-morrows to perturb them, +since to them every morrow dawns big with duties, responsibilities, +risks. John caught himself wondering to what that calm face looked +forward, at the lake-end, where the forests slept upon their shadows +and the mountains descended and closed like fairy gates! For John +himself Fame waited beyond those gates. Although in the last three +or four weeks he had endured more actual hardships than in all his +life before, he had enjoyed them thoroughly and felt that they were +hardening him into a man. He understood now why the tales he had +read at school in his Homer and Ovid—tales of Ulysses, of Hercules +and Perseus—were never sorrowful, however severe the heroes' +labours. For were they not undergone in just such a shining +atmosphere as this?</p> + +<p>His mind ran on these ancient tales, and so, memory reverting +to Douai and the seminary class-room in which he had first +construed them, he began unconsciously to set the lines of an old +repetition-lesson to the stroke of the oars.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">Angustam amice pauperiem pati<br> + robustus acri militia puer<br> + condiscat et Parthos feroces<br> +<span class = "ind3">vexet eques metuendus hasta:</span><br><br> + + Vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat<br> + in rebus…</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>—And so on, with halts and breaks where memory failed him. +<i>Parthos</i>—these would be the Indians—Abenakis, Algonquins, Hurons, +whomsoever Montcalm might have gathered yonder in the woods with him. +<i>Dulce et decorum est</i>—yes, to be sure; in a little while he would +be facing death for his country; but he did not feel in the least +like dying. A sight of Philip Schuyler's face sent him sliding into +the next ode—<i>Justum et tenacem</i>… <i>non voltus instantis +tyranni</i>.… John à Cleeve would have started had the future +opened for an instant and revealed the face of the tyrant Philip +Schuyler was soon to defy: and Schuyler would have started too.</p> + +<p>Then John remembered his cousin's letter, and pulled it from his +pocket again.…</p> +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent"> "And if Abercromby's your Cæsar—which is as much as I'll risk + saying in a letter which may be opened before it reaches you— + why, you have Howe to clip his parade wig as he's already docked + the men's coat-tails. So here's five pounds on it, and let it + be a match—Wolfe against Howe, and shall J à C. or R. M. be + first in Quebec? And another five pounds, if you will, on our + epaulettes: for I repeat to you, this is Pitt's consulship, and + promotion henceforth comes to men as they deserve it. Look at + Wolfe, sir—a man barely thirty-two—and the ball but just set + rolling! Wherefore I too am resolved to enter Quebec a + Brigadier-General, who now go carrying the colours of the 17th + to Louisbourg. We but wait Genl. Amherst, who is expected + daily, and then yeo-heave-ho for the nor'ard! Farewell, dearest + Jack! Given in this our camp at Halifax, the twelfth of May, + 1758, in the middle of a plaguy fog, by your affect. cousin— + R. Montgomery."</p> +</blockquote></blockquote> +<p>John smiled as he folded up the letter, so characteristic of Dick. +Dick was always in perfect spirits, always confident in himself. +It was characteristic of Dick, too, to call himself Romulus and his +friend Remus, meaning no slight, simply because he always took +himself for granted as the leading spirit. It had always been so +even in the days when they had gone birds'-nesting or rook-shooting +together in the woods around John's Devonshire home. Always John had +yielded the lead to this freckled Irish cousin (the kinship was, in +fact, a remote one and lay on their mother's side through the +Ranelagh family); and years had but seemed to widen the three months' +gap in their ages.</p> + +<p>Dick's parents were Protestant; and Dick had gone to Trinity College, +Dublin, passing thence to an ensigncy in the 17th (Forbes') Regiment. +The à Cleeves, on the other hand, had always been Roman Catholics, +and by consequence had lived for generations somewhat isolated among +the Devon gentry, their neighbours. When John looked back on his +boyhood, his prevailing impressions were of a large house set low in +a valley, belted with sombre dripping elms and haunted by Roman +Catholic priests—some fat and rosy—some lean and cadaverous—but +all soft-footed; of an insufficiency of light in the rooms; and of a +sad lack of fellow-creatures willing to play with him. His parents +were old, and he had been born late to them—twelve years after +Philip, his only brother and the heir. From the first his mother had +destined him for the priesthood, and a succession of priests had been +his tutors: but—What instinct is there in the sacerdotal mind which +warns it off some cases as hopeless from the first? Here was a +child, docile, affectionate, moody at times, but eager to please and +glad to be rewarded by a smile; bred among priests and designed to be +a priest; yet amid a thousand admonishments, chastisements, +encouragements, blandishments, the child—with a child's sure +instinct for sincerity—could not remember having been spoken to +sincerely, with heart open to heart. Years later, when in the +seminary at Douai the little worm of scepticism began to stir in his +brain and grow, feeding on the books of M. Voltaire and other +forbidden writings, he wondered if his many tutors had been, one and +all, unconsciously prescient. But he was an honest lad. He threw up +the seminary, returned to Cleeve Court, and announced with tears to +his mother (his father had died two years before) that he could not +be a priest. She told him, stonily, that he had disappointed her +dearest hopes and broken her heart. His brother—the Squire now, and +a prig from his cradle—took him out for a long walk, argued with him +as with a fractious child, and, without attending to his answers, +finally gave him up as a bad job. So an ensigncy was procured, and +John à Cleeve shipped from Cork to Halifax, to fight the French in +America. At Cork he had met and renewed acquaintance with his Irish +cousin, Dick Montgomery. They had met again in Halifax, which they +reached in separate transports, and had passed the winter there in +company. Dick clapped his cousin on the back and laughed impartially +at his doubts and the family distress. Dick had no doubts; always +saw clearly and made up his mind at once; was, moreover, very little +concerned with religion (beyond damning the Pope), and a great deal +concerned with soldiering. He fascinated John, as the practical man +usually fascinates the speculative. So Remus listened to Romulus and +began to be less contrite in his home-letters. To the smallest love +at home (of the kind that understands, or tries to understand) he +would have responded religiously; but he had found such nowhere save +in Dick—who, besides, was a gallant young gentleman, and scrupulous +on all points of honour. He took fire from Dick; almost worshipped +him; and wished now, as the flotilla swept on and the bands woke +louder echoes from the narrowing shore, that Dick were here to see +how the last few weeks had tanned and hardened him.</p> + +<p>The troops came to land before nightfall at Sabbath Day Point, +twenty-five miles down the lake; stretched themselves to doze for a +while in the dry undergrowth; re-embarked under the stars and, rowing +on through the dawn, reached the lake-end at ten in the morning. +Here they found the first trace of the enemy—a bridge broken in two +over the river which drains into Lake Champlain. A small French +rear-guard loitered here; but two companies of riflemen were landed +and drove it back into the woods, without loss. The boats discharged +the British unopposed, who now set forward afoot through the forest +to follow the left bank of the stream, which, leaving the lake +tranquilly, is broken presently by stony rapids and grows smooth +again only as it nears its new reservoir. Smooth, rapid, and smooth +again, it sweeps round a long bend; and this bend the British +prepared to follow, leaving a force to guard the boats.</p> + +<p>Howe led, feeling forward with his light infantry; and the army +followed in much the same disposition they had held down the lake; +regulars in the centre, provincials on either flank; a long scarlet +body creeping with broad blue wings—or so it might have appeared to +a bird with sight able to pierce the overlacing boughs. To John à +Cleeve, warily testing the thickets with the butt of his staff and +pulling the thorns aside lest they should rip its precious silken +folds, the advance, after the first ten minutes, seemed to keep no +more order than a gang of children pressing after blackberries. +Somewhere on his right the rapids murmured; men struggled beside +him—now a dozen redcoats, now a few knowing Provincials who had lost +their regiments, but were cocksure of the right path. And always— +before, behind and all around him—sounded the calls of the +parade-ground:—"Sub-divisions—left front—mark time! Left, half +turn! Three files on the left—left turn—wheel!—files to the +front!" Singular instructions for men grappling with a virgin +forest!</p> + +<p>If the standing trees were bad, the fallen ones—and there seemed to +be a diabolical number of them—were ten times worse. John was +straddling the trunk of one and cursing vehemently when a sound +struck on his ears, more intelligible than any parade-call. It came +back to him from the front: the sharp sound of musketry—two volleys.</p> + +<p>The parade-calls ceased suddenly all around him. He listened, still +sitting astride the trunk. One or two redcoats leaped it, shouting +as they leaped, and followed the sound, which crackled now as though +the whole green forest were on fire. By and by, as he listened, a +mustachioed man in a short jacket—one of Gage's light infantry—came +bursting through the undergrowth, capless, shouting for a surgeon.</p> + +<p>"What's wrong in front?" asked John, as the man—scarcely regarding +him—laid his hands on the trunk to vault it.</p> + +<p>"Faith, and I don't know, redcoat; except that they've killed him. +Whereabouts is the General?"</p> + +<p>"Who's killed?"</p> + +<p>"The best man amongst us: Lord Howe!"</p> + +<p>A second runner, following, shouted the same news; and the two passed +on together in search of the General. But already the tidings had +spread along the front of the main body, as though wafted by a sudden +wind through the undergrowth. Already, as John sat astride his log +endeavouring to measure up the loss, to right and left of him bugles +were sounding the halt. It seemed that as yet the mass of troops +scarcely took in the meaning of the rumour, but awoke under the shock +only to find themselves astray and without bearings.</p> + +<p>John's first sense was of a day made dark at a stroke. If this thing +had happened, then the glory had gone out of the campaign. The army +would by and by be marching on, and would march again to-morrow; the +drill cries would begin again, the dull wrestle through swamps and +thickets; and in due time the men would press down upon the French +forts and take them. But where would be the morning's cheerfulness, +the spirit of youth which had carried the boats down the lake amid +laughter and challenges to race, and at the landing-place set the men +romping like schoolboys? The longer John considered, the more he +marvelled at the hopes he and all the army had been building on this +young soldier—and not the army only, but every colony. Messengers +even now would be heading up the lake as fast as paddles could drive +them, to take horse and gallop smoking to the Hudson, to bear the +tidings to Albany, and from Albany ride south with it to New York, to +Philadelphia, to Richmond. "Lord Howe killed!" From that long track +of dismay John called his thoughts back to himself and the army. +Howe—dead? He, that up to an hour ago had been the pivot of so many +activities, the centre on which veterans rested their confidence, and +from which young soldiers drew their high spirits, the one commander +whom the Provincials trusted and liked because he understood them; +for whom and for their faith in him the regulars would march till +their legs failed them! Wonderful how youth and looks and gallantry +and brains together will grip hold of men and sway their +imaginations! But how rare the alliance, and on how brittle a hazard +resting! An unaimed bullet—a stop in the heart's pulsation—and the +star we followed has gone out, God knows whither. The hope of +fifteen thousand men lies broken and sightless, dead of purpose, far +from home. They assure us that nothing in this world perishes, nor +in the firmament above it: but we look up at the black space where a +star has been quenched and know that something has failed us which +to-morrow will not bring again.</p> + +<p>It was learnt afterwards that he had been killed by the first shot in +the campaign. Montcalm had thrown out three hundred rangers +overnight under Langy to feel the British advance: but so dense was +the tangle that even these experienced woodmen went astray during the +night and, in hunting for tracks, blundered upon Howe's light +infantry at unawares. In the moment of surprise each side let fly +with a volley, and Howe fell instantly, shot through the heart.</p> + +<p>The British bivouacked in the woods that night. Toward dawn John à +Cleeve stretched himself, felt for his arms, and lay for a while +staring up at a solitary star visible through the overhanging boughs. +He was wondering what had awakened him, when his ears grew aware of a +voice in the distance, singing—either deep in the forest or on some +hillside to the northward: a clear tenor voice shaken out on the +still air with a <i>tremolo</i> such as the Provençals love. It sang to +the army and to him:—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent"> Malbrouck s'en-va-t'en guerre:<br> +<span class = "ind3">Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</span><br> + Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre:<br> +<span class = "ind3">—Ne sais quand reviendra!</span><br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="3"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>A BIVOUAC IN THE FOREST.</h4> + +<p>Through the night, meanwhile, Montcalm and his men had been working +like demons.</p> + +<p>The stone fort of Ticonderoga stood far out on a bluff at the head of +Lake Champlain, its base descending on the one hand into the still +lake-water, on the other swept by the river which the British had +been trying to follow, and which here, its rapids passed, disembogues +in a smooth strong flood. It stood high, too, over these meeting +waters; but as a military position was next to worthless, being +dominated, across the river on the south, by a loftier hill called +Rattlesnake Mountain.</p> + +<p>Such was Ticonderoga; and hither Montcalm had hurried up the +Richelieu River from the north to find Bourlamaque, that good +fighter, posted with the regiments of La Reine, Béarn, and Guienne, +and a few Canadian regulars and militia. He himself had brought the +battalions of La Sarre and De Berry—a picked force, if ever there +was one, but scarcely above three thousand strong.</p> + +<p>A couple of miles above the fort and just below the rapids, a bridge +spanned the river. A saw-mill stood beside it: and here Montcalm had +crossed and taken up his quarters, pushing forward Bourlamaque to +guard the upper end of the rapids, and holding Langy ready with three +hundred rangers to patrol the woods on the outer side of the river's +loop.</p> + +<p>But when his scouts and Indians came in with the news of the British +embarking on the upper shore, and with reports of their multitude, +Montcalm perceived that the river could not be held; and, having +recalled Bourlamaque and broken down the bridges above and below the +rapids, withdrew his force again to Ticonderoga, leaving only Langy's +rangers in the farther woods to feel the enemy's approach.</p> + +<p>Next he had to ask himself, Could the fort be defended? All agreed +that it could not, with Rattlesnake Mountain overtopping it: and the +most were for evacuating it and retiring up Lake Champlain to the +stronger French fort on Crown Point. But Montcalm was expecting +Lévis at any moment with reinforcements; and studying the ridge at +the extreme end of which the fort stood, he decided that the position +ought not to be abandoned. This ridge ran inland, its slope narrowed +on either side between the river and the lake by swamps, and +approachable only from landward over the <i>col</i>, where it broadened +and dipped to the foothills. Here, at the entrance to the ridge, and +half a mile from his fort, he commanded his men to throw up an +entrenchment and cut down trees; and while the sappers fell to work +he traced out the lines of a rude star-fort, with curtains and +jutting angles from which the curtains could be enfiladed. +Through the dawn, while the British slept in the woods, the Frenchmen +laboured, hacking and felling. Scores of trees they left to lie and +encumber the ground: others they dragged, unlopped, to the +entrenchment, and piled them before it, trunks inward and radiating +from its angles; lacing their boughs together or roughly pointing +them with a few strokes of the axe.</p> + +<p>In the growing daylight the <i>chevaux-de-frise</i> began to look +formidable; but Bourlamaque, watching it with Montcalm, shook his +head, hunched his shoulders, and jerked a thumb toward a spur of +Rattlesnake Mountain, by which their defences were glaringly +commanded.</p> + +<p>Montcalm said, "We will risk it. Those English Generals are +inconceivable."</p> + +<p>"But a cannon or two—"</p> + +<p>"If he think of them! Believe me, who have tried: you never know +what an English General will do—or what his soldiers won't. +Pile the trees higher, my braves—more than breast-high— +mountain-high if time serves! But this Abercromby comes from a land +where the bees fly tail-foremost by rule."</p> + +<p>"With all submission, I would still recommend Crown Point."</p> + +<p>"Should he, by chance, think of planting a gun yonder, I feel sure +that notion will exclude all others. We shall open the door and +retreat on Crown Point unmolested."</p> + +<p>Bourlamaque drew in a long breath and emitted it in a mighty <i>pouf</i>!</p> + +<p>"I am not conducting his campaign for him," said his superior calmly. +"God forbid! I once imagined myself in his predecessor's place, the +Earl of Loudon's, and within twenty minutes France had lost Canada. +I shudder at it still!"</p> + +<p>Bourlamaque laughed. Montcalm had said it with a whimsical smile, +and it passed him unheeded that the smile ended in a contracting of +the brows and a bitter little sigh. The fighter judged war by its +victories; the strategist by their effects. Montcalm could win +victories; even now, by putting himself into what might pass for his +adversary's mind, he hoped to snatch a success against odds. +But what avails it to administer drubbings which but leave your foe +the more stubbornly aggressive? British Generals blundered; but +always the British armies came on. War had been declared three +years ago; actually it had lasted for four; and the sum of its +results was that France, with her chain of forts planted for +aggression from the St. Lawrence to the Ohio, had turned to defending +them. His countrymen might throw up their caps over splendid +repulses of the foe, and hail such for triumphs; but Montcalm looked +beneath the laurels.</p> + +<p>The British, having slept the night in the woods, were mustered at +dawn and marched back to the landing-place. Their General, falling +back upon common sense after the loss of a precious day, was now +resolved to try the short and beaten path by which Montcalm had +retreated. It formed a four-mile chord, with the loop of the river +for arc, and presented no real difficulty except the broken bridge, +which Bradstreet was sent forward to repair.</p> + +<p>But though beaten and easy to follow, the road was rough; and +Abercromby—in a sweating hurry now—determined to leave his guns +behind. John à Cleeve, passing forward with his regiment, took +note of them as they lay unlimbered amid the brushwood by the +landing-stage, and thought little of it. He had his drill-book by +heart, relied for orders on his senior officers, and took pride in +obeying them smartly. This seemed to him the way for a young +soldier to learn his calling; for the rest, war was a game of valour +and would give him his opportunity. Theoretically he knew the uses +of artillery, but he was not an artilleryman; nor had he ever felt +the temptation to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. His cousin +Dick's free comments upon white-headed Generals of division and +brigade he let pass with a laugh. To Dick, the Earl of Loudon was +"a mournful thickhead," Webb "a mighty handsome figure for a +poltroon," Sackville "a discreet footman for a ladies' drum," and the +ancestors of Abercromby had all been hanged for fools. Dick, very +much at his ease in Sion, would have court-martialled and cashiered +the lot out of hand. But John's priestly tutors had schooled him in +diffidence, if in nothing else.</p> + +<p>His men to-day were in no pleasant humour, and a few of them— +veterans too—grumbled viciously as they passed the guns. +"Silence in the ranks!" shouted the captain of his company; and the +familiar words soothed him, and he wondered what had provoked the +grumbling. A minute later he had forgotten it. The column crawled +forward sulkily. The shadow of Howe's loss lay heavy on it, and a +sense that his life had been flung away. They had been marched into +a jungle and marched back again, with nothing to show for it but +twenty-four wasted hours. On they crawled beneath the sweltering +July heat; and coming to the bridge, found more delays.</p> + +<p>Bradstreet and his men had worked like heroes, but the bridge would +not be ready to carry troops before the early morning. A wooden +saw-mill stood beside it, melancholy and deserted; and here the +General took up his quarters, while the army cooked its supper and +disposed itself for the night in the trampled clearing around the +mill and in the forest beyond. The 46th lay close alongside the +river, and the noise of Bradstreet's hammers on the bridge kept +John for a long while awake and staring up at the high eastern +ridges, black as ink against the radiance of a climbing moon. +In the intervals of hammering, the swirl of the river kept tune in +his ears with the whir-r-r of a saw in the rear of the mill, slicing +up the last planks for the bridge. There was a mill in the valley at +home, and he had heard it a hundred times making just such music with +the stream that ran down from Dartmoor and past Cleeve Court. +His thoughts went back to Devonshire, but not to linger there; only +to wonder how much love his mother would put into her prayers could +she be reached by a vision of him stretched here with his first +battle waiting for him on the morrow. He wondered, not bitterly, if +her chief reflection would be that he had brought the unpleasant +experience on himself when he might have been safe in a priest's +cassock. He laughed. How little she understood him, or had ever +understood!</p> + +<p>His heart went out to salute the morrow—and yet soberly. Outside of +his simple duties of routine he was just an unshaped subaltern, with +eyes sealed as yet to war's practical teachings. To him, albeit he +would have been puzzled had anyone told him so, war existed as yet +only as a spiritual conflict in which men proved themselves heroes or +cowards: and he meant to be a hero. For him everything lay in the +will to dare or to endure. He recalled tales of old knights keeping +vigil by their arms in solitary chapels, and he questioned the far +hill-tops and the stars—What substitute for faith supported <i>him</i>? +Did he believe in God? Yes, after a fashion—in some tremendous and +overruling Power, at any rate. A Power that had made the mountains +yonder? Yes, he supposed so. A loving Power—an intimate +counsellor—a Father attending all his steps? Well, perhaps; and if +so, a Father to be answered with all a man's love: but, before +answering, he honestly needed more assurance. As for another world +and a continuing life there, should he happen to fall to-morrow, John +searched his heart and decided that he asked for nothing of the sort. +Such promises struck him as unworthy bribes, belittling the sacrifice +he came prepared to make. He despised men who bargained with them. +Here was he, young, abounding in life, ready to risk extinction. +Why? For a cause (some might say), and that cause his country's. +Maybe: he had never thought this out. To be sure he was proud to +carry the regimental colours, and had rather belong to the 46th than +to any other regiment. The honour of the 46th was dear to him now as +his own. But why, again? Pure accident had assigned him to the +46th: as for love of his country, he could not remember that it had +played any conspicuous part in sending him to join the army. +The hammering on the bridge had ceased without his noting it, and +also the whirr of the great hands-driven saw. Only the river sang to +him now: and to the swirl of it he dropped off into a dreamless, +healthy sleep.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="4"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>TICONDEROGA.</h4> + +<p>At the alarm-post next morning the men were in high spirits again. +Everyone seemed to be posted in the day's work ahead. The French +had thrown up an outwork on the landward end of the ridge; an +engineer had climbed Rattlesnake Mountain at daybreak and conned it +through his glass, and had brought down his report two hours ago. +The white-coats had been working like niggers, helped by some +reinforcements which had come in overnight—Lévis with the Royal +Roussillon, the scouts said: but the thing was a rough-and-ready +affair of logs and the troops were to carry it with the bayonet. +John asked in what direction it lay, and thumbs were jerked towards +the screening forest across the river. The distance (some said) was +not two miles. Colonel Beaver, returning from a visit to the +saw-mill, confirmed the rumour. The 46th would march in a couple of +hours or less.</p> + +<p>At breakfast Howe's death seemed to be forgotten, and John found no +time for solemn thoughts. Bets were laid that the French would not +wait for the assault, but slip away to their boats; even with Lévis +they could scarcely be four thousand strong. Bradstreet, having +finished his bridge, had started back for the landing-stage to haul a +dozen of the lighter bateaux across the portage and float them down +to Lake Champlain filled with riflemen. Bradstreet was a glutton for +work—but would he be in time? That old fox Montcalm would never let +his earths be stopped so easily, and to pile defences on the ridge +was simply to build himself into a trap. A good half of the officers +maintained that there would be no fighting.</p> + +<p>Well, fighting or no, some business was in hand. Here was the +battalion in motion; and, to leave the enemy in no doubt of our +martial ardour, here were the drums playing away like mad. The echo +of John's feet on the wooden bridge awoke him from these vain shows +and rattlings of war to its real meaning, and his thoughts again kept +him solemn company as he breasted the slope beyond and began the +tedious climb to the right through the woods.</p> + +<p>The scouts, coming in one by one, reported them undefended: and +the battalion, though perforce moving slowly, kept good order. +Towards the summit, indeed, the front ranks appeared to straggle and +extend themselves confusedly: but the disorder, no more than +apparent, came from the skirmishers returning and falling back upon +either flank as the column scrambled up the last five hundred yards +and halted on the fringe of the clearing. Of the enemy John could +see nothing: only a broad belt of sunlight beyond the last few +tree-trunks and their green eaves. The advance had been well timed, +the separate columns arriving and coming to the halt almost at +clockwork intervals; nor did the halt give him much leisure to look +about him. To the right were drawn up the Highlanders, their dark +plaids blending with the forest glooms. In the space between, Beaver +had stepped forward and was chatting with their colonel. By and by +the dandified Gage joined them, and after a few minutes' talk Beaver +came striding back, with his scabbard tucked under his armpit, to be +clear of the undergrowth. At once the order was given to fix +bayonets, and at a signal the columns were put in motion and marched +out upon the edge of the clearing.</p> + +<p>There, as he stepped forth, the flash of the noonday sun upon lines +of steel held John's eyes dazzled. He heard the word given again to +halt, and the command "Left, wheel into line!" He heard the calls +that followed—"Eyes front!" "Steady," "Quick march," "Halt, dress +"—and felt, rather than saw, the whole elaborate manoeuvre; the rear +ranks locking up, the covering sergeants jigging about like dancers +in a minuet—pace to the rear, side step to the right—the pivot men +with stiff arms extended, the companies wheeling up and dressing; all +happening precisely as on parade.</p> + +<p>What, after all, was the difference? Well, to begin with, the +clearing ahead in no way resembled a parade-ground, being strewn and +criss-crossed with fallen trees and interset with stumps, some +cleanly cut, others with jagged splinters from three to ten feet +high. And beyond, with the fierce sunlight quivering above it, rose +a mass of prostrate trees piled as if for the base of a tremendous +bonfire. Not a Frenchman showed behind it. Was <i>that</i> what they had +to carry?</p> + +<p>"The battalion will advance!"</p> + +<p>Yes, there lay the barrier; and their business was simply to rush it; +to advance at the charge, holding their fire until within the +breastwork.</p> + +<p>The French, too, held their fire. The distance from the edge of the +clearing to the abattis was, at the most, a long musket-shot, and for +two-thirds of it the crescent-shaped line of British ran as in a +paper-chase, John à Cleeve vaulting across tree-trunks, leaping over +stumps, and hurrahing with the rest.</p> + +<p>Then with a flame the breastwork opened before him, and with a shock +as though the whole ridge lifted itself against the sky—a shock +which hurled him backward, whirling away his shako. He saw the line +to right and left wither under it and shrink like parchment held to a +candle flame. For a moment the ensign-staff shook in his hands, as +if whipped by a gale. He steadied it, and stood dazed, hearkening to +the scream of the bullets, gulping at a lump in his throat. Then he +knew himself unhurt, and, seeing that men on either hand were picking +themselves up and running forward, he ducked his head and ran forward +too.</p> + +<p>He had gained the abattis. He went into it with a leap, a dozen men +at his heels. A pointed bough met him in the ribs, piercing his +tunic and forcing him to cry out with pain. He fell back from it and +tugged at the interlacing boughs between him and the log-wall, +fighting them with his left, pressing them aside, now attempting to +leap them, now to burst through them with his weight. The wall +jetted flame through its crevices, and the boughs held him fast +within twenty yards of it. He could reach it easily (he told +himself) but for the staff he carried, against which each separate +twig hitched itself as though animated by special malice.</p> + +<p>He swung himself round and forced his body backwards against the +tangle; and a score of men, rallying to the colours, leapt in after +him. As their weight pressed him down supine and the flag sank in +his grasp, he saw their faces—Highlanders and redcoats mixed. +They had long since disregarded the order to hold their fire; and +were blazing away idly and reloading, cursing the boughs that impeded +their ramrods. A corporal of the 46th had managed to reload and was +lifting his piece when—a bramble catching in the lock—the charge +exploded in his face, and he fell, a bloody weight, across John's +legs. Half a dozen men, leaping over him, hurled themselves into the +lane which John had opened.</p> + +<p>Ten seconds later—but in such a struggle who can count seconds?— +John had flung off the dead man and was on his feet again with his +face to the rampart. The men who had hurried past him were there, +all six of them; but stuck in strange attitudes and hung across the +withering boughs like vermin on a gamekeeper's tree—corpses every +one. The rest had vanished, and, turning, he found himself alone. +Out in the clearing, under the drifted smoke, the shattered regiments +were re-forming for a second charge. Gripping the colours he +staggered out to join them, and as he went a bullet sang past him and +his left wrist dropped nerveless at his side. He scarcely felt the +wound. The brutal jar of the repulse had stunned every sense in him +but that of thirst. The reek of gunpowder caked his throat, and his +tongue crackled in his mouth like a withered leaf.</p> + +<p>Someone was pointing back over the tree-tops toward Rattlesnake +Mountain; and on the slopes there, as the smoke cleared, sure enough, +figures were moving. Guns? A couple of guns planted there could +have knocked this cursed rampart to flinders in twenty minutes, or +plumped round shot at leisure among the French huddled within. +Where was the General?</p> + +<p>The General was down at the saw-mill in the valley, seated at his +table, penning a dispatch. The men on Rattlesnake Mountain were +Johnson's Indians—Mohawks, Oneidas, and others of the Six Nations— +who, arriving late, had swarmed up by instinct to the key of the +position and seated themselves there with impassive faces, asking +each other when the guns would arrivé. They had seen artillery, +perhaps, once in their lives; and had learnt what it cost our +Generals some seventy more years to learn—imperfectly.</p> + +<p>Oh, it was cruel! By this time there was not a man in the army but +could have taught the General the madness of it. But the General was +down at the sawmill, two miles away; and the broken regiments +reformed and faced the rampart again. The sun beat down on the +clearing, heating men to madness. The wounded went down through the +gloom of the woods and were carried past the saw-mill, by scores at +first, then by hundreds. Within the saw-mill, in his cool chamber, +the General sat and wrote. Someone (Gage it is likely) sent down, +beseeching him to bring the guns into play. He answered that the +guns were at the landing-stage, and could not be planted within six +hours. A second messenger suggested that the assault on the ridge +had already caused inordinate loss, and that by the simple process of +marching around Ticonderoga and occupying the narrows of Lake +Champlain Montcalm could be starved out in a week. The General +showed him the door. Upon the ridge the fight went on.</p> + +<p>John à Cleeve had by this time lost count of the charges. Some had +been feeble; one or two superb; and once the Highlanders, with a +gallantry only possible to men past caring for life, had actually +heaved themselves over the parapets on the French right. They had +gone into action a thousand strong; they were now six hundred. +Charge after charge had flung forward a few to leap the rampart and +fall on the French bayonets; but now the best part of a company +poured over. For a moment sheer desperation carried the day; but the +white-coats, springing back off their platforms, poured in a volley +and settled the question. That night the Black Watch called its +roll: there answered five hundred men less one.</p> + +<p>It was in the next charge after this—half-heartedly taken up by the +exhausted troops on the right—that John à Cleeve found himself +actually climbing the log-wall toward which he had been straining all +the afternoon. What carried him there—he afterwards affirmed—was +the horrid vision of young Sagramore of the 27th impaled on a pointed +branch and left to struggle in death-agony while the regiments +rallied. The body was quivering yet as they came on again; and John, +as he ran by, shouted to a sergeant to drag it off: for his own left +hand hung powerless, and the colours encumbered his right. In front +of him repeated charges had broken a sort of pathway through the +abattis, swept indeed by an enfilading fire from two angles of the +breastwork, slippery with blood and hampered with corpses; but the +grape-shot which had accounted for most of these no longer whistled +along it, the French having run off their guns to the right to meet +the capital attack of the Highlanders. Through it he forced his way, +the pressure of the men behind lifting and bearing him forward +whenever the ensign-staff for a moment impeded him. He noted that +the leaves, which at noon had been green and sappy, with only a +slight crumpling of their edges, were now grey and curled into tight +scrolls, crackling as he brushed them aside. How long had the day +lasted, then? And would it ever end? The vision of young +Sagramore followed him. He had known Sagramore at Halifax and +invited him to mess one night with the 46th—as brainless and +sweet-tempered a boy as ever muddled his drill.</p> + +<p>John was at the foot of the rampart. While with his injured hand he +fumbled vainly to climb it, someone stooped a shoulder and hoisted +him. He flung a leg over the parapet and glanced down? moment at the +man's face. It was the sergeant to whom he had shouted just now.</p> + +<p>"Right, sir," the sergeant grunted; "we're after you!"</p> + +<p>John hoisted the colours high and hurrahed.</p> + +<p>"Forward! Forward, Forty-sixth!"</p> + +<p>Then, as a dozen men heaved themselves on to the parapet, a fiery +pang gripped him by the chest, and the night—so long held back—came +suddenly, swooping on him from all corners of the sky at once. +The grip of his knees relaxed. The sergeant, leaping, caught the +standard in the nick of time, as the limp body slid and dropped +within the rampart.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="5"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>THE VOYAGEURS.</h4> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">Fringue, fringue sur la rivière;<br> + Fringue, fringue sur l'aviron!<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The man at the bow paddle set the chorus, which was taken up by boat +after boat. John, stretched at the bottom of a canoe with two +wounded Highlanders, wondered where he had heard the voice before. +His wits were not very clear yet. The canoe's gunwale hid all the +landscape but a mountain-ridge high over his right, feathered with +forest and so far away that, swiftly as the strokes carried him +forward, its serrated pines and notches of naked rock crept by him +inch by inch. He stared at these and prayed for the moment when the +sun should drop behind them. For hours it had been beating down on +him. An Indian sat high in the stern, steering; paddling +rhythmically and with no sign of effort except that his face ran with +sweat beneath its grease and vermilion. But not a feature of it +twitched in the glare across which, hour after hour, John had been +watching him through scorched eyelashes.</p> + +<p>Athwart the stern, and almost at the Indian's feet, reclined a brawn +of a man with his knees drawn high—a French sergeant in a +spick-and-span white tunic with the badge of the Béarnais regiment. +A musket lay across his thighs, so pointed that John looked straight +down its barrel. Doubtless it was loaded: but John had plenty to +distract his thoughts from such a trifle—in the heat, the glare, the +torment of his wounds, and, worst of all, the incessant coughing of +the young Highlander beside him. The lad had been shot through the +lungs, and the wound imperfectly bandaged. A horrible wind issued +from it with every cough.</p> + +<p>How many men might be seated or lying in the fore part of the canoe +John could not tell, being unable to turn his head. Once or twice a +guttural voice there growled a word of comfort to the dying lad, in +Gaelic or in broken English. And always the bowman sang high and +clear, setting the chorus for the attendant boats, and from the +chorus passing without a break into the solo. "En roulant ma boule" +followed "Fringue sur l'aviron "; and from that the voice slid into a +little love-chant, tender and delicate:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"À la claire fontaine<br> + M'en allant promener,<br> + J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle<br> + Que je m'y suis baigné.<br> +<span class = "ind3">Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,<br> + Jamais je ne t'oublierai."</span><br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + + +<p>"II y a longtemps que je t'aime," broke in the chorus, the wide lake +modulating the music as water only can. John remembered the abattis +and all its slaughter, and marvelled what manner of men they were +who, fresh from it, could put their hearts into such a song.</p> + +<p>"Et patati, et patata!" rapped in the big sergeant. "For God's sake, +Chameau, what kind of milk is this to turn a man's stomach?"</p> + +<p>The chorus drowned his growls, and the bowman continued:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Sur la plus haute branche<br> + Le rossignol chantait,<br> + Chante, rossignol, chante,<br> + Toi qui as le cœur gai…<br> + Chante, rossignol, chante,<br> + Toi qui as le cœur gai;<br> + Tu as le cœur à rire,<br> + Moi je l'ai—t à pleurer.…"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> +<p>"Gr-r-r—" As the song ended, the sergeant spat contemptuously over +the gunwale. "La-la-la, rossignol! et la-la-la, rosier!" he +mimicked. "We are not <i>rosières</i>, my friend."</p> + +<p>"The song is true Canayan, m'sieur, and your comrades appear to like +it."</p> + +<p>"Par exemple! Listen, Monsieur Chameau, to something more in their +line." He inflated his huge lungs and burst into a ditty of his own:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"C'est dans la ville de Bordeaux<br> + Qu'est arrivé trois beaux vaissaux—<br> +<span class = "ind3">Qu'est arrivé trois beaux vaissaux:</span><br> + Les matelots qui sont dedans,<br> + Vrai Dieu, sont de jolis galants."<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The man had a rich baritone voice, not comparable indeed with the +bowman's tenor, yet not without quality; but he used it affectedly, +and sang with a simper on his face. His face, brick red in hue, was +handsome in its florid way; but John, watching the simper, found it +detestable.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"C'est une dame de Bordeaux<br> + Qu'est amoureuse d'un matelot—"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Here he paused, and a few soldiers took up the refrain +half-heartedly:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "—Va, ma servante, va moi chercher<br> + Un matelot pour m'amuser."<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The song from this point became indecent, and set the men in the +nearer boats laughing. At its close a few clapped their hands. +But it was not a success, and the brick red darkened on the singer's +face; darkened almost to purple when a voice in the distance took up +the air and returned it mockingly, caricaturing a <i>roulade</i> to the +life with the help of one or two ridiculous gracenotes: at which the +soldiers laughed again.</p> + +<p>"I think, m'sieur," suggested the bowman politely, "they do not know +it very well, or they would doubtless have been heartier."</p> + +<p>But the sergeant had heaved himself up with a curse and a lurch which +sent the canoe rocking, and was scanning the boats for the fellow who +had dared to insult him.</p> + +<p>"How the devil can a man sing while that dog keeps barking!" he +growled, and let out a kick at the limp legs of the young Highlander.</p> + +<p>Another growl answered. It came from the wounded prisoner behind +John—the man who had been muttering in Gaelic.</p> + +<p>"It is a coward you are, big man. Go on singing your sculduddery, +and let the lad die quiet!"</p> + +<p>The sergeant scowled, not understanding. John, whose blood was up, +obligingly translated the reproof into French. "He says—and I +also—that you are a cowardly bully; and we implore you to sing in +tune, another time. Par pitié, monsieur, ne scalpez-vous pas les +demi-morts!"</p> + +<p>The shaft bit, as he had intended, and the man's vanity positively +foamed upon it. "Dog of a <i>ros-bif</i>, congratulate yourself that you +are half dead, or I would whip you again as we whipped you yesterday, +and as my regiment is even now again whipping your compatriots." +He jerked a thumb towards the south where, far up the lake, a pale +saffron glow spread itself upon the twilight.</p> + +<p>"The English are burning your fort, maybe," John suggested amiably.</p> + +<p>"They are burning the mill, more like—or their boats. But after +such a defeat, who cares?"</p> + +<p>"If our general had only used his artillery—"</p> + +<p>"Eh, what is that you're singing? <i>Oui-da</i>, if your general had only +used his artillery? My little friend, that's a fine battle—that +battle of 'If.' It is always won, too—only it has the misfortune +never to be fought. So, so: and a grand battle it is too, for +reputations. '<i>If</i> the guns had only arrivéd '; and '<i>if</i> the +brigadier Chose had brought up the reserves as ordered'; and '<i>if</i> +the right had extended itself, and that devil of a left had not +straggled'—why then we should all be heroes, we <i>ros-bifs</i>. +Whereas we came on four to one, and we were beaten; and we are +being carried north to Montreal and our general is running south from +an army one-third of his size and burning fireworks on his way. +And at Albany the ladies will take your standards and stitch '<i>If</i>' +on them in gold letters a foot long. Eh, but it was a glorious +fight—faith of Sergeant Barboux!"</p> + +<p>And Sergeant Barboux, having set his vanity on its legs again, pulled +out his pipe and skin of tobacco.</p> + +<p>"Holà, M. le Chameau!" he called; "the gentleman desires better music +than mine. Sing for him 'Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre'!"</p> + +<p>M. le Chameau lifted his voice obediently; and thereupon John +recognised the note and knew to whose singing he had lain awake in +the woods so far behind and (it seemed) those ages ago.</p> + +<p>He had been young then, and all possibilities of glory lay beyond the +horizons to which he was voyaging. Darkness had closed down on them, +but the beat of the paddles drove him forward. He stared up at the +peering stars and tried to bethink him that they looked down on the +same world that he had known—on Albany—Halifax—perhaps even on +Cleeve Court in Devonshire. The bowman's voice, ahead in the +darkness, kept time with the paddles:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Il reviendra-z; à Pâques—<br> +<span class = "ind3">Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</span><br> + Il reviendra-z à Pâques,<br> +<span class = "ind3">Ou—à la Trinité!"</span><br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Yes, the question was of returning, now; a day had made that +difference. Yet why should he wish to return? Of what worth would +his return be? For weeks, for months, he had been living in a life +ahead, towards which these paddles were faithfully guiding him; and +if the hope had died out of it, and all the colour, what better lay +behind that he should seek back to it?—a mother, who had shown him +little love; a brother, who coldly considered him a fool; nearer, but +only a little nearer—for already the leagues between seemed +endless—a few friends, a few messmates…</p> + +<p>His ribs hurt him intolerably; and his wrist, too, was painful. +Yet his wounds troubled him with no thought of death. On the +contrary, he felt quite sure of recovering and living on, and on, on, +on—in those unknown regions ahead…</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"La Trinité se passe—<br> +<span class = "ind3">Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</span><br> + La Trinité se passe—<br> +<span class = "ind3">Malbrouck ne revient pas."</span><br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>What were they like, those regions ahead? For he was young—less +than twenty—and a life almost as long as an ordinary man's might lie +before him yonder. He remembered an old discussion with a seminary +priest at Douai, on Nicodemus's visit by night and his question, +"How can a man be born when he is old?"… and all his thoughts +harked back to the Church he had left—that Church so Catholic, so +far-reaching, so secure of herself in all climes and amid all nations +of men. There were Jesuits, he knew, up yonder, beyond the rivers, +beyond the forests. He would find that Church there, steadfast as +these stars and, alone with them, bridging all this long gulf. +In his momentary weakness the repose She offered came on him as a +temptation. Had he but anchored himself upon her, all these leagues +had been as nothing. But he had cut himself adrift; and now the +world, too, had cut him off, and where was he with his doubts?… +Or was She following now and whispering, "Poor fool, you thought +yourself strong, and I granted you a short licence; but I have +followed, as I can follow everywhere, unseen, knowing the hour when +you must repent and want me; and lo! my lap is open. Come, let its +folds wrap you, and at once there is no more trouble; for within them +time and distance are not, and all this voyage shall be as a dream."</p> + +<p>No; he put the temptation from him. For it was a sensual temptation +after all, surprising him in anguish and exhaustion and bribing with +promise of repose. He craved after it, but set his teeth. "Yes, you +are right, so far. The future has gone from me, and I have no hopes. +But it seems I have to live, and I am a man. My doubts are my +doubts, and this is no fair moment to abandon them. What I must +suffer, I will try to suffer.…"</p> + +<p>The bowman had lit a lantern in the bows and passed back the resinous +brand to an Indian seated forward, who in turn handed it back over +John's head toward Sergeant Barboux, but, seeing that he dozed, +crawled aft over the wounded men and set it to the wick of a second +lantern rigged on a stick astern. As the wick took fire, the Indian, +who had been steering hitherto hour after hour, grunted out a +syllable or two and handed his comrade the paddle. The pair changed +places, and the ex-steersman—who seemed the elder by many years— +crept cautiously forward; the lantern-light, as he passed it, falling +warm on his scarlet trowsers and drawing fiery twinkles from his belt +and silver arm-ring.</p> + +<p>With a guttural whisper he crouched over John, so low that his body +blotted out the lantern, the stars, the whole dim arch of the +heavens. Was this murder? John shut his teeth. If this were to be +the end, let it come now and be done with; he would not cry out. +The Highland lad had ceased his coughing and lay unconscious, panting +out the last of his life more and more feebly. The elder Highlander +moaned from time to time in his sleep, but had not stirred for some +while. Forward the bowman's paddle still beat time like a clock, and +away in the darkness other paddles answered it.</p> + +<p>A hand was groping with the bandages about John's chest and loosening +them gently until his wound felt the edge of the night wind. All his +muscles stiffened to meet the coming stroke.…</p> + +<p>The Indian grunted and withdrew his hand. A moment, and John felt it +laid on the wound again, with a touch which charmed away pain and the +wind's chill together—a touch of smooth ointment.</p> + +<p>Do what he would, a sob shook the lad from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, brother!" he whispered in French. The Indian did not +answer, but replaced and drew close the bandage with rapid hands, and +so with another grunt crawled forward, moving like a shadow, scarcely +touching the wounded men as he went.</p> + +<p>For a while John lay awake, gazing up into the stars. His pain had +gone, and he felt infinitely restful. The vast heavens were a +protection now, a shield flung over his helplessness. He had found a +friend.</p> + +<p>Why?</p> + +<p>That he could not tell. But he had found a friend, and could sleep.</p> + +<p>In his dreams he heard a splash. The young Highlander had died in +the night, and Sergeant Barboux and the Indian lifted and dropped the +body overboard.</p> + +<p>But John à Cleeve slept on; and still northward through the night, +down the long reaches of the lake, the canoe held her way.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="6"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>CONTAINS THE APOLOGUE OF MANABOZHO'S TOE.</h4> + +<p>They had threaded their course through the many islets at the foot of +the lake, and were speeding down the headwaters of the Richelieu. +The forests had closed in upon them, shutting out the mountains. +The convoy—officered for the most part by Canadian militiamen with +but a sprinkling of regulars such as Sergeant Barboux—soon began to +straggle. The prisoners were to be delivered at Montreal. Montcalm +had dispatched them thither, on short rations, for the simple reason +that Fort Carillon held scarcely food enough to support his own army; +but he could detach very few of his efficients for escort, and, for +the rest, it did not certainly appear who was in command. Barboux, +for example, was frankly insubordinate, and declared a dozen times a +day that it did not become gentlemen of the Béarn and Royal Roussillon +to take their orders from any <i>coureur de bois</i> who might choose to +call himself Major.</p> + +<p>Consequently the convoy soon straggled at will, the boatmen labouring +if the fancy took them, or resting their paddles across their thighs +and letting their canoes drift on the current. Now and again they +met a train of bateaux labouring up with reinforcements, that had +heard of the victory from the leading boats and hurrahed as they +passed, or shouted questions which Barboux answered as a conscious +hero of the fight and with no false modesty. But for hour after hour +John lived alone with his own boat's company and the interminable +procession of the woods.</p> + +<p>They descended to the river, these woods, and overhung it—each bank +a mute monotonous screen of foliage, unbroken by glade or clearing; +pine and spruce and hemlock, maple and alder; piled plumes of green, +motionless, brooding, through which no sunrays broke, though here and +there a silver birch drew a shaft of light upon their sombre +background. Here were no English woodlands, no stretches of pale +green turf, no vistas opening beneath flattened boughs, with blue +distant hills and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken. +The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in +sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark +soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals a note fell +on the ear—the scream of hawk or eagle, the bitter cackling laugh of +blue jay or woodpecker, the loon's ghostly cry—solitary notes, and +unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away +on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went whirring down +the long waterway until the sound sank and was overtaken again by the +river's slow murmur.</p> + +<p>When night had hushed down these noises, the forest would be silent +for an hour or two, and then awake more horribly with the howling of +wolves. John slept little of nights; not on account of the wolves, +but because the mosquitoes allowed him no peace. (They were torture +to a wounded man; but he declared afterwards that they cured his +wounded arm willynilly, for they forced him to keep it active under +pain of being eaten alive.) By day he dozed, lulled by the eternal +woods, the eternal dazzle on the water, the eternal mutter of the +flood, the paddle-strokes, M. le Chameau's singing.</p> + +<p>They were now six in the canoe—the sergeant, le Chameau, the two +Indians, John à Cleeve and the elder Highlander, Corporal Hugh +McQuarters.</p> + +<p>By this time—that is to say, having seen him—John understood the +meaning of M. le Chameau's queer name. He was a hunchback, but a gay +little man nevertheless; reputedly a genius in the art of shooting +rapids. He was also a demon to work, when allowed; but the sergeant +would not allow him.</p> + +<p>It suited the sergeant's humour to lag behind the other boats by way +of asserting his dignity and proving that he, Barboux, held himself +at no trumpery colonial's beck and call. Also he had begun to nurse +a scheme; as will appear by and by.</p> + +<p>At present it amused him to order the canoe to shore for an hour or +two in the heat of the day, lend his bayonet to the Indians, and +watch, smoking, while they searched the banks and dug out musquashes. +These they cooked and ate; which Barboux asserted to be good economy, +since provisions were running short. It occurred to John that this +might be a still better reason for hurrying forward, but he was +grateful for the siesta under the boughs while the Indians worked. +They were Ojibways both, the elder by name Menehwehna and the younger +(a handsome fellow with a wonderful gift of silence) Muskingon.</p> + +<p>Since that one stealthy act of kindness Menehwehna had given no sign +of cordiality. John had tried a score of times to catch his eye, and +had caught it once or twice, but only to find the man inscrutable. +Yet he was by no means taciturn; but seemed, as his warpaint of soot +and vermilion wore thinner, to thaw into what (for an Indian) might +pass for geniality. After a successful rat-hunt he would even grow +loquacious, seating himself on the bank and jabbering while he +skinned his spoils, using for the most part a jargon of broken French +(in which he was fluent) and native words of which Barboux understood +very few and John none at all. When he fell back on Ojibway pure and +simple, it was to address Muskingon, who answered in monosyllables, +and was sparing of these. Muskingon and McQuarters were the silent +men of the party—the latter by force as well as choice, since he +knew no French and in English could only converse with John. +He and Muskingon had this further in common—they both detested the +sergeant.</p> + +<p>John, for his part, had patched up a peace with the man, after this +fashion: On the second day Barboux had called upon le Chameau for a +song; and, the little hunchback having given "En roulant ma boule," +demanded another.</p> + +<p>"But it is monsieur's turn, who has a charming voice," suggested le +Chameau politely.</p> + +<p>"It has the misfortune to grate on the ears of our English milord," +Barboux answered with an angry flush, stealing a malevolent glance at +John. "And I do not sing to please myself."</p> + +<p>John doubted this; but being by nature quick to forgive and repent a +quarrel, he answered with some grace: "I was annoyed, Sergeant +Barboux, and said what I thought would hurt rather than what was +just. You possess, indeed, a charming voice, and I regret to have +insulted it."</p> + +<p>"You mean it?" asked Barboux, still red in the face, but patently +delighted.</p> + +<p>"So entirely that I shall not pardon myself until you have done us +the favour to sing."</p> + +<p>The sergeant held out his hand. "And that's very handsomely said! +Given or taken, an apology never goes astray between brave fellows. +And, after all," he added, "I had, if I remember, something the +better of that argument! You really wish me to sing, then?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure I do," Jack assured him, smiling.</p> + +<p>Barboux cleared his throat, wagged his head once or twice impassively +and trolled out:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Belle meunière, en passant par ici,<br> + Ne suis-je-t'y pas éloigné d'ltalie.…"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>From this graceful opening the song declined into the grossest filth; +and it was easy to see, watching his face, why McQuarters, without +understanding a word of French, had accused him of singing +"sculduddery." John, though disgusted, could not help being amused +by a performance which set him in mind now of a satyr and now of a +mincing schoolgirl—<i>vert galant avec un sourire de cantatrice</i>— +lasciviousness blowing affected kisses in the intervals of licking +its chops. At the conclusion he complimented the singer, with a +grave face.</p> + +<p>Barboux bowed. "It has, to say true, a little more marrow in it than +le Chameau's <i>rossignols</i> and <i>rosiers</i>. Holà, Chameau; the +Englishman here agrees that you sing well, but that your matter is +watery stuff. You must let me teach you one or two of my songlets—"</p> + +<p>"Pardon, m'sieur, mais ca sera un peu trop—trop vif; c'est-à dire +pour moi," stammered the little hunchback.</p> + +<p>Barboux guffawed. The idea of le Chameau as a ladies' man tickled +him hugely, and he tormented the patient fellow with allusions to it, +and to his deformity, twenty times a day.</p> + +<p>And yet the sergeant was not ill-natured—until you happened to cross +him, when his temper became damnable—but merely a big, vain, +boisterous lout. John, having taken his measure, found it easy to +study him philosophically and even to be passably amused by him. +But he made himself, it must be owned, an affliction; and an +affliction against which, since the boats had parted company, there +was no redress. He was conceited, selfish, tyrannical, and +inordinately lazy. He never took a hand with the paddle, but would +compel the others to work, or to idle, as the freak took him. +He docked the crew's allowance but fed himself complacently on more +than full rations, proving this to be his due by discourse on the +innate superiority of Frenchmen over Canadians, Englishmen or +Indians. He would sit by the hour bragging of his skill with the +gun, his victories in love, his feats of strength—baring his +chest, arms, legs, and inviting the company to admire his muscles. +He jested from sunrise until sundown, and never made a jest that did +not hurt. Worst of all was it when he schooled le Chameau to sing +his obscenities after him, line for line.</p> + +<p>"No, no, I beg you, monsieur," the little fellow would protest, +"c'est—c'est sale!"—and would blush like a girl.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sale</i>, you dog? I'll teach you—" A blow would follow. +M. Barboux was getting liberal with his blows. Once he struck +Muskingon. Menehwehna growled ominously, and the growl seemed to +warn not only Barboux but Muskingon, who for the moment had looked +murderous.</p> + +<p>John guessed that some tie, if not of blood-relationship, at least of +strong affection, bound the two Indians together.</p> + +<p>For himself, as soon as his wound allowed him to sit upright, which +it did on the second day—the bullet having glanced across his ribs +and left but its ugly track in the thin flesh covering them—the +monotony of the woods and the ceaseless glint of the water were a +drug which he could summon at will and so withdraw himself within a +stupor untroubled by Barboux or his boastings. He suffered the man, +but saw no necessity for heeding him.</p> + +<p>He had observed two or three hanks of fishing-line dangling from the +thin strips of cedar which sheathed the canoe within, a little below +the gunwale. They had hooks attached, and from the shape of these +hooks he judged them to belong to the Indians. He unhitched one of +the lines, and more for the sake of killing time than for any set +purpose, began to construct a gaudy salmon-fly with a few frayed +threads of cloth from his tunic. After a minute or two he was aware +of Muskingon watching him with interest, and by signs begged for a +feather from the young Indian's top-knot. Muskingon drew one forth +and, under instructions, plucked off a piece of fluff from the root +of the feather, a small quill or two, and handed them over. With a +length of red silk drawn from his sash John, within half an hour, was +bending a very pretty fly on the hook. It did not in the least +resemble any winged creature upon earth; but it had a meretricious +air about it, and even a "killing" one when he finished up by binding +its body tight with an inch of gilt thread from his collar. +Meanwhile, his ambition growing with success, he had cast his eyes +about, to alight on a long jointed cane which the canoe carried as +part of its appanage, to be lifted on cross-legs and serve as the +ridge of an awning on wet nights. It was cumbrous, but flexible in +some small degree. Muskingon dragged it within reach, and sat +watching while John whipped a loop to its end and ran the line +through it.</p> + +<p>He had begun in pure idleness, but now the production of the rod had +drawn everyone's eyes. Barboux was watching him superciliously, and +Menehwehna with grave attention, resting his paddle on his knees +while the canoe drifted. Fish had been leaping throughout the +afternoon—salmon by the look of them. John knew something of +salmon; he had played and landed many a fish out of the Dart above +Totnes, and in his own river below Cleeve Court. The sun had dropped +behind the woods, the water was not too clear, and in short it looked +a likely hour for feeding. He lifted his clumsy rod in his right +hand, steadied it with his injured left, and put all his skill into +the cast.</p> + +<p>As he cast, the weight of his rod almost overbalanced him: a dart of +pain came from his closing wound and he knew that he had been a fool +and overtaxed his strength. But to his amazement a fish rose at once +and gulped the fly down. He tossed the rod across to Muskingon, +calling to him to draw it inboard and sit quite still; and catching +the line, tautened it and slackened it out slowly, feeling up to the +loop in which (as was to be expected) it had kinked and was sticking +fast.</p> + +<p>He had the line in both hands now, with Muskingon paying out the +slack behind him; and if the hook held—the line had no gut—he felt +confident of his fish. By the feel of him he was a salmon—or a +black bass. John had heard of black bass and the sport they gave. +A beauty, at any rate!</p> + +<p>Yes, he was a salmon. Giving on the line but never slackening it, +though it cut his forefinger cruelly (his left being all but useless +to check the friction), John worked him to the top of the water and +so, by little and little, to the side of the canoe. But his own +strength was giving out, faster now than the salmon's. His wound had +parted; and as he clenched his teeth he felt the line fraying. +The fish would have been lost had not Muskingon, almost without +shaking the canoe, dropped overboard, dived under and clenched both +hands upon his struggles.</p> + +<p>It was Menehwehna who dragged the salmon across the gunwale; for John +had fainted. And when he recovered, Menehwehna was coolly gutting +the monster—if a fish of eighteen pounds can be called a monster; as +surely he can when taken in such fashion.</p> + +<p>After this, John being out of action, Sergeant Barboux must take a +turn with the rod. He did not (he protested) count on landing a +fish; but the hooking of one had been so ridiculously prompt and easy +that it was hard to see how he could fail.</p> + +<p>But he did. He flogged the water till nightfall, confidently at +first though clumsily, at length with the air of a Xerxes casting +chains into the flood; but never a bite rewarded him. He gave over +the rod in a huff, but began again at dawn, to lay it down after +an hour and swear viciously. As he retired Muskingon took the pole; +he had watched John's one and only cast and began to imitate it +patiently, while the sergeant jeered and the canoe drifted. +Towards noon he felt a bite, struck, and missed; but half an hour +later he struck again and Menehwehna shouted and pointed as John's +fly was sucked under in a noble swirl of water. Muskingon dragged +back his rod and stretched out a hand for the line; but Barboux had +already run forward and clutched it, at the same moment roughly +thrusting him down on his seat; and then in a moment the mischief was +done. The line parted, and the sergeant floundered back with a lurch +that sent the canoe down to her gunwale.</p> + +<p>McQuarters laughed aloud and grimly. Menehwehna's dark eyes shone. +Even John, though the lurch obliged him to fling out both hands to +balance the boat, and the sudden movement sent a dart of pain through +his wound, could not hold back a smile. Barboux was furious.</p> + +<p>"Eh? So you are pleased to laugh at me, master Englishman! +Wait then, and we'll see who laughs last. And you, dog of an Indian, +at what are you rubbing your hands?"</p> + +<p>"Your exploit, O illustrious warrior," answered Menehwehna with +gravity, "set me in mind of Manabozho; and when one thinks upon +Manabozho it is permitted and even customary to rub the hands."</p> + +<p>"Who the devil was Manabozho?"</p> + +<p>"He was a very Great One—even another such Great One as yourself. +It was he who made the earth once on a time, by accident. +And another time he went fishing."</p> + +<p>"Have a care, Menehwehna. I bid you beware if you are poking fun at +me."</p> + +<p>"I am telling of Manabozho. He went fishing in the lake and let down +a line. 'King Fish,' said he, 'take hold of my bait,' and he kept +saying this until the King Fish felt annoyed and said, 'This +Manabozho is a nuisance. Here, trout, take hold of his line.' +The trout obeyed, and Manabozho shouted, 'Wa-i-he! Wa-i-he! I have +him!' while the canoe rocked to and fro. But when he saw the trout +he called, 'Esa, esa! Shame upon you, trout; I fish for your +betters.' So the trout let go; and again Manabozho sank his line, +saying, 'O King Fish, take hold of my bait.' 'I shall lose my temper +soon with this fellow,' said the King Fish; 'here, sunfish, take hold +of his line.' The sunfish did so, and Manabozho's canoe spun round +and round; but when he saw what he had caught, he cried out, +'Esa, esa! Shame upon you, sunfish; I am come for your betters.' +So the sunfish let go, and again Manabozho—"</p> + +<p>"Joli amphigouri!" yawned the sergeant. "Pardon, M. Menehwehna, but +this story of yours seems likely to last."</p> + +<p>"Not so, O chief; for this time the King Fish took the bait and +swallowed Manabozho, canoe and all."</p> + +<p>John laughed aloud; but enough sense remained in Barboux to cover his +irritation. "Well, that was the last of him, and the Lord be +praised!"</p> + +<p>"There is much more of the story," said Menehwehna, "and all full of +instruction."</p> + +<p>"We will postpone it, anyhow. Take up your paddle, if you have not +forgotten how to work."</p> + +<p>So Menehwehna and the hunchback paddled anew, while the great Barboux +sat and sulked—a sufficiently childish figure. Night fell, the +canoe was brought to shore, and the Indians as usual lifted out the +wounded men and laid them on beds of moss strewn with pine-boughs and +cedar. While Menehwehna lit the camp-fire, Muskingon prepared John's +salmon for supper, and began to grill it deftly as soon as the smoke +died down on a pile of clear embers.</p> + +<p>John sleepily watched these preparations, and was fairly dozing when +he heard Barboux announce with an oath that for his impudence +the dog of an Englishman should go without his share of the fish. +The announcement scarcely awoke him—the revenge was so petty. +Barboux in certain moods could be such a baby that John had ceased to +regard him except as an object of silent mirth. So he smiled and +answered sweetly that Sergeant Barboux was entirely welcome; for +himself a scrap of biscuit would suffice. And with that he closed +his eyes again.</p> + +<p>But it seemed that, for some reason, the two Indians were angry, not +to say outraged. By denying him his share Barboux had—no doubt +ignorantly—broken some sacred law in the etiquette of hunting. +Muskingon growled; the firelight showed his lips drawn back, like a +dog's, from his white teeth. Menehwehna remonstrated. Even le +Chameau seemed to be perturbed.</p> + +<p>Barboux, however, did not understand; and as nobody would share in +John's portion, ate it himself with relish amid an angry silence, +which at length impressed him.</p> + +<p>"Eh? What the devil's wrong with you all?" he demanded, looking +about him.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna broke into a queer growl, and began to rub his hands. +"Manabozho—" he began.</p> + +<p>"Fichtre! It appears we have not heard the end of him, then?"</p> + +<p>"It is usual," Menehwehna explained, "to rub one's hands at the +mention of Manabozho. In my tribe it is even necessary."</p> + +<p>"Farceur de Manabozho! the habit has not extended to mine," growled +Barboux. "Is this the same story?"</p> + +<p>"O slayer of heads, it is an entirely different one." The sergeant +winced, and John cast himself back on his leafy bed to smile up at +the branches. <i>Tueur de têtes</i> may be a high compliment from an +Indian warrior, but a vocalist may be excused for looking twice at +it.</p> + +<p>"This Manabozho," Menehwehna continued tranquilly, "was so big and +strong that he began to think himself everybody's master. One day he +walked in the forest, cuffing the ears of the pine-trees for sport, +and knocking them flat if they took it ill; and at length he came on +a clearing. In the clearing was a lodge, and in the lodge was no one +but a small child, curled up asleep with its toe in its mouth. +Manabozho gazed at the child for a long while, and said he, 'I have +never seen anyone before who could lie with his toe in his mouth. +But I can do it, to be sure.' Whereupon he lay down in much the same +posture as the child, and took his right foot in his hand. But it +would not reach by a long way. 'How stupid I am,' cried Manabozho, +'when it was the left foot all the time!' So he tried the left foot, +but this also would not reach. He rolled on his back, and twisted +and bent himself, and strained and struggled until the tears ran down +his face. Then he sat up in despair; and behold! he had awakened the +child, and the child was laughing at him. 'Oh, oh!' cried Manabozho +in a passion, 'am I then to be mocked by a babe!' And with that he +drew a great breath and blew the child away over the mountains, and +afterwards walked across and across the lodge, trampling it down +until not a trace of it remained. 'After all,' said Manabozho, +'I can do something. And I see nobody hereabouts to deny that I can +put my toe in my mouth!'"</p> + +<p>As Menehwehna concluded, John waited for an explosion of wrath. +None came. He raised his head after a minute and looked about him. +Barboux sat smoking and staring into the camp-fire. The Indian had +laid himself down to slumber, with his blanket drawn up to his ears.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="7"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>BATEESE.</h4> + +<p>Next morning Barboux and Menehwehna held a long colloquy aft, but in +tones so low that John could not catch a word. By and by Muskingon +was called into council, and lastly le Chameau.</p> + +<p>The two Indians were arguing against some proposal of the sergeant's, +which by the way they pointed and traced imaginary maps with their +fingers, spreading their palms apart to indicate distances, plainly +turned on a point of geography. Le Chameau's opinion seemed to +settle the dispute in the sergeant's favour. Coming that afternoon +to the mouth of a tributary stream on the left bank he headed the +canoe for it without a word, and at once the paddles were busy, +forcing her against the rapid current.</p> + +<p>Then followed days during which, though reason might prove that in +the river he held an infallible clue, John's senses lost themselves +in the forest maze. It overlapped and closed upon him, folding him +deeper and illimitably deeper. On the Richelieu he had played with +thoughts of escape, noting how the canoe lagged behind its convoy, +and speculating on the Indians' goodwill—faint speculations, since +(without reckoning his own raw wound) McQuarters was almost too weak +to stir as yet, and to abandon him would be a scurvy trick. So he +had put aside his unformed plans, which at the best had been little +better than hopes; and now the wilderness oppressed and smothered and +buried them out of recollection.</p> + +<p>The <i>voyageurs</i> made tedious progress; for almost at once they came +to a chain of rapids around which the canoe had to be ported. +The Indians toiled steadily, and le Chameau too, stripped to the +waist and sweating; and by the end of the day each man carried a dark +red weal on one shoulder, sunk in the flesh by the canoe's weight. +John could walk, but was powerless to help, and McQuarters had to be +lifted and carried with the baggage. Barboux confined himself to +swearing and jeering at le Chameau's naked back—<i>diable de torse</i>, +as he proclaimed it. The man was getting past endurance.</p> + +<p>On the second day he called a halt, left le Chameau in charge of the +camp and the prisoners, and went off with the Indians in search of a +moose, whose lowing call had twice echoed through the woods during +the night and been answered by Menehwehna on his birch-horn. +The forest swallowed them, and a blessed relief fell on the camp—no +more oaths and gibes for a while, but rest and green shade and the +murmur of the rapids below.</p> + +<p>After the noon-day meal the hunchback stretched himself luxuriously +and began to converse. He was explaining the situation with the help +of three twigs, which he laid in the form of a triangle—two long +sides and a short base.</p> + +<p>"<i>Voyons</i>, this long one will be the Richelieu and that other the +St. Lawrence; and here"—he put his finger near the base—"here is +Montreal. The sergeant knows what he is about. Those other boats, +look you, will go around so—" He traced their course around the +apex very slowly. "Whereas <i>we</i>—!" A quick stroke of the finger +across the base filled up the sentence, and the little man smiled +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"I see," said John, picking up the short twig and bending it into an +arch, "we are now climbing up this side of the slope, eh? And on the +other there will likewise be a river?"</p> + +<p>The boatman nodded. "A hard way to find, m'sieur. But have no fear. +I have travelled it."</p> + +<p>"Assuredly I have no fear with you, M.—"</p> + +<p>"Guyon, m'sieur—Jean Bateese Guyon. This M. Barboux is a merry +fellow—il ne peut pas se passer de ses enjouements. But I was not +born like this." And here he touched his shoulder very simply and +gravely.</p> + +<p>"It was an accident then, M. Guyon?"</p> + +<p>"An accident—oh, yes, be assured it was an accident." A flush +showed on the little man's cheek, and his speech on a sudden became +very rapid. "But as we were saying, I know the trail across yonder; +and my brother Dominique he knows it even better. I wish we may see +Dominique, m'sieur; there is no such <i>voyageur</i> from Quebec up to +Michilimackinac, aye or beyond! He has been down the Cascades by +night, himself only; it was when I had my—my accident, and he must +go to fetch a surgeon. All along the river it is talked of yet. +But it is nothing to boast of, for the hand of God must have been +upon him. And as good as he is brave!"</p> + +<p>"And where is your brother Dominique just now?"</p> + +<p>"He will be at home, m'sieur. Soon they will be carrying the harvest +at Boisveyrac, and he is now the seigneur's farmer. He will be +worrying himself over the harvest, for Dominique takes things to +heart, both of this world and the next; whereas—I am a good +Catholic, I hope—but these things do not trouble me. It seems there +is no time to be troubled." Bateese looked up shyly, with a blush +like a girl's. "M'sieur may be able to tell me—or, maybe, he will +think it foolish. This love of women, now?"</p> + +<p>"Proceed, M. Guyon."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you believe in it! When the sergeant begins his talk—c'est +bien sale, is it not? But that is not the sort I mean. Well, +Dominique is in love, and it brings him no happiness. He can never +have what he wants, nor would it be right, and he knows it; but +nevertheless he goes on craving for it and takes no pleasure in life +for the want of it. I look at him, wondering. Then I say to myself, +'Bateese, when le bon Dieu broke you in pieces He was not unkind. +Your heart is cracked and cannot hold love, like your brother's; but +what of that, while God is pouring love into it all day long and +never ceases? You are ugly, and no maid will ever want you for a +husband; therefore you are lucky who cannot store away desire for +this or that one, like poor Dominique, who goes about aching and fit +to burst. You go singing <i>À la claire fontaine</i>, which is full of +unhappiness and longing, but all the while you are happy enough.' +Indeed, that is the truth, monsieur. I study this love of +Dominique's, which makes him miserable; but I cannot judge it. +I see that it brings pain to men."</p> + +<p>"But delight also, my friend."</p> + +<p>"And delight also—that is understood. M'sieur is, perhaps, in love? +Or has been?"</p> + +<p>"No, Bateese; not yet."</p> + +<p>"But you will; with that face it is certain. Now shall I tell you?— +to my guessing this love of women is like an untried rapid. +Something smiles ahead for you, and you push for it and <i>voyez!</i> in a +moment down you go, fifteen miles an hour and the world spinning; and +at the bottom of the fall, if the woman be good, sweet is the journey +and you wonder, looking back from smooth water, down what shelves you +were swept to her. That, I say, is what I suppose this love to be; +but for myself I shall never try it. Since le bon Dieu broke the +pitcher its pieces are scattered all over me, within; they hold +nothing, but there they lie shining in their useless fashion."</p> + +<p>"Not useless, perhaps, Bateese."</p> + +<p>"In their useless fashion," he persisted. "They will smile and be +gay at the sight of a pretty girl, or at the wild creatures in the +woods yonder, or at the thoughts in a song, or for no better reason +than that the day is bright and the air warm. But they can store +nothing. It is the same with religion, monsieur, and with affairs of +State; neither troubles my head. Dominique is devout, for example; +and Father Launoy comes to talk with him, which makes him gloomy. +The reverend Father just hears my sins and lets me go; he knows well +enough that Bateese does not count. And then he and Dominique sit +and talk politics by the hour. The Father declares that all the +English are devils, and that anyone who fights for the Holy Church +and is killed by them will rise again the third day."</p> + +<p>John laughed aloud this time.</p> + +<p>"I too think the reverend Father must be making some mistake," said +Bateese gravely. "No doubt he has been misinformed."</p> + +<p>"No doubt. For suppose now that I were a devil?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, m'sieur," Bateese expostulated. "<i>Ça serait bien dommage!</i> +But I hope, in any case, God would pardon me for talking with you, +seeing that to contain anything, even hatred, is beyond me."</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you what I think, Bateese? I think we are all pitchers +and perhaps made to be broken. Ten days ago I was brimful of +ambitions; someone—le bon Dieu, or General Abercromby—has toppled +me over and spilt them all; and here I lie on my side, not broken, +but full of emptiness."</p> + +<p>"Heh, heh—'full of emptiness'!" chuckled Bateese, to whom the phrase +was new.</p> + +<p>"It may be that in time someone will set me up again and pour into me +wine of another sort. I hope for this, because it is painful to lie +upset and empty; and I do not wish to be broken, for that must be +even more painful—at the time, eh?"</p> + +<p>Bateese glanced up, with a twitch of remembered pain.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, m'sieur, it hurt—at the time."</p> + +<p>"But afterwards—when the pieces have no more trouble, being released +from pride—the pride of being a pitcher! Is it useless they are as +they lie upturned, reflecting—what? My friend, if we only knew this +we might discover that now, when it can no longer store up wine for +itself, the pitcher is at last serving an end it was made for."</p> + +<p>The little hunchback glanced up again quickly. "You are talking for +my sake, monsieur, not for yourself! At your age I too could be +melancholy for amusement. Ah, pardon," for John had blushed hotly. +"Do I not know why you said it? Am I not grateful?"</p> + +<p>He held out his hand. His eyes were shining.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="8"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<h4>THE WATCHER IN THE PASS.</h4> + +<p>Thenceforward, as the forest folded them deeper, John found a +wonderful solace in Bateese's company, although the two seldom +exchanged a word unless alone together, and after a day or two +Barboux took a whim to carry off the little boatman on his +expeditions and leave Muskingon in charge of the camp. He pretended +that John, as he mended of his wound, needed a stalwart fellow for +sentry; but the real reason was malice. For some reason he hated +Muskingon; and knowing Muskingon's delight in every form of the +chase, carefully thwarted it. On the other hand, it was fun to drag +off Bateese, who loved to sit by his boat and hated the killing of +animals.</p> + +<p>"If I give him my parole," suggested John, "he will have no excuse, +and Muskingon can go in your place."</p> + +<p>But to this Bateese would not listen. So the wounded were left, on +hunting days, in Muskingon's charge; and with him, too, John +contrived to make friends. The young Indian had a marvellous gift of +silence, and would sit brooding for hours. Perhaps he nursed his +hatred of Barboux; perhaps he distrusted the journey—for he and +Menehwehna, Ojibways both, were hundreds of miles from their own +country, which lay at the back of Lake Huron. Now and again, +however, he would unbend and teach John a few words of the Ojibway +language; or would allow him, as a fellow-sportsman, to sit by the +water's edge and study the Indian tricks of fishing.</p> + +<p>There was one in particular which fairly amazed John. He had crawled +after Muskingon on his belly—though not understanding the need of +this caution—to the edge of a rock overhanging a deep pool. +The Indian peered over, unloosed his waist-belt, and drew off his +scarlet breeches as if for a bathe. But no, he did not intend this— +at least, not just yet. He wound the breeches about his right arm +and dipped it cautiously, bending over the ledge until his whole body +from the waist overhung the water, and it was a wonder how his thighs +kept their grip. Then, in a moment, up flew his heels and over he +soused. John, peering down as the swirl cleared, saw only a +red-brown back heaving below; and as the seconds dragged by, and the +back appeared to heave more and more faintly, was plucking off his +own clothes to dive and rescue Muskingon from the rocks, when a pair +of hands shot up, holding aloft an enormous, bleeding cat-fish, and +hitched him deftly on the gaff which John hurried to lower. But the +fish had scarcely a kick left in him, Muskingon having smashed his +head against the crevices of the rock.</p> + +<p>Indeed Barboux had this excuse for leaving Muskingon in camp by the +river—that there was always a string of fish ready before nightfall +when he and Menehwehna returned. John, stupefied through the +daylight hours, always seemed to awake with the lighting of the +camp-fire. This at any rate was the one scene he afterwards saw most +clearly, in health and in the delirium of fever—the fire; the ring +of faces; beyond the faces a sapling strung with fish like short +broad-swords reflecting the flames' glint; a stouter sapling laid +across two forked boughs, and from it a dead deer suspended, with +white filmed eyes, and the firelight warm on its dun flank; behind, +the black deep of the forest, sounded, if at all, by the cry of a +lonely wolf. These sights he recalled, with the scent of green fir +burning and the smart of it on his lashes.</p> + +<p>But by day he went with senses lulled, having forgotten all desire of +escape or return. These five companions were all his world. Was he +a prisoner? Was Barboux his enemy? The words had no meaning. +They were all in the same boat, and "France" and "England" had become +idle names. If he considered Barboux's gun, it was as a provider of +game, or a protector against any possible foe from the woods. +But the woods kept their sinister silence.</p> + +<p>Once, indeed, at the head of a portage, they came upon a still reach +of water with a strip of clearing on its farther bank—<i>bois brulé</i> +Bateese called it; but the fire, due to lightning no doubt, must have +happened many years before, for spruces of fair growth rose behind +the alders on the swampy shore, and tall wickup plants and tussocks +of the blueberry choked the interspaces. A cool breeze blew down the +waterway, as through a funnel, from the uplands ahead, and the falls +below sang deafeningly in the <i>voyageurs'</i> ears as they launched +their boat.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Menehwehna touched Barboux by the elbow. His ear had caught +the crackling of a twig amid the uproar. John, glancing up as the +sergeant lifted his piece, spied the antlers of a bull-moose +spreading above an alder-clump across the stream. The tall brute had +come down through the <i>bois brulé</i> to drink, or to browse on the +young spruce-buds, which there grew tenderer than in the thick +forest; and for a moment moose and men gazed full at each other in +equal astonishment.</p> + +<p>Barboux would have fired at once had not Menehwehna checked him with +a few rapid words. With a snort of disgust the moose turned slowly, +presenting his flank, and crashed away through the undergrowth as the +shot rang after him. Bateese and Muskingon had the canoe launched in +a second, and the whole party clambered in and paddled across. +But before they reached the bank the beast's hoofs could be heard +drumming away on the ridge beyond the swamp and the branches snapping +as he parted them.</p> + +<p>Barboux cursed his luck. The two Indians maintained that the moose +had been hit. At length Muskingon, who had crossed the swamp, found +a splash of blood among the mosses, and again another on the leaves +of a wickup plant a rod or two farther on the trail. The sergeant, +hurrying to inspect these traces, plunged into liquid mud up to his +knees, and was dragged out in the worst of tempers by John, who had +chosen to follow without leave. Bateese and McQuarters remained with +the canoe.</p> + +<p>Each in his own fashion, then, the trackers crossed the swamp, +and soon were hunting among a network of moose-trails, which +criss-crossed one another through the burnt wood. John, aware of his +incompetence, contented himself with watching the Indians as they +picked up a new trail, followed it for a while, then patiently harked +back to the last spot of blood and worked off on a new line. Barboux +had theories of his own, which they received with a galling silence. +It galled him at length to fury, and he was lashing them with curses +which made John wonder at their forbearance, when a call from the +river silenced him.</p> + +<p>It came from Bateese. Bateese, who cared nothing for sport, had +paddled up-stream to inspect the next reach of the river, and there, +at the first ford, had found the moose lying dead and warm, with the +ripple running over his flank and his gigantic horns high out of the +water like a snag.</p> + +<p>From oaths Barboux now turned incontinently to boasting. This was +his first moose, but he—he, Joachim Barboux, was a sportsman from +his birth. He still contended, but complacently and without rancour, +that had the Indians taken up the trail he had advised from the first +it would have led them straight to the ford. They heard him and went +on skinning the moose, standing knee deep in the bloody water, for +the body was too heavy to be dragged ashore without infinite labour. +Menehwehna found and handed him the bullet, which had glanced across +and under the shoulder-blade, and flattened itself against one of the +ribs on the other side. Barboux pocketed it in high good humour; and +when their work was done—an ugly work, from which Bateese kept his +eyes averted—a steak or two cut out, with the tongue, and the +carcass left behind to rot in the stream—he praised them for brave +fellows. They listened as indifferently as they had listened to his +revilings.</p> + +<p>This shot which slew the moose was the last fired on the upward +journey. They had followed the stream up to the hill ridges, where +rapid succeeded rapid; and two days of all but incessant portage +brought them out above the forest, close beneath the naked ridges +where but a few pines straggled.</p> + +<p>Bateese pointed out a path by following which, as he promised, +they would find a river to carry them down into the St. Lawrence. +He unfolded a scheme. There were trees beside that farther stream— +elm-trees, for example—blown down and needing only to be stripped; +his own eyes had seen them. Portage up and over the ridge would be +back-breaking work. Let the canoe, therefore, be abandoned—hidden +somewhere by the headwaters—and let the Indians hurry ahead and rig +up a light craft to carry the party downstream. They had axes to +strip the bark and thongs to close it at bow and stern. What more +was needed? As for the loss of his canoe, he understood the +sergeant's to be State business, requiring dispatch; and if so, +M. the Intendant at Montreal would recompense him. Nay, he himself +might be travelling back this way before long, and then how handy to +pick up a canoe on this side of the hills!</p> + +<p>The sergeant <i>bravo</i>-ed and clapped the little man on his back, +drawing tears of pain. The canoe was hauled up and stowed in a damp +corner of the undergrowth under a mat of pine-branches, well screened +from the sun's rays, and the travellers began to trudge on foot, in +two divisions. The Indians led, with John and Barboux, the latter +being minded to survey the country with them from the top of the +ridge and afterwards allow them to push on alone. He took John to +keep him company after their departure, and because the two prisoners +could not well be left in charge of Bateese, who besides had his +hands full with the baggage. So Bateese and McQuarters toiled +behind, the little man grunting and shifting his load from time to +time with a glance to assure himself that McQuarters was holding out; +now and then slackening the pace, but still, as he plodded, measuring +the slopes ahead with his eye, comparing progress with the sun's +march, and timing himself to reach the ridge at nightfall. +Barboux had proposed to camp there, on the summit. The Indians were +to push forward through the darkness.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile John stepped ahead with Barboux and the Indians. +His spirits rose as he climbed above the forest; the shadow which had +lain on them slipped away and melted in the clear air. Here and +there he stumbled, his knees reminding him suddenly of his weakness; +but health was coming back to him, and he drank in long pure draughts +of it. It was good, after all, to be alive and young. A sudden +throbbing in the air brought him to a halt; it came from a tiny +humming-bird poising itself over a bush-tufted rock on his right. +As it sang on, careless of his presence, John watched the +music bubbling and trembling within its flame-coloured throat. +He, too, felt ready to sing for no other reason than pure delight. +He understood the ancient gods and their laughter; he smiled down +with them upon the fret of the world and mortal fate. Father Jove, +<i>optimus maximus</i>, was a grand fellow, a good Catholic in spite of +misconception, and certainly immortal; god and gentleman both, large, +lusty, superlative, tolerant, debonair. As for misconception, from +this height Father Jove could overlook centuries of it at ease—the +Middle Ages, for instance. Everyone had been more or less cracked in +the Middle Ages—cracked as fiddles. Likely enough Jove had made the +Middle Ages, to amuse himself.…</p> + +<p>As the climb lulled his brain, John played with these idle fancies. +Barboux, being out of condition and scant of breath, conversed very +little. The Indians kept silence as usual.</p> + +<p>The sun was dropping behind the cleft of the pass as they reached it, +and the rocky walls opened in the haze of its yellow beams. So once +more John came to the gate of a new world.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna led, Barboux followed, with John close behind, and +Muskingon bringing up the rear. They were treading the actual pass, +and Menehwehna, rounding an angle of the cliff, had been lost to +sight for a moment, when John heard a low guttural cry—whether of +surprise or warning he could not tell.</p> + +<p>He ran forward at Barboux's heels. A dozen paces ahead of the +Indian, reclining against the rock-face on a heap of <i>scree</i>, in the +very issue of the pass, with leagues of sunlight beyond him and the +basin of the plain at his feet, sat a man.</p> + +<p>He did not move; and at first this puzzled them, for he lay dark +against the sun, and its rays shone in their eyes.</p> + +<p>But Menehwehna stepped close up to him and pointed. Then they saw, +and understood.</p> + +<p>The man was dead; dead and scalped—a horrible sight.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="9"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE FARTHER SLOPE.</h4> + +<p>Barboux's complexion had turned to a sick yellow beneath its mottles. +He had been walking hard, and had eaten too much throughout the +voyage; no doubt, too, the sunset light painted his colour deeper. +But the man fairly twittered.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna muttered an Indian name.</p> + +<p>"Eh? Speak low, for the love of God!" The sergeant swept the cliffs +above and around with a shuddering glance.</p> + +<p>"Les Agniers, as you call them—but Iroquois for certain. The man, +you see, is Canayan—" Menehwehna began coolly to handle the corpse. +"He has been dead for hours, but not many hours." He lifted an arm +and let it fall, after trying the rigidity of the muscles. "Not many +hours," he repeated; and signed to Muskingon, who began to crawl +forward and, from the gap of the pass, to reconnoitre the slope +below.</p> + +<p>"And in the interval they have been tracking <i>us</i>, belike?"</p> + +<p>"They may, indeed, have spied us coming from the cliffs above," +answered Menehwehna unperturbed. "If so, they are watching us at +this moment, and there is no escaping; but this we shall learn within +twenty paces, since between the rocks here they have us at their +will. You, O illustrious, they might suffer to promenade yourself +for a while in the open, for the sake of better sport; with us, who +are Ojibways, they would deal while yet they could be sure."</p> + +<p>He said it without any show of vanity, nor did he trouble himself to +glance around or above for signs of the foe. "We had best make trial +of this without delay," he added. "For if they fire the noise may +reach the other two and warn Bateese, who is clever and may yet save +himself."</p> + +<p>"What the devil care I for Bateese?" snarled Barboux. "If they have +tracked us, they have tracked all. I run no risks for a <i>bossu</i> and +a useless prisoner."</p> + +<p>"I did not say that they have tracked us. <i>Him</i> they tracked beyond +a doubt; and at the end he knew they were after him. See—" +Again he lifted the arm of the corpse, and invited the sergeant to +feel its shirt along the ribs and under the armpits. "See you how +stiff it is; that is where the sweat has dried, and men sweat so when +they are in a great hurry. Perhaps he was the last of his company, +and they overtook him here. Now, see again—I tell you they have not +been tracking us, and I will prove it. In the first place I am no +fool, and if one—two—three men have tracked me close (it cannot be +far) a day long without my knowing, it will be the first time in +Menehwehna's life. But let that pass. See these marks; they +overtook him here, and they did with him—so. But where is any mark +on the path behind us? Look well; there is only one path and no +trail in it at all, else I had not cried out as I did. No man has +passed within less time than it takes the moss to grow. Very good; +then whoever killed him followed him up from yonder, and here stopped +and turned back—I think, in a hurry. To place the body so—that is +an Iroquois trick when few and in a hurry; otherwise they take him +away and do worse."</p> + +<p>"Iroquois? But <i>que diable!</i> The Six Nations are at peace with us! +Why on earth should the Iroquois meddle with this man, by the dress +of him a <i>coureur de bois</i>?"</p> + +<p>"And unarmed, too!" pursued Menehwehna with fine irony, "since they +have taken away his gun. Ask me riddles that I can read. The Six +Nations are never at peace; there were five hundred of them back at +Ticonderoga, seated on a hill opposite and only waiting. Yes, and in +peace they have never less reasons than fingers and toes for killing +a man. Your questions are for a child; but <i>I</i> say that the Iroquois +have been here and killed this man, and in a hurry. Now answer me; +if, after killing him, they wished to spy down upon our coming, and +were in a hurry, why did they not take the short way through the +pass?"</p> + +<p>"That is simple. Any fresh track of men at the entrance, or close +within it, would warn us back; therefore they would say, 'Let us +climb to the ridge and watch, though it take longer.'"</p> + +<p>"Good; now you talk with a clear head, and I have less fear for you. +They may be aloft there, as you say, having drawn us into their trap. +Yet I do not think it, for why should they be expecting us? It is +now two days since you killed the moose. They could not have been +near in a body to hear that shot fired, for it is hours since they +overtook this man, following him up from the other slope. But a +scout might have heard it and climbed across to warn them; yes, that +is possible."</p> + +<p>But here Muskingon came crawling back. He had inspected the ground +by the lip of the descent, and in his belief the dead man's pursuers +were three or four at the most, and had hurried down the hill again +when their work was done.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna nodded gravely. "It is as I thought, and for the moment +we need not fear; but we cannot spend the night in this trap—for +trap it is, whether watched or not. Do we go forward then, or back?"</p> + +<p>Barboux cursed. "How in the name of twenty devils can I go back! +Back to the Richelieu?—it would be wasting weeks!" His hand went up +to his breast, then he seemed to recollect himself and turned upon +John roughly. "Step back, you, and find if the others are in sight. +We, here, have private matters to discuss."</p> + +<p>John obeyed. The first turn of the cliff shut off the warm westerly +glow, and he went back through twilight. He knew now why Barboux had +lagged behind on the Richelieu, in scorn of discipline. The man must +be entrusted with some secret missive of Montcalm's, and, being +puffed up with it, had in a luckless hour struck out a line of his +own. To turn back now would mean his ruin; might end in his standing +up to be shot with his back to a wall.…</p> + +<p>Between the narrow walls of the pass night was closing down rapidly. +John lifted his face towards the strip of sky aloft, greenish-blue +and tranquil.…</p> + +<p>He fell back—his heart, after one leap, freezing—slowly freezing to +a standstill; his hands spreading themselves against the face of the +rock.</p> + +<p>What voice was that, screaming?… one—two—three—horrible human +screams, rending the twilight, beating down on his ears, echoing from +wall to wall.…</p> + +<p>The third and last scream died out in a low, bubbling wail. +Close upon it rose a sound which John could not mistake—the whoop of +Indians. He plucked his hands from the rock, and ran; but, as he +turned to run, in the sudden silence a body thudded down upon the +path behind him.</p> + +<p>In twenty strides he was back again at the issue of the pass. +The two Indians had vanished. Barboux's gross body alone blocked the +pale daylight there. Barboux lingered a moment, stooping over the +murdered man; but he too ran at the sound of John's footsteps, and +the corpse, as John came abreast of it, slid over in a silly heap, +almost rolling against his legs.</p> + +<p>He leaped aside and cleared it, and in a moment was pelting down the +slope after the sergeant, who flung back an agonised doubtful glance, +and recognising his pursuer grunted with relief. At their feet, and +far below, spread a wide plain—a sea of forest rolling, wave upon +wave, with a gleam of water between. The river, then—Bateese's +river—was near at hand.</p> + +<p>Fifty yards down the slope, which was bare of cover, he saw the two +Indians. Muskingon led by a few strides, and the pair seemed to be +moving noiselessly; yet, by the play of their shoulders, both were +running for their lives. John raced past the lumbering sergeant and +put forth all his strength to catch up with Menehwehna. The descent +jarred his knees horribly, and still, as he plunged deeper into the +shadow of the plain, the stones and bushes beneath his feet grew +dimmer and the pitfalls harder to avoid. His ears were straining for +the Indian war-whoop behind him; he wondered more and more as the +seconds grew into minutes and yet brought no sounds but the trickle +and slide of stones dislodged by Barboux thundering in the rear.</p> + +<p>They were close upon the outskirts of the forest. He had caught up +with Menehwehna and was running at his heels, stride for stride.</p> + +<p>In the first dark shadow of the trees Menehwehna checked himself, +came to a sudden halt, and swung round, panting. Somehow, although +unable to see his face, John knew him to be furiously angry—with the +cold fury of an Indian.</p> + +<p>"Englishman, you are a fool!"</p> + +<p>"But why?" panted John innocently. "Is it the noise I made? +I cannot run as you Indians can."</p> + +<p>Menehwehna grunted. "What matters noise more or less, when <i>he</i> is +anywhere near?"</p> + +<p>"They have not seen us!" gasped Barboux, blundering up at this moment +and almost into John's arms.</p> + +<p>"To be sure," answered Menehwehna sardonically, "they have not seen +us. It may even be that the great Manitou has smitten them with +deafness and they have not heard you, O illustrious!—and with +blindness, that they cannot trace your footmarks; yes, and perchance +with folly, too, so that, returning to a dead man whom they left, +they may wonder not at all that he has tumbled himself about!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Peste!</i> It was this Englishman's fault. He came running behind +and hurried me. But you Indians do not know everything. I found—" +but here Barboux checked himself on the edge of a boast.</p> + +<p>The Indian had sunk on one knee and laid his ear to the ground. +"It will be of great price," said he, "if what you found will take us +out of this. They are not following as yet, and the water is near."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="10"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<h4>MENEHWEHNA SETTLES ACCOUNTS.</h4> + +<p>Weary as they were, there could be no thought of halting. The river +and the plain lay far below them yet, and they must push on through +the darkness.</p> + +<p>Hitherto the forest had awed John by its loneliness; its +night-voices, falling at rare intervals on his ear and awaking him +from dreams beside the camp-fire, had seemed to cry and challenge +across immense distances as though the very beasts were far astray. +But now, as he crouched behind Menehwehna, he felt it to be no less +awfully inhabited. A thousand creeping things stirred or slunk away +through the undergrowth; roosting birds edged towards one another in +the branches, ever on the point of flapping off in panic; the +thickets were warm from the flanks of moose and deer. And all this +wild life, withdrawing, watched the four fugitives with a thousand +eyes.</p> + +<p>These imaginary terrors did him one service. They kept him awake. +By and by his brain began to work clearly, as it often will when the +body has passed a certain point of fatigue. "If these Indians on the +ridge are Iroquois, why should I run? The Iroquois are friends of +England, and would recognise my red coat. The man they killed was a +Canadian, a <i>coureur de bois</i>; they will kill Barboux if they catch +him, and also these two Ojibways. But to me capture will bring +release."</p> + +<p>He understood now why Menehwehna had called him a fool. +Nevertheless, as he went, the screams on the cliff rang in his ears +again, closing the argument.</p> + +<p>Muskingon still led. He had struck a small mountain stream and was +tracking it down towards the river—keeping wide of it to avoid the +swampy ground, relying on his ears and the lie of the slope. +Menehwehna followed close, ready to give counsel if needed; but the +young Indian held on in silence, never once hesitating.</p> + +<p>The debate in John's brain started afresh. "These Iroquois mean <i>me</i> +no harm. I am sure enough of that, at any rate, to face the risk of +it. Barboux is my enemy—my country's enemy—and I dislike in him +the little I don't despise. As for Menehwehna and Muskingon—they, I +suppose, are my enemies, and the Iroquois my friends." Somehow John +felt that when civilised nations employ uncivilised allies, the +simplest questions of ethics may become complicated. He remembered a +hundred small acts of kindness, of good-fellowship; and he recalled, +all too vividly, the murdered man and his gory head.</p> + +<p>But might he not escape back and show himself without lessening his +comrades' chances? It was a nuisance that he must always be thinking +of them as comrades. Was he not their prisoner? Would their +comradeship help him at the end of the journey?…</p> + +<p>The moon had risen over the hills when Muskingon's piloting brought +them out once more under open sky, at a point where the mountain +stream met and poured itself into a larger one hurrying down from the +northeast. A few yards below their confluence the riverbed narrowed, +and the waters, gathering speed, were swept down through a rocky +chasm towards a cataract, the noise of which had been sounding in +John's ears while he debated.</p> + +<p>Hitherto he had weighed the question as one between himself and his +three companions. For the moment he saw no chance of giving them the +slip; and, if a chance occurred, the odds must be terribly unequal. +Still, supposing that one occurred, ought he to take it? Putting +aside the insane risk, ought he to bring death—and such a death— +down upon these three men, two of whom he looked upon as friends? +Did his country, indeed, require this of him? He wished he had his +cousin Dick beside him for counsellor, or could borrow Dick's +practical mind. Dick always saw clearly.</p> + +<p>And behold! as he stepped out upon the river bank, his wish was given +him. He remembered suddenly that this Barboux carried a message—of +what importance he could not tell, nor was it for him to consider. +Important or not, it must be to England's detriment, and as a +soldier, he had no other duty than to baulk it. Why had he not +thought of this before? It ruled out all private questions, even +that of escape or of saving his own life. The report of a gun would +certainly be heard on the ridge above; and if, by forcing Barboux to +shoot, he could draw down the Iroquois, why then—live or die—the +signal must be given.</p> + +<p>He scanned the chasm. It could not measure less than twenty feet +across, and the current whirled through it far below—thirty feet +perhaps. He eyed his companions. Barboux leaned on his gun a few +paces from the brink, where the two Indians stood peering down at the +dim waters. John dropped on one knee, pretending to fasten a button +of his gaiters, and drew a long breath while he watched for his +chance. Presently Muskingon straightened himself up and, as if +satisfied with his inspection, began to lead the way again, slanting +his course away from the bank and back towards the selvage of the +woods. Menehwehna followed close, and Barboux shouldered his musket +and fell into third place, grunting to John to hurry after.</p> + +<p>And so John did—for a dozen paces back from the river. +Then, swinging quickly on his heel, he dashed for the brink, and +leapt.</p> + +<p>So sudden was the manoeuvre that not until his feet left the rock—it +seemed, at that very instant—did he hear the sergeant's oath of +dismay. Even as he flew across the whirling darkness, his ear was +listening for the shot to follow.</p> + +<p>The take-off—a flat slab of rock—was good, and the leap well timed. +But he had allowed too little, perhaps, for his weariness and his +recent wound; and in the darkness he had not seen that of the two +brinks the far one stood the higher by many inches. In mid-air he +saw it, and flung his arms forward as he pitched against it little +more than breast-high. His fingers clutched vainly for hold, while +his toes scraped the face of the rock, but found no crevice to +support them.</p> + +<p>Had his body dropped a couple of inches lower before striking the +bank, or had the ledge shelved a degree or two more steeply, or had +it been smooth or slippery with rain, he must have fallen backward +into the chasm. As it was, his weight rested so far forward upon his +arms that, pressing his elbows down upon the rock, he heaved himself +over on the right side of the balance, fell on his face and chest, +and so wriggled forward until he could lift a knee.</p> + +<p>The roar of the waters drowned all other noise. Only that faint cry +of Barboux had followed him across. But now, as he scrambled to his +feet, he heard a sudden thud on the ledge behind him. A hand +clutched at his heel, out of the night. At once he knew that his +stratagem had failed, that Barboux would not fire, that Muskingon was +upon him. He turned to get at grips; but, in the act of turning, +felt his brain open and close again with a flame and a crash, +stretched out both arms, and pitched forward into darkness.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>It seemed—for he knew no break in his sensations—that the ground, +as he touched it, became strangely soft and elastic. For a while he +wondered at this idly, then opened his eyes—but only to blink and +close them again, for they were met by broad daylight.</p> + +<p>He was lying on the grass; he was resting in Muskingon's arms amid a +roaring of many waters; he was being carried between Muskingon and +Menehwehna beneath a dark roof of pines—and yet their boughs were +transparent, and he looked straight through them into blue sky. +Was he dead? Had he passed into a world where time was not, that all +these things were happening together? If so, how came the two +Indians here? And Barboux? He could hear Barboux muttering: no, +shouting aloud. Why was the man making such a noise? And who was +that firing?… Oh, tell him to stop! The breastwork will never +be carried in this way—haven't the troops charged it again and +again? Look at Sagramore, there: pull him off somebody and let him +die quiet! For pity's sake fetch the General, to make an end of this +folly! Forty-sixth! Where are the Forty-sixth?…</p> + +<p>He was lying in a boat now—a canoe. But how could this be, when the +boat was left behind on the other side of the mountain? Yet here it +was, plain as daylight, and he was lying in it; also he could +remember having been lifted and placed here by Muskingon—not by +Menehwehna. To be sure Menehwehna crouched here above him, musket in +hand. Between the shouting and firing he heard the noise of water +tumbling over rapids. The noise never ceased; it was all about him; +and yet the boat did not move. It lay close under a low bank, with a +patch of swamp between it and the forest: and across this swamp +towards the forest Muskingon was running. John saw him halt and lift +his piece as Barboux came bursting through the trees with an Indian +in pursuit. The two ran in line, the Indian lifting a tomahawk and +gaining at every stride; and Muskingon had to step aside and let them +come abreast of him before he fired at close quarters. The Indian +fell in a heap; Barboux struggled through the swamp and leapt into +the canoe as Muskingon turned to follow. But now three—four—five +Indians were running out of the woods upon him; four with tomahawks +only, but the fifth carried a gun; and, while the others pursued, +this man, having gained the open, dropped swiftly on one knee and +fired. At that instant Menehwehna's musket roared out close above +John's head; but as the marksman rolled over, dead, on his smoking +gun, Muskingon gave one leap like a wounded stag's, and toppled prone +on the edge of the bank close above the canoe.</p> + +<p>And with that, and even as Menehwehna sprang to his feet to reach and +rescue him, Barboux let fly an oath, planted the butt of his musket +against the bank, and thrust the canoe off. It was done in a second. +In another, the canoe had lurched afloat, the edge of the rapid +whirled her bow round, and she went spinning down-stream.</p> + +<p>All this John saw distinctly, and afterwards recalled it all in +order, as it befell. But sometimes, as he recalled it, he seemed to +be watching the scene with an excruciating ache in his brain; at +others, in a delicious languor of weakness. He remembered too how +the banks suddenly gathered speed and slid past while the boat +plunged and was whirled off in the heart of the rapid. Muskingon had +uttered no cry: but back—far back—on the shore sounded the whoops +of the Iroquois.</p> + +<p>Then—almost at once—the canoe was floating on smooth water and +Menehwehna talking with Barboux.</p> + +<p>"It had better be done so," Menehwehna was saying. "You are younger +than I, and stronger, and it will give you a better chance."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," growled Barboux. "The man was dead, I tell you. +They are always dead when they jump like that. <i>Que diable!</i> I have +seen enough fighting to know."</p> + +<p>But Menehwehna replied, "You need much sleep and you cannot watch +against me. I have reloaded my gun, and the lock of yours is wet. +Indeed, therefore, it must be as I say."</p> + +<p>After this, Barboux said very little: but the canoe was paddled to +shore and the two men walked aside into the woods. The sun was +setting and they cast long shadows upon the bank as they stepped out.</p> + +<p>John lay still and dozed fitfully, waking up now and then to brush +away the mosquitoes that came with the first falling shadows to +plague him.</p> + +<p>By and by in the twilight Menehwehna returned and stood above the +bank. He tossed a bundle into the canoe, stepped after it, and +pushed off without hurry.</p> + +<p>John laughed, as a child might laugh, guessing some foolish riddle.</p> + +<p>"You have killed him!"</p> + +<p>"He did wickedly," answered Menehwehna. "He was a fool and past +bearing."</p> + +<p>John laughed again; and, being satisfied, dropped asleep.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="11"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<h4>BOISVEYRAC.</h4> + +<p>Along the river-front of Boisveyrac, on the slopes between the stone +walls of the Seigniory and the broad St. Lawrence, Dominique Guyon, +the Seigneur's farmer, strode to and fro encouraging the harvesters.</p> + +<p>"Work, my children! Work!"</p> + +<p>He said it over and over again, using the words his father had always +used at this season. But the harvesters—old Damase Juneau and his +wife La Marmite, Jo Lagassé, the brothers Pierre and Telesphore +Courteau, with Telesphore's half-breed wife Leelinau (Lélie, in +French)—all knew the difference in tone. It had been worth while in +former times to hear old Bonhomme Guyon say the words, putting his +heart into them, while the Seigneur himself would follow behind, +echoing, "Yes, that is so. Work, my children: work is the great +cure!" But Bonhomme Guyon was dead these two months—rest his soul; +and the Seigneur gone up the river to command a fortress for the King +of France; and no one left at Boisveyrac but themselves and half a +dozen militiamen and this young Dominique Guyon, who would not smile +and was a skinflint.</p> + +<p>It was as if the caterpillars had eaten the mirth as well as the +profits out of this harvest which (if folks said true) the Seigneur +needed so badly. Even the children had ceased to find it amusing, +and had trooped after the priest, Father Launoy, up the hill and into +the courtyard of the Château.</p> + +<p>"Work, my friends!" said Dominique. He knew well that they detested +him and would have vastly preferred his brother Bateese for overseer. +For his part, he took life seriously: but no one was better aware of +the bar between him and others' love or liking.</p> + +<p>They respected him because he was the best <i>canotier</i> on the river; a +better even than his malformed brother Bateese, now with the army. +When he drew near they put more spirit into their pitchforking.</p> + +<p>"But all the same it breaks the back, this suspense," declared La +Marmite. "I never could work with more than one thing in my mind. +Tell us, Dominique Guyon: the good Father will be coming out soon, +will he not?—that is, if he means to shoot the falls before sunset."</p> + +<p>"What can it matter to you, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Matter? Why if he doesn't come soon, I shall burst myself with +curiosity, that is all!"</p> + +<p>"But you know all that can be told. There has been a great victory, +for certain."</p> + +<p>"Eh? Eh? You are clever enough, doubtless; but you don't think you +can question and cross-question a man the way that Father Launoy does +it? Why the last time I confessed to him he turned me upside down +and emptied me like a sack."</p> + +<p>"There has been a great victory: that is all we need to know. +Work, my friends, work with a good heart!"</p> + +<p>But when his back was turned they drew together and talked, glancing +now towards the Seigniory above the slope, now towards the river bank +where a couple of tall Etchemin Indians stood guard beside a canoe, +and across the broad flood to the woods on the farther shore +stretching away southward in a haze of blue. Down in the south +there, far beyond the blue horizon, a battle had been fought and a +great victory won.</p> + +<p>Jo Lagassé edged away towards Corporal Chrétien, who kept watch, +musket in hand, on the western fringe of the clearing. Harvests at +Boisveyrac had been gathered under arms since time out of mind, with +sentries posted far up the shore and in the windmill behind the +Seigniory, to give warning of the Iroquois. To-day the corporal and +his men were specially alert, and at an alarm the workers would have +plenty of time to take shelter within the gateway of the Château.</p> + +<p>"Well, it seems that we may all lift up our hearts. The English are +done for, and next season there is to be a big stamping-out of the +Iroquois."</p> + +<p>"Who told you that, Jo Lagassé?"</p> + +<p>"Everyone is saying it. Pierre Courteau has even some tale that two +thousand of them were slaughtered after the battle yonder— +Onnontagués and Agniers for the most part. At this rate you idlers +will soon be using your bayonets to turn the corn with the rest of +us."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that's right—call us idlers! And the Iroquois known to be +within a dozen miles! You would sing to another tune, my friend, if +we idlers offered to march off and leave you just now." The corporal +swung round on his thin legs and peered into the belt of trees.</p> + +<p>Jo Lagassé grinned.</p> + +<p>"No, no, corporal; I was jesting only. To think of me undervaluing +the military! Why often and often, as a single man with no ties, +I have fancied myself enlisting. But now it will be too late."</p> + +<p>"If M. de Montcalm has really swallowed the English," answered the +other drily, "it will be too late, as you say."</p> + +<p>"But these English, now—I have always had a curiosity to see them. +Is it true, corporal, that they have faces like devils, and that he +who has the misfortune to be killed by one will assuredly rise the +third day? The priests say so."</p> + +<p>Corporal Chrétien had never actually confronted his country's foes. +"Much would depend," he answered cautiously, "upon circumstances, and +upon what you mean by a devil."</p> + +<p>While Jo Lagassé scratched his head over this, the wicket opened in +the great gate of the Seigniory, and Father Launoy came forth with a +troop of children at his heels. The harvesters crowded about him at +once.</p> + +<p>He lifted a hand. He was a tall priest and square-shouldered, with +the broad brow and set square chin of a fighting man.</p> + +<p>"My children," he announced in a voice clear as a bell, "it is +certain there has been a great battle at Fort Carillon. The English +came on, four to one, gnashing their teeth like devils of the pit. +But the host of the faithful stood firm and overcame them, and now +they are flying southward whence they came. Let thanks be given to +God who giveth us the victory!"</p> + +<p>The men bared their heads.</p> + +<p>"When I met 'Polyte Latulippe and young Damase on my way down the +river, I could scarcely believe their tale. But the Ojibway puts it +beyond doubt; and the few answers I could win from the wounded +sergeant all confirm the story."</p> + +<p>"His name, Father?" asked La Marmite. "We can get nothing out of +Dominique Guyon, who keeps his tongue as close as his fist."</p> + +<p>"His name is à Clive, and he is of the regiment of Béarn. He has come +near to death's door, poor fellow, and still lies too near to it for +talking. But I think he is strong enough to bear carrying up to Fort +Amitié, where the Seigneur—who, by the way, sends greeting to you +all—"</p> + +<p>"And our salutations go back to him. Would he were here to-day to +see the harvest carried!"</p> + +<p>"The Seigneur, having heard what 'Polyte and Damase have to tell, +will desire to hear more of this glorious fight. For myself, I must +hasten down to Montreal, where I have a message to deliver, and +perhaps I may reach there with these tidings also before the boats, +which are coming up by way of the Richelieu. Therefore I am going to +borrow Dominique Guyon of you, to pilot me down through the Roches +Fendues. And talking of Dominique"—here the Jesuit laid a hand on +the shoulder of the young man, who bent his eyes to the ground— +"you complain that he is close, eh? How often, my children, must I +ask you to judge a brother by his virtues? To which of you did it +occur, when these men came, to send 'Polyte and Damase up to Fort +Amitié with their news? No one has told me: yet I will wager it was +Dominique Guyon. Who sat up, the night through, with this wounded +stranger? Dominique Guyon. Who has been about the field all day, as +though to have missed a night's sleep were no excuse for shirking the +daily task? Dominique Guyon. Again, to whom do I turn now to steer +me down the worst fall in the river? To Dominique Guyon. He will +arrivé back here to-night tired as a dog, but once more at daybreak +it will be Dominique who sets forth to carry the wounded man up to +Fort Amitié. And why? Because, when a thing needs to be done well, +he is to be trusted; you would turn to him then and trust him rather +than any of yourselves, and you know it. Do you grumble, then, that +the Seigneur knows it? I say to you that a man is born thus, or +thus; responsible or not responsible; and a man that is born +responsible, though he add pound to pound and field to field, is a +man to be thankful for. Moreover, if he keep his own counsel, you +may go to him at a pinch with the more certainty that he will keep +yours."</p> + +<p>"What did I tell you?" whispered La Marmite to Jo Lagassé, who had +joined the little crowd. "The Father's eye turns you inside out: he +knows how we have been grumbling all day. But all the same," she +added aloud, "he is young and ought to laugh."</p> + +<p>"I have told you," said Father Launoy, "that you should judge a man +by his virtues: but, where that is hard, at least you should judge +him by help of your own pity. All this day Dominique has been +copying his dead father; and the same remembrance that has been to +him a sorrowful incitement, has been to you but food for uncharitable +thoughts. If I am not saying the truth, correct me."</p> + +<p>They were silent. The priest had a great gift of personal talk, +straight and simple; and treated them as brothers and sisters of a +family, holding up the virtues of this one, or the faults of that, to +the common gaze. They might not agree with this laudation of +Dominique: but no one cared to challenge it at the risk of finding +himself pilloried for public laughter. Father Launoy knew all the +peccadilloes of this small flock, and had a tongue which stripped +your clothes off—to use an expression of La Marmite's.</p> + +<p>They followed him down to the shore where the Etchemins held the +canoe ready. There they knelt, and he blessed them before embarking. +Dominique stepped on board after him, and the two Indians took up +their paddles.</p> + +<p>Long after the boat had been pushed off and was speeding down the +broad waterway, the harvesters stood and watched it. The sunset +followed it, gleaming along its wake and on its polished quarter, +flashing as the paddles rose and dipped; until it rounded the corner +by Bout de l'lsle, where the rapids began.</p> + +<p>The distant voice of these rapids filled the air with its humming; +but their ears were accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did +they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed +beds, until Jo Lagassé imitated it to perfection.</p> + +<p>"To work, my children!" he croaked. "Work is the only cure!"</p> + +<p>They burst out laughing, and hurried back to gather the last load +before nightfall.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="12"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h4>FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS.</h4> + +<p>For a little while after leaving the shore the priest kept silence.</p> + +<p>"Dominique," said he at length, "there is something in your guests +that puzzles me; and something too that puzzles me in the manner of +their coming to Boisveyrac. Tell me now precisely how you found +them."</p> + +<p>"It was not I who found them, Father. Telesphore Courteau came +running to me, a little before sunset, with news that a man—an +Indian—was standing on the shore opposite and signalling with his +arms as if for help. Well, at first I thought it might be some trick +of the Iroquois—not that I had dreamed of any in the neighbourhood: +and Chrétien got his men ready and under arms. But the glass seemed +to show that this was not an Iroquois: and next I saw a bundle, which +might be a wounded man, lying on the bank beside him. So we launched +a boat and pushed across very carefully until we came within hail: +and then we parleyed for some while, the soldiers standing ready to +fire, until the Indian's look and speech convinced me—for I have +been as far west as Michilimackinac, and know something of the +Ojibway talk. So when he called out his nation to me, I called back +to him to leave speaking in French and use his own tongue."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes—he is an Ojibway beyond doubt."</p> + +<p>"Well, Father, while I was making sure of this, we had pushed +forward little by little and I saw the wounded man clearly. +He was half-naked, but lay with his tunic over him, as the Indian had +wrapped him against the chill. Indeed he was half-dead too, and past +speaking, when at length we took him off."</p> + +<p>"And they had lost their boat in the Cedars?"</p> + +<p>"So the Ojibway said. The wonder is that they ever came to shore."</p> + +<p>"The wonder to my thinking is rather that, coming through the +wilderness from the Richelieu River, they should have possessed a +canoe to launch on the Great River here."</p> + +<p>"Their tale is that they were four, and happened on a small party of +Iroquois by surprise: and that two perished while this pair possessed +themselves of the Iroquois' canoe and so escaped."</p> + +<p>"Yes," mused the priest, "so again the Ojibway told me. A strange +story: and when I began to put questions he grew more and more +stupid—but I know well enough by this time, I should hope, when an +Indian pretends to be duller than he is. The sick man I could not +well cross-examine. He told me something of the fight at Fort +Carillon, where he, it appears, saw the main fighting upon the ridge, +while the Indians were spread as sharpshooters along the swamps +below. For the rest he refers me to his comrade." Father Launoy +fell to musing again. "What puzzles me is that he carries no +message, or will not own to carrying one. But what then brings him +across the Wilderness? The other boats with the wounded and +prisoners went down the Richelieu to its mouth, and will be +travelling up the Great River to Montreal—that is, if they have not +already arrivéd. Now why should this one boat have turned aside? +That I could understand, if the man were upon special service: the +way he came would be a short cut either down the river to Montreal, +or up-stream to Fort Amitié or Fort Frontenac. But, as I say, this +man apparently carries no message. Also he started from Fort +Carillon with two wounds; and who would entrust special service to a +wounded man?"</p> + +<p>"Of a certainty, Father, he was wounded, as I myself saw when we drew +off his shirt. The hurt in his ribs is scarcely skinned over, and he +has a fresh scar on his wrist. But the blow on the head, from which +he suffers, is later, and was given him (he says) by an Indian."</p> + +<p>"A bad blow—and yet he escaped."</p> + +<p>"A bad blow. Either from that or from the drenching, towards morning +his head wandered and he talked at full speed for an hour."</p> + +<p>"Of what did he talk?" asked the priest quickly.</p> + +<p>"That I cannot tell, since he chattered in English."</p> + +<p>"English? How do you know that it was English?"</p> + +<p>"Why, since it was not French, nor like any kind of Indian! Moreover, +I have heard the English talk. They were prisoners brought down from +Oswego, twelve bateaux in all, and I took them through the falls. +When they talked, it was just as this man chattered last night."</p> + +<p>"Then you, too, Dominique, find your guest a strange fellow?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, as for that! He is a sergeant, and of the regiment of Béarn. +Your reverence saw his coat hanging by the bed."</p> + +<p>"Even in that there is something strange. For Béarn lies in the +Midi, close to the Pyrenees; and, as I understand, the regiment of +Béarn was recruited and officered almost entirely from its own +province. But this Sergeant à Clive comes from the north; his speech +has no taste of the south in it, and indeed he owns to me that he is +a northerner. He says further that he comes from my own seminary of +Douai. And this again is correct; for I cross-questioned him on the +seminary, and he knows it as a hand knows its glove—the customs of +the place, the lectures, the books in use there. He has told me, +moreover, why he left it.… Dominique, you do right in misliking +your guest."</p> + +<p>"I do not say, Father, that I mislike him. I fear him a little—I +cannot tell why."</p> + +<p>"You do right, then, to fear him; and I will tell you why. He is an +atheist."</p> + +<p>"An atheist? O—oh!"</p> + +<p>"He has been of the true Faith. But he rejected me; he would make no +confession, but turned himself to the wall when I exhorted him. +<i>Voyons</i>—here is a Frenchman who talks English in his delirium; a +northerner serving in a regiment of the south; an infidel, from +Douai. Dominique, I do not like your guest."</p> + +<p>"Nor I, Father, since you tell me that he is an atheist."</p> + +<p>While they talked they had been lifting their voices insensibly to +the roar of the nearing rapids; and were now come to Bout de l'lsle +and the edge of peril. Below Bout de l'lsle the river divided to +plunge through the Roches Fendues, where to choose the wrong channel +meant destruction. Yet a mile below the Roches Fendues lay the +Cascades, with a long straight plunge over smooth shelves of rock and +two miles of furious water beyond. Yet farther down came the +terrible rapids of La Chine, not to be attempted. There the +<i>voyageurs</i> would leave the canoe and reach Montreal on foot.</p> + +<p>Father Launoy was a brave man. Thrice before he had let Dominique +lead him through the awful dance ahead, and always at the end of it +had felt his soul purged of earthly terrors and left clean as a +child's.</p> + +<p>Dominique reached out a hand in silence and took the paddle from the +Etchemin, who crawled aft and seated himself with an expressionless +face. Then with a single swift glance astern to assure himself that +the other Indian was prepared, the young man knelt and crouched, with +his eyes on the V-shaped ripple ahead, for the angle of which they +were heading.</p> + +<p>On this, too, the priest's eyes were bent. He gripped the gunwale as +the current lifted and swept the canoe down at a pace past control; +as it sped straight for the point of the smooth water, and so, +seeming to be warned by the roar it met, balanced itself fore-and-aft +for one swift instant and plunged with a swoop that caught away the +breath.</p> + +<p>The bows shot under the white water below the fall, lifted to the +first wave, knocking up foam out of foam, and so dived to the next, +quivering like a reed shaken in the hand. Dominique straightened +himself on his knees. In a moment he was working his paddle like a +madman, striking broad off with it on this side and that, forcing the +canoe into its course, zigzagging within a hand's breadth of rocks +which, at a touch, would have broken her like glass, and across the +edge of whirlpools waiting to drown a man and chase his body round +for hours within a few inches of the surface; and all at a speed of +fifteen to eighteen miles an hour, with never an instant's pause +between sight and stroke. The Indian in the stern took his cue from +Dominique; now paddling for dear life, now flinging his body back as +with a turn of the wrist he checked the steerage.</p> + +<p>The priest sat with a white drenched face; a brave man terrified. +He felt the floor of the world collapsing, saw its forests reeling by +in the spray. It cracked like a bubble and was dissolved in +rainbows—wisps caught in the rocks and fluttering in the wind of the +boat's flight. Then, as the pressure on heart and chest grew +intolerable, the speed began to slacken and he drew a shuddering +breath; but his brain still kept the whirl of the wild minutes past +and his hand scarcely relaxed its grip on the gunwale. As a runaway +horse, still galloping, drops back to control, so the canoe seemed to +find her senses and leapt at the waves with a cunning change of +motion, no longer shearing through their crests, but riding them with +a long and easy swoop. Still Father Launoy did not speak. He sat as +one for whom a door has been held half-open, and closed again, upon a +vision.</p> + +<p>Yet when he found his tongue—which was not until they reached the +end of the white water, and Dominique, after panting a while, headed +the canoe for shore—his voice did not shake.</p> + +<p>"It was a bold thought of these men, or a foolhardy, to strike across +the Wilderness," he said meditatively, in the tone of one picking up +a talk which chance has interrupted.</p> + +<p>"There are many ways through those woods," Dominique answered. +"Between here and Fort Niagara you may hear tell of a dozen perhaps; +and the Iroquois have their own."</p> + +<p>"Let us hope that none of theirs crosses the one you and Bateese +taught to Monsieur Armand. The Seigneur will be uneasy about his son +when he hears what 'Polyte and Damase report; and Monsieur Etienne +and Mademoiselle Diane will be uneasy also."</p> + +<p>"But this Ojibway saw nothing of M. Armand or his party."</p> + +<p>"No news is good news. As you owe the Seigneur your duty, take your +guests up to Fort Amitié to-morrow and let them be interrogated."</p> + +<p>"My Father, must I go?" There was anguish in Dominique's voice. +"Surely Jo Lagassé or Pierre Courteau will do as well?—and there is +much work at Boisveyrac which cannot be neglected."</p> + +<p>They had come to shore, and the priest had stepped out upon the bank +after Dominique for a few parting words.</p> + +<p>"But that is not your true reason?" He laid his hand on the young +man's shoulder and looked him in the eyes.</p> + +<p>Dominique's fell. "Father," he entreated in a choking voice, +"you know my secret: do not be hard on me! 'Lead us not into +temptation'—"</p> + +<p>"It will not serve you to run from yours. You must do battle with +it. Bethink you that, as through the Wilderness, there are more ways +than one in love, and the best is that of self-denial. Mademoiselle +Diane is not for you, Dominique, her father's <i>censitaire</i>: yet you +may love her your life through, and do her lifelong service. +To-morrow, by taking these men to Fort Amitié, you may ease her heart +of its fears: and will you fail in so simple a devoir? There is too +much of self in your passion, Dominique—for I will not call it love. +Love finds itself in giving: but passion is always a beggar."</p> + +<p>"My Father, you do not understand—"</p> + +<p>"Who told you that I do not understand?" the priest interrupted +harshly. "I too have known passion, and learnt that it is full of +self and comes of Satan. Nay, is that not evident to you, seeing +what mischief it has already worked in your life? Think of Bateese."</p> + +<p>"Do I ever cease thinking of Bateese? Do I ever cease fighting with +myself?" Dominique's voice rose almost to a cry of pain. He stared +across the water with gloomy eyes and added—it seemed quite +inconsequently—"The Cascades is a bad fall, but I think it will be +the Roches Fendues that gets me in the end."</p> + +<p>He said it calmly, wistfully: and, pausing for a moment, met the +priest's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Your blessing, Father. I will go."</p> + +<p>He knelt.</p> + +<p>Generations of <i>voyageurs</i>, upward bound, and porting their canoes to +avoid the falls, had worn a track beside the river bank. Dominique +made such speed back along it that he came in sight of Boisveyrac as +the bell in the little chapel of the Seigniory began to ring the +Angelus. Its note came floating down the river distinct above the +sound of the falls. He bared his head, and repeated his <i>Aves</i> duly.</p> + +<p>"But all the same," he added, working out the train of his thoughts +as he gazed across the deserted harvest-fields, impoverished by +tree-stumps, to the dense forest behind the Château, "let God +confound the English, and New France shall belong to a new <i>noblesse</i> +that have learned, as the old will not, to lay their hands on her +wealth."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="13"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3> + +<h4>THE WHITE TUNIC.</h4> + +<p>John à Cleeve lay on his bed in the guest-room of the Seigniory, +listening to the sound of the distant falls.</p> + +<p>That song was his anodyne. All day he had let it lull his +conscience, rousing himself irritably as from a drugged sleep to +answer the questions put to him by Dominique or the priest. +Dominique's questions had been few and easily answered, the most of +them relating to the battle.</p> + +<p>"A brother of mine was there beyond doubt," he had wound up +wistfully. "He is a bateau-man, by name Baptiste Guyon. But of +course you will not know him?"</p> + +<p>"Ils m'ont tire pour la battue, moi," John had fenced him off with a +feeble joke and a feeble laugh. (Why should he feel ashamed? +Was this not war, and he a prisoner tricking his captors?)</p> + +<p>But the priest had been a nuisance. Heaven be praised for his going!</p> + +<p>And now the shadows were closing upon the room, and in the hush of +sunset the voice of the waters had lifted its pitch and was humming +insistently, with but a semitone's fall and rise. During the +priest's exhortations he had turned his face to the wall; but now for +an hour he had lain on his other side, studying the rafters, the +furniture, the ray of sunlight creeping along the floor-boards and up +the dark, veneered face of an <i>armoire</i> built into the wall. +Behind the doors of it hung Sergeant Barboux's white tunic; and +sometimes it seemed to him that the doors were transparent and he saw +it dangling like a grey ghost within.</p> + +<p>It was to avoid this sight that he had turned to the wall when the +priest began to interrogate him. Heavens! how incurably, after all, +he hated these priests!</p> + +<p>Menehwehna had answered most of the questions, standing by the bed's +foot: and Menehwehna was seated there still in the dusk.</p> + +<p>How many lies had Menehwehna told? John himself had told none, +unless it were a lie to pronounce his name French-fashion—"John à +Cleeve," "Jean à Clive." And, once more, was not this war?</p> + +<p>For the rest and for his own part, it was astonishing how easily, the +central truth being hidden—that the tunic in the <i>armoire</i> was not +his—the deception had run on its own wheels. Why, after all, should +that tunic frighten him? He, John à Cleeve, had not killed its +wearer. He had never buttoned it about him nor slipped an arm into +one of its sleeves. Menehwehna had offered to help him into it and +had shown much astonishment on being refused. John's own soiled +regimentals they had weighted with a stone and sunk in the river, and +he had been lying all but naked, with the accursed garment over his +legs, when the rescue-party found them on the bank.</p> + +<p>How many lies had Menehwehna told? John could remember the sound of +two voices, the priest's and the Indian's, questioning and +explaining; but the sound only. As soon as he shut his eyes and +tried to recall the words, the priest's voice faded down the song of +the falls, and only the Indian and himself were left, dropping— +dropping—to the sound, over watery ledges and beneath pendent +boughs. Then, as the walls of the room dissolved and the priest's +figure vanished with them, Menehwehna's voice grew distinct. +At one time it said: "What is done is done. Come with me, and we +will go up through the Great Lakes, beyond Michilimackinac, to the +Beaver Islands which are in the mouth of Lake Michigan. There we +will find the people of my tribe, and when the snow comes and they +separate, you shall go with me to the wintering-grounds and learn to +be a hunter."</p> + +<p>In another dream the voice said: "You will not come because you weary +of me and wish to leave me. We have voyaged together, and little by +little my heart has been opened to you; but yours will not open in +return. I would have made you to me all that Muskingon was; but you +would not. When I killed that man, it was for your sake no less than +Muskingon's. I told him so when he died. Of what avail is my +friendship, brother, when you will give me none in exchange?…"</p> + +<p>In yet a third dream the canoe floated on a mirror, between a forest +and the image of a forest.… His eyes followed the silver wake of +a musk-rat swimming from shore to shore, and in his ear Menehwehna +was saying, "Your head is weak yet: when it grows stronger you will +wish to come. Muskingon struck you too hard—so—with the flat of +his tomahawk. He did not mean it, but his heart was jealous that +already so much of my love had passed over to you. Yet he was a good +lad, and my daughter's husband. The White-coat called across the +stream to him, to kill you; but he would not, nor would he bring you +over the ford until we had made the White-coat promise that you +should not be killed for trying to run away. The man could do +nothing against us two; but he bore ill-will to Muskingon afterwards, +and left him to die when we could have saved him."</p> + +<p>So, while John had lain senseless, fate had been binding him with +cords—cords of guilt and cords of gratitude—and twining them +inextricably. Therefore he feared sleep, because these dreams awoke +him to pluck again at the knot of conscience. Ease came only with +the brain's exhaustion, when in sheer weakness he could let slip the +tangle and let the song of the rapids drug his senses once more.</p> + +<p>He turned on his side and watched the sunbeam as it crept up the face +of the <i>armoire</i>. "Menehwehna!" he called weakly.</p> + +<p>From his seat in the corner among the shadows the Indian came and +stood behind him.</p> + +<p>"Menehwehna, this lying cannot go on! Make you for this fort they +talk of; tell your tale there and push on to join your tribe. +Let us fix a length of time, enough for your travel beyond reach, and +at the end of it I will speak."</p> + +<p>"And what will my brother tell them?"</p> + +<p>"The truth—that I am no Frenchman but an English prisoner."</p> + +<p>"It is weakness makes you lose patience," answered Menehwehna, +as one might soothe a child. "Let the weak listen to the strong. +All things I have contrived, and will contrive; there is no danger, +and will be none."</p> + +<p>John groaned. How could he explain that he abhorred this lying? +Worse—how could he explain that he loathed Menehwehna's company and +could not be friends with him as of old; that something in his blood, +something deep and ineradicable as the difference between white man +and red man, cried out upon the sergeant's murder? How could he make +this clear? Menehwehna—who had preserved his life, nursed him, +toiled for him cheerfully, borne with him patiently—would understand +only that all these pains had been spent upon an ingrate. +John tugged away from the bond of guilt only to tighten this other +yet more hateful bond of gratitude. He must sever them both, and in +one way only could this be done. He and Menehwehna must part. +"I do not fear to be a prisoner. Moreover, it will not be for long. +The river leads, after all, to Quebec; and the English, if they take +Louisbourg, will quickly push up that way."</p> + +<p>"The White-coat used to speak wisdom once in a while," answered +Menehwehna gravely. "'It is a great battle,' he said, 'that battle +of If; only it has the misfortune never to be fought.' Take heart, +brother, and come with me to the Isles du Castor. When your +countrymen take Quebec you shall return to them, if you still have +the mind, and I will swear that we held you captive. But to tell +this needless tale is a sick man's folly."</p> + +<p>John could not meet the Indian's eyes, full as they were of a +wondering simplicity. He feared they might read the truth—that his +desire to escape was dead. During Father Launoy's exhortations he +had lain, as it were, with his ear against its cold heart; had lain +secretly whispering it to awake. But it would not. The questions +and cross-questions about Douai he had answered almost inattentively. +What did it all matter?</p> + +<p>The priest had been merely tedious. Back on Lake Champlain and on +the Richelieu, when the world of his ken, though lost, lay not far +behind him, his hope had been to escape and seek back to it; his +comfort against failure the thought that here in the north one +restful, familiar face awaited him—the face of the Church Catholic. +Now the hope and the consolation were gone together. Perhaps under +the lengthening strain some vital spring had snapped in him, or the +forests had slowly choked it, or it had died with a nerve of the +brain under Muskingon's tomahawk.</p> + +<p>He was not Sergeant à Clive of the regiment of Béarn; but almost as +little was he that Ensign John à Cleeve of the Forty-sixth who had +entered the far side of the Wilderness.</p> + +<p>He wanted only to be quit of Menehwehna and guilt. It would be a +blessed relief to lie lost, alone, as a ball tossed into a large +country. As he had fallen, so he prayed to lie; empty in the midst +of a great emptiness. The Communion of all the Saints could not +comfort him now, since he had passed all need of comfort.</p> + +<p>"You must go, Menehwehna. I will not speak until you are beyond +reach."</p> + +<p>"It is my brother that talks so. Else would I call it the twitter of +a wren that has flown over. Is Menehwehna a coward, that he spoke +with thought of saving himself?"</p> + +<p>"I know that you did not," answered John, and cursed the knowledge. +But the voice of the falls had begun to lull him. "We will talk of +it to-morrow," he said drowsily.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed; for this is a thought of sickness, that a man should +choose to be a prisoner when by any means he may be free."</p> + +<p>He found a tinder-box and lit the night-lamp—a wick floating in a +saucer of oil: then, having shaken up John's pillow and given him to +drink from a pannikin, went noiselessly back to his corner.</p> + +<p>The light wavered on the dark panels of the <i>armoire</i>. While John +watched, it fell into tune with the music of the distant falls.…</p> + +<p>He awoke, with the rhythm of dance-music in his brain. In his dream +the dawn was about him, and he stood on the lawn outside the +Schuylers' great house above Albany. From the ballroom came the +faint sound of violins, while he lingered to say good-bye to three +night-gowned little girls in the window over the porch; and some way +down the hill stood young Sagramore, of the Twenty-seventh, who was +saying, "It is a long way to go. Do you think he is strong enough?"</p> + +<p>Still in his dream John turned on him indignantly. And behold! +it was not young Sagramore, but Dominique, standing by the bed and +talking with Menehwehna.</p> + +<p>"We are to start for the Fort, it appears," said Menehwehna to John.</p> + +<p>"Let us first make sure," said Dominique, "that he is strong enough +to dress." He thrust his hand within the <i>armoire</i> and unhitched the +white tunic from its peg.</p> + +<p>John shrank back into his corner.</p> + +<p>"Not that!" he stammered.</p> + +<p>Across the lamp smoking in the dawn, Dominique stared at him.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="14"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3> + +<h4>FORT AMITIé.</h4> + +<p>The Fort stood high on a wooded slope around which the river swept +through narrows to spread itself below in a lake three miles wide and +almost thirty long. In shape it was quadrilateral with a frontage of +fifty toises and a depth of thirty, and from each angle of its stone +walls abutted a flanking tower, the one at the western angle taller +than the others by a good twenty feet and surmounted by a flagstaff.</p> + +<p>East, west, and south, the ground fell gently to the water's edge, +entirely clear of trees: even their stumps had been uprooted to +make room for small gardens in which the garrison grew its cabbages +and pot-herbs; and below these gardens the Commandant's cows roamed +in a green riverside meadow. At the back a rougher clearing, two +cannon-shots in width, divided the northern wall from the dark tangle +of the forest.</p> + +<p>The canoe had been sighted far down the lake, and the Commandant +himself, with his brother M. Etienne and his daughter Mademoiselle +Diane, had descended to the quay to welcome the <i>voyageurs</i>. +A little apart stood Sergeant Bédard, old Jérémie Tripier (formerly +major-domo and general factotum at Boisveyrac, now at Fort Amitié +promoted to be <i>maréchal des logis</i>), and five or six militiamen. +And to John, as he neared the shore in the haze of a golden evening, +the scene and the figures—the trim little stone fortress, the white +banner of France transparent against the sky, the sentry like a toy +figure at the gate, the cattle browsing below, the group at the +river's brink—appeared as a tableau set for a child's play.</p> + +<p>To add to the illusion, as the canoe came to the quay the sun sank, a +gun boomed out from the tallest of the four towers, and the flag ran +down its staff; all as if by clockwork. As if by clockwork, too, the +taller of the two old gentlemen on the quay—the one in a gold-laced +coat—stepped forward with a wave of his hand.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, welcome, my good Dominique! It will be news you bring from +Boisveyrac—more news of the great victory, perhaps? And who are +these your comrades?"</p> + +<p>"Your servant, Monseigneur; and yours, Monsieur Etienne, and yours, +Mademoiselle Diane!" Dominique brought his canoe alongside and +saluted respectfully. "All my own news is that we have gathered the +harvest at Boisveyrac; a crop not far below the average, we hope. +But Father Launoy desired me to bring you these strangers, who will +tell of matters more important."</p> + +<p>"It is the wounded man—the sergeant from Fort Carillon!" cried +Diane, clasping her hands.</p> + +<p>"Eh, my child? Nonsense, nonsense—he wears no uniform, as you see. +Moreover, 'Polyte Latulippe brought word that he was lying at the +point of death."</p> + +<p>"It is he, nevertheless."</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle has guessed rightly," said Dominique. "It is the +wounded soldier. I have lent him an outfit."</p> + +<p>The Commandant stared incredulously from Dominique to John, from John +to Menehwehna, and back again to John. A delightful smile irradiated +his face.</p> + +<p>"Then you bring us a good gift indeed! Welcome, sir, welcome to Fort +Amitié! where we will soon have you hale and strong again, if nursing +can do it."</p> + +<p>Here, if John meant to play his part, was the moment for him to +salute. He half lifted his hand as he reclined, but let it fall +again. From the river-bank a pair of eyes looked down into his; dark +grey eyes—or were they violet?—shy and yet bold, dim and yet +shining with emotion. God help him! This child—she could be little +more—was worshipping him for a hero!</p> + +<p>"Nay, sir, give it to me!" cried the Commandant, stooping by the +quay's edge. "I shall esteem it an honour to grasp the hand of one +who comes from Fort Carillon—who was wounded for France in her hour +of victory. Your name, my friend?—for the messengers who brought +word of you yesterday had not heard it, or perhaps had forgotten."</p> + +<p>"My name is à Cleeve, monsieur."</p> + +<p>"À Clive? à Clive? It is unknown to me, and yet it has a good sound, +and should belong to <i>un homme Men ne</i>?" He turned inquiringly +towards his brother, a mild, elderly man with a scHolàr's stoop and a +face which assorted oddly with his uniform of captain of militia, +being shrivelled as parchment and snuff-dried and abstracted in +expression as though he had just lifted his eyes from a book. +"À Clive, Etienne. From what province should our friend derive?"</p> + +<p>M. Etienne's eyes—they were, in fact, short-sighted—seemed to +search inwardly for a moment before he answered:</p> + +<p>"There was a family of that name in the Quercy; so late, I think, as +1650. I had supposed it to be extinct. It bore arms counterpaly +argent and gules, a canton ermine—"</p> + +<p>"My brother, sir," the Commandant interrupted, "is a famous +genealogist. Do you accept this coat-of-arms he assigns to you?"</p> + +<p>"If M. le Commandant will excuse me—"</p> + +<p>"Eh, eh?—an awkward question, no doubt, to put to many a young man +of family now serving with the colours?" The Commandant chuckled +knowingly. "But I have an eye, sir, for nice shades, and an ear too. +<i>Verbum sapienti satis</i>. A sergeant, they tell me—and of the +Béarnais; but until we have cured you, sir, and the active list again +claims you, you are Monsieur à Clive and my guest. We shall talk, +so, upon an easier footing. Tut-tut! I have eyes in my head, I +repeat. And this Indian of yours—how does he call himself?"</p> + +<p>"Menehwehna, monsieur. He is an Ojibway."</p> + +<p>"And you and he have come by way of the Wilderness? Now what puzzles +me—"</p> + +<p>"Papa!" interposed the girl gently, laying a hand on her father's +sleeve; "ought we not to get him ashore before troubling him with all +these questions? He is suffering, I think."</p> + +<p>"You say well, my child. A thousand pardons, sir. Here, Bédard! +Jérémie!"</p> + +<p>But it was Menehwehna who, with inscrutable face, helped John ashore, +suffering the others only to hold the canoe steady. John tried hard +to collect his thoughts to face this new situation. He had dreamed +of falling among savages in these backwoods; but he had fallen among +folk gentle in manner and speech, anxious to show him courtesy; folk +to whom (as in an instant he divined) truth and uprightness were +dearer than life and judged as delicately as by his own family at +home in Devonshire. How came they here? Who was this girl whose eyes +he avoided lest they should weigh him, as a sister's might, in the +scales of honour?</p> + +<p>A man may go through life cherishing many beliefs which are +internecine foes; unaware of their discordance, or honestly persuaded +that within him the lion and the lamb are lying down together, +whereas in truth his fate has never drawn the bolts of their separate +cages. John had his doubts concerning God; but something deeper than +reason within him detested a lie. Yet as a soldier he had accepted +without examination the belief that many actions vile in peace are in +war permissible, even obligatory; a loose belief, the limits of which +no man in his regiment—perhaps no man in the two armies—could have +defined. In war you may kill; nay, you must; but you must do it by +code, and with many exceptions and restrictions as to the how and +when. In war (John supposed) you may lie; nay, again, in certain +circumstances you must.</p> + +<p>With this girl's eyes upon him, worshipping him for a hero, John +discovered suddenly that here and now he could not. For an instant, +as if along a beam of light, he looked straight into Militarism's +sham and ugly heart.</p> + +<p>Yes, he saw it quite clearly, and was resolved to end the lie. +But for the moment, in his bodily weakness, his will lagged behind +his brain. As a sick man tries to lift a hand and cannot, so he +sought to rally his will to meet the crisis and was dismayed to find +it benumbed and half-asleep.</p> + +<p>They were ascending the slope, and still as they went the +Commandant's voice was questioning him.</p> + +<p>"Through the Wilderness! That was no small exploit, my friend, and +it puzzles me how you came to attempt it; for you were severely +wounded, were you not?"</p> + +<p>"I received two wounds at Fort Carillon, monsieur. The proposal to +make across the woods was not mine. It came from the French sergeant +in command of our boat."</p> + +<p>"So—so. I ought to have guessed it. You were a whole boat's party +then, at starting?" John felt the crisis near; but the Commandant's +mind was discursive, and he paused to wave a proprietary hand towards +the walls and towers of his fortress. "A snug little shelter for the +backwoods—eh, M. à Clive? I am, you must know, a student of the art +of fortification; <i>c'est ma rengaine</i>, as my daughter will tell you, +and I shall have much to ask concerning that famous outwork of +M. de Montcalm's, which touches my curiosity. So far as Damase could +tell me, Fort Carillon itself was never even in danger—" But here +Mademoiselle Diane again touched his sleeve. "Yes, yes, to be sure, +we will not weary our friend just now. We will cure him first; and +while he is mending, you shall look out a new uniform from the stores +and set your needle to work to render it as like as you can contrive +to the Béarnais. Nay, sir, to her enthusiasm that will be but a +trifle. Remember that you come to us crowned with laurels, and with +news for which we welcome you as though you brought a message from +the General himself." A sudden thought fetched the Commandant to a +standstill. "You are sure that the sergeant, your comrade, carried +no message?"</p> + +<p>John paused with Menehwehna's arm supporting him.</p> + +<p>"If he carried a message, monsieur, he told me of none."</p> + +<p>Where were his faculties? Why were they hanging back and refusing to +come to grips with the crisis? Why did this twilit riverside persist +in seeming unreal to him, and the actors, himself included, as +figures moving in a shadow-play?</p> + +<p>Once, in a dream, he had seen himself standing at the wings of a +stage—an actor, dressed for his part. The theatre was crowded; +someone had begun to ring a bell for the curtain to go up; and he, +the hero of the piece, knew not one word of his part, could not even +remember the name of the play or what it was about. The dream had +been extraordinarily vivid, and he had awakened in a sweat.</p> + +<p>"But," the Commandant urged, "he must have had some reason for +striking through the forest. What was his name?"</p> + +<p>"Barboux."</p> + +<p>John, as he answered, could not see Menehwehna's face; but +Menehwehna's supporting arm did not flinch.</p> + +<p>"Was he, too, of the regiment of Béarn?"</p> + +<p>"He was of the Béarnais, monsieur."</p> + +<p>"Tell us now. When the Iroquois overtook you, could he have passed +on a message, had he carried one?"</p> + +<p>While John hesitated, Menehwehna answered him. "It was I only who +saw the sergeant die," said Menehwehna quietly. He gave me no +message."</p> + +<p>"You were close to him?"</p> + +<p>"Very close."</p> + +<p>"It is curious," mused the Commandant, and turned to John again. +"Your falling in with the Iroquois, monsieur, gives me some anxiety; +since it happens that a party from here and from Fort Frontenac was +crossing the Wilderness at about the same time, with messages for the +General on Lake Champlain. You saw nothing of them?"</p> + +<p>Again Menehwehna took up the answer. "We met no one but these +Iroquois," he said smoothly.</p> + +<p>And as Menehwehna spoke the words John felt that everyone in the +group about him had been listening for it with a common tension of +anxiety. He gazed around, bewildered for the moment by the lie. +The girl stood with clasped hands. "Thank God!" he heard the +Commandant say, lifting his hat.</p> + +<p>What new mystery was here? Menehwehna stood with a face immobile and +inscrutable; and John's soul rose up against him in rage and +loathing. The man had dishonoured him, counting on his gratitude to +endorse the lie. Well, he was quit of gratitude now. "To-morrow, my +fine fellow," said he to himself, clenching his teeth, "the whole +tale shall be told; between this and the telling you may save your +skin, if you can "; and so he turned to the Commandant.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur," he said with a meaning glance at Menehwehna, "I beg you +to accept no part of our story until I have told it through to you."</p> + +<p>The Commandant was plainly puzzled. "Willingly, monsieur; but I beg +you to consider the sufferings of our curiosity and be kind in +putting a term to them."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow—" began John, and looking up, came to a pause. +Dominique Guyon had followed them up from the boat and was thrusting +himself unceremoniously upon the Commandant's attention.</p> + +<p>"Since this monsieur mentions to-morrow," interrupted Dominique +abruptly, "and before I am dismissed to supper, may I claim the +Seigneur's leave to depart early to-morrow morning?"</p> + +<p>The interruption was so unmannerly that John stared from one to +another of the group. The Commandant's face had grown very red +indeed. Dominique himself seemed sullenly aware of his rudeness. +But John's eyes came to rest on Mademoiselle Diane's; on her eyes for +an instant, and then on her lashes, as she bent her gaze on the +ground—it seemed to him, purposely, and to avoid Dominique's.</p> + +<p>"Dominique," said the Commandant haughtily, "you forget yourself. +You intrude upon my conversation with this gentleman." His voice +shook and yet it struck John that his anger covered some anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Monseigneur must forgive me," answered Dominique, still with an +awkward sullenness. "But it is merely my dismissal that I beg. +I wish to return early to-morrow to Boisveyrac; the harvest there is +gathered, to be sure, but no one can be trusted to finish the stacks. +With so many dancing attendance on the military, the Seigniory +suffers; and, by your leave, I am responsible for it."</p> + +<p>He glared upon John, who gazed back honestly puzzled. The Commandant +seemed on the verge of an explosion, but checked himself.</p> + +<p>"My excellent Dominique Guyon," said he, "uses the freedom of an old +tenant. But here we are at the gate. I bid you welcome, Monsieur a +Clive, to my small fortress! Tut, tut, Dominique! We will talk of +business in the morning."</p> + +<br><br> +<p>Alone with Menehwehna in the bare hospital ward to which old Jérémie +as <i>maréchal des logis</i> escorted them, John turned on the Ojibway and +let loose his indignation.</p> + +<p>"And look you," he wound up, "this shall be the end. At daybreak +to-morrow the gate of the fort will be opened. Take the canoe and +make what speed you can. I will give you until ten o'clock, but at +that hour I promise you to tell my tale to the Commandant, and to +tell him all."</p> + +<p>"If my brother is resolved," said Menehwehna composedly, "let him +waste no words. What is settled is settled, and to be angry will do +his head no good."</p> + +<p>He composed himself to sleep on the floor at the foot of John's bed, +pulling his rug up to his ears. There were six empty beds in the +ward, and one had been prepared for him; but Menehwehna despised +beds.</p> + +<p>John awoke to sunlight. It poured in through three windows high in +the whitewashed wall opposite, and his first thought was to turn over +and look for Menehwehna.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna had disappeared.</p> + +<p>John lay back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. Menehwehna +had gone; he was free of him, and this day was to deliver his soul. +In an hour or so he would be sitting under lock and key, but with a +conscience bathed and refreshed, a companion to be looked in the +face, a clear-eyed counsellor. The morning sunlight filled the room +with a clean cheerfulness, and he seemed to drink it in through his +pores. Forgetting his wound, he jumped out of bed with a laugh.</p> + +<p>As he did so his eye travelled along the empty beds in the ward, and +along a row of pegs above them, and stiffened suddenly.</p> + +<p>There were twelve pegs, and all were bare save one—the one in the +wall-space separating his bed from the bed which had been prepared +for Menehwehna; and from this peg hung Sergeant Barboux's white +tunic.</p> + +<p>It had not been hanging there last night when he dropped asleep: to +that he could take his oath. He had supposed it to be left behind in +the <i>armoire</i> at Boisveyrac. For a full minute he sat on the bed's +edge gazing at it in sheer dismay, its evil menace closing like a +grip upon his heart.</p> + +<p>But by and by the grip relaxed as dismay gave room to rage, and with +rage came courage.</p> + +<p>He laughed again fiercely. Up to this moment he had always shrunk +from touch of the thing; but now he pulled it from its peg, held it +at arm's length for a moment, and flung it contemptuously on the +floor.</p> + +<p>"You, at least, I am not going to fear any longer!"</p> + +<p>As he cast it from him something crackled under his fingers. For a +second or two he stood over the tunic, eyeing it between old disgust +and new surmise. Then, dropping on one knee, he fumbled it over, +found the inner breast-pocket, and pulled from it a paper.</p> + +<p>It was of many sheets, folded in a blue wrapper, sealed with a large +red seal, and addressed in cipher.</p> + +<p>Turning it over in his hand, he caught sight, in the lower left-hand +corner, of a dark spot which his thumb had covered. He stared at it; +then at his thumb, to the ball of which some red dust adhered; then +at the seal. The wax bore the impress of a flying Mercury, with cap, +caduceus and winged sandals. The ciphered address he could not +interpret; it was brief, written in two lines, in a bold clear hand.</p> + +<p>This, then, was the missive which Barboux had carried.</p> + +<p>Had Menehwehna discovered it and placed it here for him to discover? +Yes, undoubtedly. And this was a French dispatch; and at any cost he +must intercept it! His soldier's sacrament required no less. +He must conceal it—seek his opportunity to escape with it—go on +lying meanwhile in hope of an opportunity.</p> + +<p>Where now was the prospects of his soul's deliverance?</p> + +<p>He crept back to bed and was thrusting the letter under his pillow +when a slight sound drew his eyes towards the door.</p> + +<p>In the doorway stood Menehwehna with a breakfast-tray. The Indian's +eyes travelled calmly across the room as he entered and set the tray +down on the bed next to John's. Without speaking he picked up the +tumbled tunic from the floor and set it back on its peg.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="15"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + +<h4>AGAIN THE WHITE TUNIC.</h4> + +<p>"But touching this polygon of M. de Montcalm's—"</p> + +<p>Within the curtain-wall facing the waterside the ground had been +terraced up to form a high platform or <i>terre-plein</i>, whence six +guns, mounted in embrasures, commanded the river. Hither John had +crept, with the support of a stick, to enjoy the sunshine and the +view, and here the Commandant had found him and held him in talk, +walking him to and fro, with pauses now and again beside a gun for a +few minutes' rest.</p> + +<p>"But touching this polygon of M. de Montcalm's, he would doubtless +follow Courmontaigne rather than Vauban. The angles, you say, were +boldly advanced?"</p> + +<p>"So they appeared to me, monsieur; but you understand that I took no +part—"</p> + +<p>"By advancing the angles boldly"—here the Commandant pressed his +finger-tips together by way of illustration—"we allow so much more +play to enfilading fire. I speak only of defence against direct +assault; for of opposing such a structure to artillery the General +could have had no thought."</p> + +<p>"Half a dozen six-pounders, well directed, could have knocked it +about his ears in as many minutes."</p> + +<p>"That does not detract from his credit. Every general fights with +two heads—his own and his adversary's; and, for the rest, we have to +do what we can do with our material." The Commandant halted and +gazed down whimsically upon the courtyard, in the middle of which his +twenty-five militiamen were being drilled by M. Etienne and Sergeant +Bédard. "My whole garrison, sir! Eh? you seem incredulous. +My whole garrison, I give you my word! Five-and-twenty militiamen to +defend a post of this importance; and up at Fort Frontenac, the very +key of the West, my old friend Payan de Noyan has but a hundred in +command! I do not understand it, sir. Stores we have in abundance, +and ammunition and valuable presents to propitiate the Indians who no +longer exist in this neighbourhood. Yes, and—would you believe +it?—no longer than three months ago the Governor sent up a boatload +of women. It appeared that his Majesty had forwarded them all the +way from France, for wives for his faithful soldiers. I packed them +off, sir, and returned them to M. de Vaudreuil. 'With all submission +to his Majesty's fatherly wisdom,' I wrote, 'the requirements of New +France at this moment are best determined by sterner considerations'; +and I asked for fifty regulars to man our defences. M. de Vaudreuil +replied by sending me up one man, and <i>he</i> had but one arm! I made +Noyan a present of him; his notions of fortification were +rudimentary, not to say puerile."</p> + +<p>The Commandant paused and dug the surface of the <i>terre-plein</i> +indignantly with his heel. "As for fortification, do I not know +already what additional defences we need? Fort Amitié, monsieur, was +constructed by the great Frontenac himself, and with wonderful +sagacity, if we consider the times. Take, for example, the towers. +You are acquainted, of course, with the modern rule of giving the +bastions a salient angle of fifteen degrees in excess of half the +angle of the figure in all figures from the square up to the +dodecagon? Well, Fort Amitié being a square—or rather a +right-angled quadrilateral—the half of its angle will be forty-five +degrees; add fifteen, and we get sixty; which is as nearly as +possible the salience of our flanking towers; only they happen to be +round. So far, so good; but Frontenac had naturally no opportunity +of studying Vauban's masterpieces, and perhaps as the older man he +never digested Vauban's theories. He did not see that a +quadrilateral measuring fifty toises by thirty must need some +protection midway in its longer curtains, and more especially on the +riverside. A ravelin is out of the question, for we have no +counterscarp to stand it on—no ditch at all in fact; our glaçis +slopes straight from the curtain to the river. I have thought of a +tenaille—of a flat bastion. We could do so much if only +M. de Vaudreuil would send us men!—but, as it is, on what are we +relying? Simply, M. à Clive, on our enemies' ignorance of our +weakness."</p> + +<p>John turned his face away and stared out over the river. The walls +of the fort seemed to stifle him; but in truth his own breast was the +prison.</p> + +<p>"Well now," the Commandant pursued, "your arrival has set me +thinking. We cannot strengthen ourselves against artillery; but they +say that these English generals learn nothing. They may come against +us with musketry, and what served Fort Carillon may also serve Fort +Amitié. A breastwork—call it a lunette—half-way down the slope +yonder, so placed as to command the landing-place at close musket +range—it might be useful, eh? There will be trouble with Polyphile +Cartier—'Sans Quartier,' as they call him. He is proud of his +cabbages, and we might have to evict them; yes, certainly our lunette +would impinge upon his cabbages. But the safety of the Fort would, +of course, override all such considerations."</p> + +<p>He caught John by the arm and hurried him along for a better view of +Sans Quartier's cabbage-patch. And just then Mademoiselle Diane came +walking swiftly towards them from the end of the <i>terre-plein</i> by the +flagstaff tower. An instant later the head and shoulders of +Dominique Guyon appeared above the ascent.</p> + +<p>Clearly he was following her; and as she drew near John read, or +thought he read, a deep trouble in the child's eyes. But from her +eyes his glance fell upon a bundle that she carried, and his own +cheek paled. For the bundle was a white tunic, and it took a second +glance to assure him that the tunic was a new one and not Sergeant +Barboux's!</p> + +<p>"Eh? What did I tell you? She has been rifling the stores already!" +Here the Commandant caught sight of Dominique and hailed him. +"Holà, Dominique!"</p> + +<p>Dominique halted for a moment and then came slowly forward; while the +girl, having greeted John with a grown woman's dignity, stood close +by her father's elbow.</p> + +<p>"Dominique, how many men can you spare me from Boisveyrac, now that +the harvest is over?"</p> + +<p>"For what purpose do you wish men, Monseigneur?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? That is my affair, I hope."</p> + +<p>The young man's face darkened, but he controlled himself to say +humbly, "Monseigneur rebukes me with justice. I should not have +spoken so; but it was in alarm for his interests."</p> + +<p>"You mean that you are unwilling to spare me a single man? +Come, come, my friend—the harvest is gathered; and, apart from that, +my interests are the King's. Positively you must spare me half a +dozen for his Majesty's <i>corvée</i>."</p> + +<p>"The harvest is gathered, to be sure; but no one at Boisveyrac can be +trusted to finish the stacks. They are a good-for-nothing lot; and +now Damase, the best thatcher among them, has, I hear, been sent up +to Fort Frontenac along with 'Polyte Latulippe."</p> + +<p>"By my orders."</p> + +<p>Dominique bent his eyes on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Monseigneur's orders shall be obeyed. May I have his permission to +return at once to Boisveyrac?—at least, as soon as we have discussed +certain matters of business?"</p> + +<p>"Business? But since it is not convenient just now—" It seemed to +John that the old gentleman had suddenly grown uneasy.</p> + +<p>"I speak only of certain small repairs: the matter of Lagassé's +holding, for example," said Dominique tranquilly. "The whole will +not detain Monseigneur above ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"Ah, to be sure!" The Commandant's voice betrayed relief. "Come to +my orderly-room, then. You will excuse me, M. à Clive?"</p> + +<p>He turned to go, and Dominique stepped aside to allow the girl to +accompany her father. But she made no sign. He shot a look at her +and sullenly descended the terrace at his seigneur's heels.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle Diane's brow grew clear again as the sound of his +footsteps died away, and presently she faced John with a smile so gay +and frank that (although, quite involuntarily, he had been watching +her) the change startled him. There was something in this girl at +once innocently candid and curiously elusive; to begin with, he could +not decide whether to think of her as child or woman. Last night her +eyes had rested on him with a child's open wonder, and a minute ago +in Dominique's presence she had seemed to shrink close to her father +with a child's timidity. Now, gaily as she smiled, her bearing had +grown dignified and self-possessed.</p> + +<p>"You are not to leave me, please, M. à Clive—seeing that I came +expressly to find you."</p> + +<p>John lifted his hat with mock gravity. "You do me great honour, +mademoiselle. And Dominique?" he added. "Was he also coming in +search of me?"</p> + +<p>She frowned, and turning towards a cannon in the embrasure behind +her, spread the white tunic carefully upon it. "Dominique Guyon is +tiresome," she said. "At times, as you have heard, he speaks with +too much freedom to my father; but it is the freedom of old service. +The Guyons have farmed Boisveyrac for our family since first the +Seigniory was built." She seemed about to say more, but checked +herself, and stood smoothing an arm of the tunic upon the gun. +"Ah, here is Félicité!" she exclaimed, as a stout middle-aged woman +came bustling along the terrace towards them. "You have kept me +waiting, Félicité. And, good heavens! what is that you carry? +Did I not tell you that I would get Jérémie to find me a tunic from +the stores? See, I have one already."</p> + +<p>"But this is not from the stores, mademoiselle!" panted Félicité, as +she came to a halt. "It appears that monsieur brought his tunic with +him—Jérémie told me he had seen it hanging by his bed in the sick +ward—and here it is, see you!" She displayed it triumphantly, +spreading its skirts to the sunshine. "A trifle soiled! but it will +save us all the trouble in the world with the measurements—eh, +mademoiselle?"</p> + +<p>Diane's eyes were on John's face. For a moment or two she did not +answer, but at length said slowly:</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless you shall measure monsieur. Have you the tapes? Good: +give me one, with the blue chalk, and I will check off your +measurements."</p> + +<p>She seated herself on the gun-carriage and drew the two tunics on to +her lap. John shivered as she touched the dead sergeant's.</p> + +<p>Félicité grinned as she advanced with the tape. "Do not be shy of +me, monsieur," she encouraged him affably. "You are a hero, and I +myself am the mother of eight, which is in its way heroic. +There should be a good understanding between us. Raise your arms a +little, pray, while I take first of all the measure of your chest."</p> + +<p>Her two arms—and they were plump, not to say brawny—went about him. +"Thirty-eight," she announced, after examining the tape. It's long +since I have embraced one so slight."</p> + +<p>"Thirty-eight," repeated Mademoiselle Diane, puckering up her lips +and beginning to measure off the <i>pouces</i> across the breast and back +of Sergeant Barboux's tunic. "Thirty-eight, did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Thirty-eight, mademoiselle. We must remember that these brave +defenders of ours sometimes pad themselves a little; it will be +nothing amiss if you allow for forty. Eh, monsieur?" Félicité +laughed up in John's face. "But you find some difficulty, +mademoiselle. Can I help you?"</p> + +<p>"I thank you—it is all right," Diane answered hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"Waist, twenty-nine," Félicité continued. "One might even say +twenty-eight, only monsieur is drawing in his breath."</p> + +<p>"Where are the scissors, Félicité?" demanded her mistress, who had +carefully smuggled them beneath her skirt as she sat.</p> + +<p>"The scissors? Of a certainty now I brought them—but the sight +of that heathen Ojibway, when he gave me the tunic, was enough to +make any decent woman faint! I shook like an aspen, if you will +credit me, all the way across the drill-ground, and perhaps the +scissors… no, indeed, I cannot find them… but if +mademoiselle will excuse me while I run back for another pair.…" +She bustled off towards the Commandant's quarters.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle Diane reached down a hand to the tunic which had fallen +at her feet, and drew it on to her lap again, as if to examine it. +But her eyes were searching John's face.</p> + +<p>"Why do you shiver?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I beg of you not to touch it, mademoiselle. It—it hurts to see you +touching it."</p> + +<p>"Did you kill him?"</p> + +<p>"Of whom is mademoiselle speaking?"</p> + +<p>"Pray do not pretend to be stupid, monsieur. I am speaking of that +other man—the owner of this tunic—the sergeant who took you into +the forest. Did you kill him?"</p> + +<p>"He died in fair fight, mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"It was a duel, then?" He did not answer, and she continued, "I can +trust your face, monsieur. I am sure it was only in fair fight. +But why should you think me afraid to touch <i>this</i>? Oh, why, +M. à Clive, will men take it so cruelly for granted that we women are +afraid of the thought of blood—nay, even that we owe it to ourselves +to be afraid? If we are what you all insist we should be, what right +have we to be born in these times? Think of New France fighting now +for dear life—ah! why should I ask <i>you</i> to think, who have bled for +her? Yet you would have me shudder at the touch of a stained piece +of cloth; and while you hold these foolish prejudices, can you wonder +that New France has no Jeanne d'Arc? When I was at the Ursulines at +Quebec, they used to pray to her on this side of sainthood, and ask +for her intercession; but what they taught was needlework."</p> + +<p>"The world has altered since her time, mademoiselle," said John, +falsely and lamely.</p> + +<p>"Has it? It burnt her; even in those days it did its best according +to its lights," she answered bitterly. "Only in these days there are +no heroines to burn. No heroines… no fires… and even in +our needlework we must be demure, and not touch a garment that has +been touched with blood! Monsieur, was this man a coward?" +She lifted the tunic.</p> + +<p>"He was a vain fellow and a bully, mademoiselle, but by no means a +coward."</p> + +<p>"He fought for France?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and, I believe, with credit."</p> + +<p>"Then, monsieur, because he was a bully, I commend the man who killed +him fairly. And because he was brave and fought for France, I am +proud to handle his tunic."</p> + +<p>As John à Cleeve gazed at her kindled face, the one thought that rose +above his own shame was a thought that her earnestness marvellously +made her beautiful.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="16"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3> + +<h4>THE SECOND DISPATCH.</h4> + +<p>Dominique Guyon departed shortly before noon; and a week later half a +dozen <i>habitants</i> arrivéd from Boisveyrac to work at the entrenchment +which the Commandant had already opened across Sans Quartier's +cabbage plot. The Commandant himself donned a blouse and dug with +the rest; and M. Etienne; and even old Jérémie Tripier, though +grumbling over his rheumatism almost as bitterly as Sans Quartier +over his wasted cabbages. Every one, in fact, toiled, and with a +will, at the King's <i>corvée</i>: every one, that is, except the women, +and John, and Menehwehna (whose Indian dignity revolted against +spade-work), and old Father Joly, the chaplain of the fort, who was +too infirm.</p> + +<p>From him, as they sat together and watched the diggers, John learned +much of the fort's history, and something, too, of his hosts'; for +Father Joly delighted in gossip, and being too deaf to derive much +profit from asking questions kept the talk to himself—greatly to +John's relief. His gossip, be it said, was entirely innocent. +The good man seemed to love every one in his small world, except +Father Launoy. And again this exception was fortunate; for on +learning that John had been visited and exhorted at Boisveyrac by +Father Launoy, Father Joly showed no further concern in his spiritual +health. He was perhaps the oldest parochial priest in New France, +and since leaving the seminary at Quebec had spent almost all his +days at Boisveyrac. He remembered the Seigneur's father (he always +called the Commandant "the Seigneur"). "Such a man, monsieur! +He stood six feet four inches in his stockings, and could lift and +cast a grown bullock with his own hands." John pointed out that the +present Seigneur—in his working blouse especially—made a fine +figure of a man; but this the old priest could hardly be brought to +allow. "A heart of gold, I grant you; but to have seen his father +striding among his <i>censitaires</i> on St. Martin's Feast! It may be +that, having watched the son from childhood, I still think of him as +a boy.…"</p> + +<p>Of Fort Amitié itself Father Joly had much to tell. It dated from +the early days of the great Frontenac, who had planted a settlement +here—a collection of wooden huts within a stockade—to be an +<i>entrepôt</i> of commerce with the Indians of the Upper Lakes. Later it +became a favourite haunt of deserters from the army and <i>coureurs de +bois</i> outlawed by royal edict; and, strangely enough, these had been +the days of its prosperity. Its real decline began when the +Governor, toward the end of his rule, replaced the wooden huts with a +fortress of stone. The traders, trappers, ne'er-do-wells and Indians +deserted the lake-head, which had been a true camp of amity, and +moved their rendezvous farther west, leaving the fortress to its +Commandant and a sleepy garrison.</p> + +<p>From that time until the war the garrison had been composed of +regulars, who lived on the easiest terms with their Commandant and +his officers, and retired at the age of forty or fifty, when King +Louis presented them with a farm and farm stock and provisions for +two or three years, and often completed the outfit with a wife.</p> + +<p>"A veritable Age of Gold, monsieur! But war has put an end to it +all—war, and the greed of these English, whom God will confound! +The regulars went their ways, leaving only Sergeant Bédard; who had +retired upon a farm, but was persuaded by the Seigneur to come back +and drill the recruits of the militia."</p> + +<p>—"Who take very kindly to garrison life, so far as I can see."</p> + +<p>"Fort Amitié has its amenities, monsieur," said Father Joly, catching +John's glance rather than hearing the words. "There are the +allotments, to begin with—the fences between them, you may not have +observed, are made of stakes from the original palisade; the mould is +excellent. The Seigneur, too, offers prizes for vegetable-growing +and poultry-raising; he is an unerring judge of poultry, as one +has need to be at Boisveyrac, where the rents are mostly paid in +fowls. Indeed, yes, the young recruits are well enough content. +The Seigneur feeds them well, and they can usually have a holiday for +the asking and go a-hunting in the woods or a-fishing in the river. +But, for my part, I regret Boisveyrac. A man of my years does not +readily bear transplanting. And here is a curious thing, monsieur; +deaf though I am, I miss the sound of the rapids. I cannot tell you +how; nevertheless it seems to me that something has gone out of my +daily life, and the landscape here is still and empty."</p> + +<p>"And how," John managed to make him hear, "did the Seigneur come to +command Fort Amitié?"</p> + +<p>Father Joly glanced nervously down the slope and lowered his voice. +"That was M. Armand's doing, monsieur." Then, seeing that John did +not understand, "M. Armand—mademoiselle's brother and the Seigneur's +only son. He went to Quebec, when the Governor had given him a post +in his household; a small post, but with good prospects for a young +man of his birth and address. He had wits, monsieur, and good looks; +everything in short but money; and there is no better blood in the +province than that of the des Noël-Tilly. They have held Boisveyrac +now for five generations, and were Seigneurs of Deuxmanoirs and +Preaux-Sources even before that. Well, as I say, the lad started +with good prospects; but by and by he began to desert the Château +Saint-Louis for the Intendant's Palace. Monsieur has heard of the +Intendant Bigot—is perhaps acquainted with him? No? Then I may say +without hurting any one's feelings what I would say to the Intendant +himself were he here—that he is a corrupter of youth, and a +corrupter of the innocence of women, and a corrupter of honest +government. If New France lie under the scourge to-day, it is for +the sins of such men as he." The old man's voice shook with sudden +anger, but he calmed himself. "In brief, there was a gambling debt— +a huge sum owing; and the Seigneur was forced to travel to Quebec and +fetch the lad home. How he paid the amount I cannot tell you; belike +he raised the money on Boisveyrac; but pay he did. Dominique Guyon +went with him to Quebec, having just succeeded his father, old +Bonhomme Guyon, as Boisveyrac's man of business; and doubtless +Dominique made some arrangements with the merchants there. He has a +head on his shoulders, that lad. M. de Vaudreuil, too, taking pity +on a distressed gentleman of New France, gave the Seigneur the +command of this fort, to grow fat on it, and hither we have all +migrated. But our good Seigneur will never grow fat, monsieur; he is +of the poor to whom shall belong the Kingdom of God."</p> + +<p>John did not clearly understand this, being unacquainted with the +official system of peculation by false vouchers—a system under which +the command of a backwoods fort was reckoned to be worth a small +fortune. His mind recurred to Dominique and to the Commandant's +uneasiness at Dominique's mention of business.</p> + +<p>"A queer fellow, that Dominique!" he muttered, half to himself; "and +a queer fate that made him the brother of Bateese."</p> + +<p>The priest heard, as deaf men sometimes will hear a word or two +spoken below ordinary pitch.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said he, shaking his head. "You have heard of Bateese? +A sad case—a very sad case!"</p> + +<p>"There was an accident, I have heard."</p> + +<p>Father Joly glanced at John's face and, reading the question, bent +his own dim eyes on the river. John divined at once that the old man +knew more than he felt inclined to tell.</p> + +<p>"It was at Bord-à-Loup, a little above Boisveyrac, four years ago +last St. Peter's tide. The two brothers were driving some timber +which the Seigneur had cleared there; the logs had jammed around a +rock not far from shore and almost at the foot of the fall. +The two had managed to get across and were working the mass loose +with handspikes when, just as it began to break up, Bateese slipped +and fell between two logs."</p> + +<p>"Through some careless push of Dominique's, was it not?"</p> + +<p>But Father Joly did not hear, or did not seem to.</p> + +<p>"He was hideously broken, poor Bateese. For weeks it did not seem +possible that he could live. The <i>habitants</i> find Dominique a queer +fellow, even as you do; and I have observed that even Mademoiselle +Diane treats him somewhat impatiently. But in truth he is a lad +grown old before his time. It is terrible when such a blow falls +upon the young. He and Bateese adored one another."</p> + +<p>And this was all John learned at the time. But three days later he +heard more of the story, and from Mademoiselle Diane.</p> + +<p>She was seated in an embrasure of the terrace—the same, in fact, in +which she had taken measurements for John's new tunic. She was +embroidering it now with the Béarnais badge, and had spread Barboux's +tunic on the gun-breach to give her the pattern. John, passing along +the terrace in a brown study, while his eyes followed the evolutions +of Sergeant Bédard's men at morning parade in the square below, did +not catch sight of her until she called to him to come and admire her +handiwork.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur is <i>distrait</i>, it appears," she said, mischievously. +"It must be weary work for him, whiling away the hours in this +contemptible fortress?"</p> + +<p>"I do not find Fort Amitié contemptible, mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and laughed. "If you wish to please me, monsieur, +you must find some warmer praise for it. For in some sort it is my +ancestral home, and I love every stone of it."</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle speaks in riddles. I had thought that every one of the +Commandant's household—except the Commandant himself, perhaps—was +pining to get back to Boisveyrac."</p> + +<p>She let her needlework lie for a moment, and sat with her eyes +resting on the façade of the Commandant's quarters across the square.</p> + +<p>"It is foolish in me," she said musingly; "for in the days of which I +am thinking not one of these stones was laid. You must know, +monsieur, that in those days many and many a young man of family took +to the woods; no laws, no edicts would restrain them; the life of the +forest seemed to pass into their blood and they could not help +themselves… ah, I myself understand that, sometimes!" she added, +after a pause.</p> + +<p>"Well, monsieur," she went on, "there came to Fort Amitié a certain +young Raoul de Tilly, who suffered from this wandering fever. +The Government outlawed him in the end; but as yet his family had +hopes to reclaim him, and, being powerful in New France, they managed +to get his sentence delayed. He came here, and here he fell in love +with an Indian girl, and married her—putting, they say, a pistol at +the priest's head. The girl was a Wyandot from Lake Huron, and had +been baptised but a week before. For a year they lived together in +the Fort here; but when a child was born the husband sent her down +the river to his father's Seigniory below Three Rivers, and himself +wandered westward into the Lakes, and was never again heard of. +The mother died on the voyage, it is said; but the child— +a daughter—reached the Seigniory and was acknowledged, and lived to +marry a cousin, a de Tilly of Roc Sainte-Anne. My mother was her +grand-daughter."</p> + +<p>Why had she chosen to tell him this story? He turned to her in some +wonder. But, for whatever reason she had told it, the truth of the +story was written in her face. Hardly could he recognise the +Mademoiselle Diane who had declaimed to him of Joan of Arc and the +glory of fighting for New France. She was gone, and in her place a +girl fronted him, a child almost, with a strange anguish in her +voice, and in her eyes the look of a wild creature trapped. She was +appealing to him. But again, why?</p> + +<p>"I think you must be in some trouble, mademoiselle," said he, +speaking the thought that came uppermost. Something prompted him to +add, "Has it to do with Dominique Guyon?" The question seemed to +stab her. She stood up trembling, with a scared face.</p> + +<p>"Why should you think I am troubled? What made you suppose—" she +stammered, and stopped again in confusion. "I only wanted you to +understand. Is it not much better when folks speak to one another +frankly? Something may be hidden which seems of no importance, and +yet for lack of knowing it we may misjudge utterly, may we not?"</p> + +<p>Heaven knew that of late John had been feeling sorely enough the +torment of carrying about a secret. But to the girl's broken +utterances he held no clue at all, nor could he hit on one.</p> + +<p>"See now," she went on, almost fiercely; "you speak of Dominique +Guyon. You suspected something—what, you could not tell; perhaps it +had not even come to a suspicion. But, seeing me troubled—as you +think—at once Dominique's name comes to your lips. Now listen to +the truth, how simple it is. When Armand and I were children… +you have heard of Armand?"</p> + +<p>"A little; from Father Joly."</p> + +<p>"Papa thinks he has behaved dishonourably, and will scarcely allow +his name to be uttered until he shall return from the army, having +redeemed his fault. Papa, though he seems easy, can be very stern on +all questions of honour. Well, when Armand and I were children, we +played with the two Guyon boys. Their father, Bonhomme Guyon, was +only my father's farmer; but in a lonely place like Boisveyrac, and +with no one to instruct us in difference of rank and birth—for my +mother died when I was a baby—"</p> + +<p>"I understand, mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>"And so we played about the farm, as children will. But by and by, +and a short while before I left Boisveyrac to go to school with the +Ursulines, Dominique began to be—what shall I say? He was very +tiresome."</p> + +<p>She paused. "I understand," repeated John quietly. "At first I did +not guess what he meant. And the others, of course, did not guess. +But he was furiously jealous, even of his brother, poor Bateese. And +when Bateese met with his accident—"</p> + +<p>"One moment, mademoiselle. When Bateese fell between the logs, was +it because Dominique had pushed him?"</p> + +<p>She wrung her hands as in a sudden fright. "You guessed that? +How did you guess? No one knows it but I, and Father Launoy, no +doubt, and perhaps Father Joly. But Dominique knows that <i>I</i> know; +and his misery seems to give him some hold over me."</p> + +<p>"In what way can I help you, mademoiselle?"</p> + +<p>"Did I ask you to help me?" She had resumed her seat on the +gun-carriage and, drawing Sergeant Barboux's tunic off its gun, +began with her embroidery scissors to snip at the shanks of its +breast-buttons. His cheeks were burning now; she spoke with a +trained accent of levity. "I called you, monsieur, to say that I +cannot, of course, copy these buttons, and to ask if you consent to +my using them on your new tunic, or if you prefer to put up with +plain ones. But it appears that I have wandered to some distance +from my question." She attempted a laugh; which, however, failed +dolefully.</p> + +<p>"Decidedly I prefer any buttons to those. But, excuse me," persisted +John, drawing nearer, "though you asked for no help and need none, +yet I will not believe you have honoured me so far with your +confidence and all without purpose."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she replied, still in the same tone of hard, almost +contemptuous, levity. "I had a whim, monsieur, to be understood by +you, that is all; and perhaps to rebuke you by contrast for telling +us so little of yourself. It is as Félicité said—you messieurs of +the army keep yourselves well padded over the heart. See here—" +She began to dig with her scissor-point and lay bare the quilting +within Barboux's tunic; but presently stopped, with a sharp cry.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, mademoiselle?"</p> + +<p>For a second or two she snipped furiously, and then—"This is the +matter!" she cried, plunging her fingers within the lining. +"A dispatch! He carried one after all!" She dragged forth a paper +and held it up in triumph.</p> + +<p>"Give it to me, please. But I say that you must and shall, +mademoiselle!" John's head swam, but he stepped and caught her by +the wrists.</p> + +<p>And with that the paper fell to the ground. He held her wrist; he +felt only the magnetic touch, looked into her eyes, and understood. +From wonder at his outburst they passed to fear, to appeal, to love. +Yes, they shrank from him, sick with shame and self-comprehension, +pitifully seeking to hide the wound. But it would not by any means +be hid. A light flowed from it, blinding him.</p> + +<p>"You hurt! Oh, you hurt!"</p> + +<p>He dropped her hands and strode away, leaving the paper at her feet.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="17"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XVI.</h3> + +<h4>THE DISMISSAL.</h4> + +<p>The Commandant tapped the dispatch on the table before him, with a +<i>rusé</i> smile.</p> + +<p>"I was right then, after all, M. à Clive, in maintaining that your +comrade carried a message from the General. My daughter has told me +how you came, between you, to discover it. That you should have +preserved the tunic is no less than providential; indeed, I had all +along supposed it to be your own."</p> + +<p>John waited, with a glance at the document, which lay with the seal +downward, seemingly intact.</p> + +<p>"It is addressed," the Commandant pursued, "in our ordinary cypher to +the Marquis de Vaudreuil at Montreal. In my own mind I have not the +least doubt that it instructs him—the pressure to the south having +been relieved by the victory at Fort Carillon—to send troops up to +us and to M. de Noyan at Fort Frontenac. My good friend up there has +been sending down appeals for reinforcements at the rate of two a +week, and has only ceased of late in stark despair. It is evident +that your comrade carried a message of some importance to Montreal; +and I have sent for you, monsieur, to ask: Are you in a condition to +travel?"</p> + +<p>"You wish me to carry this dispatch, monsieur?"</p> + +<p>"If you tell me that you are fit to travel. Indeed it is a privilege +which you have a right to claim, and M. de Vaudreuil will doubtless +find some reward for the bearer. Young men were ambitious in my +day—eh, M. à Clive?"</p> + +<p>John, averting his face, gazed out of window upon the empty +courtyard, the slope of the terrace and the line of embrasures above +it. Diane was not there beside her accustomed gun, and he wondered +if he should see her again before departing. He wondered if he +desired to see her. To be sure he must accept this mission, having +gone so far in deceit. It would set him free from Fort Amitié; and, +once free, he could devise with Menehwehna some plan of escaping +southward. Within the fort he could devise nothing. He winced under +the Commandant's kindness; yet blessed it for offering, now at last, +a term to his humiliation.</p> + +<p>"M. de Vaudreuil will not be slow, I feel sure, to recognise your +services," pursued the Commandant genially. "But, that there may be +no mistake about it, I have done myself the pleasure to write him a +letter commending you. Would you care to hear a sentence or two? +No?"—for John's hand went up in protest—"Well, youth is never the +worse for a touch of modesty. Be so good, then, monsieur, as to pass +me the seal yonder."</p> + +<p>John picked up and handed the seal almost without glancing at it. +His thoughts were elsewhere as the Commandant lit a taper, heated the +wax, and let it drop upon the letter. But just as the seal was +impressed, old Jérémie Tripier entered without knocking, and in a +state of high perturbation. "Monseigneur! Monseigneur! A whole +fleet of boats in sight—coming down the river!"</p> + +<p>The Commandant pushed back his chair.</p> + +<p>"Boats? Down the river? Nonsense, Jérémie, it is up the river you +mean; you have the message wrong. They must be the relief from +Montreal!"</p> + +<p>"Nay, Monseigneur, it is down the river they are approaching. +The news came in from Sans Quartier, who is on sentry-go upstream. +He has seen them from Mont-aux-Ours, and reports them no more than +three miles away."</p> + +<p>"Please God no ill has befallen de Noyan!" muttered the Commandant. +"Excuse me, M. à Clive; I must look into this. We will talk of our +business later."</p> + +<p>But John scarcely heard. His eyes had fallen on the seal of the +Commandant's letter. It stared back at him—a facsimile of the one +hidden in his pocket—a flying Mercury, with, cap, winged sandals, +and caduceus.</p> + +<p>He pulled his wits together to answer the Commandant politely, he +scarcely knew how, and followed him out to the postern gate. +Half a dozen of the garrison—all, in fact, who happened to be off +duty—were hurrying along the ridge to verify Sans Quartier's news. +John, still weak from his wound, could not maintain the pace. +Halting on the slope for breath, while the Commandant with an apology +left him and strode ahead, he turned, caught sight of Diane, and +waited for her.</p> + +<p>She came as one who cannot help herself, with panting bosom and eyes +that supplicated him for mercy. But Love, not John à Cleeve, was the +master to grant her remission—and who can supplicate Love?</p> + +<p>They met without greeting, and for a while walked on in silence, he +with a flame in his veins and a weight of lead in his breast.</p> + +<p>"Is papa sending you to Montreal?" she asked, scarcely above a +whisper.</p> + +<p>"He was giving me orders when this news came."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause now, and when next she spoke he could hardly +catch her words. "You will come again?"</p> + +<p>His heart answered, "My love! O my love!" But he could not speak +it. He looked around upon sky, forest, sweeping river—all the +landscape of his bliss, the prison of his intolerable shame. +A fierce peremptory longing seized him to kill his bliss and his +shame at one stroke. Four words would do it. He had but to stand up +and cry aloud, "I am an Englishman!" and the whole beautiful hideous +dream would crack, shiver, dissolve. Only four words! Almost he +heard his voice shouting them and saw through the trembling heat her +body droop under the stab, her love take the mortal hurt and die with +a face of scorn. Only four words, and an end desirable as death! +What kept him silent then? He checked himself on the edge of a +horrible laugh. The thing was called Honour: and its service steeped +him in dishonour to the soul.</p> + +<p>"You will come again?" her eyes repeated.</p> + +<p>He commanded himself to say, "It may be that there is now no need to +go. If Fort Frontenac has fallen—"</p> + +<p>"Why should you believe that Fort Frontenac has fallen?" she broke +in; and then, clasping her hands, added in a sort of terror, "Do you +know that—that now—I hardly seem able to think about Fort +Frontenac, or to care whether it has fallen or not? What wickedness +has come to me that I should be so cruelly selfish?"</p> + +<p>He set his face. Even to comfort her he must not let his look or +voice soften; one touch of weakness now would send him over the +abyss.</p> + +<p>"Let us go forward," said he. "At the next bend we shall know what +has happened."</p> + +<p>But around the bend came a procession which told plainly enough what +had happened; a procession of boats filled with dark-coated +provincial soldiers, a few white-coats, many women and children. +No flags flew astern; the very lift of the oars told of disgrace and +humiliation. Thus came Payan de Noyan with his garrison, prisoners +on <i>parole</i>, sent down by the victorious British to report the fall +of Frontenac and be exchanged for prisoners taken at Ticonderoga.</p> + +<p>Already the Commandant and his men had surmised the truth, and were +hurrying back along the ridge to meet the unhappy procession at the +quay. John and Diane turned with them and walked homeward in +silence.</p> + +<p>The flotilla passed slowly beneath their eyes, but did not head in +toward the quay. An old man in the leading boat waved an arm from +mid-stream—or rather, lifted it in salutation and let it fall again +dejectedly.</p> + +<p>This was de Noyan himself, and apparently his <i>parole</i> forbade him to +hold converse with his countrymen before reaching Montreal. On them +next, for aught the garrison of Fort Amitié could learn, the enemy +were even now descending.</p> + +<p>Diane, halting on the slope, heard her father call across the water +to de Noyan, who turned, but shook his head and waved a hand once +more with a gesture of refusal.</p> + +<p>"He was asking him to carry the dispatch to Montreal. Since he will +not, or cannot, you must follow with it."</p> + +<p>"For form's sake," John agreed. "It can have no other purpose now."</p> + +<p>They were standing at the verge of the forest, and she half turned +towards him with a little choking cry that asked, as plainly as +words, "Is this all you have to say? Are you blind, that you cannot +see how I suffer?"</p> + +<p>He stepped back a pace into the shadow of the trees. She lifted her +head and, as their eyes met, drooped it again, faint with love. +He stretched out his arms.</p> + +<p>"Diane!"</p> + +<p>But as she ran to him he caught her by the shoulders and held her at +arms' length. Her eyes, seeking his, saw that his gaze travelled +past her and down the slope. And turning in his grasp she saw +Menehwehna running towards them across the clearing from the postern +gate, and crouching as he ran.</p> + +<p>He must have seen them; for he came straight to where they stood, and +gripping John by the arm pointed towards the quay, visible beyond the +edge of the flagstaff tower.</p> + +<p>"Who are these newcomers?" cried Diane, recovering herself. +"Why, yes, it is Father Launoy and Dominique Guyon! Yes, yes—and +Bateese!—whom you have never seen."</p> + +<p>John turned to her quietly, without haste.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle," said he in a voice low and firm, and not altogether +unhappy, "I have met Bateese Guyon before now. And these men bring +death to me. Run, Menehwehna! For me, I return to the Fort with +mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>She stared at him. "Death?" she echoed, wondering.</p> + +<p>"Death," he repeated, "and I deserve it. On many accounts I have +deserved it, but most of all for having stolen your trust. I am an +Englishman."</p> + +<p>For a moment she did not seem to hear. Then slowly, very slowly, she +put out both hands and cowered from him.</p> + +<p>"Return, Menehwehna!" commanded John firmly. "Yes, mademoiselle, I +cannot expiate what I have done. But I go to expiate what I can."</p> + +<p>He took a step forward; but she had straightened herself up and stood +barring his path with her arm, fronting him with terrible scorn.</p> + +<p>"Expiate! What can you expiate? You can only die; and are you so +much afraid of death that you think it an atonement? You can only +die, and—and—" she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Menehwehna, +help me! He can only die, and I cannot let him die!"</p> + +<p>Menehwehna stepped forward with impassive face. "If my brother goes +down the hill, I go with him," he announced calmly.</p> + +<p>"You see?" Diane turned on John wildly. "You will only kill your +friend—and to what purpose? The wrong you have done you cannot +remedy; the remedy you seek would kill me surely. Ah, go! go! +Do not force me to kneel and clasp your knees—you that have already +brought me so low! Go, and let me learn to hate as well as scorn +you. You wish to expiate? This only will I take for expiation."</p> + +<p>"Come, brother!" urged Menehwehna, taking him by the arm.</p> + +<p>Diane bent close to the Indian, whispered a word in his ear, and, +turning about, looked John in the face.</p> + +<p>"Are you sorry at all? If you are sorry, you will obey me now."</p> + +<p>With one long searching look she left him and walked down the slope. +Menehwehna dragged him back into the undergrowth as the postern door +opened, and M. Etienne came through it, followed by Father Launoy, +Dominique, and Bateese.</p> + +<p>Peering over the bushes Menehwehna saw Diane descend to meet them—he +could not see with what face.</p> + +<p>Marvellous is woman. She met them with a gay and innocent smile.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>Her whispered word to Menehwehna had been to keep by the waterside. +And later that night, when the garrison had given over beating the +woods for the fugitives, a canoe stole up the river, close under the +north bank. One man sat in it; and after paddling for a couple of +miles up-stream he began to sing as he went—softly at first, but +raising his voice by little and little—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Chante, rossignol, chante,<br> + Toi qui as le cœur gai;<br> + Tu as le cœur à rire,<br> + Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer."<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>No answer came from the dark forest. He took up his chant again, more +boldly:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Tu as le cœur à rire,<br> + Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer;<br> + J'ai perdu ma maîtresse<br> + Sans pouvoir la trouver.<br> + —Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime,<br> + Jamais je ne t'oublierai."<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>He listened. A low call sounded from the trees on his right, and he +brought the canoe under the bank.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Bateese?"</p> + +<p>"Monsieur, forgive me! I said as little as I could, but the Reverend +Father and Dominique were too clever for me. And how was I to have +known?… . Take the canoe and travel fast, my friends; they will +be searching again at dawn."</p> + +<p>"Did mademoiselle send the canoe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and she charged you to answer one question. It was her +brother—M. Armand—whom the Iroquois slew in the Wilderness. +Ah, that cry! Can one ever forget?"</p> + +<p>"Her brother!" John's hand went to his breast in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur did not know, then? I was sure that monsieur could not +have known! For myself I did not know until four days ago. +The Iroquois had not seen us, and we escaped back to the Richelieu— +to Sorel—to Montreal, where I left my wounded man. Ah, monsieur, +but we suffered on the way! And from Montreal I made for Boisveyrac, +and there my tongue ran loose—but in all innocence. And there I +heard that M. Armand had been crossing the Wilderness… but +monsieur did not know it was her brother?"</p> + +<p>"That, at least, I never knew nor guessed, Bateese. Was this the +question Mademoiselle Diane desired you to ask me?"</p> + +<p>"It was, monsieur. And, according to your answer, I was to give you +her word."</p> + +<p>"What is her word, Bateese?"</p> + +<p>"She commends you to God, monsieur, and will pray for you."</p> + +<p>"Take back my word that I will pray to deserve her prayers, who can +never deserve her pardon."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="18"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XVII.</h3> + +<h4>FRONTENAC SHORE.</h4> + +<p>"And what will my brother do?"</p> + +<p>For minutes before John heard and answered it the question had been +singing in his ears to the beat of the paddles. He supposed that +Menehwehna had asked it but a moment ago.</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell. Let us press on; it may be we shall find my +countrymen at Frontenac."</p> + +<p>"As a child breaks down a lodge which another child has built, and +runs away, so your countrymen will have departed."</p> + +<p>Fort Amitié lay far behind. They were threading their way now among +the Thousand Isles, and soon Lake Ontario opened before them, +spreading its blue waters to the horizon. But John heeded neither +green islands nor blue lake, nor their beauty, nor their peace, but +only the shame in his heart. He saw only the dazzle on the water, +heard only the swirl around his paddle, stroke by stroke, hour after +hour; prayed only for fatigue to drug the ache and bring about +oblivion with the night.</p> + +<p>Coasting the shore they came at the close of day upon the charred +skeletons of three ships lifting their ribs out of the shallows +against the sunset, and beyond these, where the water deepened, to a +deserted quay.</p> + +<p>They landed; and while they climbed the slope towards the fort, out +of one of its breaches its only inhabitant crawled to them—a young +dog, gaunt and tame with hunger.</p> + +<p>The dog fawned upon Menehwehna. But John turned his back on the +smoke-blackened walls in a sick despair, seated himself on the slope, +and let his gaze travel southward over the shoreless water. +Beyond the rim of it would lie Oswego, ruined by the French as the +English had ruined Frontenac.</p> + +<p>The dog came and stretched itself at his feet, staring up with eyes +that seemed at once to entreat his favour and to marvel why he sat +there motionless. Menehwehna had stepped down to the canoe to fetch +food for it, and by and by returned with a handful of biscuit.</p> + +<p>"He will be useful yet," said Menehwehna, seating himself beside the +dog and feeding it carefully with very small pieces. "He cannot be +more than a year old, and before the winter is ended we will make a +hunter of him."</p> + +<p>John did not answer.</p> + +<p>"You will come with me now, brother?" Still Menehwehna kept his eyes +on the dog. "There is no other way."</p> + +<p>"There is one way only," answered John, with his eyes fastened on the +south. "Teach me to build a canoe, and let me cross the water alone. +If I drown, I drown."</p> + +<p>"And if you reached? Your countrymen are all gathering back to the +south; until the snow has come and passed, there will be no more +fighting. You are better with me. Come, and when the corn begins to +shoot again you shall tell me if you are minded to return."</p> + +<p>"Menehwehna, you do not understand."</p> + +<p>"I have studied you, my brother, when you have not guessed it; and I +say to you that if you went back now to your people it would be +nothing to their gain, nor to yours, for the desire of fighting has +gone out of you. Now in my nation we do not wonder when a man loses +that desire, for we put it away as men by eating put away the desire +of food. All things come to us in their season. This month the corn +ripens, and at home my wife and children are gathering it; but anon +comes the Moon of Travel, and they will weary of the village and +watch the lake for me to arrivé and lead them away to the +hunting-grounds. So the beasts have their seasons; the buck his +month for belling, and the beaver his month for taking shelter in his +house which he has stored. And with us, when the snow melts, it may +happen that the war-talk begins—none knowing how—and spreads +through the villages: first the young men take to dancing and +painting their faces, and the elder men catch fire, and a day sees us +taking leave of our womankind to follow the war-path. But in time we +surfeit even of fighting, and remember our lodges again."</p> + +<p>Menehwehna paused awhile, and patted the dog's head.</p> + +<p>"Therefore, brother, were you of our race, I should not wonder that +the spirit of war has gone out of you. I myself am weary of it +for a season; I forget that Frenchman differs from Englishman, and +think of the sound of thin ice above the beaver's wash, the blood of +the red-deer's hocks on the snow, the smell of his steak over the +fire. But of the pale-faces some are warriors, some are not; +and the warriors fight, year in and year out, whenever they can. +That is your calling, brother, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"I am not grown a coward, I hope."</p> + +<p>"No," said Menehwehna thoughtfully, "you are not a coward; else my +heart had never gone out to you. But I think there is something dead +within you that must come to life, and something alive within you +that must die, before you grow into a warrior again. As for your +going back to-day, listen—</p> + +<p>"There was war once between our nation and the Pottawatamies, and +in an open fight our braves killed many of their enemies and +scattered the rest to their villages. Great was the victory, but +mournful; for in the chase that followed it an arrow pierced the +throat of the leader of the Ojibways. His name was Daimeka, and he a +chief in my own island of Michilimackinac. Where he fell there he +lay. His people lifted the body and propped it against a tree, +seated, with its face towards the forest into which the Pottawatamies +had fled. They wiped the dirt from his head-dress, set his bow +against his shoulder, and so, having lamented him, turned their faces +northward to their own country.</p> + +<p>"But Daimeka, although he could neither speak nor stir, saw all that +his friends did, and heard all that they said. He listened to their +praises of him and their talk of their victory, and was glad; he felt +the touch of their hands as they set out his limbs against the tree, +but his own hands he could not lift. His tears, indeed, ran as they +turned to abandon him; but this sign they did not see, and he could +give no other.</p> + +<p>"The story says that little by little his hot tears melted the +frost that bound him; and by and by, as he remembered the cry of +home-coming—'<i>Kumad-ji-wug!</i> We have conquered!'—his spirit put +forth an effort as a babe in its mother's travail, and he found his +feet and ran after the braves. Then was he mad with rage to find +that they had no eyes for him, and he no voice to call their +attention. When they walked forward he walked forward, when they +halted he halted, when they slept he slept, when they awoke he awoke; +nay, when they were weary he felt weariness. But for all the profit +it brought him he might still have been sitting under the tree; for +their eyes would not see him, and his talk to them was as wind.</p> + +<p>"And this afflicted him so that at length he began to tear open his +wounds, saying, 'This, at least, will move them to shame, who owe +their victory to me!' But they heeded nothing; and when he upbraided +them they never turned their heads.</p> + +<p>"At length they came to the shore where they had left the canoes, and +put across for the island. As they neared it the men in Daimeka's +canoe raised the war-shout, '<i>Kumad-ji-wug!</i> We have conquered!' and +old men, wives and children came running from the village, his own +father and wife and children among them. 'Daimeka is dead!' was +shouted many times in the uproar; and the warriors spoke his praises +while his father wept, and his wife, and his two small ones.</p> + +<p>"'But I am alive!' Daimeka shouted; for by this time he was in a +furious passion. Then he ran after his wife, who was fleeing towards +his own lodge, tearing her hair as she went. 'Listen to me, woman!' +he entreated, and would have held her, but could not. He followed +her into the lodge and stood over her as she sat on the bed, with her +hands in her lap, despairing. 'But I am alive!' he shouted again. +'See how my wounds bleed; bind them, and give me food. To bleed like +this is no joke, and I am hungry.' 'I have no long time to live,' +said the woman to one of the children, 'even now I hear my man +calling me, far away.' Daimeka, beside himself, beat her across the +head with all his force. She put up a hand. 'Children, even now I +felt his hand caressing me. Surely I have not long to live.'</p> + +<p>"'I was better off under the tree,' said Daimeka to himself, and +strode forth from the lodge. By the shore he launched one of the +canoes; and now he felt no wish in his heart but to return to the +battlefield and sit there dead, if only he could find his body again +which he had left—as he now felt sure—sitting beneath the tree.</p> + +<p>"On the fourth day he reached the battlefield. Night was falling, +and as he sought the tree he came on a blazing fire. Across it he +could see the tree plainly, and at the foot of it his body with the +light on its face.</p> + +<p>"He stepped aside to walk round the fire; but it moved as he moved, +and again stood in his path. A score of times he tried to slip by +it, but always it barred his way, and always beyond it stood the +tree, with his own face fronting him across the blaze.</p> + +<p>"'Fire, I am a fool,' said he at the last; 'but, fire, thou art a +worse fool to think that Daimeka would turn his back!' And so saying +he strode straight through its flame. At once he found himself +seated with his back to the tree in his dress of war, with his bow +resting against his shoulder. 'Now I am dead,' said he, contentedly; +nevertheless he began to finger his bow. 'On what do the dead feed +themselves?' he wondered; and, for a trial, fixed and shot an arrow +at a passing bird: for above the tree there was clear sky, though +darkness lay around its foot and in the darkness the fire still +burned. The bird fell; he plucked it, cooked it at the fire, and +ate.</p> + +<p>"'In life I never ate better partridge,' said Daimeka, `but now that +I am a real ghost I will return once more to Michilimackinac and +frighten my wife out of her senses, for she deserves it.'</p> + +<p>"So when the fire died down he arose, warm in all his limbs, and +started northward again. On the fourth day he found his canoe where +he had left it, and pushed off for the island. But, as he neared the +shore, a man who had been standing there ran back to the village, and +soon all his folk came running down to the beach, his wife in their +midst.</p> + +<p>"'Daimeka!' they cried. 'It is indeed Daimeka returned to us!'</p> + +<p>"'That may be,' said Daimeka, as his wife flung her arms around him; +'and again, it may not be. But, dead or alive, I find it good +enough.'</p> + +<p>"Such, my brother, is the tale of Daimeka. Is it better, now, to +return to your people as a ghost or as a man who has found himself?"</p> + +<p>John lifted a face of misery.</p> + +<p>"Come," said Menehwehna, looking him straight in the eyes, and +letting his hand rest from patting the dog, which turned and licked +it feebly.</p> + +<p>"I will come," said John.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="19"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3> + +<h4>NETAWIS.</h4> + +<p>The encampment stood under the lee of a tall sandhill, a few paces +back from the brink of a frozen river. Here the forest ended in a +ragged fringe of pines; and, below, the river spread into a lagoon, +with a sandy bar between it and the lake, and a narrow outlet which +shifted with every storm. The summer winds drove up the sand between +the pine-stems and piled it in hummocks, gaining a few yards annually +upon the forest as the old trees fell. The winter winds brought down +the snow and whirled it among the hummocks until these too were +covered.</p> + +<p>For three weeks the encampment had been pitched here; and for two +weeks snow had fallen almost incessantly, banking up the lodges and +freezing as it fell. At length wind and snow had ceased and given +place to a hard black frost, still and aching, and a sky of steel, +and a red, rayless sun.</p> + +<p>A man came down the river-bank, moving clumsily in his snow-shoes +over the hummocks; a man dressed as an Indian, in blanket-cloak and +scarlet <i>mitases</i>. His head was shaven to the crown around a +top-knot skewered with heron's feathers; his face painted with black, +vermilion, and a single streak of white between the eyebrows. +He carried a gun under his left arm, and over his shoulder a pole to +which he had slung the bodies of five beavers. Two dogs ran ahead of +him straight for the encampment, which he had not discerned until +they began to salute it with glad barking.</p> + +<p>Five lodges formed the encampment—four of them grouped in a rough +semicircle among the main lodge, which stood back close under the +sand-bank where an eddy of wind had scooped it comparatively clear of +snow.</p> + +<p>The hunter followed his dogs to the door of the main lodge and lifted +its frozen tent-flap.</p> + +<p>"Is it well done, Menehwehna?" he asked, and casting his pole with +its load upon the floor he clapped his mittened hands together for +warmth. "Ough!" He began to pull the mittens off cautiously.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna, seated with his back against the roof-pole (he had lain +sick and fasting there all day), looked triumphantly towards his +wife, who crouched with her two daughters by the lodge fire.</p> + +<p>"Said I not that he would bring us luck? And, being bitten, did they +bite, my brother?" he asked mischievously.</p> + +<p>"A little. It did not hurt at the time." + +One of the two girls rose from beside the fire.</p> + +<p>"Show me your hands, Netawis," she said.</p> + +<p>Netawis—that is to say, John à Cleeve—stretched out his lacerated +hands to the firelight. As he did so his blanket-cloak fell back, +showing a necklace of wampum about his throat and another looser +string dangling against the stained skin of his breast. On his +outstretched wrists two silver bangles twinkled, and two broad bands +of silver on the upper arms.</p> + +<p>The girl fetched a bladder of beaver-fat and anointed his hands, her +own trembling a little. Azoka was husband-high, and had been +conscious for some weeks of a bird in her breast, which stirred and +began to flutter whenever she and Netawis drew close. At first, when +he had been fit for little but to make kites for the children, she +had despised him and wondered at her father's liking. But Netawis +did not seem to care whether folks despised him or not; and this +piqued her. Whatever had to be learnt he learned humbly, and now the +young men had ceased to speak of him as a good-for-nothing, Azoka +began to think that his differing from them was not wholly against +him; and all the women acknowledged him to be slim and handsome.</p> + +<p>"Many thanks, cousin," said Netawis as she bound up the wounds. +Then he began to talk cheerfully over his shoulder to Menehwehna. +"Five washes I tried, and all were empty; but by the sixth the water +bubbled. Then I wished that I had you with me, for I knew that my +hands would suffer." He smiled; this was one of his un-Indian tricks.</p> + +<p>"It was well done, brother," said Menehwehna, and his eyes sought +those of his wife Meshu-kwa who, still crouching by the fire, gazed +across it at the youth and the girl.</p> + +<p>"But that is not all. While I was at work the dogs left me. +At first I did not miss them; and then, finding them gone, I made +sure they had run home in scorn of my hunting. But no; their tracks +led me to a tree, not far up the stream, and there I found them. +They were not barking, but sometimes they would nose around the trunk +and sometimes fall back to a little distance and sit whining and +trembling while they stared up at it."</p> + +<p>"And the tracks around the tree?"</p> + +<p>"I could find none but what the dogs themselves had made. I tapped +the tree, and it was hollow. Then I saw on the north side, a little +above my head, many deep scratches with moss hanging in strips from +them. The trunk ran up straight, and was so stout that my two arms +would not span more than a tenth of it; but the scratches went up to +the first fork, and there must be the opening, as I guess."</p> + +<p>"Said I not that Netawis would become a hunter and bring us luck?" +asked Menehwehna again. "He has found bear."</p> + +<p>"Bear! Bear! Our Netawis has found bear!" cried two small urchins +who had been rolling and tumbling with the dogs and almost burning +their toes at the edges of the fire. They were the children of +Azoka's elder sister Seeu-kwa, Muskingon's widow. Scrambling past +Menehwehna, who never spoke harshly to them, and paying no heed to +their mother's scolding, they ran out into the snow to carry the news +to the other lodges.</p> + +<p>"Our Netawis has found bear!"</p> + +<p>"What news is this?" asked some of the young men who lived in a +lodge apart—the bachelors' lodge—gathering round the doorway. +"Seeu-kwa, look to it that your children do not grow up to be little +liars."</p> + +<p>Now John, surprised to find his news so important, had turned to +Azoka with a puzzled smile. The firelight which danced on his face +danced also on the long bead necklace heaving like a snake with the +rise and fall of her bosom. He stared down at it, and Azoka—poor +girl—felt his wrist trembling under her touch; but it was with the +thought of another woman. She caught her hand away; and John, +looking up, saw a young Indian, Ononwe by name, watching him gloomily +from the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Ask Netawis to tell the story," said Menehwehna. So John told it +again, and added that it had been difficult to call the dogs away +from the tree.</p> + +<p>"But about the bear I say nothing; that is Menehwehna's talk. +I only tell you what I saw."</p> + +<p>"The wind has fallen," said one, "and soon the moon will be up. +Let us go and prove this tale of Netawis."</p> + +<p>Meshu-kwa opposed this, calling it folly. "We have no axes heavy +enough for tree-cutting," she said; not giving her real reason, which +was that she came of a family which claimed descent from a bear. +When they mocked at her she said, "Also—why should I hide it?—there +came to me an evil dream last night."</p> + +<p>"This is the first that I have heard of your evil dream," answered +Menehwehna, and gave order that after supper Netawis should lead the +party to the tree, promising that he himself would follow as soon as +the sickness left him.</p> + +<p>At moonrise, therefore, they set out—men and women together, and +even the small children. But Menehwehna called Azoka back from the +door of the lodge.</p> + +<p>"My daughter," he asked, they two being left alone, "has Ononwe a +cause of quarrel against Netawis?"</p> + +<p>"They are good friends," Azoka answered innocently. "Ononwe never +speaks of Netawis but to praise. Surely my father has heard him?"</p> + +<p>"That is returning a ball I never flung," her father said, fixing +grave eyes on her, under which she flinched. "I am thinking that the +face of Netawis troubles the clear water that once was between you +and Ononwe. Yet you tell me that Ononwe praises him. Sit down, +therefore, and hear this tale."</p> + +<p>Azoka looked rebellious; but no one in his own household disobeyed +Menehwehna—or out of it, except at peril.</p> + +<p>"There was a man of our nation once, a young man, and good-looking as +Ononwe; so handsome that all the village called him the Beau-man. +This Beau-man fell deeply in love with a maiden called Mamondago-kwa, +who also was passably handsome; but she had no right to scorn him as +she did, both in private and openly, so that all the village talked +of his ill-success. This talk so preyed on his mind that he fell +ill, and when his friends broke up their camp after a winter's +hunting to return to the village, he lay on his bed and would not +stir, but declared he would remain and die in the snow rather than +look again on the face of her who scorned him. So at length they +took down the lodge about him and went their ways, leaving him to +die.</p> + +<p>"But when the last of them was out of sight this Beau-man arose +and, wandering over the ground where the camp had been, he gathered +up all kinds of waste that his comrades had left behind—scraps of +cloth, beads, feathers, bones and offal of meat, with odds and ends +of chalk, soot, grease, everything that he could pick out of the +trodden snow. Then, having heaped them together, he called on his +guardian <i>manitou</i>, and together they set to work to make a man. +They stitched the rags into coat, <i>mitoses</i> and mocassins, and +garnished them with beads and fringes; of the feathers they made a +head-dress, with a frontlet; and then, taking mud, they plastered the +offal and bones together and stuffed them tightly into the garments. +The <I>manitou</I> breathed once, and to the eye all their patchwork became +fresh and fine clothing. The <i>manitou</i> breathed twice, and life came +into the figure, which the Beau-man had been kneading into the shape +of a handsome youth. 'Your name,' said he, 'is Moowis, or the +Muck-man, and by you I shall take my revenge.'</p> + +<p>"So he commanded the Muck-man to follow, and together they went after +the tracks of the tribe and came to the village. All wondered at the +Beau-man's friend and his fine new clothes; and, indeed, this Moowis +had a frank appearance that won all hearts. The chief invited him to +his lodge, and begged the Beau-man to come too; he deserved no less +for bringing so distinguished a guest. The Beau-man accepted, but by +and by began to repent of his deception when he saw the Muck-man fed +with deer tongue and the moose's hump while he himself had to be +content with inferior portions, and when he observed further that +Mamondago-kwa had no eyes for anyone but the Muck-man, who began to +prove himself a clever rogue. The chief would have promoted Moowis +to the first place by the fire; but this (for it would have melted +him) he modestly refused. He kept shifting his place while he +talked, and the girl thought him no less vivacious than modest, and +no more modest than brave, since he seemed even to prefer the cold to +the cheerful warmth of the hearth. The Beau-man attempted to talk; +but the Muck-man had always a retort at which the whole company +laughed, until the poor fellow ran out of the lodge in a fury of +shame and rage. As he rose he saw the Muck-man rise, with the assent +of all, and cross over to the bridegroom's seat beside Mamondago-kwa, +who welcomed him as a modest maiden should when her heart has been +fairly won.</p> + +<p>"So it happened—attend to me well, my daughter—that Mamondago-kwa +married a thing of rags and bones, put together with mud. But when +the dawn broke her husband rose up and took a bow and spear, saying, +'I must go on a journey.' 'Then I will go with you,' said his bride. +'My journey is too long for you,' said the Muck-man. 'Not so,' +answered she; 'there is no journey that I could not take beside you, +no toil that I could not share for love of you.' He strode forth, +and she followed him at a distance; and the Beau-man, who had kept +watch all night outside their lodge, followed also at a distance, +unseen. All the way along the rough road Mamondago-kwa called to her +husband; but he went forward rapidly, not turning his head, and she +could not overtake him. Soon, as the sun rose, he began to melt. +Mamondago-kwa did not see the gloss go out of his clothes, nor his +handsome features change back again into mud and snow and filth. +But still as she followed she came on rags and feathers and scraps of +clothing, fluttering on bushes or caught in the crevices of the +rocks. She passed his mittens, his mocassins, his <i>mitases</i>, +his coat, his plume of feathers. At length, as he melted, his +footprints grew fainter, until she lost even his track on the snow. +'Moowis! Moowis!' she cried; but now there was none to answer her, +for the Muck-man had returned to that out of which he was made."</p> + +<p>Menehwehna ceased and looked at his daughter steadily.</p> + +<p>"And did the Beau-man find her and fetch her back?" asked Azoka.</p> + +<p>"The story does not say, to my knowledge; but it may be that Ononwe +could tell you."</p> + +<p>Azoka stepped to the moonlit doorway and gazed out over the snow.</p> + +<p>"And yet you love Netawis?" she asked, turning her head.</p> + +<p>"So much that I keep him in trust for his good, against a day when he +will go and never return. But that is not a maiden's way of loving, +unless maidens have changed since I went a-courting them."</p> + +<p>Netawis having led them to the tree, the young men fell to work upon +it at once. It measured well over ten fathoms in girth; and by +daybreak, their axes being light, they had hewed it less than +half-way through. After a short rest they attacked it again, but the +sun was close upon setting when the tree fell—with a rending scream +which swelled into a roar so human-like that the children ran with +one accord and caught hold of their elders' hands.</p> + +<p>John, with Seeu-kwa's small boys clinging to him, stood about thirty +paces from the fallen trunk. Two or three minutes passed, and he +wondered why the men did not begin to jeer at him for having found +them a mare's nest. For all was quiet. He wondered also why none of +them approached the tree to examine it.</p> + +<p>"I shall be the mock of the camp from this moment," he thought, and +said aloud, "Let go of my hands, little ones; there is no more +danger."</p> + +<p>But they clung to him more tightly than ever; for a great cry went +up. From the opening by the fork of the trunk a dark body rolled +lazily out upon the snow—an enormous she-bear. She uncurled and +gathered herself up on all fours, blinking and shaking her head as +though the fall had left her ears buzzing, and so began to waddle +off. Either she had not seen the crowd of men and women, or perhaps +she despised it.</p> + +<p>"Ononwe! Ononwe!" shouted the Indians; for Ononwe, gun in hand, had +been posted close to the opening.</p> + +<p>He half-raised his gun, but lowered it again.</p> + +<p>"Netawis found her," he said quietly. "Let Netawis shoot her."</p> + +<p>He stepped back towards John who, almost before he knew, found the +gun thrust into his hands; for the children had let go their clasp.</p> + +<p>Amid silence he lifted it and took aim, wondering all the while why +Ononwe had done this. The light was fading. To be sure he could not +miss the bear's haunches, now turned obliquely to him; but to hit her +without killing would be scarcely less dishonouring than to miss +outright, and might be far more dangerous. His hand and forearm +trembled too—with the exertion of hewing, or perhaps from the strain +of holding the children. Why had he been fool enough to take the +gun? He foretasted his disgrace even as he pulled the trigger.</p> + +<p>It seemed to him that as the smoke cleared the bear still walked +forward slowly. But a moment later she turned her head with one loud +snap of the jaws and lurched over on her side. Her great fore-pads +smote twice on the powdery snow, then were still.</p> + +<p>He had killed her, then; and, as he learned from the applause, by an +expert's shot, through the spine at the base of the skull. John had +aimed at this merely at a guess, knowing nothing of bears or their +vulnerable points, and in this ignorance neglecting a far easier mark +behind the pin of the shoulder.</p> + +<p>But more remained to wonder at; for the beast being certified for +dead, Meshu-kwa ran forward and kneeling in the snow beside it began +to fondle and smooth the head, calling it by many endearing names. +She seated herself presently, drew the great jaws on to her lap and +spoke into its ear, beseeching its forgiveness. "O bear!" she cried +for all to hear, "O respected grandmother! You yourself saw that +this was a stranger's doing. Believe not that Meshu-kwa is guilty of +your death, or any of her tribe! It was a stranger that disturbed +your sleep, a stranger who fired upon you with this unhappy result!"</p> + +<p>The men stood around patiently until this propitiation was ended; and +then fell to work to skin the bear, while Meshu-kwa went off with her +daughters to the lodges, to prepare the cooking pots. In passing +John she gave him a glance of no good will.</p> + +<p>That night, as Azoka stood by a cauldron in which the bear's fat +bubbled, and the young men idled around the blaze, she saw Netawis +draw Ononwe aside into the darkness. Being a quick-witted girl she +promptly let slip her ladle into the fat, as if by mischance, and ran +to her father's lodge for another, followed by Meshu-kwa's scolding +voice. The lodge had a back-exit towards the wall of the sandhill, +where the wind's eddy had swept a lane almost clear of snow; and +Azoka pushed her pretty head through the flap-way here in time to spy +the dark shadows of the pair before they disappeared behind the +bachelor's lodge. Quietly as a pantheress she stole after them, +smoothing out her footprints behind her until she reached the +trampled snow; and so, coming to the angle of the bachelors' lodge, +cowered listening.</p> + +<p>"But suppose that I had missed my shot?" said the voice of Netawis. +"I tell you that my heart was as wax; and when the lock fell, I saw +nothing. Why, what is the matter with you, Ononwe?"</p> + +<p>"I thought you had led me here to quarrel with me," Ononwe answered +slowly, and Azoka held her breath.</p> + +<p>"Quarrel, brother? Why should I quarrel with you? It was a risk, as +I am telling you; but you trusted me, and I brought you here to thank +you that in your good heart you gave the shot up to me."</p> + +<p>"But it was not my good heart." Ononwe's voice had grown hoarse. +"It was an evil thought in my head, and you will have to quarrel with +me, Netawis."</p> + +<p>"That Ononwe is a good man," said Azoka to herself.</p> + +<p>"I do not understand. Did you expect me, then, to miss? Do not say, +brother, that you gave me the gun <i>wishing</i> me to miss and be the +mock of the camp!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and no. I thought, if you took the gun, it would not matter +whether you hit or missed."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Are you so simple, Netawis? Or is it in revenge that you force me +to tell?… Yes, I have played you an evil trick, and by an evil +tempting. I saw you with Azoka.… I gave you the gun, thinking, +'If he misses, the whole camp will mock him, and a maid turns from a +man whom others mock. But if he should kill the bear, he will have +to reckon with Meshu-kwa. Meshu-kwa fears ill-luck, and she will +think more than twice before receiving a son-in-law who has killed +her grandmother the bear.'"</p> + +<p>"I will marry Netawis," said Azoka to herself, shutting her teeth +hard. And yet she could not feel angry with Ononwe as she ought. +But it seemed that neither was Netawis angry; for he answered with +one of those strange laughs of his. She had never been able to +understand them, but she had never heard one that sounded so unhappy +as did this.</p> + +<p>"My brother," said Netawis—and his voice was gentle and bitterly +sorrowful—"if you did this in guile, I have shot better indeed than +you to-day. As for Meshu-kwa, I must try to be on good terms with +her again; and as for Azoka, she is a good girl, and thinks as little +of me as I of her. Last night when you saw us… I remember that +I looked down on her and something reminded me… of one…" +He leaned a hand against a pole of the lodge and gripped it as the +anguish came on him and shook him in the darkness. "Damn!" cried +John à Cleeve, with a sob.</p> + +<p>"Was that her name?" asked Ononwe gravely, hardly concealing the +relief in his voice.</p> + +<p>But Azoka did not hear Netawis' answer as she crept back, smoothing +the snow over her traces.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="20"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XIX.</h3> + +<h4>THE LODGES IN THE SNOW.</h4> + +<p>The fat lay six inches deep on the bear's ribs; and, being boiled +down, filled six porcupine skins.</p> + +<p>"Said I not that Netawis would bring us good luck?" demanded +Menehwehna.</p> + +<p>But Meshu-kwa claimed the head of her ancestress, and set it up on a +scaffold within the lodge, spreading a new blanket beneath it and +strewing tobacco-leaf in front of its nose. As though poor Azoka had +not enough misery, her mother took away her trinkets to decorate the +bear, and forced her to smear her pretty, ochred face with cinders. +Then for a whole day the whole family sat and fasted; and Azoka hated +fasting. But next morning she and Seeu-kwa swept out the lodge, +making all tidy. Pipes were lit, and Menehwehna, after blowing +tobacco-smoke into the bear's nostrils, began a long harangue on the +sad necessity which lay upon men to destroy their best friends. +His wife's eye being upon him, he made an excellent speech, though he +did not believe a word of it; but as a chief who had married the +daughter of a chief, he laid great stress upon her pedigree, +belittling his own descent from the <i>canicu</i>, or war eagle, with the +easier politeness because he knew it to be above reproach. When he +had ended, the family, Meshu-kwa included, seated themselves and ate +of the bear's flesh very heartily.</p> + +<p>A few days later, they struck their camp and moved inland, for the +beaver were growing scarcer, and the heavy fall of snow hid their +houses and made it difficult to search the banks for washes. +But raccoon were plentiful at their new station, and easy to hunt. +Before the coming of the Cold Moon—which is January—John was set to +number the peltries, which amounted to three hundred odd; and the +scaffold, on which the dried venison hung out of reach of the wolves, +was a sight to gladden the heart. Only the women grumbled when +Menehwehna gave order to strike camp, for theirs were the heaviest +loads.</p> + +<p>Azoka did not grumble. She could count now on Ononwe to help her +with her burden, since, like a sensible girl, she had long since made +up her quarrel with him and they were to be married in the spring on +their return to the village. She had quite forgiven Netawis. +Hers was that delicious stage of love when the heart, itself so +happy, wants all the world to be happy too. Once or twice John +caught her looking at him with eyes a little wistful in their +gladness; he never guessed that she had overheard his secret and +pitiéd him, but dared not betray herself. Ononwe, possessed with his +new felicity, delighted to talk of it whenever he and John hunted +together.</p> + +<p>Did it hurt? Not often; and at the moment not much. But at night, +when sleep would not come, when John lay staring at the chink in the +doorway beyond which the northern lights flickered, then the wound +would revive and ache with the aching silence. Once, only once, he +had started out of sleep to feel his whole body flooded with +happiness; in his dream the curtains of the lodge had parted and +through them Diane had come to him. Standing over his head she had +shaken the snow from her cloak and from her hair, and the scattered +flakes had changed into raindrops, and the raindrops into singing +birds, and the lodge into a roof of sunlit boughs, breaking into +leaf with a scent of English hawthorn, as she stretched out her hands +and knelt and he drew her to his heart. Her cheek was cold from her +long journey; but a warm breeze played beneath the boughs, and under +her falling hair against his shoulder her small hand stole up and +touched his silver armlets. Nay, surely that touch was too real for +any dream.…</p> + +<p>He had sprung up and pulled aside the curtain; but she was gone. +His eyes searched across a waste where only the snow-wraiths danced, +and far to the north the Aurora flickered with ribbons of ghostly +violet.</p> + +<p>Would she come again? Yes, surely, under the stars and across the +folds and hollows of the snow, that vision would return, disturbing +no huddled wild creature, waking no sleeper in the lodge; would lift +the curtain and stretch out both hands and be gathered to him. +Though it came but once in a year he could watch for it by night, +live for it by day.</p> + +<p>But by day he knew his folly. He was lost, and in forgetting lay his +only peace. He never once accused his fortune nor railed against a +God he could not believe in. He had come to disaster through his own +doubts; himself had been the only real enemy, and that sorry self +must be hidden and buried out of sight.</p> + +<p>On the whole he was burying it successfully. He liked these +Ojibways, and had unlearnt his first disgust of their uncleanly +habits, though as yet he could not imitate them. He had quite +unlearnt his old loathing of Menehwehna for the sergeant's murder. +Menehwehna was a fine fellow, a chief too, respected among all the +nations west of Fort Niagara. John's surprise had begun at Fort +Révéille, where, on Menehwehna's word of credit only, the Tobacco +Indians had fetched out paint and clothes to disguise him, and had +smuggled him, asking no questions, past the fort and up through the +Lake aux Claies to Lake Huron. At Michilimackinac a single speech +from Menehwehna had won his welcome from the tribe; and they were +hunting now on the borders of the Ottawas through the favour of +Menehwehna's friendship with the Ottawa chief at l'Arbre Croche. +John saw that the other Indians considered him fortunate in +Menehwehna's favour, and if he never understood the full extent of +the condescension, at least his respect grew for one who was at once +so kingly and so simple, who shared his people's hardships, and was +their master less by rank than by wisdom in council, skill of hand, +and native power to impress and rule.</p> + +<p>Of the deer especially Menehwehna was a mighty hunter; and in +February the wealth of the camp increased at a surprising rate. +For at this season the snow becomes hard enough to bear the hunter +and his dogs, but the sharp feet of the deer break through its crust +and his legs are cut to the bone. Often a hunting party would kill a +dozen stags in two or three hours, and soon the camp reckoned up five +thousand pounds of dried venison, all of which had to be carried back +seventy miles to the shore of the lake near l'Arbre Croche, where the +canoes had been left.</p> + +<p>Early in March the women began to prepare the bundles, and in the +second week the return began, all starting at daybreak with as much +as they could carry, and marching until noon, when they built a +scaffold, piled their loads upon it, and returned to the camp for +more. When all had been carried forward one stage, the lodge itself +was removed, and so, stage by stage, they brought their wealth down +to the coast. As they neared it they fell in with other lodges of +Ojibways, mostly from Michilimackinac, gathering for the return +voyage up the lake.</p> + +<p>Having recovered and launched their canoes, which had lain hidden +among the sandhills, they loaded up and coasted cheerfully homewards +by way of La Grande Traverse and l'Arbre Croche, and on the last day +of April landed under the French fort of Mackinac, which looked +across the strait to Cap Saint-Ignace. A dozen traders were here +awaiting them; and with these Menehwehna first settled out of the +common fund for guns, powder, and stores supplied on credit for the +winter's hunting. He then shared the residue among the camp, each +hunter receiving the portion fixed by custom; and John found himself +the owner of one hundred and twenty beaver skins, fifty raccoon, and +twelve otter, besides fifty dubious francs in cash. The bear skin, +which also fell to his share, he kept for his wedding gift to Ononwe. +Twenty pounds of beaver bought a couple of new shirts; another twenty +a blanket; and a handsome pair of scarlet <i>mitases</i>, fashionably +laced with ribbon, cost him fifteen. Out of what remained he offered +to pay Menehwehna for his first outfit, but received answer that he +had amply discharged this debt by bringing good luck to the camp. +Under Menehwehna's advice, therefore, he spent his gains in powder +and ball, fishing-lines, tobacco, and a new lock for his gun.</p> + +<p>"And I am glad," said Menehwehna, "that you consulted me to-day, for +to-night I shall drink too much rum."</p> + +<p>So indeed he did. That night his people—women and men—lay around +the fort in shameless intoxication. It pleased John to observe that +Azoka drank nothing; but on the other hand she made no attempt to +restrain her lover, who, having stupefied himself with rum, dropped +asleep with his head on her lap.</p> + +<p>John, seated and smoking his pipe by the camp fire, watched her +across its blaze. She leaned back against a pole of the lodge, her +hands resting on Ononwe's head, her eyes gazing out into the purple +night beyond the doorway. They were solemn, with the awe of a deep +happiness. "And why not?" John asked himself. Her father, mother, +and kinsfolk lay drunk around her; even the children had taken their +share of the liquor. A disgusting sight, no doubt! yet somehow it +did not move him to reprobation. He had lived for six months with +this people, and they had taught him some lessons outside the craft +of hunting: for example, that it takes all sorts to make a world, and +that only a fool condemns his fellows for being unlike himself. +At home in Devonshire he had never understood why the best +farm-labourers and workmen broke out at times into reckless drinking, +and lay sodden for days together; or how their wives could accept +these outbursts as a matter of course. He understood now, having +served apprentice to hardship, how the natural man must revolt now +and again from the penalty of Adam, the grinding toil, day in and day +out, to wrest food from the earth for himself, his womenkind, and +children. He understood, too, how noble is the discipline, though +pardonable the revolt. He had discovered how little a man truly +needs. He had seen in this strange life much cruelty, much crazy +superstition, much dirt and senseless discomfort; but he had made +acquaintance with love and self-denial. He had learnt, above all, +the great lesson—to think twice before judging, and thrice before +condemning.</p> + +<p>The camp fire was dying down untended. He arose and cast an armful +of logs upon it; and at the sound Azoka withdrew her eyes from the +doorway and fastened them upon him.</p> + +<p>"Netawis," said she, "when will you be leaving us?"</p> + +<p>"I have no thought of leaving." + +"You are not telling me the truth, now."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I believe I am," John assured her.</p> + +<p>"But what, then, of the girl yonder, whom you wanted to marry? +Has she married another man, or is she dead? Yes, I know something +about it," Azoka went on, as he stood staring amazedly. "For a long +time I have wanted to tell you. That night, after you had killed the +bear and Ononwe took you aside—I was afraid that you two would be +quarrelling, and so I crept after you—" She waited for him to +understand.</p> + +<p>"I see," said John gravely.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what has become of her."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that she is living still with her own people; and there is +nothing more to tell, Azoka, except that she cannot be mine, and +would not if she could."</p> + +<p>"Whose fault was it, Netawis? Yours or hers?"</p> + +<p>"There was much fault indeed, and all of it mine; but against my +marrying her it did not count, for that was impossible from the +beginning. Suppose, now, your nation were at war with the Ottawas, +and a young Ottawa brave fell in love with you. What would you do?"</p> + +<p>"That is idle talk, for of course I should do nothing," said Azoka +composedly. "But if I were a man and fell in love with an Ottawa +maiden, it would be simple. I should carry her off."</p> + +<p>John, being unable to find an answer to this, lit his pipe and sat +staring into the fire.</p> + +<p>"Was she an Englishwoman then?" Azoka asked after a while.</p> + +<p>"An Englishwoman?" He looked up in surprise; then, with a glance +around at the sleepers, he leaned forward until his eyes met the +girl's at close range across the flame. "Since you have learnt one +secret, Azoka, I will tell you another. She was a Frenchwoman, and +it is I who am English."</p> + +<p>But Azoka kept her composure. "My father is always wise," she said +quietly. "If he had told the truth, you would have been in great +danger; for many had lost sons and brothers in the fighting, and +those who came back were full of revenge. You heard their talk."</p> + +<p>"Then you have only to tell them, Azoka, and they may take their +revenge. I shall not greatly care."</p> + +<p>"I am no babbler, Netawis; and, moreover, the men have put their +revenge away. When the summer comes very few will want to go +fighting. For my part I pay little heed to their talk of killing and +scalping; to me it is all boys' play, and I do not want to understand +it. But from what I hear they think that the Englishmen will be +victorious, and it is foolishness to fight on the losing side. +If so—" Azoka broke off and pressed her palms together in sudden +delight.</p> + +<p>"If so?" echoed John.</p> + +<p>"If the English win, why then you may carry off your Frenchwoman, +Netawis! I do very much want you to be happy."</p> + +<p>"And I thank you a thousand times, Azoka, for your good wishes; but I +fear it will not happen in that way."</p> + +<p>She smoothed the head of Ononwe in her lap. "Oh yes, it will," she +assured him. "My father told me that you would be leaving us, some +day; and now I know what he meant. He has seen her, has he not?"</p> + +<p>"He has seen her."</p> + +<p>"My father is never mistaken. You will go back when the time comes, +and take her captive. But bring her back that I may see her, +Netawis."</p> + +<p>"But if she should resist?"</p> + +<p>Azoka shook her pretty head. "You men never understand us. She will +not resist when once you have married her; and I do very much want +you to be happy."</p> + +<p>For three days the Ojibways sprawled in drunkenness around Fort +Mackinac, but on the fourth arose and departed for their island; very +sullenly at first, as they launched their canoes, but with rising +spirits as they neared home. And two days after their arrival Ononwe +and Azoka were married.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the marriage feast, which lasted a week, the great +thaw began; and thereafter for a month Menehwehna watched John +closely. But the springtime could not thaw the resolve which had +been hardening John's heart all the winter—to live out his life in +the wilderness and, when his time came, to die there a forgotten man. +He wondered now that he had ever besought Menehwehna for help to +return. Although it could never be proved against him, he must +acknowledge to himself that he, a British officer, was now in truth a +willing deserter. But to be a deserter he found more tolerable than +to return at the price of private shame.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna, cheated of his fears, watched him with a new and growing +hope. The snows melted; May came with its flowers, June with its +heat, July with the roaring of bucks in the forest; and still the men +hung about the village, fishing and shooting, or making short +excursions to Sault Sainte-Marie or the bay of Boutchitouay, or the +mouth of the Mississaki river on the north side of the lake (where +the wildfowl were plentiful), but showing no disposition to go out +again upon the war-path as they had gone the year before. The frenzy +which then had carried them hundreds of miles from their homes seemed +now to be entirely spent, and the war itself to have faded far away. +Once or twice a French officer from Fort Mackinac was paddled across +and landed and harangued the Indians; and the Indians listened +attentively, but never stirred. Of the French soldiers drilling at +the fort they spoke now with contempt.</p> + +<p>John saw no reason for this change, and set it down to that +flightiness of purpose which—as he had read in books—is common to +all savages. He had yet to learn that in solitary lands the very sky +becomes as it were a vast sounding-board, and rumour travels, no man +knows how.</p> + +<p>It was on his return from the isles aux Castors, where with two score +young men of his tribe he had spent three weeks in fishing for +sturgeon, that he heard of the capture of Fort Niagara by the +English. Azoka announced it to him.</p> + +<p>"Said I not how it would happen?" she reminded him. "But if you +leave us now, you must come back with her and see my boy. When he +comes to be born he shall be called Netawis. Ononwe and I are agreed +on it."</p> + +<p>"I have no thought of leaving," John answered. "Fort Niagara is far +from here."</p> + +<p>"They say also," Menehwehna announced later, "that Stadacona has +fallen."</p> + +<p>"Stadacona?"</p> + +<p>"The great fortress—Quebec."</p> + +<p>John mused for a while. "I had a dear friend once," he said, "and he +laid me a wager that he would enter Quebec before me. It appears +that he has won."</p> + +<p>"A friend, did my brother say?"</p> + +<p>"And a kinsman," John answered, recognising the old note of jealousy +in Menehwehna's voice. "But there's no likeness between us; for he +is one that always goes straight to his mark."</p> + +<p>"There was a name brought me with the news. Your chief was the Wolf, +they said; but whether it be his own name or that of his <i>manitou</i>, +I know not."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="21"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XX.</h3> + +<h4>THE RÉVÉILLE.</h4> + +<p>A band of five-and-twenty Ojibways came filing down through the woods +to the shore of Lake Ontario, at the point where the City of Toronto +now stands. Back beyond the Lake aux Claies they had passed many +lodges inhabited by women and children only, and had heard everywhere +the same story: the men were all gone southward to Fort Niagara to +take counsel with the English. This, too, was the goal of the +Ojibways' journey, and Menehwehna hurried them forward.</p> + +<p>Fort Rouillé by the waterside stood deserted and half ruined. +They had hoped to find canoes here to carry them across the lake to +Niagara; but here, too, all the male population had stampeded a week +ago for the south, and those who wanted canoes must make them. +This meant two days' delay but it could not be helped. They fell to +work at once, cutting down elm-trees by the shore and stripping off +their bark, while the children gathered from the lodges and stood at +a little distance, watching.</p> + +<p>It was by no desire of his own that John made one of the embassage. +As rumour after rumour of British successes came westward to +Michilimackinac, and the Indians held long and anxious councils, he +had grown aware that Menehwehna was watching him furtively, as if for +a sign which could not be demanded in words.</p> + +<p>"Menehwehna," said he at length, "what is all this talk of English +vengeance? It is not the way of my countrymen to remember wrongs +after they have won the battle."</p> + +<p>"But who will assure my people of that?" asked Menehwehna. +"They have heard that certain things were done in the south, and that +toll will be taken."</p> + +<p>"What matters that to your people, though it be true? They were not +at Fort William Henry."</p> + +<p>"But again, how shall they tell this to the English and hope to be +believed?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot hide your heart from me, Menehwehna. You wish two things +of me, and the first is my leave to tell your people that I am +English."</p> + +<p>"Without your leave I will never tell them, my brother."</p> + +<p>"Did I ever suppose that you would? Well, as soon as you have told +them, they will clamour for me to go to Fort Niagara, and at need to +entreat for them. Now I say that there will be no need; but they +will compel me to go, and you too will wish it. Have I not guessed?"</p> + +<p>Menehwehna was silent a while. "For my people I wish it," he said at +length; "but for my own part I fear more than I wish."</p> + +<p>"You fear it because I go into great danger. By my countrymen I +shall be rightly held a deserter; and, among them, for an officer to +desert is above all things shameful."</p> + +<p>"But," answered Menehwehna with a cheerful readiness which proved +that he had thought the matter out, "if, as you say, the Governor +receive us kindly, we will hide that you are English; to that every +man shall give his oath beforehand. If things go ill, we will hand +you back as our prisoner and prove that we have kept you against your +will."</p> + +<p>John shook his head, but did not utter the firm resolve of his +heart—that even from ignominy no such lies should save him while he +had a gun to turn against himself. "Why do you fear then, +Menehwehna," he demanded, "if not for me?"</p> + +<p>"Do not ask, my brother!" Menehwehna's voice was troubled, +constrained, and his eyes avoided John's.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well," said John lightly, after regarding him for a moment, +"to you at least I will pay some of my debt. Go and tell your people +that I am English; and add—for it will save talk—that I am ready to +go with them to Fort Niagara."</p> + +<br><br> +<p>By dawn on the third day at Fort Rouillé three canoes lay finished +and ready, each capable of carrying eight or nine men. Pushing off +from the Toronto shore, the embassage paddled southward across the +lake.</p> + +<p>They came late that evening to a point of land four miles from +Niagara, on the north side of the river mouth. Approaching it, +they discerned many clusters of Indian encampments, each sending up +its thin column of smoke against the sunset-darkened woods: but night +had fallen long before they beached their canoes, and for the last +three miles they paddled wide of the shore to skirt a fleet of +fishing-boats twinkling with flambeaux, from the rays of which voices +challenged them. The Ojibways answered with their own call and were +made welcome. A common fear, it seemed, lay over all the nations— +Wyandots and Attiwandaronks from the west and north of Lake Erie, +Nettaways and Tobacco Indians from around Nottawasaga Bay, Ottawas +and Pottawatamies from the far west—who had not yet made their peace +with the English. But Menehwehna, whose fear of arriving too late +had kept him anxious throughout the voyage, grew cheerful again.</p> + +<p>They landed and pitched their camp on a spit of land close beside +their old friend the Ottawa chief from L'Arbre Croche, to whose lodge +Menehwehna at once betook himself to learn the news. But John, weary +with the day's toil, threw himself down and slept.</p> + +<p>A touch on his shoulder awakened him at dawn, and he opened his eyes +to see Menehwehna standing above him, gun in hand and dressed for an +expedition.</p> + +<p>"Come," commanded Menehwehna, adding, as John's gaze travelled around +upon the sleepers, "We two, alone."</p> + +<p>John caught up his gun, and the pair stepped out into the dawn +together. An Indian path led through the forest to the southward, +and Menehwehna took it, walking ahead and rapidly. Twice he turned +about and looked John in the face with a searching gaze, but held on +his way again without speaking. They walked in a dawn which as yet +resembled night rather than day; a night grown diaphanous and +ghostlike, a summer night surprised in its sleep and vanishing before +their footfall. The flicker of fire-flies hurrying into deeper +shades seemed, by a trick of eyesight, to pass into the glint of dew. +The birds had not yet broken into singing, the shadows stirred with +whispers, as though their broods of winged and creeping things held +breath together in alarm. A thin mist drifted through the +undergrowth, muffling the roar of distant waters; and at intervals +the path led across a clearing where, between the pine-trunks to the +left, the lake itself came into view, with clouds of vapour heaving +on its bosom.</p> + +<p>These clearings grew more frequent until at length Menehwehna halted +on the edge of one which sloped straight from his feet to a broad and +rushing river. There, stepping aside, he watched John's eyes as they +fell on Fort Niagara. + +It stood over the angle where the river swept into the lake; its +timbered walls terraced high upon earthworks rising from the +waterside, its roofs already bathed in sunlight, its foundations +standing in cool shadow. Eyes no doubt were watching the dawn from +its ramparts; but no sign of life appeared there. It seemed to sleep +with the forests around it, its river gate shut close-lidded against +the day, its empty flagstaff a needle of gold trembling upon the +morning sky.</p> + +<p>Menehwehna had seated himself, his gun across his knees, upon a +fallen trunk; and John, turning, met his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do we cross over?"</p> + +<p>"To-day, or perhaps to-morrow. I wished you to see it first."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"Does my brother ask why? Well, then, I was afraid."</p> + +<p>"Were you afraid that I might wish to go back? Answer me, +Menehwehna—By whose wish am I here at all?"</p> + +<p>"When I was a young man," answered Menehwehna, "in the days when I +went wooing after Meshu-kwa, I would often be jealous, and this +jealousy would seize me when we were alone together. 'She is loving +enough now,' I said; 'but how will it be when other young men are +around her?' This thought tormented me so that many times it drove +me to prove her, pretending to be cold and purposely throwing her in +the company of others who were glad enough—for she had many suitors. +Then I would watch with pain in my heart, but secretly, that my shame +and rage might be hidden."</p> + +<p>John eyed him for a moment in wonder. "For what did you bring me +this long way from Michilimackinac?" he asked. "Was it not to speak +at need for you and your nation?"</p> + +<p>"For that, but not for that only. Brother, have you never loved a +friend so that you felt his friendship worthless to you unless you +owned it all? Have you never felt the need on you to test him, +though the test lay a hundred leagues away? So far have I brought +you, O Netawis, to show you your countrymen. In a while the fort +yonder will wake, and you shall see them on the parapet in their red +coats, and if the longing come upon you to return to them, we will +cross over together and I will tell my tale. They will believe it. +Look! Will you be an Englishman again?"</p> + +<p>"Let us turn back," answered John wearily. "That life is gone from +me for ever."</p> + +<p>"Say to me that you have no wish to go."</p> + +<p>"I had a wish once," said John, letting the words fall slowly as his +eyes travelled over the walls of the fort. "It seemed to me then +that no wish on earth could be dearer. Many things have helped to +kill it, I think." He passed a hand over his eyes and let it drop by +his side. "I have no wish to leave you, Menehwehna."</p> + +<p>The Indian stood up with a short cry of joy and laid a hand on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"No, my friend," John continued in the same dull voice; "I will say +to you only what is honest. If I return with you, it is not for your +sake."</p> + +<p>"So that you return, Netawis, I will have patience. There was a time +when you set your face against me; and this I overcame. Again there +was a time when you pleaded with me that I should let you escape; and +still I waited, though with so small a hope that when my child Azoka +began to listen for your step I scolded her out of her folly."</p> + +<p>"In that you did wisely, Menehwehna. It is not everything that I +have learned to forget."</p> + +<p>"I told her," said Menehwehna simply, "that, as the snow melts and +slides from the face of a rock, so one day all thought of us would +slip from your heart and you would go from us, not once looking back. +Even so I believed. But the spring came, and the summer, and I began +to doubt; and, as I questioned you, a hope grew in my heart, and I +played with it as a bitch plays with her pups, trying its powers +little by little, yet still in play, until a day came when I +discovered it to be strong and the master of me. Then indeed, my +brother, I could not rest until I had put it to this proof." +He lit his pipe solemnly, drew a puff or two and handed it to John. +"Let us smoke together before we turn back. He that has a friend as +well as wife and children needs not fear to grow old."</p> + +<p>John stretched out a hand and touched the earthen pipe bowl. +His fingers closed on it—but only to let it slip. It fell, struck +against the edge of the tree stump and was shivered in pieces.</p> + +<p>Across the valley in Fort Niagara the British drums were sounding the +<i>révéille</i>.</p> + +<p>He did not hear Menehwehna's voice lamenting the broken pipe. +He stood staring across at the fort. He saw the river-gate open, the +red-coats moving there, relieving guard. He saw the flagstaff +halliards shake out the red cross of England in the morning sunlight. +And still, like a river, rolled the music of British drums.</p> + +<p>"Netawis!"</p> + +<p>Menehwehna touched his arm. At first John did not seem to hear, then +his hand went up and began to unfasten the silver armlets there.</p> + +<p>"Netawis! O my brother!"</p> + +<p>But the ice had slipped from the rock and lay around its base in +ruin, and the music which had loosened it still sang across the +valley. He took a step down the slope towards it.</p> + +<p>"You shall not go!" cried Menehwehna, and lifting his gun pointed it +full at John's back. And John knew that Menehwehna's finger was on +the trigger. He walked on unregarding.</p> + +<p>But Menehwehna did not fire. He cast down his gun with a cry and ran +to clasp his friend's feet. What was he saying? Something about +"two years."</p> + +<p>"Two years?" Had they passed so quickly? God! how long the minutes +were now! He must win across before the drums ceased…</p> + +<p>He halted and began to talk to Menehwehna very patiently, this being +the easiest way to get rid of him. "Yes, yes," he heard himself +saying, "I go to them as an Indian and they will not know me. +I shall be safe. Return now back to my brothers and tell them that, +if need be, they will find me there and I will speak for them."</p> + +<p>And his words must have prevailed, for he stood by the river's edge +alone, and Menehwehna was striding back towards the wood. A boat lay +chained by the farther shore and two soldiers came down from the fort +and pushed across to him.</p> + +<p>They wore the uniform of the Forty-sixth, and one had been a private +in his company; but they did not recognise him. And he spoke to them +in the Ojibway speech, which they could not understand.</p> + +<p>From the edge of the woods Menehwehna watched the three as they +landed. They climbed the slope and passed into the fort.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="22"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXI.</h3> + +<h4>FORT AMITIÉ LEARNS ITS FATE.</h4> + +<p>That Spring, three British generals sat at the three gates of Canada, +waiting for the signal to enter and end the last agony of New France. +But the snows melted, the days lengthened, and still the signal did +not come; for the general by the sea gate was himself besieged.</p> + +<p>Through the winter he and his small army sat patiently in the city +they had ruined. Conquerors in lands more southerly may bury their +dead with speed, rebuild captured walls, set up a pillar and statue +of Victory, and in a month or two, the green grass helping them, +forget all but the glory of the battle. But here in the north the +same hand arrests them and for six months petrifies the memorials of +their rage. Until the Spring dissolves it, the image of war lives +face to face with them, white, with frozen eyes, sparing them only +the colour of its wounds.</p> + +<p>General Murray, like many a soldier in his army, had dreams of +emulating Wolfe's glory. But Wolfe had snatched victory out of the +shadow of coming winter; and, almost before Murray's army could cut +wood for fuel, the cold was upon them. For two months Quebec had +been pounded with shot and shell. Her churches and hospitals stood +roofless; hundreds of houses had been fired, vaults and storehouses +pillaged, doors and windows riddled everywhere. There was no digging +entrenchments in the frozen earth. Walls six feet thick had been +breached by artillery; and the loose stones, so cold they were, could +hardly be handled.</p> + +<p>Among these ruins, on the frozen cliff over the frozen river, Murray +and his seven thousand men settled down to wear the winter through. +They were short of food, short of fuel. Frost-bite maimed them at +first; then scurvy, dysentery, fever, began to kill. They laid their +dead out on the snow, to be buried when spring should return and thaw +the earth; and by the end of April their dead numbered six hundred +and fifty. Yet they kept up their spirits. Early in November there +had been rumours that the French under Lévis meant to march on the +city and retake it. In December deserters brought word that he was +on his way—that he would storm the city on the twenty-second, and +dine within the citadel on Christmas Day. In January news arrivéd +that he was preparing scaling-ladders and training his men in the use +of them. Still the days dragged by. The ice on the river began to +break up and swirl past the ramparts on the tides. The end of April +came, and with it a furious midnight storm, and out of the storm a +feeble cry—the voice of a half-dead Frenchman clinging to a floe of +ice far out on the river. He was rescued, placed in a hammock, and +carried up Mountain Street to the General's quarters; and Murray, +roused from sleep at three o'clock in the morning, listened to his +story. He was an artillery-sergeant of Lévis's army; and that army, +twelve thousand strong, was close to the gates of Quebec.</p> + +<p>The storm had fallen to a cold drizzle of rain when at dawn Murray's +troops issued from the St. Louis gate and dragged their guns out +through the slush of the St. Foy road. On the ground where Wolfe had +given battle, or hard by, they unlimbered in face of the enemy and +opened fire. Two hours later, outflanked by numbers, having lost a +third of their three thousand in the short fight, they fell back on +the battered walls they had mistrusted. For a few hours the fate of +Quebec hung on a hair. But the garrison could build now; and, while +Lévis dragged up his guns from the river, the English worked like +demons. They had guns, at any rate, in plenty; and, while the French +dug and entrenched themselves on the ground they had won, daily the +breaches closed and the English fire grew hotter.</p> + +<p>April gave place to May, and the artillery fire continued on the +heights; but, as it grew noisier it grew also less important, for now +the eyes of both commanders were fastened on the river. Two fleets +were racing for Quebec, and she would belong to the first to drop +anchor within her now navigable river.</p> + +<p>Then came a day when, as Murray sat brooding by the fire in his +quarters in St. Louis Street, an officer ran in with the news of a +ship of war in the Basin, beating up towards the city. "Whatever she +is," said the General, "we will hoist our colours." Weather had +frayed out the halliards on the flagstaff over Cape Diamond, but a +sailor climbed the pole and lashed the British colours beneath the +truck. By this time men and officers in a mob had gathered on the +ramparts of the Château St. Louis, all straining their eyes at a +frigate fetching up close-hauled against the wind.</p> + +<p>Her colours ran aloft; but they were bent, sailor-fashion, in a tight +bundle, ready to be broken out when they reached the top-gallant +masthead.</p> + +<p>An officer, looking through a glass, cried out nervously that the +bundle was white. But this they knew without telling. Only—what +would the flag carry on its white ground? The red cross? or the +golden fleurs-de-lys?</p> + +<p>The halliards shook; the folds flew broad to the wind; and, with a +gasp, men leaped on the ramparts—flung their hats in the air and +cheered—dropped, sobbing, on their knees.</p> + +<p>It was the red cross of England.</p> + +<p>They were cheering yet and shouting themselves hoarse when the +<i>Lowestoffe</i> frigate dropped anchor and saluted with all her +twenty-four guns. On the heights the French guns answered +spitefully. Lévis would not believe. He had brought his +artillery at length into position, and began to knock the defences +vigorously. He lingered until the battleship <i>Vanguard</i> and the +frigate <i>Diane</i> came sailing up into harbour; until the <i>Vanguard</i>, +pressing on with the <i>Lowestoffe</i>, took or burned the vessels which +had brought his artillery down from Montreal. Then, in the night, he +decamped, leaving his siege-train, baggage, and sick men behind him. +News of his retreat reached Murray at nightfall, and soon the English +guns were bowling round-shot after him in the dusk across the Plains +of Abraham; but by daybreak, when Murray pushed out after him, to +fall on his rear, he had hurried his columns out of reach.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>Three months had passed since the flying of the signal from the +<i>Lowestoffe</i>, and now in the early days of August three British +armies were moving slowly upon Montreal, where Lévis and Governor +Vaudreuil had drawn the main French forces together for a last +resistance.</p> + +<p>Murray came up the river from Quebec with twenty-four hundred men, in +thirty-two vessels and a fleet of boats in company; followed by Lord +Rollo with thirteen hundred men drawn off from dismantled +Louisbourg. As the ships tacked up the river, with their floating +batteries ranged in line to protect the advance, bodies of French +troops followed them along the shore—regiments of white-coated +infantry and horsemen in blue jackets faced with scarlet. +Bourlamaque watched from the southern shore, Dumas from the northern. +But neither dared to attack; and day after day through the lovely +weather, past fields and settlements and woodlands, between banks +which narrowed until from deck one could listen to the song of birds +on either hand and catch the wafted scent of wild flowers, the +British wound their way to Isle Sainte-Therese below Montreal, +encamped, and waited for their comrades.</p> + +<p>From the south came Haviland. He brought thirty-four hundred +regulars, provincials, and Indians from Crown Point on Lake +Champlain, and moved down the Richelieu, driving Bougainville before +him.</p> + +<p>Last, descending from the west by the gate of the Great Lakes, came +the Commander in Chief, the cautious Amherst, with eighteen hundred +soldiers and Indians and over eight hundred bateaux and whale-boats. +He had gathered them at Oswego in July, and now in the second week of +August had crossed the lake to its outlet, threaded the channels of +the Thousand Islands, and was bearing down on the broad river towards +Fort Amitié.</p> + +<p>And how did it stand with Fort Amitié?</p> + +<p>Well, to begin with, the Commandant was thoroughly perplexed. +The British must be near; by latest reports they had reached the +Thousand Islands; even hours were becoming precious, and yet most +unaccountably the reinforcements had not arrivéd!</p> + +<p>What could M. de Vaudreuil be dreaming of? Already the great Indian +leader, Saint-Luc de la Come, had reached Coteau du Lac with a strong +force of militia. Dominique Guyon had been sent down with an urgent +message of inquiry. But what had been La Corne's answer? "I know +not what M. de Vaudreuil intends. My business is to stay here and +watch the rapids."</p> + +<p>"Now what can be the meaning of that?" the Commandant demanded of his +brother.</p> + +<p>M. Etienne shook his head pensively. "<i>Rusticus expectat</i>… +I should have supposed the rapids to stand in no danger."</p> + +<p>"Had the Governor sent word to abandon the Fort, I might have +understood. It would have been the bitterest blow of my life—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, brother," M. Etienne murmured in sympathy.</p> + +<p>"But to leave us here without a word! No; it is impossible. +They <i>must</i> be on their way!"</p> + +<p>In the strength of this confidence Dominique and Bateese had been +dispatched down the river again to meet the reinforcements and hurry +them forward.</p> + +<p>Dominique and Bateese had been absent for a week now on this errand. +Still no relief-boats hove in sight, and the British were coming down +through the Thousand Islands.</p> + +<p>Save in one respect the appearance of the Fort had not changed since +the evening of John à Cleeve's dismissal. The garrison cows still +graced along the river-bank, and in the clearing under the eastern +wall the Indian corn was ripe for harvest (M. Etienne suggested +reaping it; the labour, he urged, would soothe everyone's nerves). +Only on Sans Quartier's cabbage-patch the lunette now stood complete. +All the <i>habitants</i> of Boisveyrac had been brought up to labour in +its erection, building it to the height of ten feet, with an abattis +of trees in front and a raised platform within for the riflemen. +Day after day the garrison manned it and burned powder in defence +against imaginary assaults, and by this time the Commandant and +Sergeant Bédard between them had discussed and provided against every +possible mode of attack.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>Diane stood in the dawn on the <i>terre-plein</i> of the river-wall. +The latest news of the British had arrivéd but a few hours since, +with a boatload of fugitives from the upstream mission-house of La +Galette, off which an armed brig lay moored with ten cannon and one +hundred men to check the advance of the flotilla. It could do no +more.</p> + +<p>The fugitives included Father Launoy, and he had landed and begged +Diane to take his place in the crowded boat. For himself (he said) +he would stay and help to serve out ammunition to Fort Amitié—that +was, if the Commandant meant to resist.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose, then, that I would retire?" the Commandant asked +with indignation.</p> + +<p>"It may be possible to do neither," suggested Father Launoy.</p> + +<p>But this the Commandant could by no means understand. It seemed to +him that either he must be losing his wits or the whole of New +France, from M. de Vaudreuil down, was banded in a league of folly. +"Resist? Of course I shall resist! My men are few enough, Father; +but I beg you to dismiss the notion that Fort Amitié is garrisoned by +cowards."</p> + +<p>"I will stay with you then," said the Jesuit. "I may be useful, in +many ways. But mademoiselle will take my place in the boat and +escape to Montreal."</p> + +<p>"I also stay," answered Diane simply.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, but there is like to be serious work. They bring the +Iroquois with them, besides Indians from the West." Father Launoy +spoke as one reasoning with a child.</p> + +<p>Diane drew a small pistol from her bodice. "I have thought of that, +you see."</p> + +<p>"But M. de Noël—" He swung round upon the Commandant, +expostulating.</p> + +<p>"In a few hours," said the Commandant, meeting his eyes with a smile, +"New France will have ceased to be. I have no authority to force my +child to endure what I cannot endure myself. She has claimed a +promise of me, and I have given it."</p> + +<p>The priest stepped back a pace, wondering. Swiftly before him passed +a vision of the Intendant's palace at Quebec, with its women and riot +and rottenness. His hand went up to his eyes, and under the shade of +it he looked upon father and daughter—this pair of the old +<i>noblesse</i>, clean, comely, ready for the sacrifice. What had New +France done for these that they were cheerful to die for her? +She had doled them out poverty, and now, in the end, betrayal; she +had neglected her children for aliens, she had taken their revenues +to feed extortioners and wantons, and now in the supreme act of +treachery, herself falling with them, she turned too late to read in +their eyes a divine and damning love. There all the while she had +lived—the true New France, loyally trusted, innocently worshipped. +"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."… +Father Launoy lowered his gaze to the floor. He had looked and +learned why some nations fall and others worthily endure.</p> + +<p>All that night the garrison had slept by their arms, until with the +first streak of day the drums called them out to their alarm-post.</p> + +<p>Diane stood on the <i>terre-plein</i> watching the sunrise. As yet the +river lay indistinct, a broad wan-coloured band of light stretching +away across the darkness. The outwork on the slope beneath her was a +formless shadow astir with smaller shadows equally formless. +She heard the tread of feet on the wooden platform, the clink of +side-arms and accoutrements, the soft thud of ramrods, the voice of +old Bédard, peevish and grumbling as usual.</p> + +<p>Her face, turned to the revealing dawn, was like and yet curiously +unlike the face into which John à Cleeve had looked and taken his +dismissal; a woman's face now, serener than of old and thoughtfuller. +These two years had lengthened it to a perfect oval, adding a touch +of strength to the brow, a touch of decision to the chin; and, lest +these should overweight it, had removed from the eyes their clouded +trouble and left them clear to the depths. The elfin Diane, the +small woodland-haunting Indian, no longer looked forth from those +windows; no search might find her captive shadow behind them. +She had died young, or had faded away perhaps and escaped back to her +native forests.</p> + +<p>But she is not all forgotten, this lost playmate. Some trick of +gesture reappears as Diane lifts her face suddenly towards the +flagstaff tower. The watchman there has spied something on the +river, and is shouting the news from the summit.</p> + +<p>His arm points down the river. What has he seen? "Canoes!"—the +relief is at hand then! No: there is only one canoe. It comes +swiftly and yet the day overtakes and passes it, spreading a causeway +of light along which it shoots to the landing-quay.</p> + +<p>Two men paddle it—Dominique and Bateese Guyon. Their faces are +haggard, their eyes glassy with want of sleep, their limbs so stiff +that they have to be helped ashore.</p> + +<p>The Commandant steps forward. "What news, my children?" he asks. +His voice is studiously cheerful.</p> + +<p>Dominique shakes his head.</p> + +<p>"There is no relief, Monseigneur."</p> + +<p>"You have met none, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"None is coming, Monseigneur. We have heard it in Montreal."</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="23"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXII.</h3> + +<h4>DOMINIQUE.</h4> + +<p>"Montreal?"</p> + +<p>While they stood wondering, a dull wave of sound broke on their ears +from the westward, and another, and yet another—the booming of +cannon far up the river.</p> + +<p>"That will be at La Galette," said the Commandant, answering the +question in Dominique's eyes. "Come up to your quarters, my +children, and get some sleep. We have work before us." He motioned +the others to fall back out of hearing while he and Dominique mounted +the slope together. "You had audience, then, of the Governor?" +he asked.</p> + +<p>"He declined to see us, Monseigneur, and I do not blame him, since he +could not send us back telling you to fight. Doubtless it does not +become one in M. de Vaudreuil's position to advise the other thing— +aloud."</p> + +<p>"I do not understand you. Why could not M. de Vaudreuil order me to +fight?"</p> + +<p>Dominique stared at his master. "Why, Monseigneur,—seeing that he +sends no troops, it would be a queer message. He could not have the +face."</p> + +<p>"Yet he must be intending to strike at the English coming from +Quebec?"</p> + +<p>"They are already arrivéd and encamped at Isle Sainte-Therese below +the city, and another army has come down the Richelieu from the south +and joined them."</p> + +<p>"It is clear as daylight. M. de Vaudreuil must be meaning to attack +them instantly, and therefore he cannot spare a detachment—You +follow me?"</p> + +<p>"It may be so, Monseigneur," Dominique assented doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"'May be so'! It must be so! But unhappily he does not know of this +third army descending upon him; or, rather, he does not know how near +it is. Yet, to win time for him, we must hold up this army at all +costs."</p> + +<p>"It is I, Monseigneur, who am puzzled. You cannot be intending—"</p> + +<p>"Eh? Speak it out, man!"</p> + +<p>"You cannot be intending to await these English!"</p> + +<p>"Name of thunder! What else do you suppose? Pray, my dear +Dominique, use your wits. We have to gain time, I tell you—time for +our friends below at Montreal."</p> + +<p>"With twenty odd men against as many hundreds? Oh, pardon me, +Monseigneur, but I cannot bring my mind to understand you."</p> + +<p>"But since it gains time—"</p> + +<p>"They will not stay to snap up such a mouthful. They will sail past +your guns, laughing; unless—great God, Monseigneur! If in truth you +intend this folly, where is Mademoiselle Diane? I did not see her in +any of the boats from La Galette. Whither have you sent her, and in +whose charge?"</p> + +<p>"She is yonder on the wall, looking down on us. She will stay; I +have given her my promise."</p> + +<p>Dominique came to a halt, white as a ghost. His tongue touched his +dry lips. "Monseigneur!"—the cry broke from him, and he put out a +hand and caught his seigneur by the coat sleeve.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with the man?" The Commandant plucked his arm +away and stood back, outraged by this breach of decorum.</p> + +<p>But Dominique, having found his voice, continued heedless. "She must +go! She <i>shall</i> go! It is a wickedness you are doing—do you hear +me, Monseigneur?—a wickedness, a wickedness! But you shall not keep +her here; I will not allow it!"</p> + +<p>"Are you stark mad, Dominique Guyon?"</p> + +<p>"I will not allow it. I love her, I tell you—there, I have said it! +Listen again, Monseigneur, if you do not understand: I love her, I +love her—oh, get that into your head! I love her, and will not +allow it!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly your brain is turned. Go to your quarters, sir; it must +be sleep you want. Yes, yes, my poor fellow, you are pale as a +corpse! Go, get some sleep, and when you wake we will forget all +this." + +"Before God, Monseigneur, I am telling you the truth. I need no +sleep but the sleep of death, and that is like to come soon enough. +But since we were children I have loved your daughter, and in the +strength of that love I forbid you to kill her."</p> + +<p>The Commandant swung round on his heel.</p> + +<p>"Follow me, if you please."</p> + +<p>He led the way to his orderly-room, seated himself at the table, and +so confronted the young man, who stood humbly enough, though with his +pale face twitching.</p> + +<p>"Dominique Guyon, once in my life I made a great mistake; and that +was when, to save my poor son's honour, I borrowed money of one of my +<i>censitaires</i>. I perceive now what hopes you have nursed, feeding +them on my embarrassments. You saw me impoverished, brought low, +bereaved by God's will of my only son; you guessed that I lay awake +of nights, troubled by the thought of my daughter, who must inherit +poverty; and on these foundations you laid your schemes. You dreamed +of becoming a <i>gentilhomme</i>, of marrying my daughter, of sitting in +my chair at Boisveyrac and dealing justice among the villagers. +And a fine dream it seemed to you, eh?" He paused.</p> + +<p>"Monseigneur," Dominique answered simply, "you say some things that +are true; but you say them so that all seems false and vile. Yes, I +have dreamed dreams—even dreams of becoming a <i>gentilhomme</i>, as you +say; but my dreams were never wicked as you colour them, seeing that +they all flowed from love of Mademoiselle Diane, and returned to +her."</p> + +<p>He glanced towards the window, through which the pair could see Diane +pacing the <i>terre-plein</i> in the sunlight. The sight kindled the +elder man to fresh anger.</p> + +<p>"If," said he harshly, "I tried to explain to you exactly how you +insult us, it would be wasting my time and yours; and, however much +you deserve it, I have no wish to wound your feelings beyond need. +Let us come to business." He unlocked a drawer and drew out three +bundles of notes. "As my farmer you will know better than I the +current discount on these. You come from Montreal. At what price +was the Government redeeming its paper there?"</p> + +<p>As he unfolded them, Dominique glanced at the notes, and then let his +gaze wander out through the window.</p> + +<p>"Is Monseigneur proposing to pay me the interest on his bonds?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure I am."</p> + +<p>"I do not ask for it."</p> + +<p>"Devil care I if you ask or not! Count the notes, if you please."</p> + +<p>Dominique took a packet in his hands for a moment, still with his +eyes bent absently on the window, fingered the notes, and laid them +back on the table.</p> + +<p>"Monseigneur will do me the justice to own that in former times I +have given him good advice in business. I beg him to keep these +notes for a while. In a month or two their value will have trebled, +whichever Government redeems them."</p> + +<p>The Commandant struck the table. "In a few hours, sir, I shall be a +dead man. My honour cannot wait so long; and since the question is +now of honour, not of business, you will keep your advice to +yourself. Be quick, please; for time presses, and I have some +instructions to leave to my brother. At my death he will sell the +Seigniory. The Government will take its quint of the purchase-money, +and out of the remainder you shall be paid. My daughter will then go +penniless, but at least I shall have saved her from a creditor with +such claims as you are like to press. And so, sir, I hope you have +your answer."</p> + +<p>"No, Monseigneur, not my answer. That I will never take but from +Mademoiselle Diane herself."</p> + +<p>"By God, you shall have it here and now!" The Commandant stepped to +the window and threw open the casement. "Diane!" he called.</p> + +<p>She came. She stood in the doorway; and Dominique—a moment before +so bold—lowered his eyes before hers. At sight of him her colour +rose, but bravely. She was young, and had been making her account +with death. She had never loved Dominique; she had feared him at +times, and at times pitiéd him; but now fate had lifted her and set +her feet on a height from which she looked down upon love and fear +with a kind of wonder that they had ever seemed important, and even +her pity for him lost itself in compassion for all men and women in +trouble. In truth, Dominique looked but a miserable culprit before +her.</p> + +<p>The Commandant eyed him grimly for a moment before turning to her.</p> + +<p>"Diane," he said with grave irony, "you will be interested to learn +that Monsieur Dominique Guyon here has done you the honour to request +your hand in marriage."</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but stood reading their faces.</p> + +<p>"Moreover, on my declining that honour, he tells me that he will take +his answer from you alone."</p> + +<p>Still for a few seconds she kept silence.</p> + +<p>"Why should I not answer him, papa?" she said at length, and softly. +"It is not for us to choose what he should ask." She paused. +"All his life Dominique Guyon has been helping us; see how he has, +even in these few days, worn himself in our service!"</p> + +<p>Her father stared at her, puzzled, not following her thought. He had +expected her to be shocked, affronted; he did not know that +Dominique's passion was an old tale to her; and as little did he +perceive that in her present mood she put herself aside and thought +only of Dominique as in trouble and needing help.</p> + +<p>But apparently something in her face reassured him, for he stepped +toward the door.</p> + +<p>"You prefer to give him his answer alone?"</p> + +<p>She bent her head.</p> + +<p>For a while after the door had closed upon the Commandant, Dominique +stood with eyes abased. Then, looking up and meeting the divine +compassion in hers, he fell on his knees and stretched out both hands +to her.</p> + +<p>"Is there no hope for me, ma'amzelle?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. Looking down on him through tears, she held out +a hand; he took it between his palms and clung to it, sobbing like a +child.</p> + +<p>Terrible, convulsive sobs they were at first, but grew quieter by +degrees, and as the outburst spent itself a deep silence fell upon +the room.</p> + +<p>A tear had fallen upon his clasped knuckles. He put his lips to it +and, imprisoning her fingers, kissed them once, reverently.</p> + +<p>He was a man again. He stood up, yet not releasing her hand, and +looked her in the face.</p> + +<p>"Ma'amzelle, you will leave the Fort? You will let Bateese carry you +out of danger? For me, of course, I stay with the Seigneur."</p> + +<p>"No, Dominique. All New France is dying around us, and I stay with +my father to see the end. Perhaps at the last I shall need you to +help me." She smiled bravely. "You have been trying to persuade my +father, I know."</p> + +<p>"I have been trying to persuade him, and yet—yet—Oh, I will tell to +you a wickedness in my heart that I could not tell even to Father +Launoy! There was a moment when I thought to myself that even to +have you die here and to die beside you were better than to let you +go. Can you forgive me such a thought as that?"</p> + +<p>"I forgive."</p> + +<p>"And will you grant one thing more?"</p> + +<p>"What is it, Dominique?"</p> + +<p>"A silly favour, ma'amzelle—but why not? The English will be here +soon, maybe in a few hours. Let me call Bateese, and we three will +be children again and go up to the edge of the forest and watch for +our enemies. They will be real enemies, this time; but even that we +may forget, perhaps."</p> + +<p>She stood back a pace and laughed—yes, laughed—and gaily, albeit +with dewy eyes. Her hands went up as if she would have clapped them. +"Why, to be sure!" she cried. "Let us fetch Bateese at once!"</p> + +<p>They passed out into the sunlight together, and she waited in the +courtyard while Dominique ran upstairs to fetch Bateese. In five +minutes' time the two brothers appeared together, Bateese with his +pockets enormously bulging—whereat Diane laughed again.</p> + +<p>"So you have brought the larder, as ever. Bateese was always +prudent, and never relied on the game he killed in hunting. +You remember, Dominique?"</p> + +<p>"He was always a poor shot, ma'amzelle," answered Dominique gravely.</p> + +<p>"But this is not the larder!" Bateese began to explain with a queer +look at his brother.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind explanations! Come along, all three!" cried Dominique, +and led the way. They passed out by the postern unobserved—for the +garrison was assembled in the lunette under the river wall—and +hurried toward the shade of the forest.</p> + +<p>How well Diane remembered the old childish make-believe! How many +scores of times had they played it together, these three, in the +woods around Boisveyrac!—when Dominique and Bateese were bold +huntsmen, and she kept house for them, cooking their imaginary spoils +of the chase.</p> + +<p>"We must have a fire!" she exclaimed, and hurried off to gather +sticks. But when she returned with the lap of her gown well filled, +a fire was already lit and blazing.</p> + +<p>"How have you managed it so quickly?" she asked, and with that her +eyes fell on a scrap of ashes. "Where did you get this? You have +been lighting with paper, Bateese—and that is not playing fair!"</p> + +<p>Bateese, very red in the face, stooped in the smoke and crammed +another handful upon the blaze.</p> + +<p>"They were papers, ma'amzelle, upon which Dominique and I for a long +time could not agree. But now "—he turned to Dominique—"there is +no longer any quarrel between us. Eh, brother?"</p> + +<p>"None, Bateese; none, if you forgive."</p> + +<p>"What did I tell you?" cried Bateese triumphantly. "Did I not always +tell you that your heart would be lighter, with this shadow gone? +And there was never any shadow but this; none—none!"</p> + +<p>"That is all very well," Diane remonstrated; "but you two have no +business to hide a secret from me to-day, even though it make you +happier."</p> + +<p>"We have burnt it for a propitiation, ma'amzelle; it no longer +exists." Bateese cast himself on his back at full length in the +herbage and gazed up through the drifting smoke into the tree-tops +and sky. "A-ah!" said he with a long sigh, "how good God has been to +me! How beautiful He has made all my life!" He propped himself on +one elbow and continued with shining eyes: "What things we were going +to do, in those days! What wonders we looked forward to! And all +the while we were doing the most wonderful thing in the world, for we +loved one another." He stretched out a hand and pointed. "There, by +the bend, the English boats will come in sight. Suppose, Dominique, +that as they come you launched out against them, and fought and sank +the fleet single-handed, like the men in the old tales—"</p> + +<p>"He would save New France, and live in song," Diane put in. +"Would that not content any man, Bateese?" She threw back her head +with a gesture which Dominique noted; a trick of her childhood, when +in moments of excitement her long hair fell across her eyes and had +to be shaken back.</p> + +<p>"Ma'amzelle," he pleaded, "there is yet one favour."</p> + +<p>"Can I grant it easily?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so; it is that you will let down your hair for us."</p> + +<p>Diane blushed, but put up a hand and began to uncoil the tresses. +"Bateese has not answered me," she insisted. "I tell him that a man +who should do such a feat as he named would live in song for ever and +ever."</p> + +<p>"But I say to you humbly, ma'amzelle, that though he lived in song +for ever and ever, the true sweetness of his life would be unknown to +the singers; for he found it here under the branches, and, stepping +forth to his great deed, he left the memory for a while, to meet him +again and be his reward in Heaven."</p> + +<p>"And I say to you 'no,' and 'no,' and again 'no'!" cried Diane, +springing to her feet—the childish, impetuous Diane of old. +"It is in the great deed that he lives—the deed, and the moment that +makes him everlasting! If Dominique now, or I, as these English came +round the bend—"</p> + +<p>She paused, meeting Dominique's eyes. She had not said "or you," +and could not say it. Why? Because Bateese was a cripple. +"Bateese's is a cripple's talk," said their glances one to another, +guiltily, avoiding him.</p> + +<p>Dominique's gaze, flinching a little, passed down the splendid coils +of her hair and rested on the grass at her feet. She lifted a tress +on her forefinger and smoothed it against the sunlight.</p> + +<p>"There was a war once," said she, "between the Greeks and the +Persians; and the Persians overran the Greeks' country until they +came to a pass in the mountains where a few men could stand against +many. There three hundred of the Greeks had posted themselves, +despising death, to oppose an army of tens and hundreds of thousands. +The Persian king sent forward a horseman, and he came near and looked +along the pass and saw but a few Greeks combing their hair and +dressing it carefully, as I am dressing mine."</p> + +<p>"What happened, ma'amzelle?"</p> + +<p>"They died, and live in song for ever and ever!"</p> + +<p>She faced them, her cheeks glowing, and lifted a hand as the note of +a sweet-toned bell rose upon the morning air above the voices of the +birds; of the chapel-bell ringing the garrison to Mass.</p> + +<p>The two young men scrambled to their feet.</p> + +<p>"Come!" said Diane, and they walked back to the Fort together.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="24"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE FLAGSTAFF TOWER.</h4> + +<p>Time pressing, the Commandant had gone straight from the orderly-room +in search of Father Joly. As a soldier and a good Catholic he +desired to be shriven, and as a man of habit he preferred the old +Cure to Father Launoy. To be sure the Cure was deaf as a post, but +on the other hand the Commandant's worst sins would bear to be +shouted.</p> + +<p>"There is yet one thing upon my conscience," he wound up. "The fact +is, I feel pretty sure of myself in this business, but I have some +difficulty in trusting God."</p> + +<p>It is small wonder that a confession so astonishing had to be +repeated twice, and even when he heard it Father Joly failed to +understand.</p> + +<p>"But how is it possible to mistrust God?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know. I suppose that even in bringing New France so +near to destruction He is acting in loving mercy; but all the same it +will be a wrench to me if these English pass without paying us the +honour of a siege. For if we cannot force them to a fight, Montreal +is lost." The Commandant believed this absolutely.</p> + +<p>Father Joly was Canadian born and bred; had received his education in +the Seminary of Quebec; and knowing nothing of the world beyond New +France, felt no doubt upon which side God was fighting. If it were +really necessary to New France that the English should be delayed— +and he would take the Commandant's word for it—why then delayed they +would be. This he felt able to promise. "And I in my heart of +hearts am sure of it," said the Commandant. "But in war one has to +take account of every chance, and this may pass sometimes for want of +faith."</p> + +<p>So, like an honest gentleman, he took his absolution, and afterwards +went to Mass and spent half an hour with his mind withdrawn from all +worldly care, greatly to his soul's refreshment. But with the +ringing of the sanctus bell a drum began to beat—as it seemed, on +the very ridge of the chapel roof, but really from the leads of the +flagstaff tower high above it. Father Launoy paused in the +celebration, but was ordered by a quiet gesture to proceed. Even at +the close the garrison stood and waited respectfully for their +Commandant to walk out, and followed in decent order to the porch. +Then they broke into a run pell-mell for the walls.</p> + +<p>But an hour passed before the first whaleboat with its load of red +uniforms pushed its way into sight through the forest screen. +Then began a spectacle—slow, silent, by little and little +overwhelming. It takes a trained imagination to realise great +numbers, and the men of Fort Amitié were soon stupefied and ceased +even to talk. It seemed to them that the forest would never cease +disgorging boats.</p> + +<p>"A brave host, my children! But we will teach them that they handle +a wasps' nest."</p> + +<p>His men eyed the Commandant in doubt; they could scarcely believe +that he intended to resist, now that the enemy's strength was +apparent. To their minds war meant winning or losing, capturing or +being captured. To fight an impossible battle, for the mere sake of +gaining time for troops they had never seen, did not enter into their +calculations.</p> + +<p>So they eyed him, while still the flotilla increased against the far +background and came on—whaleboats, gunboats, bateaux, canoes; and +still in the lessening interval along the waterway the birds sang. +For the British moved, not as once upon Lake George startling the +echoes with drums and military bands, but so quietly that at half a +mile's distance only the faint murmur of splashing oars and creaking +thole-pins reached the ears of the watchers.</p> + +<p>The Commandant suddenly lowered his glass and closed it with a snap, +giving thanks to God. For at that distance the leading boats began +heading in for shore.</p> + +<p>"Etienne, he intends at least to summon us!"</p> + +<p>So it proved. General Amherst was by no means the man to pass and +leave a hostile post in his rear. His detractors indeed accused him +of spending all his time upon forts, either in building or in +reducing them. But he had two very good reasons for pausing before +Fort Amitié; he did not know the strength of its defenders, and he +wanted pilots to guide his boats down the rapids below.</p> + +<p>Therefore he landed and sent an officer forward to summon the +garrison.</p> + +<p>The officer presented himself at the river-gate, and having politely +suffered Sergeant Bédard to blindfold him, was led to the +Commandant's quarters. A good hour passed before he reappeared, the +Commandant himself conducting him; and meantime the garrison amused +itself with wagering on the terms of capitulation.</p> + +<p>At the gate the Englishman's bandage was removed. He saluted, and +was saluted, with extreme ceremony. The Commandant watched him out +of earshot, and then, rubbing his hands, turned with a happy smile.</p> + +<p>"To your guns, my children!"</p> + +<p>They obeyed him, while they wondered. He seemed to take for granted +that they must feel the compliment paid them by a siege in form.</p> + +<p>The day was now well advanced, and it seemed at first +that the British meant to let it pass without a demonstration. +Toward nightfall, however, four gunboats descended the river, +anchored and dropped down the current, paying out their hawsers and +feeling their way into range. But the Fort was ready for them, +and opened fire before they could train their guns; a lucky shot +cut the moorings of one clean and close by the stem; and, the +current carrying her inshore, she was hulled twice as she drifted +down-stream. The other three essayed a few shots without effect in +the dusk, warped back out of range, and waited for daylight to +improve their marksmanship.</p> + +<p>And with daylight began one of the strangest of sieges, between an +assailant who knew only that he had to deal with stout walls, and a +defender who dared not attempt even a show of a sortie for fear of +exposing the weakness of his garrison. The French had ammunition +enough to last for a month, and cannon enough to keep two hundred men +busy; and ran from one gun to another, keeping up pretences but doing +little damage in their hurry. Their lucky opening shots had +impressed Amherst, and he was one to cling to a notion of his enemy's +strength. He solemnly effected a new landing at six hundred yards' +distance, opened his lines across the north-western corner of the +fort, kept his men entrenching for two days and two nights, brought +up thirty guns, and, advancing them within two hundred yards, began +at his leisure to knock holes in the walls. Meantime, twenty guns, +anchored out in the river, played on the broad face of the fort and +swept the Commandant's lunette out of existence. And with all this +prodigious waste of powder but five of the garrison had fallen, and +three of these by the bursting of a single shell. The defenders +understood now that they were fighting for time, and told each other +that when their comedy was played out and the inevitable moment came, +the British General would not show himself fierce in revenge— +"provided," they would add, "the Seigneur does not try his patience +too far." It was Father Launoy who set this whisper going from lip +to lip, and so artfully that none suspected him for its author; +Father Launoy, who had been wont to excite the patriotism of the +faithful by painting the English as devils in human shape. He was a +brave man; but he held this resistance to be senseless and did not +believe for an instant that Montreal would use the delay or, using +it, would strike with any success.</p> + +<p>At first the tremendous uproar of the enemy's artillery and its +shattering effect on the masonry of their fortress, had numbed the +militiamen's nerves; they felt the place tumbling about their ears. +But as the hours passed they discovered that round-shot could be +dodged and that even bursting shells, though effective against stones +and mortar, did surprisingly small damage to life and limb; and with +this discovery they began almost to taste the humour of the +situation. They fed and rested in bomb-proof chambers which the +Commandant and M. Etienne had devised in the slope of earth under the +<i>terre-plein</i>; and from these they watched and discussed in safety +the wreckage done upon the empty buildings across the courtyard.</p> + +<p>One of these caves had at the beginning of the siege been assigned +to Diane; and from the mouth of it, seated with Félicité beside her, +she too watched the demolition; but with far different thoughts. +She knew better than these militiamen her father's obstinacy, and +that his high resolve reached beyond the mere gaining of time. +It seemed to her that God was drawing out the agony; and with the end +before her mind she prayed Him to shorten this cruel interval.</p> + +<p>Early on the third morning the British guns had laid open a breach +six feet wide at the north-western angle, close by the foot of the +flagstaff tower; and Amherst, who had sent off a detachment of the +Forty-sixth with a dozen Indian guides to fetch a circuit through the +woods and open a feint attack in the rear of the fort, prepared for a +general assault. But first he resolved to summon the garrison again.</p> + +<p>To carry his message he chose the same officer as before, a Captain +Muspratt of the Forty-fourth Regiment.</p> + +<p>Now as yet the cannonade had not slackened, and it chanced that as +the General gave Muspratt his instructions, an artillery sergeant in +command of a battery of mortars on the left, which had been advanced +within two hundred yards of the walls, elevated one of his pieces and +lobbed a bomb clean over the summit of the flagstaff tower.</p> + +<p>It was a fancy shot, fired—as the army learnt afterwards—for a +wager; but its effect staggered all who watched it. The fuse was +quick, and the bomb, mounting on its high curve, exploded in a direct +line between the battery and the flagstaff. One or two men from the +neighbouring guns shouted bravos. The sergeant slapped his thigh and +was turning for congratulations, but suddenly paused, stock-still and +staring upward.</p> + +<p>The flagstaff stood, apparently untouched. But what had become of +the flag?</p> + +<p>A moment before it had been floating proudly enough, shaking its +folds loose to the light breeze. Now it was gone. Had the explosion +blown it to atoms? Not a shred of it floated away on the wind.</p> + +<p>A man on the sergeant's right called out positively that a couple of +seconds after the explosion, and while the smoke was clearing, he had +caught a glimpse of something white—something which looked like a +flag—close by the foot of the staff; and that an arm had reached up +and drawn it down hurriedly. He would swear to the arm; he had seen +it distinctly above the edge of the battlements. In his opinion the +fort was surrendering, and someone aloft there had been pulling down +the flag as the bomb burst.</p> + +<p>The General, occupied for the moment in giving Captain Muspratt his +instructions, had not witnessed the shot. But he turned at the shout +which followed, caught sight of the bare flagstaff, and ordering his +bugler to sound the "Cease firing," sent forward the captain at once +to parley.</p> + +<p>With Muspratt went a sergeant of the Forty-sixth and a bugler. +The sergeant carried a white flag. Ascending the slope briskly, they +were met at the gate by M. Etienne.</p> + +<p>The sudden disappearance of the flag above the tower had mystified +the garrison no less thoroughly than the British. They knew the +Commandant to be aloft there with Sergeant Bédard, and the most of +the men could only guess, as their enemies had guessed, that he was +giving the signal of surrender.</p> + +<p>But this M. Etienne could by no means believe; it belied his +brother's nature as well as his declared resolve. And so, while the +English captain with great politeness stated his terms—which were +unconditional surrender and nothing less—the poor gentleman kept +glancing over his shoulder and answering at random, "Yes, yes," or +"Precisely—if you will allow me," or "Excuse me a moment, until my +brother—" In short, he rambled so that Captain Muspratt could only +suppose his wits unhinged. It was scarce credible that a sane man +could receive such a message inattentively, and yet this old +gentleman did not seem to be listening!</p> + +<p>Diane meanwhile stood at the mouth of her shelter with her eyes +lifted, intent upon the tower's summit. She, too had seen the flag +run down with the bursting of the bomb, and she alone had hit in her +mind on the true explanation—that a flying shard had cut clean +through the up-halliard close to the staff, and the flag—heavy with +golden lilies of her own working—had at once dropped of its own +weight. She had caught sight, too, of her father's arm reaching up +to grasp it, and she knew why. The flagstaff had a double set of +halliards.</p> + +<p>She waited—waited confidently, since her father was alive up there. +She marvelled that he had escaped, for the explosion had seemed to +wrap the battlements in one sheet of fire. Nevertheless he was +safe—she had seen him—and she waited for the flag to rise again.</p> + +<p>Minutes passed. She took a step forward from her shelter. +The firing had ceased and the courtyard was curiously still and +empty. Then four of the five militiamen posted to watch the back +of the building came hurrying across towards the gateway. +She understood—her senses being strung for the moment so tensely +that they seemed to relieve her of all trouble of thinking—she +understood that a parley was going forward at the gate and that these +men were hurrying from their posts to hear it. In her ears the +bugles still sounded the "Cease firing "; and still she gazed up at +the tower.</p> + +<p>Yes—she had made no mistake! The spare halliards were shaking; in a +second or two—but why did they drag so interminably?—the flag would +rise again.</p> + +<p>And it rose. Before her eyes, before the eyes of the parleyers in +the gateway and of the British watching from their batteries, it rose +above the edge of the battlements and climbed half-way up the mast, +or a little short of half-way. There it stopped—climbed a few feet +higher—and stopped again—climbed yet another foot—and slowly, very +slowly, fluttered downward.</p> + +<p>With a dreadful surmise Diane started to run across the courtyard +toward the door at the foot of the tower; and even as she started a +yell went up from the rear of the fort, followed by a random volley +of musketry and a second yell—a true Iroquois war-whoop.</p> + +<p>In the gateway Captain Muspratt called promptly to his bugler. +The first yell had told him what was happening; that the men of the +Forty-sixth, sent round for the feint attack, had found the rear wall +defenceless and were escalading, in ignorance of the parley at the +gate.</p> + +<p>Quick as thought the bugler sounded the British recall, and its notes +were taken up by bugle after bugle down the slope. The Major +commanding the feint attack heard, comprehended after a fashion, and +checked his men; and the Forty-sixth, as a well-disciplined regiment, +dropped off its scaling ladders and came to heel.</p> + +<p>But he could not check his Indian guides. Once already on their +progress down the river they had been baulked of their lust to kill; +and this restraint had liked them so little that already +three-fourths of Sir William Johnson's Iroquois were marching back to +their homes in dudgeon. These dozen braves would not be cheated a +second time if they could help it. Disregarding the shouts and the +bugle-calls they swarmed up the ladders, dropped within the fort, and +swept through the Commandant's quarters into the courtyard.</p> + +<p>In the doorway at the foot of the flagstaff tower a woman's skirt +fluttered for an instant and was gone. They raced after it like a +pack of mad dogs, and with them ran one, an Ojibway, whom neither +hate nor lust, but a terrible fear, made fleeter than any.</p> + +<p>Six of them reached the narrow doorway together, snarling and +jostling in their rage. The Ojibway broke through first and led the +way up the winding stairway, taking it three steps at a time, with +death behind him now—though of this he recked nothing—since he had +clubbed an Oneida senseless in the doorway, and these Indians, +Oneidas all, had from the start resented his joining the party of +guides.</p> + +<p>Never a yard separated him from the musket-butt of the Indian who +panted next after him; but above, at the last turning of the stair +under a trap-door through which the sunlight poured, he caught again +the flutter of a woman's skirt. A ladder led through the hatchway, +and—almost grasping her frock—he sprang up after Diane, flung +himself on the leads, reached out, and clutching the hatch, slammed +it down on the foremost Oneida's head.</p> + +<p>As he slipped the bolt—thank God it had a bolt!—he heard the man +drop from the ladder with a muffled thud. Then, safe for a moment, +he ran to the battlements and shouted down at the pitch of his voice.</p> + +<p>"Forty-sixth! This way, Forty-sixth!"</p> + +<p>His voice sounded passing strange to him. Nor for two years had it +been lifted to pronounce an English word.</p> + +<p>Having sent down his call he ran back swiftly to the closed hatchway; +and as he knelt, pressing upon it with both hands, his eyes met +Diane's.</p> + +<p>She stood by the flagstaff with a pistol in her hand. But her hand +hung stiffly by her hip as it had dropped at the sound of his shout, +and her eyes stared on him. At her feet lay the Commandant, his hand +still rigid upon the halliards, his breast covered by the folds of +the fallen flag, and behind her, as the bursting shell had killed and +huddled it, the body of old Sergeant Bédard.</p> + +<p>Why she stood there, pistol in hand, he could partly guess. +How these two corpses came here he could not guess at all. +The Commandant, mortally wounded, had grasped at the falling flag, +and with a dying effort had bent it upon the spare halliards and +tried to hoist. It lay now, covering a wound which had torn his +chest open, coat and flesh, and laid his ribs bare.</p> + +<p>But John à Cleeve, kneeling upon the hatchway, understood nothing of +this. What beat on his brain was the vision of a face below—the +face of the officer commanding—turned upwards in blank astonishment +at his shout of "Forty-sixth! This way, Forty-sixth!"</p> + +<p>The Indians were battering the hatch with their musket-butts. +The bolt shook. He pressed his weight down on the edge, keeping his +head well back to be out of the way of bullets. Luckily the timbers +of the hatch were stout, and moreover it had a leaden casing, but +this would avail nothing when the Indians began to fire at the +hinges—as they surely would.</p> + +<p>He found himself saying aloud in French, "Run, mademoiselle!—I won't +answer for the hinges. Call again to the red-coats! They will +help."</p> + +<p>But still, while blow after blow shook the hatch, Diane crouched +motionless, staring at him with wild eyes.</p> + +<p>"They will help," he repeated with the air of one striving to speak +lucidly; then with a change of tone, "Give me your pistol, please."</p> + +<p>She held it out obediently, at arm's length; but as he took it she +seemed to remember, and crept close.</p> + +<p>"Non—non!" she whispered. "C'est a moi-que tu le dois, enfin!"</p> + +<p>From the staircase—not close beneath the hatch, but, as it seemed, +far below their feet—came the muffled sound of shots, and between +the shots hoarse cries of rage.</p> + +<p>"Courage!" whispered John. He could hear that men were grappling and +fighting down there, and supposed the Forty-sixth to be at hand. +He could not know that the parleyers at the gate, appalled for an +instant by the vision of Diane with a dozen savages in chase, had +rallied at a yell from Dominique Guyon, pelted after him to the +rescue, and were now at grips with the rearmost Oneidas—a locked and +heaving mass choking the narrow spirals of the stairway.</p> + +<p>"Courage!" he whispered again, and pressing a knee on the edge of the +hatch reached out a hand to steady her. What mattered it if they +died now—together—he and she? "<i>Tu dois</i>"—she loved him; her lips +had betrayed her. "<i>Tu dois</i>"—the words sang through him, +thrilling, bathing him in bliss.</p> + +<p>"O my love! O my love!"</p> + +<p>The blows beat upward against the hatch and ceased. He sprang erect, +slid an arm around her and dragged her back—not a second too soon. +A gun exploded against the hinges at their feet, blowing one loose. +John saw the crevice gaping and the muzzle of a gun pushed through to +prise it open. He leaped upon the hatch, pistol in hand.</p> + +<p>"Forty-sixth! Forty-sixth!"</p> + +<p>What was that? Through the open crevice a British cheer answered +him. The man levering against his weight lost hold of the gun, +leaving it jammed. John heard the slide and thud of his fall.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" hailed a cheerful voice from the foot of the ladder. +"You there!—open the trap-way and show us some light!"</p> + +<p>John knelt, slipped back the bolt, and turned to Diane. She had +fallen on her knees—but what had happened to her? She was cowering +before the joy in his face, shrinking away from him and yet +beseeching.</p> + +<p>"Le pistolet—donne-moi le pistolet!"—her voice hissed on the word, +her eyes petitioned him desperately. "Ah, de grace! tu n'a pas le +droit—"</p> + +<p>He understood. With a passing bitter laugh he turned from her +entreaties and hurled the pistol across the battlements into air. +A hand flung open the hatch. A British officer—Etherington, Major +of the Forty-sixth—pushed his head and shoulders through he opening +and stared across the leads, panting, with triumphant jolly face.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="25"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3> + +<h4>THE FORT SURRENDERS.</h4> + +<p>The red-coats, who had forced their way up the tower by weight of +numbers and at the point of the bayonet, were now ordered to face +about and clear the stairway; which they did, driving the mixed +rabble of Canadians and Indians down before them, and collecting the +dead and wounded as they went. Five of the Oneidas had been +bayoneted or trampled to death in the struggle; two of the garrison +would never fight again, and scarcely a man had escaped cuts or +bruises.</p> + +<p>But Diane, as she followed her father's body down the stairs, knew +nothing of this. The dead and wounded had been removed. The narrow +lancet windows let in a faint light, enough to reveal some ugly +stains and splashes on the walls; but she walked with fixed unseeing +eyes. Once only on the way down her foot slid on the edge of a +slippery step, and she shivered.</p> + +<p>In the sunlight outside the doorway a group of men, mauled and +sullen, some wearing bandages, others with blood yet trickling down +their faces, stood listening to an altercation between M. Etienne and +a couple of spick-and-span British officers. As their Commandant's +body came through the doorway they drew together with a growl. +Love was in that sound, and sorrow, and helpless rage. One or two +broke into sobs.</p> + +<p>The British officers—one of them was the General himself, the other +his messenger, Captain Muspratt—bared their heads. M. Etienne, +checked in the midst of an harangue, stepped to Diane and took her +hand tenderly.</p> + +<p>She gazed slowly around on the group of battered men. There was no +reproach in her look—Had she not failed as miserably as they?—and +yet it held a word of injustice. She could not know that for her +sake they carried these wounds. And Dominique Guyon, the one man who +could have answered her thoughts, stared savagely at the ground, +offering no defence.</p> + +<p>"Dominique Guyon," commanded M. Etienne, "four of you will relieve +these <i>messieurs</i> of their burden. Carry your master to the chapel, +where you will find Father Launoy and Father Joly."</p> + +<p>"But pardon me, monsieur," interposed Amherst politely, "my soldiers +will be proud to bear so gallant a foe."</p> + +<p>"I thank you "—M. Etienne's bow was stiff and obstinate—"but I +assert again that I still command this fortress, and the bearers +shall be of my choosing."</p> + +<p>Diane laid a hand on her uncle's arm. "He is dead," said she. +"What matters it?" She did not understand this dispute. "Perhaps if +I promise M. le General that these men shall return to him when they +have laid my father in the chapel—"</p> + +<p>The General—a tall, lean, horse-faced man with a shrewd and not +unkindly eye—yielded the point at once. "Willingly, mademoiselle, +and with all the respect an enemy may pay to your sorrow."</p> + +<p>He ordered the men to give place to the new bearers.</p> + +<p>In the chapel Diane sank on her knees, but not to pray—rather to +escape the consolations of the two priests and be alone with her +thoughts. And her thoughts were not of her father. The stroke had +fallen; but not yet could she feel the pain. He was happy; he alone +of them all had kept his quiet vow, and died disdaining defeat; +whereas she—ah, there lay the terrible thought!—she had not merely +failed, had not been overpowered. In the crisis, beside her father's +corpse, she had played the traitress to her resolve.</p> + +<p>The two priests moved about the body, arranging it, fetching +trestles, draperies, and candles for the <i>lit de parade</i>, always with +stealthy glances at the bowed figure in the shadow just within the +door. But she knelt on, nor lifted her face.</p> + +<p>In the sunlit courtyard without the two commanders were still +disputing. M. Etienne flatly refused to yield up his sword, +maintaining that he had never surrendered, had agreed to no terms of +capitulation; that the redcoats had swarmed over his walls in the +temporary absence of their defenders, gathered at the gateway to +parley under a flag of truce, and should be drawn off at once.</p> + +<p>The mischief was, he could not be gainsaid. Major Etherington +explained—at first in English, to his General, and again, at his +General's request, in the best French he could command, for the +benefit of all, that he had indeed heard the recall blown, and had +with difficulty drawn off his men from the scaling-ladders, +persuading them (as he himself was persuaded) that the fort had +surrendered. He knew nothing of the white flag at the gateway, but +had formed his conclusions from the bugle-calls and the bare +flagstaff above the tower.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, we had not capitulated," persisted M. Etienne.</p> + +<p>The Major continued that, albeit he had tried his best, the Indians +were not to be restrained. They had poured into the fort, and, +although he had obeyed the bugles and kept his men back, it had cost +him grave misgivings. But when the Ojibway called down so urgently +from the summit of the tower, he had risked disobedience, hoping to +prevent the massacre which he knew to be afoot. He appealed to his +General to approve, or at least condone, this breach of orders. +For undoubtedly massacre had been prevented. Witness the crowd he +had found jammed in the stairway, and fighting ferociously. +Witness the scene that had met him at the head of the stairs. +Here he swung round upon John and beckoned him to stand out from the +listening group of red-coats.</p> + +<p>"It can be proved, sir," he went on, addressing M. Etienne, "that the +lady—your niece, is she not?—owes her life, and more than her life +perhaps, to this savage. I claim only that, answering his call, I +led my men with all possible speed to the rescue. Up there on the +leads I found your brother lying dead, with a sergeant dead beside +him; and their wounds again will prove to you that they had perished +by the bursting of a shell. But this man alone stood on the hatchway +and held it against a dozen Iroquois, as your niece will testify. +What you suppose yourself to owe him, I won't pretend to say; but I +tell you—and I tell you, General—that cleaner pluck I never saw in +my life."</p> + +<p>John, the soldiers pushing him forward, stood out with bent head. +He prayed that there might be no Ojibway interpreter at hand; he knew +of none in the fort but Father Launoy, now busy in the chapel laying +out the Commandant's body. Of all the spectators there was but one— +the General himself—who had not known him either as Ensign John a +Cleeve or as the wounded sergeant from Ticonderoga. He had met +Captain Muspratt at Albany, and remembered him well on the march up +the Hudson to Lake George. With Major Etherington he had marched, +messed, played at cards, and lived in close comradeship for months +together—only two years ago! It was not before their eyes that he +hung his head, but before the thought of two eyes that in the chapel +yonder were covered by the hands of a kneeling girl.</p> + +<p>M. Etienne stepped forward and took his hand.</p> + +<p>"I thank you, my friend—if you can understand my thanks."</p> + +<p>Dominique Guyon, returning from the chapel, saw only an Indian +stepping back upon the ranks of the red-coats, who clapped him on the +shoulder for a good fellow; and Dominique paid him no more attention, +being occupied with M. Etienne's next words.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," said M. Etienne, turning upon Amherst, "my duty to +his Majesty obliges me to insist that I have not capitulated; and +your troops, sir, though they have done me this service, must be at +once withdrawn."</p> + +<p>And clearly, by all the rules of war, M. Etienne had the right on his +side. Amherst shrugged his shoulders, frowning and yet forced to +smile—the fix was so entirely absurd. As discipline went in these +North American campaigns, he commanded a well-disciplined army; but +numbers of provincials and bateau-men had filtered in through the +breaches almost unobserved during the parley, and were now strolling +about the fortifications like a crowd of inquisitive tourists. +He ordered Major Etherington to clear them out, and essayed once more +to reason with the enemy.</p> + +<p>"You do not seriously urge me, monsieur, to withdraw my men and renew +the bombardment?"</p> + +<p>"That is precisely what I require of you."</p> + +<p>"But—good heavens, my dear sir!—look at the state of your walls!" +He waved a hand towards the defences.</p> + +<p>"I see them; but <i>you</i>, sir, as a gentleman, should have no eyes for +their condition—on this side."</p> + +<p>The General arched his eyebrows and glanced from M. Etienne to the +Canadians; he did not for a moment mean to appeal to them, but his +glance said involuntarily, "A pretty madman you have for commander!"</p> + +<p>And in fact they were already murmuring. What nonsense was this of +M. Etienne's? The fort had fallen, as any man with eyes could see. +Their Commandant was dead. They had fought to gain time? Well, they +had succeeded, and won compliments even from their enemy.</p> + +<p>Corporal Sans Quartier spoke up. "With all respect, M. le Capitaine, +if we fight again some of us would like to know what we are fighting +for."</p> + +<p>M. Etienne swung round upon him.</p> + +<p>"Tais-toi, poltron!"</p> + +<p>A murmur answered him; and looking along the line of faces he read +sympathy, respect, even a little shame, but nowhere the response he +sought.</p> + +<p>Nor did he reproach them. Bitter reproaches indeed shook his lips, +but trembled there and died unuttered. For five—maybe ten—long +seconds he gazed, and so turned towards the General.</p> + +<p>"Achevez, monsieur!… Je vous demande pardon si vous me trouvéz +un peu pointilleux." His voice shook; he unbuckled his sword, held +it for a moment between his hands as if hesitating, then offered it +to Amherst with the ghost of a bitter smile. "Cela ne vaut pas—sauf +à moi—la peine de le casser…"</p> + +<p>He bowed, and would have passed on towards the chapel. Amherst +gently detained him.</p> + +<p>"I spare you my compliments, sir, and my condolence; they would be +idly offered to a brave man at such a moment. Forgive me, though, +that I cannot spare to consult you on my own affairs. Time presses +with us. You have, as I am told, good pilots here who know the +rapids between this and Montreal, and I must beg to have them pointed +out to me."</p> + +<p>M. Etienne paused. "The best pilots, sir, are Dominique Guyon there, +and his brother Bateese. But you will find that most of these men +know the river tolerably well."</p> + +<p>"And the rest of your garrison? Your pardon, again, but I must hold +you responsible, to deliver up <i>all</i> your men within the Fort."</p> + +<p>"I do not understand… This, sir, is all the garrison of Fort +Amitié."</p> + +<p>Amherst stared at the nineteen or twenty hurt and dishevelled men +ranged against the tower wall, then back into a face impossible to +associate with untruth.</p> + +<p>"M. le Capitaine," said he very slowly, "if with these men you have +made a laughing-stock of me for two days and a half, why then I owe +you a grudge. But something else I owe, and must repay at once. +Be so good as to receive back a sword, sir, of which I am all +unworthy to deprive you."</p> + +<p>But as he proffered it, M. Etienne put up both hands to thrust the +gift away, then covered his face with them.</p> + +<p>"Not now, monsieur—not now! To-morrow perhaps… but not now, or +I may break it indeed!"</p> + +<p>Still with his face covered, he tottered off towards the chapel.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="26"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXV.</h3> + +<h4>THE RAPIDS.</h4> + +<p>They had run the Galops rapids, Point Iroquois, Point Cardinal, the +Rapide Plat, without disaster though not without heavy toil. The +fury of the falls far exceeded Amherst's expectations, but he +believed that he had seen the worst, and he blessed the pilotage of +Dominique and Bateese Guyon.</p> + +<p>Here and there the heavier bateaux carrying the guns would be warped +or pushed and steadied along shore in the shallow water under the +bank, by gangs, to avoid some peril over which the whaleboats rode +easily; and this not only delayed the flotilla but accounted for the +loss of a few men caught at unawares by the edge of the current, +swept off their legs, and drowned.</p> + +<p>On the first day of September they ran the Long Saut and floated +across the still basin of Lake St. Francis. At the foot of the lake +the General landed a company or two of riflemen to dislodge La +Corne's militia; but La Corne was already falling back upon the lower +rapids, and, as it turned out, this redoubtable partisan gave no +trouble at all.</p> + +<p>They reached and passed Coteau du Lac on the 3rd.</p> + +<p>Dominique and Bateese steered the two leading whaleboats, setting the +course for the rest as they had set it all the way down from Fort +Amitié. By M. Etienne's request, he and his niece and the few +disabled prisoners from the fort travelled in these two boats under a +small guard. It appeared that the poor gentleman's wits were shaken; +he took an innocent pride now in the skill of the two brothers, his +family's <i>censitaires</i>, and throughout the long days he discoursed on +it wearisomely. The siege—his brother's death—Fort Amitié itself +and his two years and more of residence there—seemed to have faded +from his mind. He spoke of Boisveyrac as though he had left it but a +few hours since.</p> + +<p>"And the General," said he to Diane, "will be interested in seeing +the Seigniory."</p> + +<p>"A sad sight, monsieur!" put in Bateese, overhearing him. +(Just before embarking, M. Etienne, Diane and Félicité had been +assigned to Bateese's boat, while Father Launoy, Father Joly and two +wounded prisoners travelled in Dominique's.) "A sight to break the +heart! We passed it, Dominique and I, on our way to and from +Montreal. Figure to yourself that the corn was standing already +over-ripe, and it will be standing yet, though we are in September!"</p> + +<p>"The General will make allowances," answered M. Etienne with grave +simplicity. "He will understand that we have had no time for +harvesting of late. Another year—"</p> + +<p>Diane shivered. And yet—was it not better to dote thus, needing no +pity, happy as a child, than to live sane and feel the torture? +Better perhaps, but best and blessedest to escape the choice as her +father had escaped it! As the river bore her nearer to Boisveyrac +she saw his tall figure pacing the familiar shores, pausing to con +the acres that were his and had been his father's and his father's +father's. She saw and understood that smile of his which had so +often puzzled her as a child when she had peered up into his face +under its broad-brimmed hat and noted his eyes as they rested on the +fields, the clearings, the forest; noted his cheeks reddened with +open-air living; his firm lips touched with pride—the pride of a +king treading his undisputed ground. In those days she and Armand +had been something of an enigma to their father, and he to them; +their vision tinged and clouded, perhaps, by a drop or two of dusky +Indian blood. But now he had suddenly become intelligible to her, an +heroic figure, wonderfully simple. She let her memory call up +picture after picture of him—as he sat in the great parlour hearing +"cases," dispensing fatherly justice; as he stood up at a marriage +feast to drink the bride's and bridegroom's health and commend their +example to all the young <i>habitants</i>; as he patted the heads of the +children trooping to their first communion; as he welcomed his +<i>censitaires</i> on St. Martin's day, when they poured in with their +rents—wheat, eggs and poultry—the poultry all alive, heels tied, +heads down, throats distended and squalling—until the barnyard +became Babel, and still he went about pinching the fowls' breasts, +running the corn through his hands, dispensing a word of praise here, +a prescription there, and kindness everywhere. Now bad harvests +would vex him no more, nor the fate of his familiar fields. +In the wreck of all he had lived for, his life had stood up clear for +a moment, complete in itself and vindicated. And the moment which +had revealed had also ended it; he lay now beneath the chapel +pavement at Fort Amitié, indifferently awaiting judgment, his sword +by his side.</p> + +<p>They ran the Cedars and, taking breath on the smooth waters below, +steered for the shore where the towers and tall chimneys of +Boisveyrac crept into view, and the long façade of the Seigniory, +slowly unfolding itself from the forest.</p> + +<p>Here the leading boats were brought to land while the flotilla +collected itself for the next descent. A boat had capsized and +drowned its crew in the Long Saut, and Amherst had learnt the lesson +of that accident and thenceforward allowed no straggling. Constant +to his rule, too, of leaving no post in his rear until satisfied that +it was harmless, he proposed to inspect the Seigniory, and sent a +message desiring M. Etienne's company—and Mademoiselle's, if to +grant this favour would not distress her.</p> + +<p>Diane prayed to be excused; but M. Etienne accepted with alacrity. +He had saluted the first glimpse of the homestead with a glad cry, +eager as a schoolboy returning for his holidays. He met the General +on the slope with a gush of apologies. 'He must overlook the unkempt +condition of the fields.… Boisveyrac was not wont to make so +poor a show… the estate, in fact, though not rich, had always +been well kept up… the stonework was noted throughout New +France, and every inch of timber (would M. le General observe?) +thoroughly well seasoned.… Yes, those were the arms above the +entrance—Noël quartering Tilly—two of the oldest families in the +province… If M. le General took an interest in heraldry, these +other quarterings were worth perusal… de Repentigny, +de Contrecœur, Traversy, St. Ours, de Valrennes, de la Mothe, +d'Ailleboust… and the windmill would repay an ascent… +the view from its summit was magnificent.…'</p> + +<p>Diane, seated in the boat and watching, saw him halt and point out +the escutcheons; saw him halt again in the gateway and spread out his +arms to indicate the solidity of the walls; could almost, reading his +gestures, hear the words they explained; and her cheeks burned with +shame.</p> + +<p>"A fine estate!" said a voice in the next boat.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," answered Bateese at her elbow; "there is no Seigniory +to compare with Boisveyrac. And we will live to welcome you back to +it, mademoiselle. The English are no despoilers, they tell me."</p> + +<p>She glanced at Dominique. He had filled a pipe, and, as he smoked, +his eyes followed her uncle's gestures placidly. Scorn of him, scorn +of herself, intolerable shame, rose in a flood together.</p> + +<p>"If my uncle behaves like a <i>roturier</i>, it is because his mind is +gone. Shall <i>we</i> spy on him and laugh?—ghosts of those who are +afraid to die!"</p> + +<p>Father Launoy looked up from his breviary.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle is unjust," said he quietly. "To my knowledge, those +servants of hers, whom she reproaches, have risked death and taken +wounds, in part for her sake."</p> + +<p>Diane sat silent, gazing upon the river. Yes, she had been unjust, +and she knew it. Félicité had told her how the garrison had rushed +after Dominique to rescue her, and of the struggle in the stairway of +the tower. Dominique bore an ugly cut, half-healed yet, reaching +from his right eyebrow across the cheekbone—the gash of an Indian +knife. Bateese could steer with his left hand only; his right he +carried in a sling. And the two men lying at this moment by Father +Launoy's feet had taken their wounds for her sake. Unjust she had +been; bitterly unjust. How could she explain the secret of her +bitterness—that she despised herself?</p> + +<p>Boats were crowding thick around them now, many of them half filled +with water. The crews, while they baled, had each a separate tale to +tell of their latest adventure; each, it seemed, had escaped +destruction by a hair's-breadth. The Cedars had been worse even than +the Long Saut. They laughed and boasted, wringing their clothes. +The nearest flung questions at Dominique, at Bateese. The Cascades, +they understood, were the worst in the whole chain of rapids, always +excepting the La Chine. But the La Chine were not to be attempted; +the army would land above them, at Isle Perrot perhaps, or at the +village near the falls, and cover the last nine or ten miles on foot. +But what of the Buisson? and of the Roches Fendues?</p> + +<p>More than an hour passed in this clamour, and still the boats +continued to crowd around. The first-comers, having baled, were +looking to their accoutrements, testing the powder in their flasks, +repolishing the locks and barrels of their muskets. "To be sure La +Corne and his militiamen had disappeared, but there was still room +for a skirmish between this and Lake St. Louis; if he had posted +himself on the bank below, he might prove annoying. The rapids were +bad enough without the addition of being fired upon during the +descent, when a man had work enough to hold tight by the gunwale and +say his prayers. Was the General sending a force down to clear La +Corne out?"</p> + +<p>"Diane!"</p> + +<p>A crowd of soldiers had gathered on the bank, shutting out all view +of the Seigniory. Diane, turning at the sound of her uncle's voice, +saw the men make way, and caught her breath. He was not alone. +He came through the press triumphantly, dragging by the hand an +Indian—an Indian who hung back from the river's brink with eyes +averted, fastened on the ground—the man whom, of all men, she most +feared to meet.</p> + +<p>"Diane, the General has been telling me—this honest fellow—we have +been most remiss—"</p> + +<p>M. Etienne panted as he picked his steps down the bank. His face was +glowing.</p> + +<p>"—He understands a little French, it seems. I have the General's +permission to give him a seat in our boat. He tells me he is averse +to being thanked, but that is nonsense. I insisted on his coming."</p> + +<p>"You have thanked me once already, monsieur," urged John à Cleeve in +a voice as low as he could pitch it.</p> + +<p>"But not sufficiently. You hear, Diane?—he speaks French! I was +confused at the time; I did not gather—"</p> + +<p>She felt Dominique's eyes upon her. Was her face so white then? +He must not guess.… She held out her hand, commanding her voice +to speak easily, wondering the while at the sound of it.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, my friend. My uncle is right; we have been remiss—"</p> + +<p>Her voice trailed off, as her eyes fell on Father Launoy. He was +staring, not at her, but at the Indian; curiously at first, then with +dawning suspicion.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily she glanced again towards Dominique. He, too, slowly +moved his gaze from her face and fastened it on the Indian.</p> + +<p>He knew.… Father Launoy knew.… Oh, when would the boats +push off?</p> + +<p>They pushed off and fell into their stations at length, amid almost +interminable shouting of orders and cross-shouting, pulling and +backing of oars. She had stolen one look at Bateese.… He did +not suspect… but, in the other boat, they knew.</p> + +<p>Her uncle's voice ran on like a brook. She could not look up, for +fear of meeting her lover's eyes—yes, her lover's! She was reckless +now. They knew. She would deceive herself no longer. She was +base—base. He stood close, and in his presence she was glad— +fiercely, deliciously, desperately. She, betrayed in all her vows, +was glad. The current ran smoothly. If only, beyond the next ledge, +might lie annihilation!</p> + +<p>The current ran with an oily smoothness. They were nearing the +Roches Fendues. Dominique's boat led.</p> + +<p>A clear voice began to sing, high and loud, in a ringing tenor:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre:<br> + Mironton, mironton, mirontaine…"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>At the first note John à Cleeve, glancing swiftly at Bateese, saw his +body stiffen suddenly with his hand on the tiller; saw his eyes +travel forward, seeking his brother's; saw his face whiten. +Dominique stood erect, gazing back, challenging. Beyond him John +caught a glimpse of Father Launoy looking up from his breviary; and +the priest's face, too, was white and fixed.</p> + +<p>Voices in the boats behind began to curse loudly; for "Malbrouck" was +no popular air with the English. But Bateese took up the chant:</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre—<br> + Ne sais quand reviendra!"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>They were swinging past Bout de l'lsle. Already the keel under foot +was gathering way. From Bateese, who stood with eyes stiffened now +and inscrutable, John looked down upon Diane. She lifted her face +with a wan smile, but she, too, was listening to the challenge flung +back from the leading boat.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Il reviendra-z à Pâques…"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>He flung one glance over his shoulder, and saw the channel dividing +ahead. Dominique was leaning over, pressing down the helm to +starboard. Over Dominique's arm Father Launoy stared rigidly. +Father Joly, as if aware of something amiss, had cast out both hands +and was grasping the gunwale. The boat, sucked into the roar of the +rapids, shot down the left channel—the channel of death.</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Il reviendra-z à Pâques,<br> + Ou—à la Trinité!"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The voice was lost in the roar of the falls, now drumming loud in +John's ears. He knew nothing of these rapids; but two channels lay +ahead and the choice between them. He leapt across M. Etienne, and +hurling Bateese aside, seized the tiller and thrust it hard over, +heading for the right.</p> + +<p>Peering back through the spray as he bent he saw the helmsmen astern +staring—hesitating. They had but a second or two in which to +choose. He shouted and shouted again—in English. But the tumbling +waters roared high above his shouts.</p> + +<p>He reached out and gripping Bateese by the collar, forced the tiller +into his hand. Useless now to look back to try to discover how many +boats were following!</p> + +<p>Bateese, with a sob, crept back to the tiller and steered.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>Not until the foot of the falls was reached did John know that the +herd had followed him. But forty-six boats had followed Dominique's +fatal lead: and of their crews ninety red-coated corpses tossed with +Dominique's and the two priests' and spun in the eddies beneath the +<i>Grand Bouilli</i>.</p> + +<p>At dawn next morning the sentries in Montreal caught sight of them +drifting down past the walls, and carried the news. So New France +learnt that its hour was near.</p> +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="27"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3> + +<h4>DICK'S JUDGMENT.</h4> + +<p>Two days later Amherst landed his troops at La Chine, marched them +unopposed to Montreal, and encamped before the city on its western +side. Within the walls M. de Vaudreuil called a council of war.</p> + +<p>Resistance was madness. From east, south, west, the French +commanders—Bourlamaque, Bougainville, Roquemaure, Dumas, La Corne— +had all fallen back, deserted by their militias. The provincial army +had melted down to two hundred men; the troops of the line numbered +scarce above two thousand. The city, crowded with non-combatant +refugees, held a bare fortnight's provisions. Its walls, built for +defence against Indians, could not stand against the guns which +Amherst was already dragging up from the river; its streets of wooden +houses awaited only the first shell to set them ablaze.</p> + +<p>On the eastern side Murray was moving closer, to encamp for the +siege. To the south the tents of Haviland's army dotted the river +shore. Seventeen thousand British and British-Colonials ringed about +all that remained of New France, ready to end her by stroke of sword +if Vaudreuil would not by stroke of pen.</p> + +<p>Next morning Bougainville sought Amherst's tent and presented a bulky +paper containing fifty-five articles of capitulation. Amherst read +them through, and came to the demand that the troops should march out +with arms, cannon, flags, and all the honours of war. "Inform the +Governor," he answered, "that the whole garrison of Montreal, and +all other French troops in Canada, must lay down their arms, and +undertake not to serve again in this war." Bougainville bore his +message, and returned in a little while to remonstrate; but in vain. +Then Lévis tried his hand, sending his quartermaster-general to plead +against terms so humiliating—"terms," he wrote, "to which it will +not be possible for us to subscribe." Amherst replied curtly that +the terms were harsh, and he had made them so intentionally; they +marked his sense of the conduct of the French throughout the war in +exciting their Indian allies to atrocity and murder.</p> + +<p>So Fort William Henry was avenged at length, in the humiliation of +gallant men; and human vengeance proved itself, perhaps, neither more +nor less clumsy than usual.</p> + +<p>Vaudreuil tried to exact that the English should, on their side, pack +off their Indians. He represented that the townsfolk of Montreal +stood in terror of being massacred. Again Amherst refused. +"No Frenchman," said he, "surrendering under treaty has ever suffered +outrage from the Indians of our army." This was on the 7th of +September.</p> + +<p>Early on the 8th Vaudreuil yielded and signed the capitulation. +Lévis, in the name of the army, protested bitterly. "If the Marquis +de Vaudreuil, through political motives, believes himself obliged to +surrender the colony at once, we beg his leave to withdraw with the +troops of the line to Isle Sainte-Hélène, to maintain there, on our +own behalf, the honour of the King's arms." To this, of course, the +Governor could not listen. Before the hour of surrender the French +regiments burnt their flags.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>On the southern shore of the St. Lawrence, in the deepest recess of a +small curving bay, the afternoon sun fell through a screen of +bulrushes upon a birch canoe and a naked man seated in the shallows +beside it. In one hand he held out, level with his head, a lock of +hair, dark and long and matted, while the other sheared at it with a +razor. The razor flashed as he turned it this way and that against +the sun. On his shoulders and raised upper arm a few water-drops +glistened, for he had been swimming.</p> + +<p>The severed locks fell into the stream that rippled beside him +through the bulrush stems. Some found a channel at once and were +swept out of sight, others were caught against the stems and trailed +out upon the current like queer water-flags. He laid the razor back +in the canoe and, rising cautiously, looked about for a patch of +clear, untroubled water to serve him for a mirror; but small eddies +and cross-currents dimpled the surface everywhere, and his search was +not a success. Next he fetched forth from the canoe an earthenware +pan with lye and charcoal, mixed a paste, and began to lather his +head briskly.</p> + +<p>Twice he paused in his lathering. Before his shelter rolled the +great river, almost two miles broad; and clear across that distance, +from Montreal, came the sound of drums beating, bells ringing, men +shouting and cheering. In the Place d'Armes, over yonder, Amherst +was parading his troops to receive the formal surrender of the +Marquis de Vaudreuil. Murray and Haviland were there, leading their +brigades, with Gage and Fraser and Burton; Carleton and Haldfmand and +Howe—Howe of the Heights of Abraham, brother of him who fell in the +woods under Ticonderoga; the great Johnson of the Mohawk Valley, whom +the Iroquois obeyed; Rogers of the backwoods and his brothers, +bravest of the brave; Schuyler and Lyman: and over against them, +drinking the bitterest cup of their lives, Lévis and Bourlamaque and +Bougainville, Dumas, Pouchot, and de la Corne—victors and +vanquished, all the surviving heroes of the five years' struggle face +to face in the city square.</p> + +<p><i>Hi motus animorum atque hæc certamina tanta</i>—the half of North +America was changing hands at this moment, and how a bare two miles' +distance diminished it all! What child's play it made of the +rattling drums! From his shelter John à Cleeve could see almost the +whole of the city's river front—all of it, indeed, but a furlong or +two at its western end; and the clean atmosphere showed up even the +loopholes pierced in the outer walls of the great Seminary. +Above the old-fashioned square bastions of the citadel a white flag +floated; and that this flag bore a red cross instead of the golden +lilies it had borne yesterday was the one and only sign, not easily +discerned, of a reversal in the fates of two nations. The steeples +and turrets of Montreal, the old windmill, the belfry and +high-pitched roof of Notre Dame de Bonsecours, the massed buildings +of the Seminary and the Hôtel Dieu, the spire of the Jesuits, rose +against the green shaggy slopes of the mountain, and over the +mountain the sky paled tranquilly toward evening. Sky, mountain, +forests, mirrored belfry and broad rolling river—a permanent peace +seemed to rest on them all.</p> + +<p>Half a mile down-stream, where Haviland's camp began, the men of the +nearest picket were playing chuck-farthing. Duty deprived them of +the spectacle in the Place d'Armes, and thus, as soldiers, they +solaced themselves. Through the bulrush stems John heard their +voices and laughter.</p> + +<p>A canoe came drifting down the river, across the opening of the +little creek. A man sat in it with his paddle laid across his knees; +and as the stream bore him past, his eyes scanned the water inshore. +John recognised Bateese at once; but Bateese, after a glance, went by +unheeding. It was no living man he sought.</p> + +<p>John finished his lathering at leisure, waded out beyond the rushes +and cast himself forward into deep water. He swam a few strokes, +ducked his head, dived, and swam on again; turned on his back and +floated, staring up into the sky; breasted the strong current and +swam against it, fighting it in sheer lightness of heart. Boyhood +came back to him with his cleansing, and a boyish memory—of an hour +between sunset and moonrise; of a Devonshire lane, where the harvest +wagons had left wisps of hay dangling from the honeysuckles; of a +triangular patch of turf at the end of the lane, and a whitewashed +Meeting-House with windows open, and through the windows a hymn +pouring forth upon the Sabbath twilight—</p> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,<br> + Bears all his sons away…"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>An ever-rolling stream! It would bear him down, and the generals +yonder, victors and vanquished, drums and trumpets, hopes and +triumphs and despair—overwhelming, making equal the greater with the +less. But meanwhile, how good to be alive and a man, to swim and +breast it! So this river, if he fought it, would out-tire him, sweep +him away and roll on unheeding, majestic, careless of life and of +time. But for this moment he commanded it. Let his new life bring +what it might, this hour the river should be his servant, should +prepare and wash him clean, body and soul. He lifted his head, +shaking the water from his eyes, and the very volume of the lustral +flood contented him. He felt the strong current pressing against his +arms, and longed to embrace it all. And again, tickled by the +absurdity of his fancies, he lay on his back and laughed up at the +sky.</p> + +<p>He swam to shore, flung himself down, and panted. Across the river, +by the landing-stage beneath the citadel, a band was playing down +Haviland's brigade to its boats; and one of the boats was bringing a +man whom John had great need to meet. When the sun had dried and +warmed him, he dressed at leisure, putting on a suit complete, with +striped shirt, socks, and cowhide boots purchased from a waterside +trader across the river and paid for with the last of his moneys +earned in the wilderness. The boots, though a world too wide, +cramped him painfully; and he walked up and down the bank for a +minute or two, to get accustomed to them, before strolling down to +meet the challenge of the pickets.</p> + +<p>They were men of the 17th, and John inquired for their adjutant. +They pointed to the returning boats. The corporal in charge of the +picket, taking note of his clothes, asked if he belonged to Loring's +bateau-men, and John answered that he had come down with them through +the falls.</p> + +<p>"A nice mess you made of it up yonder," was the corporal's comment. +"Two days we were on fatigue duty picking up the bodies you sent down +to us, and burying them. Only just now a fellow came along in a +canoe—a half-witted kind of Canadian. Said he was searching for his +brother."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said John, "I saw him go by. I know the man."</p> + +<p>"Hell of a lot of brother he's likely to find. We've tidied up the +whole length of the camp front. But there's corpses yet, a mile or +two below, they say. I sent him down to take his pick."</p> + +<p>He put a question or two about the catastrophe. "Scandalous sort of +bungle," he pronounced it, being alike ignorant of the strength of +the rapids, and fain, as an honest soldier of Haviland's army, to +take a discrediting view of anything done by Amherst's. He waxed +very scornful indeed.</p> + +<p>"Now <i>we</i> was allowing you didn't find the stream fast enough, by the +way you kept us cooling our heels here." Perceiving that John was +indisposed to quarrel, he went wearily back to his chuck-farthing.</p> + +<p>John sat down and waited, scanning the boats as they drew to shore. +Dick, whom he had left an ensign, was now adjutant of the 17th. +This meant, of course, that he had done creditably and made himself +felt. It meant certain promotion, too; Dick being the very man, as +adjutant, to lick a regiment into shape. John could not help +pondering a little, by contrast, on his own career, but without any +tinge of jealousy or envy. Dick owed nothing to luck; would honestly +earn or justify any favour that Fortune might grant.</p> + +<p>The young adjutant, stepping ashore, swung round on his heel to call +an order to the crowding boats. His voice, albeit John thrilled to +the sound of it, was not the voice he remembered. It had hardened +somehow. And his face, when John caught sight of it in profile, was +not the face of a man on the sunny side of favour. It was manlier, +more resolute perhaps than of old, but it had put on reserve and +showed even some discontent in the set of the chin—a handsome face +yet, and youthful, and full of eager strength; but with a shadow on +it (thought John) that it had not worn in the days when Dick +Montgomery took his young ease in Sion and criticised men and +generals.</p> + +<p>He was handling the disembarkation well. Clearly, too, his men +respected and liked him. But (thought John again) who could help +loving him? John had not bargained for the rush of tenderness that +shook him as he stood there unperceived, and left him trembling. +For a moment he longed only to escape; and then, mastered by an +impulse, scarce knowing what he did, stepped forward and touched his +cousin's arm.</p> + +<p>"Dick!" he said softly.</p> + +<p>Montgomery turned, cast a sharp glance at him, and fell back staring.</p> + +<p>"<i>You!</i>" John saw the lips form the word, but no sound came. +He himself was watching Dick's eyes.</p> + +<p>Yes, as incredulity passed, joy kindled in them, and the old +affection. For once in his life Richard Montgomery fairly broke +down.</p> + +<p>"Jack!"—he stretched out both hands. "We heard—You were not among +the prisoners—" His voice stammered to a halt: his eyes brimmed.</p> + +<p>"Come, and hear all about it. Oh, Dick, Dick, 'tis good to see your +face again!"</p> + +<p>They linked arms, and Dick suffered John to lead him back to the +canoe among the rushes.</p> + +<p>"My mother… ?" asked John, halting there by the brink.</p> + +<p>"You haven't heard?" Dick turned his face and stared away across the +river.</p> + +<p>"I have heard nothing.… Is she dead?"</p> + +<p>Dick bent his head gravely. "A year since.… Your brother Philip +wrote the news to me. It was sudden: just a failure of the heart, he +said. She had known of the danger for years, but concealed it."</p> + +<p>John seated himself on the bank, and gazed out over the river for a +minute or so in silence. "She believed me dead, of course?" he +began, but did not ask how the blow had affected her. Likely enough +Dick would not know. "Is there any more bad news?" he asked at +length.</p> + +<p>"None. Your brother is well, and there's another child born. +The à Cleeves are not coming to an end just yet. No more questions, +Jack, until you've told me all about yourself!"</p> + +<p>He settled down to listen, and John, propping himself on an elbow, +began his tale.</p> + +<p>Twice or thrice during the narrative Dick furrowed his brows in +perplexity. When, however, John came to tell of his second year's +sojourn with the Ojibways, he sat up with a jerk and stared at his +cousin in a blank dismay.</p> + +<p>"But, good Lord! You said just now that this fellow—this +Menehwehna—had promised to help you back to the army, as soon as +Spring came. Did he break his word, then?"</p> + +<p>"No! he would have kept his word. But I didn't want to return."</p> + +<p>"You didn't—want—to return!" Dick repeated the words slowly, +trying to grasp them. "Man alive, were you clean mad? Don't you see +what cards you held? Oh," he groaned, "you're not going on to tell +me that you threw them away—the chance of a life-time!"</p> + +<p>"I don't see," answered John simply.</p> + +<p>Dick sprang up and paced the bank with his hands clenched, half +lifted. "God! if such a chance had fallen to <i>me</i>! You had +intercepted two dispatches, one of which might have hurried the +French up from Montreal here to save Fort Frontenac. Wherever you +could, you bungled; but you rode on the full tide of luck. And even +when you tumbled in love with this girl—oh, you needn't deny it!— +even when you walked straight into the pitfall that ninety-nine men +in a hundred would have seen and avoided—your very folly pulled you +out of the mess! You escaped, by her grace, having foiled two +dispatches and possessed your self of knowledge that might have saved +Amherst from wasting ten minutes where he wasted two days. And now +you stare at me when I tell you that you held the chance of a +lifetime! Why, man, you could have asked what promotion you willed! +Some men have luck—!" Speech failed him and he cast himself down at +full length on the turf again. "Go on," he commanded grimly.</p> + +<p>And John resumed, but in another, colder tone. The rest of the +story he told perfunctorily, omitting all mention of the fight +on the flagstaff tower and telling no more than was needful of the +last adventure of the rapids. Either he or Dick had changed. +Having begun, he persevered, but now without hope to make himself +understood.</p> + +<p>"Did ever man have such luck?" grumbled Dick. "You have made +yourself a deserter. You did all you could to earn being shot; you +walked back, and again did all you could to leave Amherst no other +choice but to shoot you. And, again, you blunder into saving half an +army! Have you seen Amherst?"</p> + +<p>"He sent for me at La Chine, to reward me."</p> + +<p>"You told him all, of course?"</p> + +<p>"I did—or almost all!"</p> + +<p>"Then, since he has not shot you, I presume you are now restored to +the Forty-sixth, and become the just pride of the regiment?"</p> + +<p>Dick's voice had become bitter with a bitterness at which John +wondered; but all his answer was:</p> + +<p>"Look at these clothes. They will tell you if I am restored to the +Forty-sixth."</p> + +<p>"So that was more than Amherst could bring himself to stomach?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, he gave me my choice. But I am resigning my +commission."</p> + +<p>"Eh? Well, I suppose your monstrous luck with the dispatches had +earned you his leniency. You told him of Fort Frontenac, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"I did not tell him of that. But someone else had taken care that he +should learn something of it."</p> + +<p>"The girl? You don't mean to tell me that your luck stepped in once +again?"</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle Diane must have guessed that I meant to tell the +General all. She left a sealed letter which he opened in my +presence. As for my luck," continued John—and now it was his turn +to speak bitterly—"you may think how I value it when I tell you how +the letter ended. With the General's help, it said, she was hiding +herself for ever; and as a man of honour I must neither seek her nor +hope for sight of her again."</p> + +<p>And Dick's comment finally proved to John that between them these two +years had fixed a gulf impassable. "Well, and you ought to respect +her wishes," he said. "She interfered to save you, if ever a woman +saved a man." He was striding to and fro again on the bank. +"And what will you do now?" he demanded, halting suddenly.</p> + +<p>"The General thinks Murray will be the new Governor, and promises to +recommend me to him. There's work to be done in reducing the +outlying French forts and bringing the Indians to reason. Probably I +shall be sent west."</p> + +<p>"You mean to live your life out in Canada?" + +"I do."</p> + +<p>"Tell me at least that you have given up hope of this girl."</p> + +<p>John flushed. "I shall never seek her," he answered. "But while +life lasts I shall not give up hope of seeing her once again."</p> + +<p>"And I am waiting for my captaincy," said Dick grimly; "who with less +than half your luck would have commanded a regiment!"</p> + +<p>He swung about suddenly to confront a corporal—John's critical +friend of the picket—who had come up the bank seeking him.</p> + +<p>"Beg pardon, sir," said the corporal, saluting, "but there's a +Canadian below that has found a corpse along-shore, and wants to bury +him on his own account."</p> + +<p>"That will be Bateese Guyon," said John. They walked together down +the shore to the spot where Bateese bent over his brother.</p> + +<p>"This is the man," said he, "who led us through the Roches Fendues. +Respect his dead body, Dick."</p> + +<p>"I hope," said Dick, half-lifting his hat as he stood by the corpse, +"I can respect a man who did a brave deed and died for his country."</p> + + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="28"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3> + +<h4>PRÈS-DE-VILLE.</h4> + +<p>Fifteen years have gone by, and a few months. In December 1775, on +the rock of Quebec, Great Britain clung with a last desperate grip +upon Canada, which on that September day in 1760 had passed so +completely into her hands.</p> + +<p>All through December the snow had fallen almost incessantly; and +almost incessantly, through the short hours of daylight, the American +riflemen, from their lodgings in the suburbs close under the walls, +had kept up a fire on the British defenders of Quebec. For the +assailants of Great Britain now were her own children; and the man +who led them was a British subject still, and but three years ago had +been a British officer.</p> + +<p>Men see their duty by different lights, but Richard Montgomery had +always seen his clearly. He had left the British Army for sufficient +cause; had sought America, and married an American wife. He served +the cause of political freedom now, and meant to serve it so as to +win an imperishable name. The man whom King George had left for ten +years a captain had been promoted by Congress Brigadier-General at a +stroke. It recognised the greatness of which his own soul had always +assured him. "Come what will," he had promised his young wife at +parting, "you shall never be ashamed of me." His men adored him for +his enthusiasm, his high and almost boyish courage, his dash, his +bright self-confidence.</p> + +<p>And his campaign had been a triumph. Ticonderoga and Crown Point had +fallen before him. He had swept down the Richelieu, capturing St. +John's, Chambly, Sorel. Montreal had capitulated without a blow. +And so success had swept him on to the cliffs of Quebec—there to +dash itself and fail as a spent wave.</p> + +<p>He would not acknowledge this; not though smallpox had broken out +among his troops and they, remembering that their term of service +was all but expired, began to talk of home; not though his guns, +mounted on frozen mounds, had utterly failed to batter a way into the +city. As a subaltern he had idolised Wolfe, and here on the ground +of Wolfe's triumphant stroke he still dreamed of rivalling it. +In Quebec a cautious phlegmatic British General sat and waited, +keeping, as the moonless nights drew on, his officers ready against +surprise. For a week they had slept in their clothes and with their +arms beside them.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>From the lower town of Quebec a road, altered since beyond +recognition, ran along the base of Cape Diamond between the cliff and +the river. As it climbed it narrowed to a mere defile, known as +Près-de-Ville, having the scarped rock on one hand and on the other a +precipice dropping almost to the water's edge. Across this defile +the British had drawn a palisade and built, on the edge of the pass +above, a small three-pounder battery, with a <i>hangar</i> in its rear to +shelter the defenders.</p> + +<p>Soon after midnight on the last morning of the year, a man came +battling his way down from the upper town to the Prés-de-Ville +barrier. A blinding snow-storm raged through the darkness, and +although it blew out of the north the cliff caught its eddies and +beat them back swirling about the useless lantern he carried. +The freshly fallen snow encumbering his legs held him steady against +the buffets of the wind; and foot by foot, feeling his way—for he +could only guess how near lay the edge of the precipice—he struggled +toward the stream of light issuing from the <i>hangar</i>.</p> + +<p>As he reached it the squall cleared suddenly. He threw back his +snow-caked hood and gazed up at the citadel on the cliff. The walls +aloft there stood out brilliant against the black heavens, and he +muttered approvingly; for it was he who, as Officer of the Works, had +suggested to the Governor the plan of hanging out lanterns and +firepots from the salient angles of the bastions; and he flattered +himself that, if the enemy intended an assault up yonder, not a dog +could cross the great ditch undetected.</p> + +<p>But it appeared to him that the men in the <i>hangar</i> were not watching +too alertly, or they would never have allowed him to draw so near +unchallenged.</p> + +<p>He was lifting a hand to hammer on the rough door giving entrance +from the rear, when it was flung open and a man in provincial uniform +peered out upon the night.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Captain Chabot?" asked the visitor.</p> + +<p>The man in the doorway smothered an exclamation. "The wind was +driving the snow in upon us by the shovelful," he explained. +"We are keeping a sharp enough look-out down the road."</p> + +<p>"So I perceived," answered John à Cleeve curtly, and stepped past him +into the <i>hangar</i>. About fifty men stood packed there in a steam of +breath around the guns—the most of them Canadians and British +militiamen, with a sprinkling of petticoated sailors.</p> + +<p>"Who is working these?" asked John à Cleeve, laying his hand on the +nearest three-pounder.</p> + +<p>"Captain Barnsfare." A red-faced seaman stepped forward and saluted +awkwardly: Adam Barnsfare, master of the <i>Tell</i> transport.</p> + +<p>"Your crew all right, captain?"</p> + +<p>"All right, sir."</p> + +<p>"The Governor sends me down with word that he believes the enemy +means business to-night. Where's your artilleryman?"</p> + +<p>"Sergeant McQuarters, sir? He stepped down, a moment since, to the +barrier, to keep the sentry awake."</p> + +<p>John à Cleeve glanced up at the lamp smoking under the beam.</p> + +<p>"You have too much light here," he said. "If McQuarters has the guns +well pointed, you need only one lantern for your lintstocks."</p> + +<p>He blew out the candle in his own, and reaching up a hand, lowered +the light until it was all but extinct. As he did so his hood fell +back and the lamp-rays illumined his upturned face for two or three +seconds; a tired face, pinched just now with hard living and +wakefulness, but moulded and firmed by discipline. Fifteen years had +bitten their lines deeply about the under-jaw and streaked the +temples with grey. But they had been years of service; and, whatever +he had missed in them, he had found self-reliance.</p> + +<p>He stepped out upon the pent of the <i>hangar</i>, and, with another glance +up at the night, plunged into the deep snow, and trudged his way down +to the barricade.</p> + +<p>"Sergeant McQuarters!"</p> + +<p>"Here sir!" The Highlander saluted in the darkness, "Any word from +up yonder, sir?" A faint glow touched the outline of his face as he +lifted it toward the illuminated citadel.</p> + +<p>"The Governor looks for an assault to-night. So you know me, +McQuarters?"</p> + +<p>"By your voice, sir," answered McQuarters, and added quaintly, +"Ah, but it was different weather in those days!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said John, "we have come around by strange roads; you an +artilleryman, and I—" He broke off, musing. For a moment, standing +there knee-deep in snow, he heard the song of the waters, saw the +forests again, the dripping ledges, the cool, pendant boughs, and +smelt the fragrance of the young spruces. The spell of the woodland +silence held him, and he listened again for the rustle of wild life +in the undergrowth.</p> + +<p>"Hist! What was that?"</p> + +<p>"Another squall coming, sir. It's on us too, and a rasper!"</p> + +<p>But, as the snow-charged gust swept down and blinded them in its +whirl, John leaned towards McQuarters and lifted his voice sharply.</p> + +<p>"It was more than that—Hark you!" He gripped McQuarters' arm and +pointed to the barricade, over which for an instant a point of steel +had glimmered. "Back, man!—back to the guns!" he yelled to the +sentry. But the man was already running; and together the three +floundered back to the <i>hangar</i>. Behind them blows were already +sounding above the howl of the wind; blows of musket-butts hammering +on the wooden palisade.</p> + +<p>"Steady, men," grunted McQuarters as he reached the pent. "Give them +time to break an opening—their files will be nicely huddled by +this."</p> + +<p>John à Cleeve glanced around and was satisfied. Captain Chabot had +his men lined up and ready: two ranks of them, the front rank +kneeling.</p> + +<p>"Give the word, my lad," said Captain Barnsfare cheerfully, lintstock +in hand.</p> + +<p>"Fire then!—and God defend Quebec!"</p> + +<p>The last words were lost in an explosion which seemed to lift the +roof off the <i>hangar</i>. In the flare of it John saw the faces +of the enemy—their arms outstretched and snatching at the palisade. +Down upon them the grape-shot whistled, tearing through the gale it +outstripped, and close on it followed the Canadians' volleys.</p> + +<p>Barnsfare had sprung to the second gun. McQuarters nodded to +him.…</p> + +<br><br> +<p>For ten minutes the guns swept the pass. The flame of them lit up no +faces now by the shivered palisade, and between the explosions came +no cheering from down the road. The riflemen loaded, fired, and +reloaded; but they aimed into darkness and silence.</p> + +<p>Captain Chabot lifted a hand.</p> + +<p>The squall had swept by. High in the citadel, drums were beating; +and below, down by the waterside to the eastward, volleys of musketry +crackled sharply. But no sound came up the pass of Près-de-Ville.</p> + +<p>"That will be at the Sault-au-Matelot barrier," said McQuarters, +nodding his head in the direction of the musketry.</p> + +<p>"We've raked decks here, anyhow," Captain Barnsfare commented, +peering down the road; and one or two Canadians volunteered to +descend and explore the palisade. For a while Captain Chabot +demurred, fearing that the Americans might have withdrawn around the +angle of the cliff and be holding themselves in ambush there.</p> + +<p>"A couple of us could make sure of that," urged John. "They have +left their wounded, at all events, as you may hear by the groans. +With your leave, Captain—"</p> + +<p>Captain Chabot yielded the point, and John with a corporal and a +drummer descended the pass.</p> + +<p>A dozen bodies lay heaped by the palisade. For the moment he could +not stay to attend to them, but, passing through, followed the road +down to the end of its curve around the cliff. Two corpses lay here +of men who, mortally wounded, had run with the crowd before dropping +to rise no more. The tracks in the snow told plainly enough that the +retreat had been a stampede.</p> + +<p>Returning to the palisade he shouted up that the coast was clear, and +fell to work searching the faces of the fallen. The fresh snow, in +which they lay deep, had already frozen about them; and his eye, as +he swung the lantern slowly round, fell on a hand and arm which stood +up stiffly above the white surface.</p> + +<p>He stepped forward, flashing his lantern on the dead man's face—and +dropped on his knees beside it.</p> + +<p>"Do you know him, sir?" McQuarters' voice was speaking, close by.</p> + +<p>"I know him," answered John dully, and groped and found a thin blade +which lay beside the corpse. "He was my cousin, and once my best +friend."</p> + +<p>He felt the edge of the sword with his gloved hand, all the while +staring at the arm pointing upwards and fixed in the rigor of death, +frozen in its last gesture as Richard Montgomery had lifted it to +wave forward his men. And as if the last thirty or forty minutes had +never been, he found himself saying to McQuarters:</p> + +<p>"We have come around by strange roads, sergeant, and some of us have +parted with much on the way."</p> + +<p>He looked up; but his gaze, travelling past McQuarters who stooped +over the corpse, fell on the figure of a woman who had approached and +halted at three paces' distance; a hooded figure in the dress of the +Hospitalieres.</p> + +<p>Something in her attitude told him that she had heard. He arose, +holding the lantern high; and stared, shaking, into a face which no +uncomely linen swathings could disguise from him—into eyes which +death only would teach him to forget.</p> + +<p>The fatigue-party lifted the corpse. So Richard Montgomery entered +Quebec as he had promised—a General of Brigade.</p> + +<br><br> +<p>The drums had ceased to call the alarm from the Citadel; musketry +no longer crackled in the riverside quarter of Sault-au-Matelot. +The assault had been beaten off, and close on four hundred prisoners +were being marched up the hill followed by crowds of excited +Quebecers. But John à Cleeve roamed the streets at random, alone, +unconscious that all the while he gripped the hilt of his cousin's +naked sword.</p> + +<p>He was due to carry his report to the Governor. By and by he +remembered this, and ploughed his way up the snowy incline to the +Citadel. The sentry told him that the Governor was at the Seminary; +had gone down half an hour ago, to number and take the names of the +prisoners. John turned back.</p> + +<p>Some two hundred prisoners were drawn up in the great hall of the +Seminary, and from the doorway John spied the Governor at the far +end, interrogating them.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Carleton turned, caught sight of him and smiled gaily. +"I fancy, Mr. à Cleeve, your post is going to be a sinecure after +to-night's work. Chabot reports that you were at Prés-de-Ville and +discovered General Montgomery's body."</p> + +<p>He turned at the sound of a murmur among the prisoners behind him. +One or two had turned to the wall and were weeping audibly. +Others stared at John and one or two pointed.</p> + +<p>John, following their eyes, looked down at the sword in his hand and +stammered an apology.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me—I did not know that I carried it.… Sirs, believe me, +I intended no offence! Richard Montgomery was my cousin."</p> + +<p>From the Seminary he walked back to his quarters, meaning to snatch a +few hours' sleep before daybreak. But having lit his candle, he +found that he could not undress. The narrow room stifled him. +He flung the sword on his bed, and went down to the streets again.</p> + +<p>Dawn found him pacing the narrow sidewalk opposite a small log house +in St. Louis Street. Lights shone from the upper storey. In the +room to the right they had laid Montgomery's body, and were arraying +it for burial.</p> + +<p>The house door opened, and a lamp in the passage behind it cast a +broadening ray across the snow. A woman stepped out, and, in the act +of closing the door, caught sight of him. He made no doubt that she +would pass up the street; but, after seeming to hesitate, she came +slowly over and stood before him.</p> + +<p>"You knew me, then?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He bent his head humbly.</p> + +<p>"I have seen you many times, and heard of you," she continued. +"I heard what you said, down yonder.… Has life been so bitter +for you?"</p> + +<p>"Diane!"</p> + +<p>He turned towards the house. "He has a noble face," she said, gazing +up at the bright window.</p> + +<p>"He was a great man."</p> + +<p>"And yet he fought in the end against his country."</p> + +<p>"He believed that he did right."</p> + +<p>"Should <i>you</i> have believed it right?"</p> + +<p>John was silent.</p> + +<p>"John!"</p> + +<p>He gave a start at the sound of his name and she smiled faintly.</p> + +<p>"I have learnt to say it in English, you see."</p> + +<p>"Do not mock me, mademoiselle! Fifteen years—"</p> + +<p>"That is just what I was going to say. Fifteen years is a very long +time—and—and it has not been easy for me, John. I do not think I +can do without you any longer."</p> + +<p>So in the street, under the dawn, they kissed for the first time.</p> +<br><br><br><br> + +<h2>EPILOGUE.</h2> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="29"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>I.</h3> + +<h4>HUDSON RIVER.</h4> + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p class = "noindent">"Il reviendra-z à Pâques,<br> + Ou—à la Trinité!"<br></p> +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>On a summer's afternoon of the year 1818, in the deep veranda of a +house terraced high above the Hudson, a small company stood +expectant. Schuylers and Livingstones were there, with others of the +great patroon families; one or two in complete black, and all wearing +some badge of mourning. Some were young, others well advanced in +middle life; but amidst them, and a little apart, reclined a lady to +whose story the oldest had listened in his childhood.</p> + +<p>She lay back in an invalid chair, with her face set toward the noble +river sweeping into view around the base of a wooded bluff, and +toward the line of its course beyond, where its hidden waters +furrowed the forests to the northward and divided hill from hill. +Yet to her eyes the landscape was but a blur, and she saw it only in +memory.</p> + +<p>For forty-three years she had worn black and a widow's goffered cap. +The hair beneath it was thin now, and her body frail and very far on +its decline to the grave. On the table at her elbow lay a letter +beside a small field-glass, towards which, once and again, she +stretched out a hand.</p> + +<p>"It is heavy for you, aunt," said her favourite grand-niece, who +stood at the back of her chair—a beautiful girl in a white frock, +high-waisted and tied with a broad, black sash. "We will tell you +when they come in sight."</p> + +<p>"I know, my dear; I know. It was only to make sure."</p> + +<p>"But you tried yesterday, and with the glass your sight was as good +as mine, almost."</p> + +<p>"Even so short a while makes a difference, now. You cannot +understand that, Janet; you will, some day."</p> + +<p>"We will tell you," the girl repeated, "as soon as ever they come in +sight; perhaps before. We may see the smoke first between the trees, +you know."</p> + +<p>"Ay," the old lady answered, and added, "There was no such thing in +those days." Her hand went out toward the field-glass again, and +rested, trembling a little, on the edge of the table. "I thought— +yesterday—that the trees had grown a good deal. They have closed +in, and the river is narrower; or perhaps it looks narrower, through +a glass."</p> + +<p>The men at the far end of the veranda, who had been talking apart +while they scanned the upper bends of the river, lowered their voices +suddenly. They had heard a throbbing sound to the northward; either +the beat of a drum or the panting stroke of a steamboat's paddles.</p> + +<p>All waited, with their eyes on the distant woods. By and by a film +of dark smoke floated up as through a crevice in the massed +tree-tops, lengthened, and spread itself in the sunlight. +The throbbing grew louder—the beat of a drum, slow and funereal, +with the clank of paddle-wheels filling its pauses. And now—hark!— +a band playing the Dead March!</p> + +<p>The girl knelt and lifted the glass, ready focused. The failing +woman leaned forward, and with fingers that trembled on the tube, +directed it where the river swept broadly around the headland.</p> + +<p>What did she see? At first an ugly steamboat nosing into view and +belching smoke from its long funnel; then a double line of soldiers +crowding the deck, and between their lines what seemed at first to be +a black mound with a scarlet bar across it. But the mound was the +plumed hearse of her husband, and the scarlet bar the striped flag of +the country for which he had died—his adopted country, long since +invited to her seat among the nations.</p> + +<p>The men in the veranda had bared their heads. They heard a bell ring +on board the steamboat. Her paddles ceased to rotate, and after a +moment began to churn the river with reversed motion, holding the +boat against its current. The troops on her deck, standing with +reversed arms; the muffled drums; the half-masted flag; all saluted a +hero and the widow of a hero.</p> + +<p>So, after forty-three years, Richard Montgomery returned to the wife +he had left with a promise that, come what might, she should be proud +of him.</p> + +<p>Proud she was; she, a worn old woman sitting in the shadow of death, +proud of a dry skeleton and a handful of dust under a crape pall. +And they had parted in the hey-day of youth, young and ardent, with +arms passionately loth to untwine.</p> + +<p>What did her eyes seek beneath the pall, the plumes, the flag? +Be sure she saw him laid there at his manly length, inert, with +cheeks only a little paler than they had been as he stood looking +down into her eyes a moment before he strode away. In truth, the +searchers, opening his grave in Quebec, had found a few bones, and a +skull from which, as they lifted it, a musket-ball dropped back into +the rotted coffin; these, and a lock of hair, tied with a leathern +thong.</p> + +<p>They did not bring him ashore to her. Even after forty years his +return must be for a moment only; his country still claimed him. +The letter beside her was from Governor Clinton, written in +courtliest words, telling her of the grave in New York prepared for +him beneath the cenotaph set up by Congress many years before.</p> + +<p>Again a bell rang sharply, the paddles ceased backing and ploughed +forward again. To the sound of muffled drums he passed down the +river, and out of her sight for ever.</p> + + +<br> +<br> +<p><a name="30"></a> </p> +<br> +<h3>II.</h3> + +<h4>THE PHANTOM GUARD.</h4> + +<p>Just a hundred years have passed since the assault on Prés-de-Ville. +It is the last day of 1875, and in the Citadel above the cliff the +Commandant and his lady are holding a ball. Outside the warm rooms +winter binds Quebec. The St. Lawrence is frozen over, and the +copings and escarpments of the old fortress sparkle white under a +flying moon.</p> + +<p>The Commandant's lady had decreed fancy dress for her dancers, and +further, that their costumes shall be those of 1775. The Commandant +himself wears the antique uniform of the Royal Artillery, and some of +his guests salute him in the very coats, and carry the very swords, +their ancestors wore this night a hundred years ago. They pass up +the grand staircase hung with standards—golden leopards of England, +golden irises of France, the Dominion ensign, the Stars and Stripes— +and come face to face with a trophy, on the design of which Captain +Larne of the B Battery has spent some pious hours. Here, above +stacks of muskets piled over drums and trumpets, is draped the red +and black "rebel" pennant so that its folds fall over the escutcheon +of the United States; and against this hangs a sword, heavily craped, +with the letters R.I.P. beneath it.</p> + +<p>It is the same thin blade of steel which dropped on the snow, its +hilt warm from Richard Montgomery's hand, as he turned to wave +forward his men. His enemies salute it to-night.</p> + +<p>They pass into the upper ballroom. They are met to dance a new year +in, and the garrison band is playing a waltz of Strauss's—"Die guten +alten Zeiten." So dance follows dance, and the hours fly by to +midnight—outside, the moon in chase past the clouds and over fields +and wastes of snow—inside, the feet of dancers warming to their work +under the clustered lights.</p> + +<p>But on the stroke of midnight a waltz ceases suddenly. From the +lower ballroom the high, clear note of a trumpet rings out, silencing +the music of the bandsmen. A panel has flown open there and a +trumpeter steps forth blowing a call which, as it dies away, is +answered by a skirl of pipes and tapping of drums from a remote +corner of the barracks. The guests fall back as the sound swells on +the night, drawing nearer. Pipes are shrieking now; the rattle of +drums shakes the windows. Two folding doors fall wide, and through +them stalks a ghostly guard headed by the ghost of Sergeant Hugh +McQuarters, in kilt and tartan and cross-belt yet spotted with the +blood of a brave Highlander who died in 1775, defending Quebec. +The guard looks neither to right nor to left; it passes on through +hall and passage and ballroom, halts beneath Montgomery's sword, +salutes it in silence, and vanishes.</p> + +<p>Some of the ladies are the least bit scared. But the men are +pronouncing it a brilliant <i>coup de théâtre</i>, and presently crowd +about the trophy, discussing Montgomery and what manner of man he +was.</p> + +<p>Down in St. Louis Street the windows have been illuminated in the old +house in which his body lay. Up in the Citadel the boom of guns +salutes his memory.</p> + +<p>So the world commemorates its heroes, the brave hearts and high minds +that never doubted but pressed straight to their happy or unhappy +goals. But some of us hear the guns saluting those who doubted and +were lost, or seemed to achieve little; whose high hopes perished by +the way; whom fate bound or frustrated; whom conscience or divided +counsel drove athwart into paths belying their promise; whom, +wrapping both in one rest, earth covers at length indifferently with +its heroes.</p> + +<p>So let these guns, a hundred years late, salute the meeting of two +lovers who, before they met and were reconciled, suffered much. +The flying moon crosses the fields over which they passed forth +together, and a hundred winters have smoothed their tracks on the +snow. There is a tradition that they sought Boisveyrac; that +children were born to them there; and that they lived and died as +ordinary people do. But a thriving town hides the site of the +Seigniory, and their graves are not to be found.</p> + +<p>And north of Lake Michigan there long lingered another tradition—but +it has died now—of an Englishman and his wife who came at rare +intervals and would live among the Ojibways for a while, accepted by +them and accepting their customs; that none could predict the time of +their coming or of their departure; but that the man had, in his +time, been a famous killer of bears.</p> + +<h2>THE END.</h2> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Fort Amity, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORT AMITY *** + +***** This file should be named 20612-h.htm or 20612-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20612/ + +Produced by Lionel Sear + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fort Amity + +Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +Release Date: February 17, 2007 [EBook #20612] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORT AMITY *** + + + + +Produced by Lionel Sear + + + + + + +FORT AMITY. + +BY + +Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch. + + + +TO HENRY NEWBOLT. + + +My dear Newbolt, + +Two schoolfellows, who had sat together in the Sixth at Clifton, +met at Paddington some twenty years later and travelled down to +enter their two sons at one school. On their way, while the boys +shyly became acquainted, the fathers discussed the project of this +story; a small matter in comparison with the real business of that +day--but that it happened so gives me the opportunity of dedicating +_Fort Amity_ to you, its editor in _The Monthly Review_, as a +reminder to outlast the short life granted in these days to novels. + +Yet if either of our sons shall turn its pages some years hence, +though but to remind himself of his first journey to school, I hope +he will not lay it down too contemptuously. The tale has, for its +own purposes, so seriously confused the geography of Fort Amitie, +that he may search the map and end by doubting if any such fortress +ever existed and stood a siege: but I trust it will leave him in no +doubt of what his elders understood by honour and friendship. + +Of these two themes, at any rate, I have composed it, and dedicate it +to a poet who has sung nobly of both. "Like to the generations of +leaves are those of men"--but while we last, let these deciduous +pages commemorate the day when we two went back to school four +strong. May they also contain nothing unworthy to survive us in our +two fellow-travellers! + +A. T. QUILLER-COUCH. + +The Haven, April 20th, 1904. + + + +PREFACE. + + +More than once, attempting a story of high and passionate love--in +this book, for example, and still more recklessly in my tale of +_Sir John Constantine_--I have had to pause and ask myself the +elementary question: Can such a story, if at once true and exemplary, +conclude otherwise than in sorrow? + +The great artists in poetry and prose fiction seem to consent that it +cannot: and this, I think, not because--understanding love as they +do, with all its wonder and wild desire--they would conduct it to +life-long bliss if they could, but simply because they cannot fit it +into this muddy vesture of decay. They may dismiss us in the end +with peace and consolation: + + And calm of mind, all passion spent. + +And we know or have known that of its impulse among us lesser folk it +holifies and populates this world. But our own transience qualifies +it. Only when love here claims to be above the world--"All for Love, +and the World well Lost"--we feel that its exorbitance must wreck it +here and now, however it may shine hereafter. That is why all the +great legends of love--the tale of Tristan and Iseult, for instance-- +are unhappy legends: as that is why they still tease us. + +I hope these remarks will not be deemed too pompous for the preface +to a story in which true love is crossed by a soldier's sense of +honour. The theme is a variant on a great commonplace: and, +following my habit, I let the incidents and characters have their own +way without the author's comment or interference. + + Q. + + + +CONTENTS. + +Chapter + + PREFACE. + +I. MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T'EN GUERRE. + +II. A BIVOUAC IN THE FOREST. + +III. TICONDEROGA. + +IV. THE VOYAGEURS. + +V. CONTAINS THE APOLOGUE OF MANABOZHO'S TOE. + +VI. BATEESE. + +VII. THE WATCHER IN THE PASS. + +VIII. THE FARTHER SLOPE. + +IX. MENEHWEHNA SETTLES ACCOUNTS. + +X. BOISVEYRAC. + +XI. FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS. + +XII. THE WHITE TUNIC. + +XIII. FORT AMITIE. + +XIV. AGAIN THE WHITE TUNIC. + +XV. THE SECOND DESPATCH. + +XVI. THE DISMISSAL. + +XVII. FRONTENAC SHORE. + +XVIII. NETAWIS. + +XIX. THE LODGES IN THE SNOW. + +XX. THE REVEILLE. + +XXI. FORT AMITIE LEARNS ITS FATE. + +XXII. DOMINIQUE. + +XXIII. THE FLAGSTAFF TOWER. + +XXIV. THE FORT SURRENDERS. + +XXV. THE RAPIDS. + +XXVI. DICK'S JUDGEMENT. + +XXVII. PRES-DE-VILLE. + + EPILOGUE--I.--HUDSON RIVER. + + II.--THE PHANTOM GUARD. + + + +FORT AMITY. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T'EN GUERRE. + + "So adieu, Jack, until we meet in Quebec! You have the start of + us, report says, and this may even find you drinking his + Majesty's health in Fort Carillon. Why not? You carry Howe, + and who carries Howe carries the eagles on his standards; or so + you announce in your last. Well, but have we, on our part, no + _vexillum?_ Brother Romulus presents his compliments to Brother + Remus, and begs leave to answer 'Wolfe!' 'Tis scarce + forty-eight hours since Wry-necked Dick brought his ships into + harbour with the Brigadier on board, and already I have seen him + and--what is more--fallen in love. 'What like is he?' says you. + 'Just a sandy-haired slip of a man,' says I, 'with a cock nose': + but I love him, Jack, for he knows his business. We've a + professional at last. No more Pall Mall promenaders--no more + Braddocks. Loudons, Webbs! We live in the consulship of Pitt, + my lad--_deprome Caecubum_--we'll tap a cask to it in Quebec. + And if Abercromby's your Caesar--" + +Here a bugle sounded, and Ensign John a Cleeve of the 46th Regiment +of Foot (Murray's) crushed his friend's letter into his pocket and +sprang off the woodpile where he had seated himself with the +regimental colours across his knees. He unfolded them from their +staff, assured himself that they hung becomingly--gilt tassels and +yellow silken folds--and stepped down to the lake-side where the +bateaux waited. + +The scene is known to-day for one of the fairest in the world. +Populous cities lie near it and pour their holiday-makers upon it +through the summer season. Trains whistle along the shore under its +forests; pleasure-steamers, with music on their decks, shoot across +bays churned of old by the paddles of war-canoes; from wildernesses +where Indians lurked in ambush smile neat hotels, white-walled, with +green shutters and deep verandas; and lovers, wandering among the +hemlocks, happen on a clearing with a few turfed mounds, and seat +themselves on these last ruins of an ancient fort, nor care to +remember even its name. Behind them--behind the Adirondacks and the +Green Mountains--and pushed but a little way back in these hundred +and fifty years, lies the primeval forest, trodden no longer now by +the wasting redman, but untamed yet, almost unhandselled. And still, +as the holidaymakers leave it, winter closes down on the lake-side +and wraps it in silence, broken by the loon's cry or the crash of a +snow-laden tree deep in the forest--the same sounds, the same aching +silence, endured by French and English garrisons watching each other +and the winter through in Fort Carillon or Fort William Henry. + +"The world's great age begins anew." . . . It begins anew, and +hourly, wherever hearts are high and youth sets out with bright eyes +to meet his fate. It began anew for Ensign John a Cleeve on this +morning of July 5, 1758; it was sounded up by bugles, shattering the +forest silence; it breathed in the wind of the boat's speed shaking +the silken flag above him. His was one of twelve hundred boats +spreading like brilliant water-fowl across the lake which stretched +for thirty miles ahead, gay with British uniforms, scarlet and gold, +with Highland tartans, with the blue jackets of the Provincials; +flash of oars, innumerable glints of steel, of epaulettes, of belt, +cross-belt and badge; gilt knops and tassels and sheen of flags. +Yonder went Blakeney's 27th Regiment, and yonder the Highlanders of +the Black Watch; Abercromby's 44th, Howe's 55th with their idolised +young commander, the 60th or Royal Americans in two battalions; +Gage's Light Infantry, Bradstreet's axemen and bateau-men, Starke's +rangers; a few friendly Indians--but the great Johnson was hurrying +up with more, maybe with five hundred; in all fifteen thousand men +and over. Never had America seen such an armament; and it went to +take a fort from three thousand Frenchmen. + +No need to cover so triumphant an advance in silence! Why should not +the regimental bands strike up? For what else had we dragged them up +the Hudson from Albany and across the fourteen-mile portage to the +lake? Weary work with a big drum in so much brushwood! And play +they did, as the flotilla pushed forth and spread and left the +stockades far behind; stockades planted on the scene of last year's +massacre. Though for weeks before our arrival Bradstreet and his men +had been clearing and building, sights remained to nerve our arms and +set our blood boiling to the cry "Remember Fort William Henry!" +Its shores fade, and somewhere at the foot of the lake three thousand +Frenchmen are waiting for us (if indeed they dare to wait). Let the +bands play "Britons strike home!" + +Play they did: drums tunding and bagpipes skirling as though Fort +Carillon (or Ticonderoga, as the Indians called it) would succumb +like another Jericho to their clamour. The Green Mountains tossed +its echoes to the Adirondacks, and the Adirondacks flung it back; and +under it, down the blue waterway toward the Narrows, went Ensign John +a Cleeve, canopied by the golden flag of the 46th. + +The lake smiled at all his expectations and surpassed them. +He had imagined it a sepulchral sheet of water, sunk between +cavernous woods. And lo! it lay high in the light of day, +broad-rimmed, with the forests diminishing as they shelved down to +its waters. The mountains rimmed it, amethystine, remote, delicate +as carving, as vapours almost transparent; and within the rim it +twinkled like a great cup of champagne held high in a god's hand--so +high that John a Cleeve, who had been climbing ever since his +regiment left Albany, seemed lifted with all these flashing boats and +uniforms upon a platform where men were heroes, and all great deeds +possible, and the mere air laughed in the veins like wine. + +Two heavy flat-boats ploughed alongside of his; deep in the bows and +yawing their sterns ludicrously. They carried a gun apiece, and the +artillerymen had laded them too far forward. To the 46th they were a +sufficiently good joke to last for miles. "Look at them up-tailed +ducks a-searching for worms! Guns? Who wants guns on this trip? +Take 'em home before they sink and the General loses his temper." +The crews grinned back and sweated and tugged, at every third drive +drenching the bowmen with spray, although not a breath of wind +rippled the lake's surface. + +The boat ahead of John's carried Elliott the Senior Ensign of the +46th, with the King's colours--the flag of Union, drooping in stripes +of scarlet, white, and blue. On his right strained a boat's crew of +the New York regiment, with the great patroon, Philip Schuyler +himself, erect in the stern sheets and steering, in blue uniform and +three-cornered hat; too grand a gentleman to recognise our Ensign, +although John had danced the night through in the Schuylers' famous +white ball-room on the eve of marching from Albany, and had flung +packets of sweetmeats into the nursery windows at dawn and awakened +three night-gowned little girls to blow kisses after him as he took +his way down the hill from the Schuyler mansion. That was a month +ago. To John it seemed years since he had left Albany and its +straight sidewalks dappled with maple shade: but the patroon's face +was the same, sedately cheerful now as then when he had moved among +his guests with a gracious word for each and a brow unclouded by the +morrow. + +Men like Philip Schuyler do not suffer to-morrows to perturb them, +since to them every morrow dawns big with duties, responsibilities, +risks. John caught himself wondering to what that calm face looked +forward, at the lake-end, where the forests slept upon their shadows +and the mountains descended and closed like fairy gates! For John +himself Fame waited beyond those gates. Although in the last three +or four weeks he had endured more actual hardships than in all his +life before, he had enjoyed them thoroughly and felt that they were +hardening him into a man. He understood now why the tales he had +read at school in his Homer and Ovid--tales of Ulysses, of Hercules +and Perseus--were never sorrowful, however severe the heroes' +labours. For were they not undergone in just such a shining +atmosphere as this? + +His mind ran on these ancient tales, and so, memory reverting +to Douai and the seminary class-room in which he had first +construed them, he began unconsciously to set the lines of an old +repetition-lesson to the stroke of the oars. + + Angustam amice pauperiem pati + robustus acri militia puer + condiscat et Parthos feroces + vexet eques metuendus hasta: + + Vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat + in rebus . . . + +--And so on, with halts and breaks where memory failed him. +_Parthos_--these would be the Indians--Abenakis, Algonquins, Hurons, +whomsoever Montcalm might have gathered yonder in the woods with him. +_Dulce et decorum est_--yes, to be sure; in a little while he would +be facing death for his country; but he did not feel in the least +like dying. A sight of Philip Schuyler's face sent him sliding into +the next ode--_Justum et tenacem_ . . . _non voltus instantis +tyranni_. . . . John a Cleeve would have started had the future +opened for an instant and revealed the face of the tyrant Philip +Schuyler was soon to defy: and Schuyler would have started too. + +Then John remembered his cousin's letter, and pulled it from his +pocket again. . . . + + "And if Abercromby's your Caesar--which is as much as I'll risk + saying in a letter which may be opened before it reaches you-- + why, you have Howe to clip his parade wig as he's already docked + the men's coat-tails. So here's five pounds on it, and let it + be a match--Wolfe against Howe, and shall J. a C. or R. M. be + first in Quebec? And another five pounds, if you will, on our + epaulettes: for I repeat to you, this is Pitt's consulship, and + promotion henceforth comes to men as they deserve it. Look at + Wolfe, sir--a man barely thirty-two--and the ball but just set + rolling! Wherefore I too am resolved to enter Quebec a + Brigadier-General, who now go carrying the colours of the 17th + to Louisbourg. We but wait Genl. Amherst, who is expected + daily, and then yeo-heave-ho for the nor'ard! Farewell, dearest + Jack! Given in this our camp at Halifax, the twelfth of May, + 1758, in the middle of a plaguy fog, by your affect. cousin-- + R. Montgomery." + +John smiled as he folded up the letter, so characteristic of Dick. +Dick was always in perfect spirits, always confident in himself. +It was characteristic of Dick, too, to call himself Romulus and his +friend Remus, meaning no slight, simply because he always took +himself for granted as the leading spirit. It had always been so +even in the days when they had gone birds'-nesting or rook-shooting +together in the woods around John's Devonshire home. Always John had +yielded the lead to this freckled Irish cousin (the kinship was, in +fact, a remote one and lay on their mother's side through the +Ranelagh family); and years had but seemed to widen the three months' +gap in their ages. + +Dick's parents were Protestant; and Dick had gone to Trinity College, +Dublin, passing thence to an ensigncy in the 17th (Forbes') Regiment. +The a Cleeves, on the other hand, had always been Roman Catholics, +and by consequence had lived for generations somewhat isolated among +the Devon gentry, their neighbours. When John looked back on his +boyhood, his prevailing impressions were of a large house set low in +a valley, belted with sombre dripping elms and haunted by Roman +Catholic priests--some fat and rosy--some lean and cadaverous--but +all soft-footed; of an insufficiency of light in the rooms; and of a +sad lack of fellow-creatures willing to play with him. His parents +were old, and he had been born late to them--twelve years after +Philip, his only brother and the heir. From the first his mother had +destined him for the priesthood, and a succession of priests had been +his tutors: but--What instinct is there in the sacerdotal mind which +warns it off some cases as hopeless from the first? Here was a +child, docile, affectionate, moody at times, but eager to please and +glad to be rewarded by a smile; bred among priests and designed to be +a priest; yet amid a thousand admonishments, chastisements, +encouragements, blandishments, the child--with a child's sure +instinct for sincerity--could not remember having been spoken to +sincerely, with heart open to heart. Years later, when in the +seminary at Douai the little worm of scepticism began to stir in his +brain and grow, feeding on the books of M. Voltaire and other +forbidden writings, he wondered if his many tutors had been, one and +all, unconsciously prescient. But he was an honest lad. He threw up +the seminary, returned to Cleeve Court, and announced with tears to +his mother (his father had died two years before) that he could not +be a priest. She told him, stonily, that he had disappointed her +dearest hopes and broken her heart. His brother--the Squire now, and +a prig from his cradle--took him out for a long walk, argued with him +as with a fractious child, and, without attending to his answers, +finally gave him up as a bad job. So an ensigncy was procured, and +John a Cleeve shipped from Cork to Halifax, to fight the French in +America. At Cork he had met and renewed acquaintance with his Irish +cousin, Dick Montgomery. They had met again in Halifax, which they +reached in separate transports, and had passed the winter there in +company. Dick clapped his cousin on the back and laughed impartially +at his doubts and the family distress. Dick had no doubts; always +saw clearly and made up his mind at once; was, moreover, very little +concerned with religion (beyond damning the Pope), and a great deal +concerned with soldiering. He fascinated John, as the practical man +usually fascinates the speculative. So Remus listened to Romulus and +began to be less contrite in his home-letters. To the smallest love +at home (of the kind that understands, or tries to understand) he +would have responded religiously; but he had found such nowhere save +in Dick--who, besides, was a gallant young gentleman, and scrupulous +on all points of honour. He took fire from Dick; almost worshipped +him; and wished now, as the flotilla swept on and the bands woke +louder echoes from the narrowing shore, that Dick were here to see +how the last few weeks had tanned and hardened him. + +The troops came to land before nightfall at Sabbath Day Point, +twenty-five miles down the lake; stretched themselves to doze for a +while in the dry undergrowth; re-embarked under the stars and, rowing +on through the dawn, reached the lake-end at ten in the morning. +Here they found the first trace of the enemy--a bridge broken in two +over the river which drains into Lake Champlain. A small French +rear-guard loitered here; but two companies of riflemen were landed +and drove it back into the woods, without loss. The boats discharged +the British unopposed, who now set forward afoot through the forest +to follow the left bank of the stream, which, leaving the lake +tranquilly, is broken presently by stony rapids and grows smooth +again only as it nears its new reservoir. Smooth, rapid, and smooth +again, it sweeps round a long bend; and this bend the British +prepared to follow, leaving a force to guard the boats. + +Howe led, feeling forward with his light infantry; and the army +followed in much the same disposition they had held down the lake; +regulars in the centre, provincials on either flank; a long scarlet +body creeping with broad blue wings--or so it might have appeared to +a bird with sight able to pierce the overlacing boughs. To John a +Cleeve, warily testing the thickets with the butt of his staff and +pulling the thorns aside lest they should rip its precious silken +folds, the advance, after the first ten minutes, seemed to keep no +more order than a gang of children pressing after blackberries. +Somewhere on his right the rapids murmured; men struggled beside +him--now a dozen redcoats, now a few knowing Provincials who had lost +their regiments, but were cocksure of the right path. And always-- +before, behind and all around him--sounded the calls of the +parade-ground:--"Sub-divisions--left front--mark time! Left, half +turn! Three files on the left--left turn--wheel!--files to the +front!" Singular instructions for men grappling with a virgin +forest! + +If the standing trees were bad, the fallen ones--and there seemed to +be a diabolical number of them--were ten times worse. John was +straddling the trunk of one and cursing vehemently when a sound +struck on his ears, more intelligible than any parade-call. It came +back to him from the front: the sharp sound of musketry--two volleys. + +The parade-calls ceased suddenly all around him. He listened, still +sitting astride the trunk. One or two redcoats leaped it, shouting +as they leaped, and followed the sound, which crackled now as though +the whole green forest were on fire. By and by, as he listened, a +mustachioed man in a short jacket--one of Gage's light infantry--came +bursting through the undergrowth, capless, shouting for a surgeon. + +"What's wrong in front?" asked John, as the man--scarcely regarding +him--laid his hands on the trunk to vault it. + +"Faith, and I don't know, redcoat; except that they've killed him. +Whereabouts is the General?" + +"Who's killed?" + +"The best man amongst us: Lord Howe!" + +A second runner, following, shouted the same news; and the two passed +on together in search of the General. But already the tidings had +spread along the front of the main body, as though wafted by a sudden +wind through the undergrowth. Already, as John sat astride his log +endeavouring to measure up the loss, to right and left of him bugles +were sounding the halt. It seemed that as yet the mass of troops +scarcely took in the meaning of the rumour, but awoke under the shock +only to find themselves astray and without bearings. + +John's first sense was of a day made dark at a stroke. If this thing +had happened, then the glory had gone out of the campaign. The army +would by and by be marching on, and would march again to-morrow; the +drill cries would begin again, the dull wrestle through swamps and +thickets; and in due time the men would press down upon the French +forts and take them. But where would be the morning's cheerfulness, +the spirit of youth which had carried the boats down the lake amid +laughter and challenges to race, and at the landing-place set the men +romping like schoolboys? The longer John considered, the more he +marvelled at the hopes he and all the army had been building on this +young soldier--and not the army only, but every colony. Messengers +even now would be heading up the lake as fast as paddles could drive +them, to take horse and gallop smoking to the Hudson, to bear the +tidings to Albany, and from Albany ride south with it to New York, to +Philadelphia, to Richmond. "Lord Howe killed!" From that long track +of dismay John called his thoughts back to himself and the army. +Howe--dead? He, that up to an hour ago had been the pivot of so many +activities, the centre on which veterans rested their confidence, and +from which young soldiers drew their high spirits, the one commander +whom the Provincials trusted and liked because he understood them; +for whom and for their faith in him the regulars would march till +their legs failed them! Wonderful how youth and looks and gallantry +and brains together will grip hold of men and sway their +imaginations! But how rare the alliance, and on how brittle a hazard +resting! An unaimed bullet--a stop in the heart's pulsation--and the +star we followed has gone out, God knows whither. The hope of +fifteen thousand men lies broken and sightless, dead of purpose, far +from home. They assure us that nothing in this world perishes, nor +in the firmament above it: but we look up at the black space where a +star has been quenched and know that something has failed us which +to-morrow will not bring again. + +It was learnt afterwards that he had been killed by the first shot in +the campaign. Montcalm had thrown out three hundred rangers +overnight under Langy to feel the British advance: but so dense was +the tangle that even these experienced woodmen went astray during the +night and, in hunting for tracks, blundered upon Howe's light +infantry at unawares. In the moment of surprise each side let fly +with a volley, and Howe fell instantly, shot through the heart. + +The British bivouacked in the woods that night. Toward dawn John a +Cleeve stretched himself, felt for his arms, and lay for a while +staring up at a solitary star visible through the overhanging boughs. +He was wondering what had awakened him, when his ears grew aware of a +voice in the distance, singing--either deep in the forest or on some +hillside to the northward: a clear tenor voice shaken out on the +still air with a _tremolo_ such as the Provencals love. It sang to +the army and to him:-- + + Malbrouck s'en-va-t'en guerre: + Mironton, mironton, mirontaine! + Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre: + --Ne sais quand reviendra! + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +A BIVOUAC IN THE FOREST. + +Through the night, meanwhile, Montcalm and his men had been working +like demons. + +The stone fort of Ticonderoga stood far out on a bluff at the head of +Lake Champlain, its base descending on the one hand into the still +lake-water, on the other swept by the river which the British had +been trying to follow, and which here, its rapids passed, disembogues +in a smooth strong flood. It stood high, too, over these meeting +waters; but as a military position was next to worthless, being +dominated, across the river on the south, by a loftier hill called +Rattlesnake Mountain. + +Such was Ticonderoga; and hither Montcalm had hurried up the +Richelieu River from the north to find Bourlamaque, that good +fighter, posted with the regiments of La Reine, Bearn, and Guienne, +and a few Canadian regulars and militia. He himself had brought the +battalions of La Sarre and De Berry--a picked force, if ever there +was one, but scarcely above three thousand strong. + +A couple of miles above the fort and just below the rapids, a bridge +spanned the river. A saw-mill stood beside it: and here Montcalm had +crossed and taken up his quarters, pushing forward Bourlamaque to +guard the upper end of the rapids, and holding Langy ready with three +hundred rangers to patrol the woods on the outer side of the river's +loop. + +But when his scouts and Indians came in with the news of the British +embarking on the upper shore, and with reports of their multitude, +Montcalm perceived that the river could not be held; and, having +recalled Bourlamaque and broken down the bridges above and below the +rapids, withdrew his force again to Ticonderoga, leaving only Langy's +rangers in the farther woods to feel the enemy's approach. + +Next he had to ask himself, Could the fort be defended? All agreed +that it could not, with Rattlesnake Mountain overtopping it: and the +most were for evacuating it and retiring up Lake Champlain to the +stronger French fort on Crown Point. But Montcalm was expecting +Levis at any moment with reinforcements; and studying the ridge at +the extreme end of which the fort stood, he decided that the position +ought not to be abandoned. This ridge ran inland, its slope narrowed +on either side between the river and the lake by swamps, and +approachable only from landward over the _col_, where it broadened +and dipped to the foothills. Here, at the entrance to the ridge, and +half a mile from his fort, he commanded his men to throw up an +entrenchment and cut down trees; and while the sappers fell to work +he traced out the lines of a rude star-fort, with curtains and +jutting angles from which the curtains could be enfiladed. +Through the dawn, while the British slept in the woods, the Frenchmen +laboured, hacking and felling. Scores of trees they left to lie and +encumber the ground: others they dragged, unlopped, to the +entrenchment, and piled them before it, trunks inward and radiating +from its angles; lacing their boughs together or roughly pointing +them with a few strokes of the axe. + +In the growing daylight the _chevaux-de-frise_ began to look +formidable; but Bourlamaque, watching it with Montcalm, shook his +head, hunched his shoulders, and jerked a thumb toward a spur of +Rattlesnake Mountain, by which their defences were glaringly +commanded. + +Montcalm said, "We will risk it. Those English Generals are +inconceivable." + +"But a cannon or two--" + +"If he think of them! Believe me, who have tried: you never know +what an English General will do--or what his soldiers won't. +Pile the trees higher, my braves--more than breast-high-- +mountain-high if time serves! But this Abercromby comes from a land +where the bees fly tail-foremost by rule." + +"With all submission, I would still recommend Crown Point." + +"Should he, by chance, think of planting a gun yonder, I feel sure +that notion will exclude all others. We shall open the door and +retreat on Crown Point unmolested." + +Bourlamaque drew in a long breath and emitted it in a mighty _pouf_! + +"I am not conducting his campaign for him," said his superior calmly. +"God forbid! I once imagined myself in his predecessor's place, the +Earl of Loudon's, and within twenty minutes France had lost Canada. +I shudder at it still!" + +Bourlamaque laughed. Montcalm had said it with a whimsical smile, +and it passed him unheeded that the smile ended in a contracting of +the brows and a bitter little sigh. The fighter judged war by its +victories; the strategist by their effects. Montcalm could win +victories; even now, by putting himself into what might pass for his +adversary's mind, he hoped to snatch a success against odds. +But what avails it to administer drubbings which but leave your foe +the more stubbornly aggressive? British Generals blundered; but +always the British armies came on. War had been declared three +years ago; actually it had lasted for four; and the sum of its +results was that France, with her chain of forts planted for +aggression from the St. Lawrence to the Ohio, had turned to defending +them. His countrymen might throw up their caps over splendid +repulses of the foe, and hail such for triumphs; but Montcalm looked +beneath the laurels. + +The British, having slept the night in the woods, were mustered at +dawn and marched back to the landing-place. Their General, falling +back upon common sense after the loss of a precious day, was now +resolved to try the short and beaten path by which Montcalm had +retreated. It formed a four-mile chord, with the loop of the river +for arc, and presented no real difficulty except the broken bridge, +which Bradstreet was sent forward to repair. + +But though beaten and easy to follow, the road was rough; and +Abercromby--in a sweating hurry now--determined to leave his guns +behind. John a Cleeve, passing forward with his regiment, took +note of them as they lay unlimbered amid the brushwood by the +landing-stage, and thought little of it. He had his drill-book by +heart, relied for orders on his senior officers, and took pride in +obeying them smartly. This seemed to him the way for a young +soldier to learn his calling; for the rest, war was a game of valour +and would give him his opportunity. Theoretically he knew the uses +of artillery, but he was not an artilleryman; nor had he ever felt +the temptation to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. His cousin +Dick's free comments upon white-headed Generals of division and +brigade he let pass with a laugh. To Dick, the Earl of Loudon was +"a mournful thickhead," Webb "a mighty handsome figure for a +poltroon," Sackville "a discreet footman for a ladies' drum," and the +ancestors of Abercromby had all been hanged for fools. Dick, very +much at his ease in Sion, would have court-martialled and cashiered +the lot out of hand. But John's priestly tutors had schooled him in +diffidence, if in nothing else. + +His men to-day were in no pleasant humour, and a few of them-- +veterans too--grumbled viciously as they passed the guns. +"Silence in the ranks!" shouted the captain of his company; and the +familiar words soothed him, and he wondered what had provoked the +grumbling. A minute later he had forgotten it. The column crawled +forward sulkily. The shadow of Howe's loss lay heavy on it, and a +sense that his life had been flung away. They had been marched into +a jungle and marched back again, with nothing to show for it but +twenty-four wasted hours. On they crawled beneath the sweltering +July heat; and coming to the bridge, found more delays. + +Bradstreet and his men had worked like heroes, but the bridge would +not be ready to carry troops before the early morning. A wooden +saw-mill stood beside it, melancholy and deserted; and here the +General took up his quarters, while the army cooked its supper and +disposed itself for the night in the trampled clearing around the +mill and in the forest beyond. The 46th lay close alongside the +river, and the noise of Bradstreet's hammers on the bridge kept +John for a long while awake and staring up at the high eastern +ridges, black as ink against the radiance of a climbing moon. +In the intervals of hammering, the swirl of the river kept tune in +his ears with the whir-r-r of a saw in the rear of the mill, slicing +up the last planks for the bridge. There was a mill in the valley at +home, and he had heard it a hundred times making just such music with +the stream that ran down from Dartmoor and past Cleeve Court. +His thoughts went back to Devonshire, but not to linger there; only +to wonder how much love his mother would put into her prayers could +she be reached by a vision of him stretched here with his first +battle waiting for him on the morrow. He wondered, not bitterly, if +her chief reflection would be that he had brought the unpleasant +experience on himself when he might have been safe in a priest's +cassock. He laughed. How little she understood him, or had ever +understood! + +His heart went out to salute the morrow--and yet soberly. Outside of +his simple duties of routine he was just an unshaped subaltern, with +eyes sealed as yet to war's practical teachings. To him, albeit he +would have been puzzled had anyone told him so, war existed as yet +only as a spiritual conflict in which men proved themselves heroes or +cowards: and he meant to be a hero. For him everything lay in the +will to dare or to endure. He recalled tales of old knights keeping +vigil by their arms in solitary chapels, and he questioned the far +hill-tops and the stars--What substitute for faith supported _him_? +Did he believe in God? Yes, after a fashion--in some tremendous and +overruling Power, at any rate. A Power that had made the mountains +yonder? Yes, he supposed so. A loving Power--an intimate +counsellor--a Father attending all his steps? Well, perhaps; and if +so, a Father to be answered with all a man's love: but, before +answering, he honestly needed more assurance. As for another world +and a continuing life there, should he happen to fall to-morrow, John +searched his heart and decided that he asked for nothing of the sort. +Such promises struck him as unworthy bribes, belittling the sacrifice +he came prepared to make. He despised men who bargained with them. +Here was he, young, abounding in life, ready to risk extinction. +Why? For a cause (some might say), and that cause his country's. +Maybe: he had never thought this out. To be sure he was proud to +carry the regimental colours, and had rather belong to the 46th than +to any other regiment. The honour of the 46th was dear to him now as +his own. But why, again? Pure accident had assigned him to the +46th: as for love of his country, he could not remember that it had +played any conspicuous part in sending him to join the army. +The hammering on the bridge had ceased without his noting it, and +also the whirr of the great hands-driven saw. Only the river sang to +him now: and to the swirl of it he dropped off into a dreamless, +healthy sleep. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +TICONDEROGA. + +At the alarm-post next morning the men were in high spirits again. +Everyone seemed to be posted in the day's work ahead. The French +had thrown up an outwork on the landward end of the ridge; an +engineer had climbed Rattlesnake Mountain at daybreak and conned it +through his glass, and had brought down his report two hours ago. +The white-coats had been working like niggers, helped by some +reinforcements which had come in overnight--Levis with the Royal +Roussillon, the scouts said: but the thing was a rough-and-ready +affair of logs and the troops were to carry it with the bayonet. +John asked in what direction it lay, and thumbs were jerked towards +the screening forest across the river. The distance (some said) was +not two miles. Colonel Beaver, returning from a visit to the +saw-mill, confirmed the rumour. The 46th would march in a couple of +hours or less. + +At breakfast Howe's death seemed to be forgotten, and John found no +time for solemn thoughts. Bets were laid that the French would not +wait for the assault, but slip away to their boats; even with Levis +they could scarcely be four thousand strong. Bradstreet, having +finished his bridge, had started back for the landing-stage to haul a +dozen of the lighter bateaux across the portage and float them down +to Lake Champlain filled with riflemen. Bradstreet was a glutton for +work--but would he be in time? That old fox Montcalm would never let +his earths be stopped so easily, and to pile defences on the ridge +was simply to build himself into a trap. A good half of the officers +maintained that there would be no fighting. + +Well, fighting or no, some business was in hand. Here was the +battalion in motion; and, to leave the enemy in no doubt of our +martial ardour, here were the drums playing away like mad. The echo +of John's feet on the wooden bridge awoke him from these vain shows +and rattlings of war to its real meaning, and his thoughts again kept +him solemn company as he breasted the slope beyond and began the +tedious climb to the right through the woods. + +The scouts, coming in one by one, reported them undefended: and +the battalion, though perforce moving slowly, kept good order. +Towards the summit, indeed, the front ranks appeared to straggle and +extend themselves confusedly: but the disorder, no more than +apparent, came from the skirmishers returning and falling back upon +either flank as the column scrambled up the last five hundred yards +and halted on the fringe of the clearing. Of the enemy John could +see nothing: only a broad belt of sunlight beyond the last few +tree-trunks and their green eaves. The advance had been well timed, +the separate columns arriving and coming to the halt almost at +clockwork intervals; nor did the halt give him much leisure to look +about him. To the right were drawn up the Highlanders, their dark +plaids blending with the forest glooms. In the space between, Beaver +had stepped forward and was chatting with their colonel. By and by +the dandified Gage joined them, and after a few minutes' talk Beaver +came striding back, with his scabbard tucked under his armpit, to be +clear of the undergrowth. At once the order was given to fix +bayonets, and at a signal the columns were put in motion and marched +out upon the edge of the clearing. + +There, as he stepped forth, the flash of the noonday sun upon lines +of steel held John's eyes dazzled. He heard the word given again to +halt, and the command "Left, wheel into line!" He heard the calls +that followed--"Eyes front!" "Steady," "Quick march," "Halt, dress +"--and felt, rather than saw, the whole elaborate manoeuvre; the rear +ranks locking up, the covering sergeants jigging about like dancers +in a minuet--pace to the rear, side step to the right--the pivot men +with stiff arms extended, the companies wheeling up and dressing; all +happening precisely as on parade. + +What, after all, was the difference? Well, to begin with, the +clearing ahead in no way resembled a parade-ground, being strewn and +criss-crossed with fallen trees and interset with stumps, some +cleanly cut, others with jagged splinters from three to ten feet +high. And beyond, with the fierce sunlight quivering above it, rose +a mass of prostrate trees piled as if for the base of a tremendous +bonfire. Not a Frenchman showed behind it. Was _that_ what they had +to carry? + +"The battalion will advance!" + +Yes, there lay the barrier; and their business was simply to rush it; +to advance at the charge, holding their fire until within the +breastwork. + +The French, too, held their fire. The distance from the edge of the +clearing to the abattis was, at the most, a long musket-shot, and for +two-thirds of it the crescent-shaped line of British ran as in a +paper-chase, John a Cleeve vaulting across tree-trunks, leaping over +stumps, and hurrahing with the rest. + +Then with a flame the breastwork opened before him, and with a shock +as though the whole ridge lifted itself against the sky--a shock +which hurled him backward, whirling away his shako. He saw the line +to right and left wither under it and shrink like parchment held to a +candle flame. For a moment the ensign-staff shook in his hands, as +if whipped by a gale. He steadied it, and stood dazed, hearkening to +the scream of the bullets, gulping at a lump in his throat. Then he +knew himself unhurt, and, seeing that men on either hand were picking +themselves up and running forward, he ducked his head and ran forward +too. + +He had gained the abattis. He went into it with a leap, a dozen men +at his heels. A pointed bough met him in the ribs, piercing his +tunic and forcing him to cry out with pain. He fell back from it and +tugged at the interlacing boughs between him and the log-wall, +fighting them with his left, pressing them aside, now attempting to +leap them, now to burst through them with his weight. The wall +jetted flame through its crevices, and the boughs held him fast +within twenty yards of it. He could reach it easily (he told +himself) but for the staff he carried, against which each separate +twig hitched itself as though animated by special malice. + +He swung himself round and forced his body backwards against the +tangle; and a score of men, rallying to the colours, leapt in after +him. As their weight pressed him down supine and the flag sank in +his grasp, he saw their faces--Highlanders and redcoats mixed. +They had long since disregarded the order to hold their fire; and +were blazing away idly and reloading, cursing the boughs that impeded +their ramrods. A corporal of the 46th had managed to reload and was +lifting his piece when--a bramble catching in the lock--the charge +exploded in his face, and he fell, a bloody weight, across John's +legs. Half a dozen men, leaping over him, hurled themselves into the +lane which John had opened. + +Ten seconds later--but in such a struggle who can count seconds?-- +John had flung off the dead man and was on his feet again with his +face to the rampart. The men who had hurried past him were there, +all six of them; but stuck in strange attitudes and hung across the +withering boughs like vermin on a gamekeeper's tree--corpses every +one. The rest had vanished, and, turning, he found himself alone. +Out in the clearing, under the drifted smoke, the shattered regiments +were re-forming for a second charge. Gripping the colours he +staggered out to join them, and as he went a bullet sang past him and +his left wrist dropped nerveless at his side. He scarcely felt the +wound. The brutal jar of the repulse had stunned every sense in him +but that of thirst. The reek of gunpowder caked his throat, and his +tongue crackled in his mouth like a withered leaf. + +Someone was pointing back over the tree-tops toward Rattlesnake +Mountain; and on the slopes there, as the smoke cleared, sure enough, +figures were moving. Guns? A couple of guns planted there could +have knocked this cursed rampart to flinders in twenty minutes, or +plumped round shot at leisure among the French huddled within. +Where was the General? + +The General was down at the saw-mill in the valley, seated at his +table, penning a dispatch. The men on Rattlesnake Mountain were +Johnson's Indians--Mohawks, Oneidas, and others of the Six Nations-- +who, arriving late, had swarmed up by instinct to the key of the +position and seated themselves there with impassive faces, asking +each other when the guns would arrive. They had seen artillery, +perhaps, once in their lives; and had learnt what it cost our +Generals some seventy more years to learn--imperfectly. + +Oh, it was cruel! By this time there was not a man in the army but +could have taught the General the madness of it. But the General was +down at the sawmill, two miles away; and the broken regiments +reformed and faced the rampart again. The sun beat down on the +clearing, heating men to madness. The wounded went down through the +gloom of the woods and were carried past the saw-mill, by scores at +first, then by hundreds. Within the saw-mill, in his cool chamber, +the General sat and wrote. Someone (Gage it is likely) sent down, +beseeching him to bring the guns into play. He answered that the +guns were at the landing-stage, and could not be planted within six +hours. A second messenger suggested that the assault on the ridge +had already caused inordinate loss, and that by the simple process of +marching around Ticonderoga and occupying the narrows of Lake +Champlain Montcalm could be starved out in a week. The General +showed him the door. Upon the ridge the fight went on. + +John a Cleeve had by this time lost count of the charges. Some had +been feeble; one or two superb; and once the Highlanders, with a +gallantry only possible to men past caring for life, had actually +heaved themselves over the parapets on the French right. They had +gone into action a thousand strong; they were now six hundred. +Charge after charge had flung forward a few to leap the rampart and +fall on the French bayonets; but now the best part of a company +poured over. For a moment sheer desperation carried the day; but the +white-coats, springing back off their platforms, poured in a volley +and settled the question. That night the Black Watch called its +roll: there answered five hundred men less one. + +It was in the next charge after this--half-heartedly taken up by the +exhausted troops on the right--that John a Cleeve found himself +actually climbing the log-wall toward which he had been straining all +the afternoon. What carried him there--he afterwards affirmed--was +the horrid vision of young Sagramore of the 27th impaled on a pointed +branch and left to struggle in death-agony while the regiments +rallied. The body was quivering yet as they came on again; and John, +as he ran by, shouted to a sergeant to drag it off: for his own left +hand hung powerless, and the colours encumbered his right. In front +of him repeated charges had broken a sort of pathway through the +abattis, swept indeed by an enfilading fire from two angles of the +breastwork, slippery with blood and hampered with corpses; but the +grape-shot which had accounted for most of these no longer whistled +along it, the French having run off their guns to the right to meet +the capital attack of the Highlanders. Through it he forced his way, +the pressure of the men behind lifting and bearing him forward +whenever the ensign-staff for a moment impeded him. He noted that +the leaves, which at noon had been green and sappy, with only a +slight crumpling of their edges, were now grey and curled into tight +scrolls, crackling as he brushed them aside. How long had the day +lasted, then? And would it ever end? The vision of young +Sagramore followed him. He had known Sagramore at Halifax and +invited him to mess one night with the 46th--as brainless and +sweet-tempered a boy as ever muddled his drill. + +John was at the foot of the rampart. While with his injured hand he +fumbled vainly to climb it, someone stooped a shoulder and hoisted +him. He flung a leg over the parapet and glanced down? moment at the +man's face. It was the sergeant to whom he had shouted just now. + +"Right, sir," the sergeant grunted; "we're after you!" + +John hoisted the colours high and hurrahed. + +"Forward! Forward, Forty-sixth!" + +Then, as a dozen men heaved themselves on to the parapet, a fiery +pang gripped him by the chest, and the night--so long held back--came +suddenly, swooping on him from all corners of the sky at once. +The grip of his knees relaxed. The sergeant, leaping, caught the +standard in the nick of time, as the limp body slid and dropped +within the rampart. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +THE VOYAGEURS. + + Fringue, fringue sur la riviere; + Fringue, fringue sur l'aviron! + +The man at the bow paddle set the chorus, which was taken up by boat +after boat. John, stretched at the bottom of a canoe with two +wounded Highlanders, wondered where he had heard the voice before. +His wits were not very clear yet. The canoe's gunwale hid all the +landscape but a mountain-ridge high over his right, feathered with +forest and so far away that, swiftly as the strokes carried him +forward, its serrated pines and notches of naked rock crept by him +inch by inch. He stared at these and prayed for the moment when the +sun should drop behind them. For hours it had been beating down on +him. An Indian sat high in the stern, steering; paddling +rhythmically and with no sign of effort except that his face ran with +sweat beneath its grease and vermilion. But not a feature of it +twitched in the glare across which, hour after hour, John had been +watching him through scorched eyelashes. + +Athwart the stern, and almost at the Indian's feet, reclined a brawn +of a man with his knees drawn high--a French sergeant in a +spick-and-span white tunic with the badge of the Bearnais regiment. +A musket lay across his thighs, so pointed that John looked straight +down its barrel. Doubtless it was loaded: but John had plenty to +distract his thoughts from such a trifle--in the heat, the glare, the +torment of his wounds, and, worst of all, the incessant coughing of +the young Highlander beside him. The lad had been shot through the +lungs, and the wound imperfectly bandaged. A horrible wind issued +from it with every cough. + +How many men might be seated or lying in the fore part of the canoe +John could not tell, being unable to turn his head. Once or twice a +guttural voice there growled a word of comfort to the dying lad, in +Gaelic or in broken English. And always the bowman sang high and +clear, setting the chorus for the attendant boats, and from the +chorus passing without a break into the solo. "En roulant ma boule" +followed "Fringue sur l'aviron "; and from that the voice slid into a +little love-chant, tender and delicate: + + "A la claire fontaine + M'en allant promener, + J'ai trouve l'eau si belle + Que je m'y suis baigne. + Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, + Jamais je ne t'oublierai." + +"II y a longtemps que je t'aime," broke in the chorus, the wide lake +modulating the music as water only can. John remembered the abattis +and all its slaughter, and marvelled what manner of men they were +who, fresh from it, could put their hearts into such a song. + +"Et patati, et patata!" rapped in the big sergeant. "For God's sake, +Chameau, what kind of milk is this to turn a man's stomach?" + +The chorus drowned his growls, and the bowman continued: + + "Sur la plus haute branche + Le rossignol chantait, + Chante, rossignol, chante, + Toi qui as le coeur gai . . . + Chante, rossignol, chante, + Toi qui as le coeur gai; + Tu as le coeur a rire, + Moi je l'ai--t a pleurer. . . ." + +"Gr-r-r--" As the song ended, the sergeant spat contemptuously over +the gunwale. "La-la-la, rossignol! et la-la-la, rosier!" he +mimicked. "We are not _rosieres_, my friend." + +"The song is true Canayan, m'sieur, and your comrades appear to like +it." + +"Par exemple! Listen, Monsieur Chameau, to something more in their +line." He inflated his huge lungs and burst into a ditty of his own: + + "C'est dans la ville de Bordeaux + Qu'est arrive trois beaux vaissaux-- + Qu'est arrive trois beaux vaissaux: + Les matelots qui sont dedans, + Vrai Dieu, sont de jolis galants." + +The man had a rich baritone voice, not comparable indeed with the +bowman's tenor, yet not without quality; but he used it affectedly, +and sang with a simper on his face. His face, brick red in hue, was +handsome in its florid way; but John, watching the simper, found it +detestable. + + "C'est une dame de Bordeaux + Qu'est amoureuse d'un matelot--" + +Here he paused, and a few soldiers took up the refrain +half-heartedly: + + "--Va, ma servante, va moi chercher + Un matelot pour m'amuser." + +The song from this point became indecent, and set the men in the +nearer boats laughing. At its close a few clapped their hands. +But it was not a success, and the brick red darkened on the singer's +face; darkened almost to purple when a voice in the distance took up +the air and returned it mockingly, caricaturing a _roulade_ to the +life with the help of one or two ridiculous gracenotes: at which the +soldiers laughed again. + +"I think, m'sieur," suggested the bowman politely, "they do not know +it very well, or they would doubtless have been heartier." + +But the sergeant had heaved himself up with a curse and a lurch which +sent the canoe rocking, and was scanning the boats for the fellow who +had dared to insult him. + +"How the devil can a man sing while that dog keeps barking!" he +growled, and let out a kick at the limp legs of the young Highlander. + +Another growl answered. It came from the wounded prisoner behind +John--the man who had been muttering in Gaelic. + +"It is a coward you are, big man. Go on singing your sculduddery, +and let the lad die quiet!" + +The sergeant scowled, not understanding. John, whose blood was up, +obligingly translated the reproof into French. "He says--and I +also--that you are a cowardly bully; and we implore you to sing in +tune, another time. Par pitie, monsieur, ne scalpez-vous pas les +demi-morts!" + +The shaft bit, as he had intended, and the man's vanity positively +foamed upon it. "Dog of a _ros-bif_, congratulate yourself that you +are half dead, or I would whip you again as we whipped you yesterday, +and as my regiment is even now again whipping your compatriots." +He jerked a thumb towards the south where, far up the lake, a pale +saffron glow spread itself upon the twilight. + +"The English are burning your fort, maybe," John suggested amiably. + +"They are burning the mill, more like--or their boats. But after +such a defeat, who cares?" + +"If our general had only used his artillery--" + +"Eh, what is that you're singing? _Oui-da_, if your general had only +used his artillery? My little friend, that's a fine battle--that +battle of 'If.' It is always won, too--only it has the misfortune +never to be fought. So, so: and a grand battle it is too, for +reputations. '_If_ the guns had only arrived '; and '_if_ the +brigadier Chose had brought up the reserves as ordered'; and '_if_ +the right had extended itself, and that devil of a left had not +straggled'--why then we should all be heroes, we _ros-bifs_. +Whereas we came on four to one, and we were beaten; and we are +being carried north to Montreal and our general is running south from +an army one-third of his size and burning fireworks on his way. +And at Albany the ladies will take your standards and stitch '_If_' +on them in gold letters a foot long. Eh, but it was a glorious +fight--faith of Sergeant Barboux!" + +And Sergeant Barboux, having set his vanity on its legs again, pulled +out his pipe and skin of tobacco. + +"Hola, M. le Chameau!" he called; "the gentleman desires better music +than mine. Sing for him 'Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre'!" + +M. le Chameau lifted his voice obediently; and thereupon John +recognised the note and knew to whose singing he had lain awake in +the woods so far behind and (it seemed) those ages ago. + +He had been young then, and all possibilities of glory lay beyond the +horizons to which he was voyaging. Darkness had closed down on them, +but the beat of the paddles drove him forward. He stared up at the +peering stars and tried to bethink him that they looked down on the +same world that he had known--on Albany--Halifax--perhaps even on +Cleeve Court in Devonshire. The bowman's voice, ahead in the +darkness, kept time with the paddles: + + "Il reviendra-z; a Paques-- + Mironton, mironton, mirontaine! + Il reviendra-z a Paques, + Ou--a la Trinite!" + +Yes, the question was of returning, now; a day had made that +difference. Yet why should he wish to return? Of what worth would +his return be? For weeks, for months, he had been living in a life +ahead, towards which these paddles were faithfully guiding him; and +if the hope had died out of it, and all the colour, what better lay +behind that he should seek back to it?--a mother, who had shown him +little love; a brother, who coldly considered him a fool; nearer, but +only a little nearer--for already the leagues between seemed +endless--a few friends, a few messmates . . . + +His ribs hurt him intolerably; and his wrist, too, was painful. +Yet his wounds troubled him with no thought of death. On the +contrary, he felt quite sure of recovering and living on, and on, on, +on--in those unknown regions ahead . . . + + "La Trinite se passe-- + Mironton, mironton, mirontaine! + La Trinite se passe-- + Malbrouck ne revient pas." + +What were they like, those regions ahead? For he was young--less +than twenty--and a life almost as long as an ordinary man's might lie +before him yonder. He remembered an old discussion with a seminary +priest at Douai, on Nicodemus's visit by night and his question, +"How can a man be born when he is old?" . . . and all his thoughts +harked back to the Church he had left--that Church so Catholic, so +far-reaching, so secure of herself in all climes and amid all nations +of men. There were Jesuits, he knew, up yonder, beyond the rivers, +beyond the forests. He would find that Church there, steadfast as +these stars and, alone with them, bridging all this long gulf. +In his momentary weakness the repose She offered came on him as a +temptation. Had he but anchored himself upon her, all these leagues +had been as nothing. But he had cut himself adrift; and now the +world, too, had cut him off, and where was he with his doubts? . . . +Or was She following now and whispering, "Poor fool, you thought +yourself strong, and I granted you a short licence; but I have +followed, as I can follow everywhere, unseen, knowing the hour when +you must repent and want me; and lo! my lap is open. Come, let its +folds wrap you, and at once there is no more trouble; for within them +time and distance are not, and all this voyage shall be as a dream." + +No; he put the temptation from him. For it was a sensual temptation +after all, surprising him in anguish and exhaustion and bribing with +promise of repose. He craved after it, but set his teeth. "Yes, you +are right, so far. The future has gone from me, and I have no hopes. +But it seems I have to live, and I am a man. My doubts are my +doubts, and this is no fair moment to abandon them. What I must +suffer, I will try to suffer. . . ." + +The bowman had lit a lantern in the bows and passed back the resinous +brand to an Indian seated forward, who in turn handed it back over +John's head toward Sergeant Barboux, but, seeing that he dozed, +crawled aft over the wounded men and set it to the wick of a second +lantern rigged on a stick astern. As the wick took fire, the Indian, +who had been steering hitherto hour after hour, grunted out a +syllable or two and handed his comrade the paddle. The pair changed +places, and the ex-steersman--who seemed the elder by many years-- +crept cautiously forward; the lantern-light, as he passed it, falling +warm on his scarlet trowsers and drawing fiery twinkles from his belt +and silver arm-ring. + +With a guttural whisper he crouched over John, so low that his body +blotted out the lantern, the stars, the whole dim arch of the +heavens. Was this murder? John shut his teeth. If this were to be +the end, let it come now and be done with; he would not cry out. +The Highland lad had ceased his coughing and lay unconscious, panting +out the last of his life more and more feebly. The elder Highlander +moaned from time to time in his sleep, but had not stirred for some +while. Forward the bowman's paddle still beat time like a clock, and +away in the darkness other paddles answered it. + +A hand was groping with the bandages about John's chest and loosening +them gently until his wound felt the edge of the night wind. All his +muscles stiffened to meet the coming stroke. . . . + +The Indian grunted and withdrew his hand. A moment, and John felt it +laid on the wound again, with a touch which charmed away pain and the +wind's chill together--a touch of smooth ointment. + +Do what he would, a sob shook the lad from head to foot. + +"Thanks, brother!" he whispered in French. The Indian did not +answer, but replaced and drew close the bandage with rapid hands, and +so with another grunt crawled forward, moving like a shadow, scarcely +touching the wounded men as he went. + +For a while John lay awake, gazing up into the stars. His pain had +gone, and he felt infinitely restful. The vast heavens were a +protection now, a shield flung over his helplessness. He had found a +friend. + +Why? + +That he could not tell. But he had found a friend, and could sleep. + +In his dreams he heard a splash. The young Highlander had died in +the night, and Sergeant Barboux and the Indian lifted and dropped the +body overboard. + +But John a Cleeve slept on; and still northward through the night, +down the long reaches of the lake, the canoe held her way. + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +CONTAINS THE APOLOGUE OF MANABOZHO'S TOE. + +They had threaded their course through the many islets at the foot of +the lake, and were speeding down the headwaters of the Richelieu. +The forests had closed in upon them, shutting out the mountains. +The convoy--officered for the most part by Canadian militiamen with +but a sprinkling of regulars such as Sergeant Barboux--soon began to +straggle. The prisoners were to be delivered at Montreal. Montcalm +had dispatched them thither, on short rations, for the simple reason +that Fort Carillon held scarcely food enough to support his own army; +but he could detach very few of his efficients for escort, and, for +the rest, it did not certainly appear who was in command. Barboux, +for example, was frankly insubordinate, and declared a dozen times a +day that it did not become gentlemen of the Bearn and Royal Roussillon +to take their orders from any _coureur de bois_ who might choose to +call himself Major. + +Consequently the convoy soon straggled at will, the boatmen labouring +if the fancy took them, or resting their paddles across their thighs +and letting their canoes drift on the current. Now and again they +met a train of bateaux labouring up with reinforcements, that had +heard of the victory from the leading boats and hurrahed as they +passed, or shouted questions which Barboux answered as a conscious +hero of the fight and with no false modesty. But for hour after hour +John lived alone with his own boat's company and the interminable +procession of the woods. + +They descended to the river, these woods, and overhung it--each bank +a mute monotonous screen of foliage, unbroken by glade or clearing; +pine and spruce and hemlock, maple and alder; piled plumes of green, +motionless, brooding, through which no sunrays broke, though here and +there a silver birch drew a shaft of light upon their sombre +background. Here were no English woodlands, no stretches of pale +green turf, no vistas opening beneath flattened boughs, with blue +distant hills and perhaps a group of antlers topping the bracken. +The wild life of these forests crawled among thickets or lurked in +sinister shadows. No bird poured out its heart in them; no lark +soared out of them, breasting heaven. At rare intervals a note fell +on the ear--the scream of hawk or eagle, the bitter cackling laugh of +blue jay or woodpecker, the loon's ghostly cry--solitary notes, and +unhappy, as though wrung by pain out of the choking silence; or away +on the hillside a grouse began drumming, or a duck went whirring down +the long waterway until the sound sank and was overtaken again by the +river's slow murmur. + +When night had hushed down these noises, the forest would be silent +for an hour or two, and then awake more horribly with the howling of +wolves. John slept little of nights; not on account of the wolves, +but because the mosquitoes allowed him no peace. (They were torture +to a wounded man; but he declared afterwards that they cured his +wounded arm willynilly, for they forced him to keep it active under +pain of being eaten alive.) By day he dozed, lulled by the eternal +woods, the eternal dazzle on the water, the eternal mutter of the +flood, the paddle-strokes, M. le Chameau's singing. + +They were now six in the canoe--the sergeant, le Chameau, the two +Indians, John a Cleeve and the elder Highlander, Corporal Hugh +McQuarters. + +By this time--that is to say, having seen him--John understood the +meaning of M. le Chameau's queer name. He was a hunchback, but a gay +little man nevertheless; reputedly a genius in the art of shooting +rapids. He was also a demon to work, when allowed; but the sergeant +would not allow him. + +It suited the sergeant's humour to lag behind the other boats by way +of asserting his dignity and proving that he, Barboux, held himself +at no trumpery colonial's beck and call. Also he had begun to nurse +a scheme; as will appear by and by. + +At present it amused him to order the canoe to shore for an hour or +two in the heat of the day, lend his bayonet to the Indians, and +watch, smoking, while they searched the banks and dug out musquashes. +These they cooked and ate; which Barboux asserted to be good economy, +since provisions were running short. It occurred to John that this +might be a still better reason for hurrying forward, but he was +grateful for the siesta under the boughs while the Indians worked. +They were Ojibways both, the elder by name Menehwehna and the younger +(a handsome fellow with a wonderful gift of silence) Muskingon. + +Since that one stealthy act of kindness Menehwehna had given no sign +of cordiality. John had tried a score of times to catch his eye, and +had caught it once or twice, but only to find the man inscrutable. +Yet he was by no means taciturn; but seemed, as his warpaint of soot +and vermilion wore thinner, to thaw into what (for an Indian) might +pass for geniality. After a successful rat-hunt he would even grow +loquacious, seating himself on the bank and jabbering while he +skinned his spoils, using for the most part a jargon of broken French +(in which he was fluent) and native words of which Barboux understood +very few and John none at all. When he fell back on Ojibway pure and +simple, it was to address Muskingon, who answered in monosyllables, +and was sparing of these. Muskingon and McQuarters were the silent +men of the party--the latter by force as well as choice, since he +knew no French and in English could only converse with John. +He and Muskingon had this further in common--they both detested the +sergeant. + +John, for his part, had patched up a peace with the man, after this +fashion: On the second day Barboux had called upon le Chameau for a +song; and, the little hunchback having given "En roulant ma boule," +demanded another. + +"But it is monsieur's turn, who has a charming voice," suggested le +Chameau politely. + +"It has the misfortune to grate on the ears of our English milord," +Barboux answered with an angry flush, stealing a malevolent glance at +John. "And I do not sing to please myself." + +John doubted this; but being by nature quick to forgive and repent a +quarrel, he answered with some grace: "I was annoyed, Sergeant +Barboux, and said what I thought would hurt rather than what was +just. You possess, indeed, a charming voice, and I regret to have +insulted it." + +"You mean it?" asked Barboux, still red in the face, but patently +delighted. + +"So entirely that I shall not pardon myself until you have done us +the favour to sing." + +The sergeant held out his hand. "And that's very handsomely said! +Given or taken, an apology never goes astray between brave fellows. +And, after all," he added, "I had, if I remember, something the +better of that argument! You really wish me to sing, then?" + +"To be sure I do," Jack assured him, smiling. + +Barboux cleared his throat, wagged his head once or twice impassively +and trolled out: + + "Belle meuniere, en passant par ici, + Ne suis-je-t'y pas eloigne d'ltalie. . . ." + +From this graceful opening the song declined into the grossest filth; +and it was easy to see, watching his face, why McQuarters, without +understanding a word of French, had accused him of singing +"sculduddery." John, though disgusted, could not help being amused +by a performance which set him in mind now of a satyr and now of a +mincing schoolgirl--_vert galant avec un sourire de cantatrice_-- +lasciviousness blowing affected kisses in the intervals of licking +its chops. At the conclusion he complimented the singer, with a +grave face. + +Barboux bowed. "It has, to say true, a little more marrow in it than +le Chameau's _rossignols_ and _rosiers_. Hola, Chameau; the +Englishman here agrees that you sing well, but that your matter is +watery stuff. You must let me teach you one or two of my songlets--" + +"Pardon, m'sieur, mais ca sera un peu trop--trop vif; c'est-a-dire +pour moi," stammered the little hunchback. + +Barboux guffawed. The idea of le Chameau as a ladies' man tickled +him hugely, and he tormented the patient fellow with allusions to it, +and to his deformity, twenty times a day. + +And yet the sergeant was not ill-natured--until you happened to cross +him, when his temper became damnable--but merely a big, vain, +boisterous lout. John, having taken his measure, found it easy to +study him philosophically and even to be passably amused by him. +But he made himself, it must be owned, an affliction; and an +affliction against which, since the boats had parted company, there +was no redress. He was conceited, selfish, tyrannical, and +inordinately lazy. He never took a hand with the paddle, but would +compel the others to work, or to idle, as the freak took him. +He docked the crew's allowance but fed himself complacently on more +than full rations, proving this to be his due by discourse on the +innate superiority of Frenchmen over Canadians, Englishmen or +Indians. He would sit by the hour bragging of his skill with the +gun, his victories in love, his feats of strength--baring his +chest, arms, legs, and inviting the company to admire his muscles. +He jested from sunrise until sundown, and never made a jest that did +not hurt. Worst of all was it when he schooled le Chameau to sing +his obscenities after him, line for line. + +"No, no, I beg you, monsieur," the little fellow would protest, +"c'est--c'est sale!"--and would blush like a girl. + +"_Sale_, you dog? I'll teach you--" A blow would follow. +M. Barboux was getting liberal with his blows. Once he struck +Muskingon. Menehwehna growled ominously, and the growl seemed to +warn not only Barboux but Muskingon, who for the moment had looked +murderous. + +John guessed that some tie, if not of blood-relationship, at least of +strong affection, bound the two Indians together. + +For himself, as soon as his wound allowed him to sit upright, which +it did on the second day--the bullet having glanced across his ribs +and left but its ugly track in the thin flesh covering them--the +monotony of the woods and the ceaseless glint of the water were a +drug which he could summon at will and so withdraw himself within a +stupor untroubled by Barboux or his boastings. He suffered the man, +but saw no necessity for heeding him. + +He had observed two or three hanks of fishing-line dangling from the +thin strips of cedar which sheathed the canoe within, a little below +the gunwale. They had hooks attached, and from the shape of these +hooks he judged them to belong to the Indians. He unhitched one of +the lines, and more for the sake of killing time than for any set +purpose, began to construct a gaudy salmon-fly with a few frayed +threads of cloth from his tunic. After a minute or two he was aware +of Muskingon watching him with interest, and by signs begged for a +feather from the young Indian's top-knot. Muskingon drew one forth +and, under instructions, plucked off a piece of fluff from the root +of the feather, a small quill or two, and handed them over. With a +length of red silk drawn from his sash John, within half an hour, was +bending a very pretty fly on the hook. It did not in the least +resemble any winged creature upon earth; but it had a meretricious +air about it, and even a "killing" one when he finished up by binding +its body tight with an inch of gilt thread from his collar. +Meanwhile, his ambition growing with success, he had cast his eyes +about, to alight on a long jointed cane which the canoe carried as +part of its appanage, to be lifted on cross-legs and serve as the +ridge of an awning on wet nights. It was cumbrous, but flexible in +some small degree. Muskingon dragged it within reach, and sat +watching while John whipped a loop to its end and ran the line +through it. + +He had begun in pure idleness, but now the production of the rod had +drawn everyone's eyes. Barboux was watching him superciliously, and +Menehwehna with grave attention, resting his paddle on his knees +while the canoe drifted. Fish had been leaping throughout the +afternoon--salmon by the look of them. John knew something of +salmon; he had played and landed many a fish out of the Dart above +Totnes, and in his own river below Cleeve Court. The sun had dropped +behind the woods, the water was not too clear, and in short it looked +a likely hour for feeding. He lifted his clumsy rod in his right +hand, steadied it with his injured left, and put all his skill into +the cast. + +As he cast, the weight of his rod almost overbalanced him: a dart of +pain came from his closing wound and he knew that he had been a fool +and overtaxed his strength. But to his amazement a fish rose at once +and gulped the fly down. He tossed the rod across to Muskingon, +calling to him to draw it inboard and sit quite still; and catching +the line, tautened it and slackened it out slowly, feeling up to the +loop in which (as was to be expected) it had kinked and was sticking +fast. + +He had the line in both hands now, with Muskingon paying out the +slack behind him; and if the hook held--the line had no gut--he felt +confident of his fish. By the feel of him he was a salmon--or a +black bass. John had heard of black bass and the sport they gave. +A beauty, at any rate! + +Yes, he was a salmon. Giving on the line but never slackening it, +though it cut his forefinger cruelly (his left being all but useless +to check the friction), John worked him to the top of the water and +so, by little and little, to the side of the canoe. But his own +strength was giving out, faster now than the salmon's. His wound had +parted; and as he clenched his teeth he felt the line fraying. +The fish would have been lost had not Muskingon, almost without +shaking the canoe, dropped overboard, dived under and clenched both +hands upon his struggles. + +It was Menehwehna who dragged the salmon across the gunwale; for John +had fainted. And when he recovered, Menehwehna was coolly gutting +the monster--if a fish of eighteen pounds can be called a monster; as +surely he can when taken in such fashion. + +After this, John being out of action, Sergeant Barboux must take a +turn with the rod. He did not (he protested) count on landing a +fish; but the hooking of one had been so ridiculously prompt and easy +that it was hard to see how he could fail. + +But he did. He flogged the water till nightfall, confidently at +first though clumsily, at length with the air of a Xerxes casting +chains into the flood; but never a bite rewarded him. He gave over +the rod in a huff, but began again at dawn, to lay it down after +an hour and swear viciously. As he retired Muskingon took the pole; +he had watched John's one and only cast and began to imitate it +patiently, while the sergeant jeered and the canoe drifted. +Towards noon he felt a bite, struck, and missed; but half an hour +later he struck again and Menehwehna shouted and pointed as John's +fly was sucked under in a noble swirl of water. Muskingon dragged +back his rod and stretched out a hand for the line; but Barboux had +already run forward and clutched it, at the same moment roughly +thrusting him down on his seat; and then in a moment the mischief was +done. The line parted, and the sergeant floundered back with a lurch +that sent the canoe down to her gunwale. + +McQuarters laughed aloud and grimly. Menehwehna's dark eyes shone. +Even John, though the lurch obliged him to fling out both hands to +balance the boat, and the sudden movement sent a dart of pain through +his wound, could not hold back a smile. Barboux was furious. + +"Eh? So you are pleased to laugh at me, master Englishman! +Wait then, and we'll see who laughs last. And you, dog of an Indian, +at what are you rubbing your hands?" + +"Your exploit, O illustrious warrior," answered Menehwehna with +gravity, "set me in mind of Manabozho; and when one thinks upon +Manabozho it is permitted and even customary to rub the hands." + +"Who the devil was Manabozho?" + +"He was a very Great One--even another such Great One as yourself. +It was he who made the earth once on a time, by accident. +And another time he went fishing." + +"Have a care, Menehwehna. I bid you beware if you are poking fun at +me." + +"I am telling of Manabozho. He went fishing in the lake and let down +a line. 'King Fish,' said he, 'take hold of my bait,' and he kept +saying this until the King Fish felt annoyed and said, 'This +Manabozho is a nuisance. Here, trout, take hold of his line.' +The trout obeyed, and Manabozho shouted, 'Wa-i-he! Wa-i-he! I have +him!' while the canoe rocked to and fro. But when he saw the trout +he called, 'Esa, esa! Shame upon you, trout; I fish for your +betters.' So the trout let go; and again Manabozho sank his line, +saying, 'O King Fish, take hold of my bait.' 'I shall lose my temper +soon with this fellow,' said the King Fish; 'here, sunfish, take hold +of his line.' The sunfish did so, and Manabozho's canoe spun round +and round; but when he saw what he had caught, he cried out, +'Esa, esa! Shame upon you, sunfish; I am come for your betters.' +So the sunfish let go, and again Manabozho--" + +"Joli amphigouri!" yawned the sergeant. "Pardon, M. Menehwehna, but +this story of yours seems likely to last." + +"Not so, O chief; for this time the King Fish took the bait and +swallowed Manabozho, canoe and all." + +John laughed aloud; but enough sense remained in Barboux to cover his +irritation. "Well, that was the last of him, and the Lord be +praised!" + +"There is much more of the story," said Menehwehna, "and all full of +instruction." + +"We will postpone it, anyhow. Take up your paddle, if you have not +forgotten how to work." + +So Menehwehna and the hunchback paddled anew, while the great Barboux +sat and sulked--a sufficiently childish figure. Night fell, the +canoe was brought to shore, and the Indians as usual lifted out the +wounded men and laid them on beds of moss strewn with pine-boughs and +cedar. While Menehwehna lit the camp-fire, Muskingon prepared John's +salmon for supper, and began to grill it deftly as soon as the smoke +died down on a pile of clear embers. + +John sleepily watched these preparations, and was fairly dozing when +he heard Barboux announce with an oath that for his impudence +the dog of an Englishman should go without his share of the fish. +The announcement scarcely awoke him--the revenge was so petty. +Barboux in certain moods could be such a baby that John had ceased to +regard him except as an object of silent mirth. So he smiled and +answered sweetly that Sergeant Barboux was entirely welcome; for +himself a scrap of biscuit would suffice. And with that he closed +his eyes again. + +But it seemed that, for some reason, the two Indians were angry, not +to say outraged. By denying him his share Barboux had--no doubt +ignorantly--broken some sacred law in the etiquette of hunting. +Muskingon growled; the firelight showed his lips drawn back, like a +dog's, from his white teeth. Menehwehna remonstrated. Even le +Chameau seemed to be perturbed. + +Barboux, however, did not understand; and as nobody would share in +John's portion, ate it himself with relish amid an angry silence, +which at length impressed him. + +"Eh? What the devil's wrong with you all?" he demanded, looking +about him. + +Menehwehna broke into a queer growl, and began to rub his hands. +"Manabozho--" he began. + +"Fichtre! It appears we have not heard the end of him, then?" + +"It is usual," Menehwehna explained, "to rub one's hands at the +mention of Manabozho. In my tribe it is even necessary." + +"Farceur de Manabozho! the habit has not extended to mine," growled +Barboux. "Is this the same story?" + +"O slayer of heads, it is an entirely different one." The sergeant +winced, and John cast himself back on his leafy bed to smile up at +the branches. _Tueur de tetes_ may be a high compliment from an +Indian warrior, but a vocalist may be excused for looking twice at +it. + +"This Manabozho," Menehwehna continued tranquilly, "was so big and +strong that he began to think himself everybody's master. One day he +walked in the forest, cuffing the ears of the pine-trees for sport, +and knocking them flat if they took it ill; and at length he came on +a clearing. In the clearing was a lodge, and in the lodge was no one +but a small child, curled up asleep with its toe in its mouth. +Manabozho gazed at the child for a long while, and said he, 'I have +never seen anyone before who could lie with his toe in his mouth. +But I can do it, to be sure.' Whereupon he lay down in much the same +posture as the child, and took his right foot in his hand. But it +would not reach by a long way. 'How stupid I am,' cried Manabozho, +'when it was the left foot all the time!' So he tried the left foot, +but this also would not reach. He rolled on his back, and twisted +and bent himself, and strained and struggled until the tears ran down +his face. Then he sat up in despair; and behold! he had awakened the +child, and the child was laughing at him. 'Oh, oh!' cried Manabozho +in a passion, 'am I then to be mocked by a babe!' And with that he +drew a great breath and blew the child away over the mountains, and +afterwards walked across and across the lodge, trampling it down +until not a trace of it remained. 'After all,' said Manabozho, +'I can do something. And I see nobody hereabouts to deny that I can +put my toe in my mouth!'" + +As Menehwehna concluded, John waited for an explosion of wrath. +None came. He raised his head after a minute and looked about him. +Barboux sat smoking and staring into the camp-fire. The Indian had +laid himself down to slumber, with his blanket drawn up to his ears. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +BATEESE. + +Next morning Barboux and Menehwehna held a long colloquy aft, but in +tones so low that John could not catch a word. By and by Muskingon +was called into council, and lastly le Chameau. + +The two Indians were arguing against some proposal of the sergeant's, +which by the way they pointed and traced imaginary maps with their +fingers, spreading their palms apart to indicate distances, plainly +turned on a point of geography. Le Chameau's opinion seemed to +settle the dispute in the sergeant's favour. Coming that afternoon +to the mouth of a tributary stream on the left bank he headed the +canoe for it without a word, and at once the paddles were busy, +forcing her against the rapid current. + +Then followed days during which, though reason might prove that in +the river he held an infallible clue, John's senses lost themselves +in the forest maze. It overlapped and closed upon him, folding him +deeper and illimitably deeper. On the Richelieu he had played with +thoughts of escape, noting how the canoe lagged behind its convoy, +and speculating on the Indians' goodwill--faint speculations, since +(without reckoning his own raw wound) McQuarters was almost too weak +to stir as yet, and to abandon him would be a scurvy trick. So he +had put aside his unformed plans, which at the best had been little +better than hopes; and now the wilderness oppressed and smothered and +buried them out of recollection. + +The _voyageurs_ made tedious progress; for almost at once they came +to a chain of rapids around which the canoe had to be ported. +The Indians toiled steadily, and le Chameau too, stripped to the +waist and sweating; and by the end of the day each man carried a dark +red weal on one shoulder, sunk in the flesh by the canoe's weight. +John could walk, but was powerless to help, and McQuarters had to be +lifted and carried with the baggage. Barboux confined himself to +swearing and jeering at le Chameau's naked back--_diable de torse_, +as he proclaimed it. The man was getting past endurance. + +On the second day he called a halt, left le Chameau in charge of the +camp and the prisoners, and went off with the Indians in search of a +moose, whose lowing call had twice echoed through the woods during +the night and been answered by Menehwehna on his birch-horn. +The forest swallowed them, and a blessed relief fell on the camp--no +more oaths and gibes for a while, but rest and green shade and the +murmur of the rapids below. + +After the noon-day meal the hunchback stretched himself luxuriously +and began to converse. He was explaining the situation with the help +of three twigs, which he laid in the form of a triangle--two long +sides and a short base. + +"_Voyons_, this long one will be the Richelieu and that other the +St. Lawrence; and here"--he put his finger near the base--"here is +Montreal. The sergeant knows what he is about. Those other boats, +look you, will go around so--" He traced their course around the +apex very slowly. "Whereas _we_--!" A quick stroke of the finger +across the base filled up the sentence, and the little man smiled +triumphantly. + +"I see," said John, picking up the short twig and bending it into an +arch, "we are now climbing up this side of the slope, eh? And on the +other there will likewise be a river?" + +The boatman nodded. "A hard way to find, m'sieur. But have no fear. +I have travelled it." + +"Assuredly I have no fear with you, M.--" + +"Guyon, m'sieur--Jean Bateese Guyon. This M. Barboux is a merry +fellow--il ne peut pas se passer de ses enjouements. But I was not +born like this." And here he touched his shoulder very simply and +gravely. + +"It was an accident then, M. Guyon?" + +"An accident--oh, yes, be assured it was an accident." A flush +showed on the little man's cheek, and his speech on a sudden became +very rapid. "But as we were saying, I know the trail across yonder; +and my brother Dominique he knows it even better. I wish we may see +Dominique, m'sieur; there is no such _voyageur_ from Quebec up to +Michilimackinac, aye or beyond! He has been down the Cascades by +night, himself only; it was when I had my--my accident, and he must +go to fetch a surgeon. All along the river it is talked of yet. +But it is nothing to boast of, for the hand of God must have been +upon him. And as good as he is brave!" + +"And where is your brother Dominique just now?" + +"He will be at home, m'sieur. Soon they will be carrying the harvest +at Boisveyrac, and he is now the seigneur's farmer. He will be +worrying himself over the harvest, for Dominique takes things to +heart, both of this world and the next; whereas--I am a good +Catholic, I hope--but these things do not trouble me. It seems there +is no time to be troubled." Bateese looked up shyly, with a blush +like a girl's. "M'sieur may be able to tell me--or, maybe, he will +think it foolish. This love of women, now?" + +"Proceed, M. Guyon." + +"Ah, you believe in it! When the sergeant begins his talk--c'est +bien sale, is it not? But that is not the sort I mean. Well, +Dominique is in love, and it brings him no happiness. He can never +have what he wants, nor would it be right, and he knows it; but +nevertheless he goes on craving for it and takes no pleasure in life +for the want of it. I look at him, wondering. Then I say to myself, +'Bateese, when le bon Dieu broke you in pieces He was not unkind. +Your heart is cracked and cannot hold love, like your brother's; but +what of that, while God is pouring love into it all day long and +never ceases? You are ugly, and no maid will ever want you for a +husband; therefore you are lucky who cannot store away desire for +this or that one, like poor Dominique, who goes about aching and fit +to burst. You go singing _a la claire fontaine_, which is full of +unhappiness and longing, but all the while you are happy enough.' +Indeed, that is the truth, monsieur. I study this love of +Dominique's, which makes him miserable; but I cannot judge it. +I see that it brings pain to men." + +"But delight also, my friend." + +"And delight also--that is understood. M'sieur is, perhaps, in love? +Or has been?" + +"No, Bateese; not yet." + +"But you will; with that face it is certain. Now shall I tell you?-- +to my guessing this love of women is like an untried rapid. +Something smiles ahead for you, and you push for it and _voyez!_ in a +moment down you go, fifteen miles an hour and the world spinning; and +at the bottom of the fall, if the woman be good, sweet is the journey +and you wonder, looking back from smooth water, down what shelves you +were swept to her. That, I say, is what I suppose this love to be; +but for myself I shall never try it. Since le bon Dieu broke the +pitcher its pieces are scattered all over me, within; they hold +nothing, but there they lie shining in their useless fashion." + +"Not useless, perhaps, Bateese." + +"In their useless fashion," he persisted. "They will smile and be +gay at the sight of a pretty girl, or at the wild creatures in the +woods yonder, or at the thoughts in a song, or for no better reason +than that the day is bright and the air warm. But they can store +nothing. It is the same with religion, monsieur, and with affairs of +State; neither troubles my head. Dominique is devout, for example; +and Father Launoy comes to talk with him, which makes him gloomy. +The reverend Father just hears my sins and lets me go; he knows well +enough that Bateese does not count. And then he and Dominique sit +and talk politics by the hour. The Father declares that all the +English are devils, and that anyone who fights for the Holy Church +and is killed by them will rise again the third day." + +John laughed aloud this time. + +"I too think the reverend Father must be making some mistake," said +Bateese gravely. "No doubt he has been misinformed." + +"No doubt. For suppose now that I were a devil?" + +"Oh, m'sieur," Bateese expostulated. "_Ca serait bien dommage!_ +But I hope, in any case, God would pardon me for talking with you, +seeing that to contain anything, even hatred, is beyond me." + +"Shall I tell you what I think, Bateese? I think we are all pitchers +and perhaps made to be broken. Ten days ago I was brimful of +ambitions; someone--le bon Dieu, or General Abercromby--has toppled +me over and spilt them all; and here I lie on my side, not broken, +but full of emptiness." + +"Heh, heh--'full of emptiness'!" chuckled Bateese, to whom the phrase +was new. + +"It may be that in time someone will set me up again and pour into me +wine of another sort. I hope for this, because it is painful to lie +upset and empty; and I do not wish to be broken, for that must be +even more painful--at the time, eh?" + +Bateese glanced up, with a twitch of remembered pain. + +"Indeed, m'sieur, it hurt--at the time." + +"But afterwards--when the pieces have no more trouble, being released +from pride--the pride of being a pitcher! Is it useless they are as +they lie upturned, reflecting--what? My friend, if we only knew this +we might discover that now, when it can no longer store up wine for +itself, the pitcher is at last serving an end it was made for." + +The little hunchback glanced up again quickly. "You are talking for +my sake, monsieur, not for yourself! At your age I too could be +melancholy for amusement. Ah, pardon," for John had blushed hotly. +"Do I not know why you said it? Am I not grateful?" + +He held out his hand. His eyes were shining. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +THE WATCHER IN THE PASS. + +Thenceforward, as the forest folded them deeper, John found a +wonderful solace in Bateese's company, although the two seldom +exchanged a word unless alone together, and after a day or two +Barboux took a whim to carry off the little boatman on his +expeditions and leave Muskingon in charge of the camp. He pretended +that John, as he mended of his wound, needed a stalwart fellow for +sentry; but the real reason was malice. For some reason he hated +Muskingon; and knowing Muskingon's delight in every form of the +chase, carefully thwarted it. On the other hand, it was fun to drag +off Bateese, who loved to sit by his boat and hated the killing of +animals. + +"If I give him my parole," suggested John, "he will have no excuse, +and Muskingon can go in your place." + +But to this Bateese would not listen. So the wounded were left, on +hunting days, in Muskingon's charge; and with him, too, John +contrived to make friends. The young Indian had a marvellous gift of +silence, and would sit brooding for hours. Perhaps he nursed his +hatred of Barboux; perhaps he distrusted the journey--for he and +Menehwehna, Ojibways both, were hundreds of miles from their own +country, which lay at the back of Lake Huron. Now and again, +however, he would unbend and teach John a few words of the Ojibway +language; or would allow him, as a fellow-sportsman, to sit by the +water's edge and study the Indian tricks of fishing. + +There was one in particular which fairly amazed John. He had crawled +after Muskingon on his belly--though not understanding the need of +this caution--to the edge of a rock overhanging a deep pool. +The Indian peered over, unloosed his waist-belt, and drew off his +scarlet breeches as if for a bathe. But no, he did not intend this-- +at least, not just yet. He wound the breeches about his right arm +and dipped it cautiously, bending over the ledge until his whole body +from the waist overhung the water, and it was a wonder how his thighs +kept their grip. Then, in a moment, up flew his heels and over he +soused. John, peering down as the swirl cleared, saw only a +red-brown back heaving below; and as the seconds dragged by, and the +back appeared to heave more and more faintly, was plucking off his +own clothes to dive and rescue Muskingon from the rocks, when a pair +of hands shot up, holding aloft an enormous, bleeding cat-fish, and +hitched him deftly on the gaff which John hurried to lower. But the +fish had scarcely a kick left in him, Muskingon having smashed his +head against the crevices of the rock. + +Indeed Barboux had this excuse for leaving Muskingon in camp by the +river--that there was always a string of fish ready before nightfall +when he and Menehwehna returned. John, stupefied through the +daylight hours, always seemed to awake with the lighting of the +camp-fire. This at any rate was the one scene he afterwards saw most +clearly, in health and in the delirium of fever--the fire; the ring +of faces; beyond the faces a sapling strung with fish like short +broad-swords reflecting the flames' glint; a stouter sapling laid +across two forked boughs, and from it a dead deer suspended, with +white filmed eyes, and the firelight warm on its dun flank; behind, +the black deep of the forest, sounded, if at all, by the cry of a +lonely wolf. These sights he recalled, with the scent of green fir +burning and the smart of it on his lashes. + +But by day he went with senses lulled, having forgotten all desire of +escape or return. These five companions were all his world. Was he +a prisoner? Was Barboux his enemy? The words had no meaning. +They were all in the same boat, and "France" and "England" had become +idle names. If he considered Barboux's gun, it was as a provider of +game, or a protector against any possible foe from the woods. +But the woods kept their sinister silence. + +Once, indeed, at the head of a portage, they came upon a still reach +of water with a strip of clearing on its farther bank--_bois brule_ +Bateese called it; but the fire, due to lightning no doubt, must have +happened many years before, for spruces of fair growth rose behind +the alders on the swampy shore, and tall wickup plants and tussocks +of the blueberry choked the interspaces. A cool breeze blew down the +waterway, as through a funnel, from the uplands ahead, and the falls +below sang deafeningly in the _voyageurs'_ ears as they launched +their boat. + +Suddenly Menehwehna touched Barboux by the elbow. His ear had caught +the crackling of a twig amid the uproar. John, glancing up as the +sergeant lifted his piece, spied the antlers of a bull-moose +spreading above an alder-clump across the stream. The tall brute had +come down through the _bois brule_ to drink, or to browse on the +young spruce-buds, which there grew tenderer than in the thick +forest; and for a moment moose and men gazed full at each other in +equal astonishment. + +Barboux would have fired at once had not Menehwehna checked him with +a few rapid words. With a snort of disgust the moose turned slowly, +presenting his flank, and crashed away through the undergrowth as the +shot rang after him. Bateese and Muskingon had the canoe launched in +a second, and the whole party clambered in and paddled across. +But before they reached the bank the beast's hoofs could be heard +drumming away on the ridge beyond the swamp and the branches snapping +as he parted them. + +Barboux cursed his luck. The two Indians maintained that the moose +had been hit. At length Muskingon, who had crossed the swamp, found +a splash of blood among the mosses, and again another on the leaves +of a wickup plant a rod or two farther on the trail. The sergeant, +hurrying to inspect these traces, plunged into liquid mud up to his +knees, and was dragged out in the worst of tempers by John, who had +chosen to follow without leave. Bateese and McQuarters remained with +the canoe. + +Each in his own fashion, then, the trackers crossed the swamp, +and soon were hunting among a network of moose-trails, which +criss-crossed one another through the burnt wood. John, aware of his +incompetence, contented himself with watching the Indians as they +picked up a new trail, followed it for a while, then patiently harked +back to the last spot of blood and worked off on a new line. Barboux +had theories of his own, which they received with a galling silence. +It galled him at length to fury, and he was lashing them with curses +which made John wonder at their forbearance, when a call from the +river silenced him. + +It came from Bateese. Bateese, who cared nothing for sport, had +paddled up-stream to inspect the next reach of the river, and there, +at the first ford, had found the moose lying dead and warm, with the +ripple running over his flank and his gigantic horns high out of the +water like a snag. + +From oaths Barboux now turned incontinently to boasting. This was +his first moose, but he--he, Joachim Barboux, was a sportsman from +his birth. He still contended, but complacently and without rancour, +that had the Indians taken up the trail he had advised from the first +it would have led them straight to the ford. They heard him and went +on skinning the moose, standing knee deep in the bloody water, for +the body was too heavy to be dragged ashore without infinite labour. +Menehwehna found and handed him the bullet, which had glanced across +and under the shoulder-blade, and flattened itself against one of the +ribs on the other side. Barboux pocketed it in high good humour; and +when their work was done--an ugly work, from which Bateese kept his +eyes averted--a steak or two cut out, with the tongue, and the +carcass left behind to rot in the stream--he praised them for brave +fellows. They listened as indifferently as they had listened to his +revilings. + +This shot which slew the moose was the last fired on the upward +journey. They had followed the stream up to the hill ridges, where +rapid succeeded rapid; and two days of all but incessant portage +brought them out above the forest, close beneath the naked ridges +where but a few pines straggled. + +Bateese pointed out a path by following which, as he promised, +they would find a river to carry them down into the St. Lawrence. +He unfolded a scheme. There were trees beside that farther stream-- +elm-trees, for example--blown down and needing only to be stripped; +his own eyes had seen them. Portage up and over the ridge would be +back-breaking work. Let the canoe, therefore, be abandoned--hidden +somewhere by the headwaters--and let the Indians hurry ahead and rig +up a light craft to carry the party downstream. They had axes to +strip the bark and thongs to close it at bow and stern. What more +was needed? As for the loss of his canoe, he understood the +sergeant's to be State business, requiring dispatch; and if so, +M. the Intendant at Montreal would recompense him. Nay, he himself +might be travelling back this way before long, and then how handy to +pick up a canoe on this side of the hills! + +The sergeant _bravo_-ed and clapped the little man on his back, +drawing tears of pain. The canoe was hauled up and stowed in a damp +corner of the undergrowth under a mat of pine-branches, well screened +from the sun's rays, and the travellers began to trudge on foot, in +two divisions. The Indians led, with John and Barboux, the latter +being minded to survey the country with them from the top of the +ridge and afterwards allow them to push on alone. He took John to +keep him company after their departure, and because the two prisoners +could not well be left in charge of Bateese, who besides had his +hands full with the baggage. So Bateese and McQuarters toiled +behind, the little man grunting and shifting his load from time to +time with a glance to assure himself that McQuarters was holding out; +now and then slackening the pace, but still, as he plodded, measuring +the slopes ahead with his eye, comparing progress with the sun's +march, and timing himself to reach the ridge at nightfall. +Barboux had proposed to camp there, on the summit. The Indians were +to push forward through the darkness. + +Meanwhile John stepped ahead with Barboux and the Indians. +His spirits rose as he climbed above the forest; the shadow which had +lain on them slipped away and melted in the clear air. Here and +there he stumbled, his knees reminding him suddenly of his weakness; +but health was coming back to him, and he drank in long pure draughts +of it. It was good, after all, to be alive and young. A sudden +throbbing in the air brought him to a halt; it came from a tiny +humming-bird poising itself over a bush-tufted rock on his right. +As it sang on, careless of his presence, John watched the +music bubbling and trembling within its flame-coloured throat. +He, too, felt ready to sing for no other reason than pure delight. +He understood the ancient gods and their laughter; he smiled down +with them upon the fret of the world and mortal fate. Father Jove, +_optimus maximus_, was a grand fellow, a good Catholic in spite of +misconception, and certainly immortal; god and gentleman both, large, +lusty, superlative, tolerant, debonair. As for misconception, from +this height Father Jove could overlook centuries of it at ease--the +Middle Ages, for instance. Everyone had been more or less cracked in +the Middle Ages--cracked as fiddles. Likely enough Jove had made the +Middle Ages, to amuse himself. . . . + +As the climb lulled his brain, John played with these idle fancies. +Barboux, being out of condition and scant of breath, conversed very +little. The Indians kept silence as usual. + +The sun was dropping behind the cleft of the pass as they reached it, +and the rocky walls opened in the haze of its yellow beams. So once +more John came to the gate of a new world. + +Menehwehna led, Barboux followed, with John close behind, and +Muskingon bringing up the rear. They were treading the actual pass, +and Menehwehna, rounding an angle of the cliff, had been lost to +sight for a moment, when John heard a low guttural cry--whether of +surprise or warning he could not tell. + +He ran forward at Barboux's heels. A dozen paces ahead of the +Indian, reclining against the rock-face on a heap of _scree_, in the +very issue of the pass, with leagues of sunlight beyond him and the +basin of the plain at his feet, sat a man. + +He did not move; and at first this puzzled them, for he lay dark +against the sun, and its rays shone in their eyes. + +But Menehwehna stepped close up to him and pointed. Then they saw, +and understood. + +The man was dead; dead and scalped--a horrible sight. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +THE FARTHER SLOPE. + +Barboux's complexion had turned to a sick yellow beneath its mottles. +He had been walking hard, and had eaten too much throughout the +voyage; no doubt, too, the sunset light painted his colour deeper. +But the man fairly twittered. + +Menehwehna muttered an Indian name. + +"Eh? Speak low, for the love of God!" The sergeant swept the cliffs +above and around with a shuddering glance. + +"Les Agniers, as you call them--but Iroquois for certain. The man, +you see, is Canayan--" Menehwehna began coolly to handle the corpse. +"He has been dead for hours, but not many hours." He lifted an arm +and let it fall, after trying the rigidity of the muscles. "Not many +hours," he repeated; and signed to Muskingon, who began to crawl +forward and, from the gap of the pass, to reconnoitre the slope +below. + +"And in the interval they have been tracking _us_, belike?" + +"They may, indeed, have spied us coming from the cliffs above," +answered Menehwehna unperturbed. "If so, they are watching us at +this moment, and there is no escaping; but this we shall learn within +twenty paces, since between the rocks here they have us at their +will. You, O illustrious, they might suffer to promenade yourself +for a while in the open, for the sake of better sport; with us, who +are Ojibways, they would deal while yet they could be sure." + +He said it without any show of vanity, nor did he trouble himself to +glance around or above for signs of the foe. "We had best make trial +of this without delay," he added. "For if they fire the noise may +reach the other two and warn Bateese, who is clever and may yet save +himself." + +"What the devil care I for Bateese?" snarled Barboux. "If they have +tracked us, they have tracked all. I run no risks for a _bossu_ and +a useless prisoner." + +"I did not say that they have tracked us. _Him_ they tracked beyond +a doubt; and at the end he knew they were after him. See--" +Again he lifted the arm of the corpse, and invited the sergeant to +feel its shirt along the ribs and under the armpits. "See you how +stiff it is; that is where the sweat has dried, and men sweat so when +they are in a great hurry. Perhaps he was the last of his company, +and they overtook him here. Now, see again--I tell you they have not +been tracking us, and I will prove it. In the first place I am no +fool, and if one--two--three men have tracked me close (it cannot be +far) a day long without my knowing, it will be the first time in +Menehwehna's life. But let that pass. See these marks; they +overtook him here, and they did with him--so. But where is any mark +on the path behind us? Look well; there is only one path and no +trail in it at all, else I had not cried out as I did. No man has +passed within less time than it takes the moss to grow. Very good; +then whoever killed him followed him up from yonder, and here stopped +and turned back--I think, in a hurry. To place the body so--that is +an Iroquois trick when few and in a hurry; otherwise they take him +away and do worse." + +"Iroquois? But _que diable!_ The Six Nations are at peace with us! +Why on earth should the Iroquois meddle with this man, by the dress +of him a _coureur de bois_?" + +"And unarmed, too!" pursued Menehwehna with fine irony, "since they +have taken away his gun. Ask me riddles that I can read. The Six +Nations are never at peace; there were five hundred of them back at +Ticonderoga, seated on a hill opposite and only waiting. Yes, and in +peace they have never less reasons than fingers and toes for killing +a man. Your questions are for a child; but _I_ say that the Iroquois +have been here and killed this man, and in a hurry. Now answer me; +if, after killing him, they wished to spy down upon our coming, and +were in a hurry, why did they not take the short way through the +pass?" + +"That is simple. Any fresh track of men at the entrance, or close +within it, would warn us back; therefore they would say, 'Let us +climb to the ridge and watch, though it take longer.'" + +"Good; now you talk with a clear head, and I have less fear for you. +They may be aloft there, as you say, having drawn us into their trap. +Yet I do not think it, for why should they be expecting us? It is +now two days since you killed the moose. They could not have been +near in a body to hear that shot fired, for it is hours since they +overtook this man, following him up from the other slope. But a +scout might have heard it and climbed across to warn them; yes, that +is possible." + +But here Muskingon came crawling back. He had inspected the ground +by the lip of the descent, and in his belief the dead man's pursuers +were three or four at the most, and had hurried down the hill again +when their work was done. + +Menehwehna nodded gravely. "It is as I thought, and for the moment +we need not fear; but we cannot spend the night in this trap--for +trap it is, whether watched or not. Do we go forward then, or back?" + +Barboux cursed. "How in the name of twenty devils can I go back! +Back to the Richelieu?--it would be wasting weeks!" His hand went up +to his breast, then he seemed to recollect himself and turned upon +John roughly. "Step back, you, and find if the others are in sight. +We, here, have private matters to discuss." + +John obeyed. The first turn of the cliff shut off the warm westerly +glow, and he went back through twilight. He knew now why Barboux had +lagged behind on the Richelieu, in scorn of discipline. The man must +be entrusted with some secret missive of Montcalm's, and, being +puffed up with it, had in a luckless hour struck out a line of his +own. To turn back now would mean his ruin; might end in his standing +up to be shot with his back to a wall. . . . + +Between the narrow walls of the pass night was closing down rapidly. +John lifted his face towards the strip of sky aloft, greenish-blue +and tranquil. . . . + +He fell back--his heart, after one leap, freezing--slowly freezing to +a standstill; his hands spreading themselves against the face of the +rock. + +What voice was that, screaming? . . . one--two--three--horrible human +screams, rending the twilight, beating down on his ears, echoing from +wall to wall. . . . + +The third and last scream died out in a low, bubbling wail. +Close upon it rose a sound which John could not mistake--the whoop of +Indians. He plucked his hands from the rock, and ran; but, as he +turned to run, in the sudden silence a body thudded down upon the +path behind him. + +In twenty strides he was back again at the issue of the pass. +The two Indians had vanished. Barboux's gross body alone blocked the +pale daylight there. Barboux lingered a moment, stooping over the +murdered man; but he too ran at the sound of John's footsteps, and +the corpse, as John came abreast of it, slid over in a silly heap, +almost rolling against his legs. + +He leaped aside and cleared it, and in a moment was pelting down the +slope after the sergeant, who flung back an agonised doubtful glance, +and recognising his pursuer grunted with relief. At their feet, and +far below, spread a wide plain--a sea of forest rolling, wave upon +wave, with a gleam of water between. The river, then--Bateese's +river--was near at hand. + +Fifty yards down the slope, which was bare of cover, he saw the two +Indians. Muskingon led by a few strides, and the pair seemed to be +moving noiselessly; yet, by the play of their shoulders, both were +running for their lives. John raced past the lumbering sergeant and +put forth all his strength to catch up with Menehwehna. The descent +jarred his knees horribly, and still, as he plunged deeper into the +shadow of the plain, the stones and bushes beneath his feet grew +dimmer and the pitfalls harder to avoid. His ears were straining for +the Indian war-whoop behind him; he wondered more and more as the +seconds grew into minutes and yet brought no sounds but the trickle +and slide of stones dislodged by Barboux thundering in the rear. + +They were close upon the outskirts of the forest. He had caught up +with Menehwehna and was running at his heels, stride for stride. + +In the first dark shadow of the trees Menehwehna checked himself, +came to a sudden halt, and swung round, panting. Somehow, although +unable to see his face, John knew him to be furiously angry--with the +cold fury of an Indian. + +"Englishman, you are a fool!" + +"But why?" panted John innocently. "Is it the noise I made? +I cannot run as you Indians can." + +Menehwehna grunted. "What matters noise more or less, when _he_ is +anywhere near?" + +"They have not seen us!" gasped Barboux, blundering up at this moment +and almost into John's arms. + +"To be sure," answered Menehwehna sardonically, "they have not seen +us. It may even be that the great Manitou has smitten them with +deafness and they have not heard you, O illustrious!--and with +blindness, that they cannot trace your footmarks; yes, and perchance +with folly, too, so that, returning to a dead man whom they left, +they may wonder not at all that he has tumbled himself about!" + +"_Peste!_ It was this Englishman's fault. He came running behind +and hurried me. But you Indians do not know everything. I found--" +but here Barboux checked himself on the edge of a boast. + +The Indian had sunk on one knee and laid his ear to the ground. +"It will be of great price," said he, "if what you found will take us +out of this. They are not following as yet, and the water is near." + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +MENEHWEHNA SETTLES ACCOUNTS. + +Weary as they were, there could be no thought of halting. The river +and the plain lay far below them yet, and they must push on through +the darkness. + +Hitherto the forest had awed John by its loneliness; its +night-voices, falling at rare intervals on his ear and awaking him +from dreams beside the camp-fire, had seemed to cry and challenge +across immense distances as though the very beasts were far astray. +But now, as he crouched behind Menehwehna, he felt it to be no less +awfully inhabited. A thousand creeping things stirred or slunk away +through the undergrowth; roosting birds edged towards one another in +the branches, ever on the point of flapping off in panic; the +thickets were warm from the flanks of moose and deer. And all this +wild life, withdrawing, watched the four fugitives with a thousand +eyes. + +These imaginary terrors did him one service. They kept him awake. +By and by his brain began to work clearly, as it often will when the +body has passed a certain point of fatigue. "If these Indians on the +ridge are Iroquois, why should I run? The Iroquois are friends of +England, and would recognise my red coat. The man they killed was a +Canadian, a _coureur de bois_; they will kill Barboux if they catch +him, and also these two Ojibways. But to me capture will bring +release." + +He understood now why Menehwehna had called him a fool. +Nevertheless, as he went, the screams on the cliff rang in his ears +again, closing the argument. + +Muskingon still led. He had struck a small mountain stream and was +tracking it down towards the river--keeping wide of it to avoid the +swampy ground, relying on his ears and the lie of the slope. +Menehwehna followed close, ready to give counsel if needed; but the +young Indian held on in silence, never once hesitating. + +The debate in John's brain started afresh. "These Iroquois mean _me_ +no harm. I am sure enough of that, at any rate, to face the risk of +it. Barboux is my enemy--my country's enemy--and I dislike in him +the little I don't despise. As for Menehwehna and Muskingon--they, I +suppose, are my enemies, and the Iroquois my friends." Somehow John +felt that when civilised nations employ uncivilised allies, the +simplest questions of ethics may become complicated. He remembered a +hundred small acts of kindness, of good-fellowship; and he recalled, +all too vividly, the murdered man and his gory head. + +But might he not escape back and show himself without lessening his +comrades' chances? It was a nuisance that he must always be thinking +of them as comrades. Was he not their prisoner? Would their +comradeship help him at the end of the journey? . . . + +The moon had risen over the hills when Muskingon's piloting brought +them out once more under open sky, at a point where the mountain +stream met and poured itself into a larger one hurrying down from the +northeast. A few yards below their confluence the riverbed narrowed, +and the waters, gathering speed, were swept down through a rocky +chasm towards a cataract, the noise of which had been sounding in +John's ears while he debated. + +Hitherto he had weighed the question as one between himself and his +three companions. For the moment he saw no chance of giving them the +slip; and, if a chance occurred, the odds must be terribly unequal. +Still, supposing that one occurred, ought he to take it? Putting +aside the insane risk, ought he to bring death--and such a death-- +down upon these three men, two of whom he looked upon as friends? +Did his country, indeed, require this of him? He wished he had his +cousin Dick beside him for counsellor, or could borrow Dick's +practical mind. Dick always saw clearly. + +And behold! as he stepped out upon the river bank, his wish was given +him. He remembered suddenly that this Barboux carried a message--of +what importance he could not tell, nor was it for him to consider. +Important or not, it must be to England's detriment, and as a +soldier, he had no other duty than to baulk it. Why had he not +thought of this before? It ruled out all private questions, even +that of escape or of saving his own life. The report of a gun would +certainly be heard on the ridge above; and if, by forcing Barboux to +shoot, he could draw down the Iroquois, why then--live or die--the +signal must be given. + +He scanned the chasm. It could not measure less than twenty feet +across, and the current whirled through it far below--thirty feet +perhaps. He eyed his companions. Barboux leaned on his gun a few +paces from the brink, where the two Indians stood peering down at the +dim waters. John dropped on one knee, pretending to fasten a button +of his gaiters, and drew a long breath while he watched for his +chance. Presently Muskingon straightened himself up and, as if +satisfied with his inspection, began to lead the way again, slanting +his course away from the bank and back towards the selvage of the +woods. Menehwehna followed close, and Barboux shouldered his musket +and fell into third place, grunting to John to hurry after. + +And so John did--for a dozen paces back from the river. +Then, swinging quickly on his heel, he dashed for the brink, and +leapt. + +So sudden was the manoeuvre that not until his feet left the rock--it +seemed, at that very instant--did he hear the sergeant's oath of +dismay. Even as he flew across the whirling darkness, his ear was +listening for the shot to follow. + +The take-off--a flat slab of rock--was good, and the leap well timed. +But he had allowed too little, perhaps, for his weariness and his +recent wound; and in the darkness he had not seen that of the two +brinks the far one stood the higher by many inches. In mid-air he +saw it, and flung his arms forward as he pitched against it little +more than breast-high. His fingers clutched vainly for hold, while +his toes scraped the face of the rock, but found no crevice to +support them. + +Had his body dropped a couple of inches lower before striking the +bank, or had the ledge shelved a degree or two more steeply, or had +it been smooth or slippery with rain, he must have fallen backward +into the chasm. As it was, his weight rested so far forward upon his +arms that, pressing his elbows down upon the rock, he heaved himself +over on the right side of the balance, fell on his face and chest, +and so wriggled forward until he could lift a knee. + +The roar of the waters drowned all other noise. Only that faint cry +of Barboux had followed him across. But now, as he scrambled to his +feet, he heard a sudden thud on the ledge behind him. A hand +clutched at his heel, out of the night. At once he knew that his +stratagem had failed, that Barboux would not fire, that Muskingon was +upon him. He turned to get at grips; but, in the act of turning, +felt his brain open and close again with a flame and a crash, +stretched out both arms, and pitched forward into darkness. + + +It seemed--for he knew no break in his sensations--that the ground, +as he touched it, became strangely soft and elastic. For a while he +wondered at this idly, then opened his eyes--but only to blink and +close them again, for they were met by broad daylight. + +He was lying on the grass; he was resting in Muskingon's arms amid a +roaring of many waters; he was being carried between Muskingon and +Menehwehna beneath a dark roof of pines--and yet their boughs were +transparent, and he looked straight through them into blue sky. +Was he dead? Had he passed into a world where time was not, that all +these things were happening together? If so, how came the two +Indians here? And Barboux? He could hear Barboux muttering: no, +shouting aloud. Why was the man making such a noise? And who was +that firing? . . . Oh, tell him to stop! The breastwork will never +be carried in this way--haven't the troops charged it again and +again? Look at Sagramore, there: pull him off somebody and let him +die quiet! For pity's sake fetch the General, to make an end of this +folly! Forty-sixth! Where are the Forty-sixth? . . . + +He was lying in a boat now--a canoe. But how could this be, when the +boat was left behind on the other side of the mountain? Yet here it +was, plain as daylight, and he was lying in it; also he could +remember having been lifted and placed here by Muskingon--not by +Menehwehna. To be sure Menehwehna crouched here above him, musket in +hand. Between the shouting and firing he heard the noise of water +tumbling over rapids. The noise never ceased; it was all about him; +and yet the boat did not move. It lay close under a low bank, with a +patch of swamp between it and the forest: and across this swamp +towards the forest Muskingon was running. John saw him halt and lift +his piece as Barboux came bursting through the trees with an Indian +in pursuit. The two ran in line, the Indian lifting a tomahawk and +gaining at every stride; and Muskingon had to step aside and let them +come abreast of him before he fired at close quarters. The Indian +fell in a heap; Barboux struggled through the swamp and leapt into +the canoe as Muskingon turned to follow. But now three--four--five +Indians were running out of the woods upon him; four with tomahawks +only, but the fifth carried a gun; and, while the others pursued, +this man, having gained the open, dropped swiftly on one knee and +fired. At that instant Menehwehna's musket roared out close above +John's head; but as the marksman rolled over, dead, on his smoking +gun, Muskingon gave one leap like a wounded stag's, and toppled prone +on the edge of the bank close above the canoe. + +And with that, and even as Menehwehna sprang to his feet to reach and +rescue him, Barboux let fly an oath, planted the butt of his musket +against the bank, and thrust the canoe off. It was done in a second. +In another, the canoe had lurched afloat, the edge of the rapid +whirled her bow round, and she went spinning down-stream. + +All this John saw distinctly, and afterwards recalled it all in +order, as it befell. But sometimes, as he recalled it, he seemed to +be watching the scene with an excruciating ache in his brain; at +others, in a delicious languor of weakness. He remembered too how +the banks suddenly gathered speed and slid past while the boat +plunged and was whirled off in the heart of the rapid. Muskingon had +uttered no cry: but back--far back--on the shore sounded the whoops +of the Iroquois. + +Then--almost at once--the canoe was floating on smooth water and +Menehwehna talking with Barboux. + +"It had better be done so," Menehwehna was saying. "You are younger +than I, and stronger, and it will give you a better chance." + +"Don't be a fool," growled Barboux. "The man was dead, I tell you. +They are always dead when they jump like that. _Que diable!_ I have +seen enough fighting to know." + +But Menehwehna replied, "You need much sleep and you cannot watch +against me. I have reloaded my gun, and the lock of yours is wet. +Indeed, therefore, it must be as I say." + +After this, Barboux said very little: but the canoe was paddled to +shore and the two men walked aside into the woods. The sun was +setting and they cast long shadows upon the bank as they stepped out. + +John lay still and dozed fitfully, waking up now and then to brush +away the mosquitoes that came with the first falling shadows to +plague him. + +By and by in the twilight Menehwehna returned and stood above the +bank. He tossed a bundle into the canoe, stepped after it, and +pushed off without hurry. + +John laughed, as a child might laugh, guessing some foolish riddle. + +"You have killed him!" + +"He did wickedly," answered Menehwehna. "He was a fool and past +bearing." + +John laughed again; and, being satisfied, dropped asleep. + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +BOISVEYRAC. + +Along the river-front of Boisveyrac, on the slopes between the stone +walls of the Seigniory and the broad St. Lawrence, Dominique Guyon, +the Seigneur's farmer, strode to and fro encouraging the harvesters. + +"Work, my children! Work!" + +He said it over and over again, using the words his father had always +used at this season. But the harvesters--old Damase Juneau and his +wife La Marmite, Jo Lagasse, the brothers Pierre and Telesphore +Courteau, with Telesphore's half-breed wife Leelinau (Lelie, in +French)--all knew the difference in tone. It had been worth while in +former times to hear old Bonhomme Guyon say the words, putting his +heart into them, while the Seigneur himself would follow behind, +echoing, "Yes, that is so. Work, my children: work is the great +cure!" But Bonhomme Guyon was dead these two months--rest his soul; +and the Seigneur gone up the river to command a fortress for the King +of France; and no one left at Boisveyrac but themselves and half a +dozen militiamen and this young Dominique Guyon, who would not smile +and was a skinflint. + +It was as if the caterpillars had eaten the mirth as well as the +profits out of this harvest which (if folks said true) the Seigneur +needed so badly. Even the children had ceased to find it amusing, +and had trooped after the priest, Father Launoy, up the hill and into +the courtyard of the Chateau. + +"Work, my friends!" said Dominique. He knew well that they detested +him and would have vastly preferred his brother Bateese for overseer. +For his part, he took life seriously: but no one was better aware of +the bar between him and others' love or liking. + +They respected him because he was the best _canotier_ on the river; a +better even than his malformed brother Bateese, now with the army. +When he drew near they put more spirit into their pitchforking. + +"But all the same it breaks the back, this suspense," declared La +Marmite. "I never could work with more than one thing in my mind. +Tell us, Dominique Guyon: the good Father will be coming out soon, +will he not?--that is, if he means to shoot the falls before sunset." + +"What can it matter to you, mother?" + +"Matter? Why if he doesn't come soon, I shall burst myself with +curiosity, that is all!" + +"But you know all that can be told. There has been a great victory, +for certain." + +"Eh? Eh? You are clever enough, doubtless; but you don't think you +can question and cross-question a man the way that Father Launoy does +it? Why the last time I confessed to him he turned me upside down +and emptied me like a sack." + +"There has been a great victory: that is all we need to know. +Work, my friends, work with a good heart!" + +But when his back was turned they drew together and talked, glancing +now towards the Seigniory above the slope, now towards the river bank +where a couple of tall Etchemin Indians stood guard beside a canoe, +and across the broad flood to the woods on the farther shore +stretching away southward in a haze of blue. Down in the south +there, far beyond the blue horizon, a battle had been fought and a +great victory won. + +Jo Lagasse edged away towards Corporal Chretien, who kept watch, +musket in hand, on the western fringe of the clearing. Harvests at +Boisveyrac had been gathered under arms since time out of mind, with +sentries posted far up the shore and in the windmill behind the +Seigniory, to give warning of the Iroquois. To-day the corporal and +his men were specially alert, and at an alarm the workers would have +plenty of time to take shelter within the gateway of the Chateau. + +"Well, it seems that we may all lift up our hearts. The English are +done for, and next season there is to be a big stamping-out of the +Iroquois." + +"Who told you that, Jo Lagasse?" + +"Everyone is saying it. Pierre Courteau has even some tale that two +thousand of them were slaughtered after the battle yonder-- +Onnontagues and Agniers for the most part. At this rate you idlers +will soon be using your bayonets to turn the corn with the rest of +us." + +"Yes; that's right--call us idlers! And the Iroquois known to be +within a dozen miles! You would sing to another tune, my friend, if +we idlers offered to march off and leave you just now." The corporal +swung round on his thin legs and peered into the belt of trees. + +Jo Lagasse grinned. + +"No, no, corporal; I was jesting only. To think of me undervaluing +the military! Why often and often, as a single man with no ties, +I have fancied myself enlisting. But now it will be too late." + +"If M. de Montcalm has really swallowed the English," answered the +other drily, "it will be too late, as you say." + +"But these English, now--I have always had a curiosity to see them. +Is it true, corporal, that they have faces like devils, and that he +who has the misfortune to be killed by one will assuredly rise the +third day? The priests say so." + +Corporal Chretien had never actually confronted his country's foes. +"Much would depend," he answered cautiously, "upon circumstances, and +upon what you mean by a devil." + +While Jo Lagasse scratched his head over this, the wicket opened in +the great gate of the Seigniory, and Father Launoy came forth with a +troop of children at his heels. The harvesters crowded about him at +once. + +He lifted a hand. He was a tall priest and square-shouldered, with +the broad brow and set square chin of a fighting man. + +"My children," he announced in a voice clear as a bell, "it is +certain there has been a great battle at Fort Carillon. The English +came on, four to one, gnashing their teeth like devils of the pit. +But the host of the faithful stood firm and overcame them, and now +they are flying southward whence they came. Let thanks be given to +God who giveth us the victory!" + +The men bared their heads. + +"When I met 'Polyte Latulippe and young Damase on my way down the +river, I could scarcely believe their tale. But the Ojibway puts it +beyond doubt; and the few answers I could win from the wounded +sergeant all confirm the story." + +"His name, Father?" asked La Marmite. "We can get nothing out of +Dominique Guyon, who keeps his tongue as close as his fist." + +"His name is a Clive, and he is of the regiment of Beam. He has come +near to death's door, poor fellow, and still lies too near to it for +talking. But I think he is strong enough to bear carrying up to Fort +Amitie, where the Seigneur--who, by the way, sends greeting to you +all--" + +"And our salutations go back to him. Would he were here to-day to +see the harvest carried!" + +"The Seigneur, having heard what 'Polyte and Damase have to tell, +will desire to hear more of this glorious fight. For myself, I must +hasten down to Montreal, where I have a message to deliver, and +perhaps I may reach there with these tidings also before the boats, +which are coming up by way of the Richelieu. Therefore I am going to +borrow Dominique Guyon of you, to pilot me down through the Roches +Fendues. And talking of Dominique"--here the Jesuit laid a hand on +the shoulder of the young man, who bent his eyes to the ground-- +"you complain that he is close, eh? How often, my children, must I +ask you to judge a brother by his virtues? To which of you did it +occur, when these men came, to send 'Polyte and Damase up to Fort +Amitie with their news? No one has told me: yet I will wager it was +Dominique Guyon. Who sat up, the night through, with this wounded +stranger? Dominique Guyon. Who has been about the field all day, as +though to have missed a night's sleep were no excuse for shirking the +daily task? Dominique Guyon. Again, to whom do I turn now to steer +me down the worst fall in the river? To Dominique Guyon. He will +arrive back here to-night tired as a dog, but once more at daybreak +it will be Dominique who sets forth to carry the wounded man up to +Fort Amitie. And why? Because, when a thing needs to be done well, +he is to be trusted; you would turn to him then and trust him rather +than any of yourselves, and you know it. Do you grumble, then, that +the Seigneur knows it? I say to you that a man is born thus, or +thus; responsible or not responsible; and a man that is born +responsible, though he add pound to pound and field to field, is a +man to be thankful for. Moreover, if he keep his own counsel, you +may go to him at a pinch with the more certainty that he will keep +yours." + +"What did I tell you?" whispered La Marmite to Jo Lagasse, who had +joined the little crowd. "The Father's eye turns you inside out: he +knows how we have been grumbling all day. But all the same," she +added aloud, "he is young and ought to laugh." + +"I have told you," said Father Launoy, "that you should judge a man +by his virtues: but, where that is hard, at least you should judge +him by help of your own pity. All this day Dominique has been +copying his dead father; and the same remembrance that has been to +him a sorrowful incitement, has been to you but food for uncharitable +thoughts. If I am not saying the truth, correct me." + +They were silent. The priest had a great gift of personal talk, +straight and simple; and treated them as brothers and sisters of a +family, holding up the virtues of this one, or the faults of that, to +the common gaze. They might not agree with this laudation of +Dominique: but no one cared to challenge it at the risk of finding +himself pilloried for public laughter. Father Launoy knew all the +peccadilloes of this small flock, and had a tongue which stripped +your clothes off--to use an expression of La Marmite's. + +They followed him down to the shore where the Etchemins held the +canoe ready. There they knelt, and he blessed them before embarking. +Dominique stepped on board after him, and the two Indians took up +their paddles. + +Long after the boat had been pushed off and was speeding down the +broad waterway, the harvesters stood and watched it. The sunset +followed it, gleaming along its wake and on its polished quarter, +flashing as the paddles rose and dipped; until it rounded the corner +by Bout de l'lsle, where the rapids began. + +The distant voice of these rapids filled the air with its humming; +but their ears were accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did +they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed +beds, until Jo Lagasse imitated it to perfection. + +"To work, my children!" he croaked. "Work is the only cure!" + +They burst out laughing, and hurried back to gather the last load +before nightfall. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS. + +For a little while after leaving the shore the priest kept silence. + +"Dominique," said he at length, "there is something in your guests +that puzzles me; and something too that puzzles me in the manner of +their coming to Boisveyrac. Tell me now precisely how you found +them." + +"It was not I who found them, Father. Telesphore Courteau came +running to me, a little before sunset, with news that a man--an +Indian--was standing on the shore opposite and signalling with his +arms as if for help. Well, at first I thought it might be some trick +of the Iroquois--not that I had dreamed of any in the neighbourhood: +and Chretien got his men ready and under arms. But the glass seemed +to show that this was not an Iroquois: and next I saw a bundle, which +might be a wounded man, lying on the bank beside him. So we launched +a boat and pushed across very carefully until we came within hail: +and then we parleyed for some while, the soldiers standing ready to +fire, until the Indian's look and speech convinced me--for I have +been as far west as Michilimackinac, and know something of the +Ojibway talk. So when he called out his nation to me, I called back +to him to leave speaking in French and use his own tongue." + +"Yes, yes--he is an Ojibway beyond doubt." + +"Well, Father, while I was making sure of this, we had pushed +forward little by little and I saw the wounded man clearly. +He was half-naked, but lay with his tunic over him, as the Indian had +wrapped him against the chill. Indeed he was half-dead too, and past +speaking, when at length we took him off." + +"And they had lost their boat in the Cedars?" + +"So the Ojibway said. The wonder is that they ever came to shore." + +"The wonder to my thinking is rather that, coming through the +wilderness from the Richelieu River, they should have possessed a +canoe to launch on the Great River here." + +"Their tale is that they were four, and happened on a small party of +Iroquois by surprise: and that two perished while this pair possessed +themselves of the Iroquois' canoe and so escaped." + +"Yes," mused the priest, "so again the Ojibway told me. A strange +story: and when I began to put questions he grew more and more +stupid--but I know well enough by this time, I should hope, when an +Indian pretends to be duller than he is. The sick man I could not +well cross-examine. He told me something of the fight at Fort +Carillon, where he, it appears, saw the main fighting upon the ridge, +while the Indians were spread as sharpshooters along the swamps +below. For the rest he refers me to his comrade." Father Launoy +fell to musing again. "What puzzles me is that he carries no +message, or will not own to carrying one. But what then brings him +across the Wilderness? The other boats with the wounded and +prisoners went down the Richelieu to its mouth, and will be +travelling up the Great River to Montreal--that is, if they have not +already arrived. Now why should this one boat have turned aside? +That I could understand, if the man were upon special service: the +way he came would be a short cut either down the river to Montreal, +or up-stream to Fort Amitie or Fort Frontenac. But, as I say, this +man apparently carries no message. Also he started from Fort +Carillon with two wounds; and who would entrust special service to a +wounded man?" + +"Of a certainty, Father, he was wounded, as I myself saw when we drew +off his shirt. The hurt in his ribs is scarcely skinned over, and he +has a fresh scar on his wrist. But the blow on the head, from which +he suffers, is later, and was given him (he says) by an Indian." + +"A bad blow--and yet he escaped." + +"A bad blow. Either from that or from the drenching, towards morning +his head wandered and he talked at full speed for an hour." + +"Of what did he talk?" asked the priest quickly. + +"That I cannot tell, since he chattered in English." + +"English? How do you know that it was English?" + +"Why, since it was not French, nor like any kind of Indian! Moreover, +I have heard the English talk. They were prisoners brought down from +Oswego, twelve bateaux in all, and I took them through the falls. +When they talked, it was just as this man chattered last night." + +"Then you, too, Dominique, find your guest a strange fellow?" + +"Oh, as for that! He is a sergeant, and of the regiment of Bearn. +Your reverence saw his coat hanging by the bed." + +"Even in that there is something strange. For Bearn lies in the +Midi, close to the Pyrenees; and, as I understand, the regiment of +Bearn was recruited and officered almost entirely from its own +province. But this Sergeant a Clive comes from the north; his speech +has no taste of the south in it, and indeed he owns to me that he is +a northerner. He says further that he comes from my own seminary of +Douai. And this again is correct; for I cross-questioned him on the +seminary, and he knows it as a hand knows its glove--the customs of +the place, the lectures, the books in use there. He has told me, +moreover, why he left it. . . . Dominique, you do right in misliking +your guest." + +"I do not say, Father, that I mislike him. I fear him a little--I +cannot tell why." + +"You do right, then, to fear him; and I will tell you why. He is an +atheist." + +"An atheist? O--oh!" + +"He has been of the true Faith. But he rejected me; he would make no +confession, but turned himself to the wall when I exhorted him. +_Voyons_--here is a Frenchman who talks English in his delirium; a +northerner serving in a regiment of the south; an infidel, from +Douai. Dominique, I do not like your guest." + +"Nor I, Father, since you tell me that he is an atheist." + +While they talked they had been lifting their voices insensibly to +the roar of the nearing rapids; and were now come to Bout de l'lsle +and the edge of peril. Below Bout de l'lsle the river divided to +plunge through the Roches Fendues, where to choose the wrong channel +meant destruction. Yet a mile below the Roches Fendues lay the +Cascades, with a long straight plunge over smooth shelves of rock and +two miles of furious water beyond. Yet farther down came the +terrible rapids of La Chine, not to be attempted. There the +_voyageurs_ would leave the canoe and reach Montreal on foot. + +Father Launoy was a brave man. Thrice before he had let Dominique +lead him through the awful dance ahead, and always at the end of it +had felt his soul purged of earthly terrors and left clean as a +child's. + +Dominique reached out a hand in silence and took the paddle from the +Etchemin, who crawled aft and seated himself with an expressionless +face. Then with a single swift glance astern to assure himself that +the other Indian was prepared, the young man knelt and crouched, with +his eyes on the V-shaped ripple ahead, for the angle of which they +were heading. + +On this, too, the priest's eyes were bent. He gripped the gunwale as +the current lifted and swept the canoe down at a pace past control; +as it sped straight for the point of the smooth water, and so, +seeming to be warned by the roar it met, balanced itself fore-and-aft +for one swift instant and plunged with a swoop that caught away the +breath. + +The bows shot under the white water below the fall, lifted to the +first wave, knocking up foam out of foam, and so dived to the next, +quivering like a reed shaken in the hand. Dominique straightened +himself on his knees. In a moment he was working his paddle like a +madman, striking broad off with it on this side and that, forcing the +canoe into its course, zigzagging within a hand's breadth of rocks +which, at a touch, would have broken her like glass, and across the +edge of whirlpools waiting to drown a man and chase his body round +for hours within a few inches of the surface; and all at a speed of +fifteen to eighteen miles an hour, with never an instant's pause +between sight and stroke. The Indian in the stern took his cue from +Dominique; now paddling for dear life, now flinging his body back as +with a turn of the wrist he checked the steerage. + +The priest sat with a white drenched face; a brave man terrified. +He felt the floor of the world collapsing, saw its forests reeling by +in the spray. It cracked like a bubble and was dissolved in +rainbows--wisps caught in the rocks and fluttering in the wind of the +boat's flight. Then, as the pressure on heart and chest grew +intolerable, the speed began to slacken and he drew a shuddering +breath; but his brain still kept the whirl of the wild minutes past +and his hand scarcely relaxed its grip on the gunwale. As a runaway +horse, still galloping, drops back to control, so the canoe seemed to +find her senses and leapt at the waves with a cunning change of +motion, no longer shearing through their crests, but riding them with +a long and easy swoop. Still Father Launoy did not speak. He sat as +one for whom a door has been held half-open, and closed again, upon a +vision. + +Yet when he found his tongue--which was not until they reached the +end of the white water, and Dominique, after panting a while, headed +the canoe for shore--his voice did not shake. + +"It was a bold thought of these men, or a foolhardy, to strike across +the Wilderness," he said meditatively, in the tone of one picking up +a talk which chance has interrupted. + +"There are many ways through those woods," Dominique answered. +"Between here and Fort Niagara you may hear tell of a dozen perhaps; +and the Iroquois have their own." + +"Let us hope that none of theirs crosses the one you and Bateese +taught to Monsieur Armand. The Seigneur will be uneasy about his son +when he hears what 'Polyte and Damase report; and Monsieur Etienne +and Mademoiselle Diane will be uneasy also." + +"But this Ojibway saw nothing of M. Armand or his party." + +"No news is good news. As you owe the Seigneur your duty, take your +guests up to Fort Amitie to-morrow and let them be interrogated." + +"My Father, must I go?" There was anguish in Dominique's voice. +"Surely Jo Lagasse or Pierre Courteau will do as well?--and there is +much work at Boisveyrac which cannot be neglected." + +They had come to shore, and the priest had stepped out upon the bank +after Dominique for a few parting words. + +"But that is not your true reason?" He laid his hand on the young +man's shoulder and looked him in the eyes. + +Dominique's fell. "Father," he entreated in a choking voice, +"you know my secret: do not be hard on me! 'Lead us not into +temptation'--" + +"It will not serve you to run from yours. You must do battle with +it. Bethink you that, as through the Wilderness, there are more ways +than one in love, and the best is that of self-denial. Mademoiselle +Diane is not for you, Dominique, her father's _censitaire_: yet you +may love her your life through, and do her lifelong service. +To-morrow, by taking these men to Fort Amitie, you may ease her heart +of its fears: and will you fail in so simple a devoir? There is too +much of self in your passion, Dominique--for I will not call it love. +Love finds itself in giving: but passion is always a beggar." + +"My Father, you do not understand--" + +"Who told you that I do not understand?" the priest interrupted +harshly. "I too have known passion, and learnt that it is full of +self and comes of Satan. Nay, is that not evident to you, seeing +what mischief it has already worked in your life? Think of Bateese." + +"Do I ever cease thinking of Bateese? Do I ever cease fighting with +myself?" Dominique's voice rose almost to a cry of pain. He stared +across the water with gloomy eyes and added--it seemed quite +inconsequently--"The Cascades is a bad fall, but I think it will be +the Roches Fendues that gets me in the end." + +He said it calmly, wistfully: and, pausing for a moment, met the +priest's eyes. + +"Your blessing, Father. I will go." + +He knelt. + +Generations of _voyageurs_, upward bound, and porting their canoes to +avoid the falls, had worn a track beside the river bank. Dominique +made such speed back along it that he came in sight of Boisveyrac as +the bell in the little chapel of the Seigniory began to ring the +Angelus. Its note came floating down the river distinct above the +sound of the falls. He bared his head, and repeated his _Aves_ duly. + +"But all the same," he added, working out the train of his thoughts +as he gazed across the deserted harvest-fields, impoverished by +tree-stumps, to the dense forest behind the Chateau, "let God +confound the English, and New France shall belong to a new _noblesse_ +that have learned, as the old will not, to lay their hands on her +wealth." + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +THE WHITE TUNIC. + +John a Cleeve lay on his bed in the guest-room of the Seigniory, +listening to the sound of the distant falls. + +That song was his anodyne. All day he had let it lull his +conscience, rousing himself irritably as from a drugged sleep to +answer the questions put to him by Dominique or the priest. +Dominique's questions had been few and easily answered, the most of +them relating to the battle. + +"A brother of mine was there beyond doubt," he had wound up +wistfully. "He is a bateau-man, by name Baptiste Guyon. But of +course you will not know him?" + +"Ils m'ont tire pour la battue, moi," John had fenced him off with a +feeble joke and a feeble laugh. (Why should he feel ashamed? +Was this not war, and he a prisoner tricking his captors?) + +But the priest had been a nuisance. Heaven be praised for his going! + +And now the shadows were closing upon the room, and in the hush of +sunset the voice of the waters had lifted its pitch and was humming +insistently, with but a semitone's fall and rise. During the +priest's exhortations he had turned his face to the wall; but now for +an hour he had lain on his other side, studying the rafters, the +furniture, the ray of sunlight creeping along the floor-boards and up +the dark, veneered face of an _armoire_ built into the wall. +Behind the doors of it hung Sergeant Barboux's white tunic; and +sometimes it seemed to him that the doors were transparent and he saw +it dangling like a grey ghost within. + +It was to avoid this sight that he had turned to the wall when the +priest began to interrogate him. Heavens! how incurably, after all, +he hated these priests! + +Menehwehna had answered most of the questions, standing by the bed's +foot: and Menehwehna was seated there still in the dusk. + +How many lies had Menehwehna told? John himself had told none, +unless it were a lie to pronounce his name French-fashion--"John a +Cleeve," "Jean a Clive." And, once more, was not this war? + +For the rest and for his own part, it was astonishing how easily, the +central truth being hidden--that the tunic in the _armoire_ was not +his--the deception had run on its own wheels. Why, after all, should +that tunic frighten him? He, John a Cleeve, had not killed its +wearer. He had never buttoned it about him nor slipped an arm into +one of its sleeves. Menehwehna had offered to help him into it and +had shown much astonishment on being refused. John's own soiled +regimentals they had weighted with a stone and sunk in the river, and +he had been lying all but naked, with the accursed garment over his +legs, when the rescue-party found them on the bank. + +How many lies had Menehwehna told? John could remember the sound of +two voices, the priest's and the Indian's, questioning and +explaining; but the sound only. As soon as he shut his eyes and +tried to recall the words, the priest's voice faded down the song of +the falls, and only the Indian and himself were left, dropping-- +dropping--to the sound, over watery ledges and beneath pendent +boughs. Then, as the walls of the room dissolved and the priest's +figure vanished with them, Menehwehna's voice grew distinct. +At one time it said: "What is done is done. Come with me, and we +will go up through the Great Lakes, beyond Michilimackinac, to the +Beaver Islands which are in the mouth of Lake Michigan. There we +will find the people of my tribe, and when the snow comes and they +separate, you shall go with me to the wintering-grounds and learn to +be a hunter." + +In another dream the voice said: "You will not come because you weary +of me and wish to leave me. We have voyaged together, and little by +little my heart has been opened to you; but yours will not open in +return. I would have made you to me all that Muskingon was; but you +would not. When I killed that man, it was for your sake no less than +Muskingon's. I told him so when he died. Of what avail is my +friendship, brother, when you will give me none in exchange? . . ." + +In yet a third dream the canoe floated on a mirror, between a forest +and the image of a forest. . . . His eyes followed the silver wake of +a musk-rat swimming from shore to shore, and in his ear Menehwehna +was saying, "Your head is weak yet: when it grows stronger you will +wish to come. Muskingon struck you too hard--so--with the flat of +his tomahawk. He did not mean it, but his heart was jealous that +already so much of my love had passed over to you. Yet he was a good +lad, and my daughter's husband. The White-coat called across the +stream to him, to kill you; but he would not, nor would he bring you +over the ford until we had made the White-coat promise that you +should not be killed for trying to run away. The man could do +nothing against us two; but he bore ill-will to Muskingon afterwards, +and left him to die when we could have saved him." + +So, while John had lain senseless, fate had been binding him with +cords--cords of guilt and cords of gratitude--and twining them +inextricably. Therefore he feared sleep, because these dreams awoke +him to pluck again at the knot of conscience. Ease came only with +the brain's exhaustion, when in sheer weakness he could let slip the +tangle and let the song of the rapids drug his senses once more. + +He turned on his side and watched the sunbeam as it crept up the face +of the _armoire_. "Menehwehna!" he called weakly. + +From his seat in the corner among the shadows the Indian came and +stood behind him. + +"Menehwehna, this lying cannot go on! Make you for this fort they +talk of; tell your tale there and push on to join your tribe. +Let us fix a length of time, enough for your travel beyond reach, and +at the end of it I will speak." + +"And what will my brother tell them?" + +"The truth--that I am no Frenchman but an English prisoner." + +"It is weakness makes you lose patience," answered Menehwehna, +as one might soothe a child. "Let the weak listen to the strong. +All things I have contrived, and will contrive; there is no danger, +and will be none." + +John groaned. How could he explain that he abhorred this lying? +Worse--how could he explain that he loathed Menehwehna's company and +could not be friends with him as of old; that something in his blood, +something deep and ineradicable as the difference between white man +and red man, cried out upon the sergeant's murder? How could he make +this clear? Menehwehna--who had preserved his life, nursed him, +toiled for him cheerfully, borne with him patiently--would understand +only that all these pains had been spent upon an ingrate. +John tugged away from the bond of guilt only to tighten this other +yet more hateful bond of gratitude. He must sever them both, and in +one way only could this be done. He and Menehwehna must part. +"I do not fear to be a prisoner. Moreover, it will not be for long. +The river leads, after all, to Quebec; and the English, if they take +Louisbourg, will quickly push up that way." + +"The White-coat used to speak wisdom once in a while," answered +Menehwehna gravely. "'It is a great battle,' he said, 'that battle +of If; only it has the misfortune never to be fought.' Take heart, +brother, and come with me to the Isles du Castor. When your +countrymen take Quebec you shall return to them, if you still have +the mind, and I will swear that we held you captive. But to tell +this needless tale is a sick man's folly." + +John could not meet the Indian's eyes, full as they were of a +wondering simplicity. He feared they might read the truth--that his +desire to escape was dead. During Father Launoy's exhortations he +had lain, as it were, with his ear against its cold heart; had lain +secretly whispering it to awake. But it would not. The questions +and cross-questions about Douai he had answered almost inattentively. +What did it all matter? + +The priest had been merely tedious. Back on Lake Champlain and on +the Richelieu, when the world of his ken, though lost, lay not far +behind him, his hope had been to escape and seek back to it; his +comfort against failure the thought that here in the north one +restful, familiar face awaited him--the face of the Church Catholic. +Now the hope and the consolation were gone together. Perhaps under +the lengthening strain some vital spring had snapped in him, or the +forests had slowly choked it, or it had died with a nerve of the +brain under Muskingon's tomahawk. + +He was not Sergeant a Clive of the regiment of Bearn; but almost as +little was he that Ensign John a Cleeve of the Forty-sixth who had +entered the far side of the Wilderness. + +He wanted only to be quit of Menehwehna and guilt. It would be a +blessed relief to lie lost, alone, as a ball tossed into a large +country. As he had fallen, so he prayed to lie; empty in the midst +of a great emptiness. The Communion of all the Saints could not +comfort him now, since he had passed all need of comfort. + +"You must go, Menehwehna. I will not speak until you are beyond +reach." + +"It is my brother that talks so. Else would I call it the twitter of +a wren that has flown over. Is Menehwehna a coward, that he spoke +with thought of saving himself?" + +"I know that you did not," answered John, and cursed the knowledge. +But the voice of the falls had begun to lull him. "We will talk of +it to-morrow," he said drowsily. + +"Yes, indeed; for this is a thought of sickness, that a man should +choose to be a prisoner when by any means he may be free." + +He found a tinder-box and lit the night-lamp--a wick floating in a +saucer of oil: then, having shaken up John's pillow and given him to +drink from a pannikin, went noiselessly back to his corner. + +The light wavered on the dark panels of the _armoire_. While John +watched, it fell into tune with the music of the distant falls. . . . + +He awoke, with the rhythm of dance-music in his brain. In his dream +the dawn was about him, and he stood on the lawn outside the +Schuylers' great house above Albany. From the ballroom came the +faint sound of violins, while he lingered to say good-bye to three +night-gowned little girls in the window over the porch; and some way +down the hill stood young Sagramore, of the Twenty-seventh, who was +saying, "It is a long way to go. Do you think he is strong enough?" + +Still in his dream John turned on him indignantly. And behold! +it was not young Sagramore, but Dominique, standing by the bed and +talking with Menehwehna. + +"We are to start for the Fort, it appears," said Menehwehna to John. + +"Let us first make sure," said Dominique, "that he is strong enough +to dress." He thrust his hand within the _armoire_ and unhitched the +white tunic from its peg. + +John shrank back into his corner. + +"Not that!" he stammered. + +Across the lamp smoking in the dawn, Dominique stared at him. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +FORT AMITIE. + +The Fort stood high on a wooded slope around which the river swept +through narrows to spread itself below in a lake three miles wide and +almost thirty long. In shape it was quadrilateral with a frontage of +fifty toises and a depth of thirty, and from each angle of its stone +walls abutted a flanking tower, the one at the western angle taller +than the others by a good twenty feet and surmounted by a flagstaff. + +East, west, and south, the ground fell gently to the water's edge, +entirely clear of trees: even their stumps had been uprooted to +make room for small gardens in which the garrison grew its cabbages +and pot-herbs; and below these gardens the Commandant's cows roamed +in a green riverside meadow. At the back a rougher clearing, two +cannon-shots in width, divided the northern wall from the dark tangle +of the forest. + +The canoe had been sighted far down the lake, and the Commandant +himself, with his brother M. Etienne and his daughter Mademoiselle +Diane, had descended to the quay to welcome the _voyageurs_. +A little apart stood Sergeant Bedard, old Jeremie Tripier (formerly +major-domo and general factotum at Boisveyrac, now at Fort Amitie +promoted to be _marechal des logis_), and five or six militiamen. +And to John, as he neared the shore in the haze of a golden evening, +the scene and the figures--the trim little stone fortress, the white +banner of France transparent against the sky, the sentry like a toy +figure at the gate, the cattle browsing below, the group at the +river's brink--appeared as a tableau set for a child's play. + +To add to the illusion, as the canoe came to the quay the sun sank, a +gun boomed out from the tallest of the four towers, and the flag ran +down its staff; all as if by clockwork. As if by clockwork, too, the +taller of the two old gentlemen on the quay--the one in a gold-laced +coat--stepped forward with a wave of his hand. + +"Welcome, welcome, my good Dominique! It will be news you bring from +Boisveyrac--more news of the great victory, perhaps? And who are +these your comrades?" + +"Your servant, Monseigneur; and yours, Monsieur Etienne, and yours, +Mademoiselle Diane!" Dominique brought his canoe alongside and +saluted respectfully. "All my own news is that we have gathered the +harvest at Boisveyrac; a crop not far below the average, we hope. +But Father Launoy desired me to bring you these strangers, who will +tell of matters more important." + +"It is the wounded man--the sergeant from Fort Carillon!" cried +Diane, clasping her hands. + +"Eh, my child? Nonsense, nonsense--he wears no uniform, as you see. +Moreover, 'Polyte Latulippe brought word that he was lying at the +point of death." + +"It is he, nevertheless." + +"Mademoiselle has guessed rightly," said Dominique. "It is the +wounded soldier. I have lent him an outfit." + +The Commandant stared incredulously from Dominique to John, from John +to Menehwehna, and back again to John. A delightful smile irradiated +his face. + +"Then you bring us a good gift indeed! Welcome, sir, welcome to Fort +Amitie! where we will soon have you hale and strong again, if nursing +can do it." + +Here, if John meant to play his part, was the moment for him to +salute. He half lifted his hand as he reclined, but let it fall +again. From the river-bank a pair of eyes looked down into his; dark +grey eyes--or were they violet?--shy and yet bold, dim and yet +shining with emotion. God help him! This child--she could be little +more--was worshipping him for a hero! + +"Nay, sir, give it to me!" cried the Commandant, stooping by the +quay's edge. "I shall esteem it an honour to grasp the hand of one +who comes from Fort Carillon--who was wounded for France in her hour +of victory. Your name, my friend?--for the messengers who brought +word of you yesterday had not heard it, or perhaps had forgotten." + +"My name is a Cleeve, monsieur." + +"A Clive? a Clive? It is unknown to me, and yet it has a good sound, +and should belong to _un homme Men ne_?" He turned inquiringly +towards his brother, a mild, elderly man with a scholar's stoop and a +face which assorted oddly with his uniform of captain of militia, +being shrivelled as parchment and snuff-dried and abstracted in +expression as though he had just lifted his eyes from a book. +"A Clive, Etienne. From what province should our friend derive?" + +M. Etienne's eyes--they were, in fact, short-sighted--seemed to +search inwardly for a moment before he answered: + +"There was a family of that name in the Quercy; so late, I think, as +1650. I had supposed it to be extinct. It bore arms counterpaly +argent and gules, a canton ermine--" + +"My brother, sir," the Commandant interrupted, "is a famous +genealogist. Do you accept this coat-of-arms he assigns to you?" + +"If M. le Commandant will excuse me--" + +"Eh, eh?--an awkward question, no doubt, to put to many a young man +of family now serving with the colours?" The Commandant chuckled +knowingly. "But I have an eye, sir, for nice shades, and an ear too. +_Verbum sapienti satis_. A sergeant, they tell me--and of the +Bearnais; but until we have cured you, sir, and the active list again +claims you, you are Monsieur a Clive and my guest. We shall talk, +so, upon an easier footing. Tut-tut! I have eyes in my head, I +repeat. And this Indian of yours--how does he call himself?" + +"Menehwehna, monsieur. He is an Ojibway." + +"And you and he have come by way of the Wilderness? Now what puzzles +me--" + +"Papa!" interposed the girl gently, laying a hand on her father's +sleeve; "ought we not to get him ashore before troubling him with all +these questions? He is suffering, I think." + +"You say well, my child. A thousand pardons, sir. Here, Bedard! +Jeremie!" + +But it was Menehwehna who, with inscrutable face, helped John ashore, +suffering the others only to hold the canoe steady. John tried hard +to collect his thoughts to face this new situation. He had dreamed +of falling among savages in these backwoods; but he had fallen among +folk gentle in manner and speech, anxious to show him courtesy; folk +to whom (as in an instant he divined) truth and uprightness were +dearer than life and judged as delicately as by his own family at +home in Devonshire. How came they here? Who was this girl whose +eyes he avoided lest they should weigh him, as a sister's might, in +the scales of honour? + +A man may go through life cherishing many beliefs which are +internecine foes; unaware of their discordance, or honestly persuaded +that within him the lion and the lamb are lying down together, +whereas in truth his fate has never drawn the bolts of their separate +cages. John had his doubts concerning God; but something deeper than +reason within him detested a lie. Yet as a soldier he had accepted +without examination the belief that many actions vile in peace are in +war permissible, even obligatory; a loose belief, the limits of which +no man in his regiment--perhaps no man in the two armies--could have +defined. In war you may kill; nay, you must; but you must do it by +code, and with many exceptions and restrictions as to the how and +when. In war (John supposed) you may lie; nay, again, in certain +circumstances you must. + +With this girl's eyes upon him, worshipping him for a hero, John +discovered suddenly that here and now he could not. For an instant, +as if along a beam of light, he looked straight into Militarism's +sham and ugly heart. + +Yes, he saw it quite clearly, and was resolved to end the lie. +But for the moment, in his bodily weakness, his will lagged behind +his brain. As a sick man tries to lift a hand and cannot, so he +sought to rally his will to meet the crisis and was dismayed to find +it benumbed and half-asleep. + +They were ascending the slope, and still as they went the +Commandant's voice was questioning him. + +"Through the Wilderness! That was no small exploit, my friend, and +it puzzles me how you came to attempt it; for you were severely +wounded, were you not?" + +"I received two wounds at Fort Carillon, monsieur. The proposal to +make across the woods was not mine. It came from the French sergeant +in command of our boat." + +"So--so. I ought to have guessed it. You were a whole boat's party +then, at starting?" John felt the crisis near; but the Commandant's +mind was discursive, and he paused to wave a proprietary hand towards +the walls and towers of his fortress. "A snug little shelter for the +backwoods--eh, M. a Clive? I am, you must know, a student of the art +of fortification; _c'est ma rengaine_, as my daughter will tell you, +and I shall have much to ask concerning that famous outwork of +M. de Montcalm's, which touches my curiosity. So far as Damase could +tell me, Fort Carillon itself was never even in danger--" But here +Mademoiselle Diane again touched his sleeve. "Yes, yes, to be sure, +we will not weary our friend just now. We will cure him first; and +while he is mending, you shall look out a new uniform from the stores +and set your needle to work to render it as like as you can contrive +to the Bearnais. Nay, sir, to her enthusiasm that will be but a +trifle. Remember that you come to us crowned with laurels, and with +news for which we welcome you as though you brought a message from +the General himself." A sudden thought fetched the Commandant to a +standstill. "You are sure that the sergeant, your comrade, carried +no message?" + +John paused with Menehwehna's arm supporting him. + +"If he carried a message, monsieur, he told me of none." + +Where were his faculties? Why were they hanging back and refusing to +come to grips with the crisis? Why did this twilit riverside persist +in seeming unreal to him, and the actors, himself included, as +figures moving in a shadow-play? + +Once, in a dream, he had seen himself standing at the wings of a +stage--an actor, dressed for his part. The theatre was crowded; +someone had begun to ring a bell for the curtain to go up; and he, +the hero of the piece, knew not one word of his part, could not even +remember the name of the play or what it was about. The dream had +been extraordinarily vivid, and he had awakened in a sweat. + +"But," the Commandant urged, "he must have had some reason for +striking through the forest. What was his name?" + +"Barboux." + +John, as he answered, could not see Menehwehna's face; but +Menehwehna's supporting arm did not flinch. + +"Was he, too, of the regiment of Bearn?" + +"He was of the Bearnais, monsieur." + +"Tell us now. When the Iroquois overtook you, could he have passed +on a message, had he carried one?" + +While John hesitated, Menehwehna answered him. "It was I only who +saw the sergeant die," said Menehwehna quietly. He gave me no +message." + +"You were close to him?" + +"Very close." + +"It is curious," mused the Commandant, and turned to John again. +"Your falling in with the Iroquois, monsieur, gives me some anxiety; +since it happens that a party from here and from Fort Frontenac was +crossing the Wilderness at about the same time, with messages for the +General on Lake Champlain. You saw nothing of them?" + +Again Menehwehna took up the answer. "We met no one but these +Iroquois," he said smoothly. + +And as Menehwehna spoke the words John felt that everyone in the +group about him had been listening for it with a common tension of +anxiety. He gazed around, bewildered for the moment by the lie. +The girl stood with clasped hands. "Thank God!" he heard the +Commandant say, lifting his hat. + +What new mystery was here? Menehwehna stood with a face immobile and +inscrutable; and John's soul rose up against him in rage and +loathing. The man had dishonoured him, counting on his gratitude to +endorse the lie. Well, he was quit of gratitude now. "To-morrow, my +fine fellow," said he to himself, clenching his teeth, "the whole +tale shall be told; between this and the telling you may save your +skin, if you can "; and so he turned to the Commandant. + +"Monsieur," he said with a meaning glance at Menehwehna, "I beg you +to accept no part of our story until I have told it through to you." + +The Commandant was plainly puzzled. "Willingly, monsieur; but I beg +you to consider the sufferings of our curiosity and be kind in +putting a term to them." + +"To-morrow--" began John, and looking up, came to a pause. +Dominique Guyon had followed them up from the boat and was thrusting +himself unceremoniously upon the Commandant's attention. + +"Since this monsieur mentions to-morrow," interrupted Dominique +abruptly, "and before I am dismissed to supper, may I claim the +Seigneur's leave to depart early to-morrow morning?" + +The interruption was so unmannerly that John stared from one to +another of the group. The Commandant's face had grown very red +indeed. Dominique himself seemed sullenly aware of his rudeness. +But John's eyes came to rest on Mademoiselle Diane's; on her eyes for +an instant, and then on her lashes, as she bent her gaze on the +ground--it seemed to him, purposely, and to avoid Dominique's. + +"Dominique," said the Commandant haughtily, "you forget yourself. +You intrude upon my conversation with this gentleman." His voice +shook and yet it struck John that his anger covered some anxiety. + +"Monseigneur must forgive me," answered Dominique, still with an +awkward sullenness. "But it is merely my dismissal that I beg. +I wish to return early to-morrow to Boisveyrac; the harvest there is +gathered, to be sure, but no one can be trusted to finish the stacks. +With so many dancing attendance on the military, the Seigniory +suffers; and, by your leave, I am responsible for it." + +He glared upon John, who gazed back honestly puzzled. The Commandant +seemed on the verge of an explosion, but checked himself. + +"My excellent Dominique Guyon," said he, "uses the freedom of an old +tenant. But here we are at the gate. I bid you welcome, Monsieur a +Clive, to my small fortress! Tut, tut, Dominique! We will talk of +business in the morning." + + +Alone with Menehwehna in the bare hospital ward to which old Jeremie +as _marechal des logis_ escorted them, John turned on the Ojibway and +let loose his indignation. + +"And look you," he wound up, "this shall be the end. At daybreak +to-morrow the gate of the fort will be opened. Take the canoe and +make what speed you can. I will give you until ten o'clock, but at +that hour I promise you to tell my tale to the Commandant, and to +tell him all." + +"If my brother is resolved," said Menehwehna composedly, "let him +waste no words. What is settled is settled, and to be angry will do +his head no good." + +He composed himself to sleep on the floor at the foot of John's bed, +pulling his rug up to his ears. There were six empty beds in the +ward, and one had been prepared for him; but Menehwehna despised +beds. + +John awoke to sunlight. It poured in through three windows high in +the whitewashed wall opposite, and his first thought was to turn over +and look for Menehwehna. + +Menehwehna had disappeared. + +John lay back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. Menehwehna +had gone; he was free of him, and this day was to deliver his soul. +In an hour or so he would be sitting under lock and key, but with a +conscience bathed and refreshed, a companion to be looked in the +face, a clear-eyed counsellor. The morning sunlight filled the room +with a clean cheerfulness, and he seemed to drink it in through his +pores. Forgetting his wound, he jumped out of bed with a laugh. + +As he did so his eye travelled along the empty beds in the ward, and +along a row of pegs above them, and stiffened suddenly. + +There were twelve pegs, and all were bare save one--the one in the +wall-space separating his bed from the bed which had been prepared +for Menehwehna; and from this peg hung Sergeant Barboux's white +tunic. + +It had not been hanging there last night when he dropped asleep: to +that he could take his oath. He had supposed it to be left behind in +the _armoire_ at Boisveyrac. For a full minute he sat on the bed's +edge gazing at it in sheer dismay, its evil menace closing like a +grip upon his heart. + +But by and by the grip relaxed as dismay gave room to rage, and with +rage came courage. + +He laughed again fiercely. Up to this moment he had always shrunk +from touch of the thing; but now he pulled it from its peg, held it +at arm's length for a moment, and flung it contemptuously on the +floor. + +"You, at least, I am not going to fear any longer!" + +As he cast it from him something crackled under his fingers. For a +second or two he stood over the tunic, eyeing it between old disgust +and new surmise. Then, dropping on one knee, he fumbled it over, +found the inner breast-pocket, and pulled from it a paper. + +It was of many sheets, folded in a blue wrapper, sealed with a large +red seal, and addressed in cipher. + +Turning it over in his hand, he caught sight, in the lower left-hand +corner, of a dark spot which his thumb had covered. He stared at it; +then at his thumb, to the ball of which some red dust adhered; then +at the seal. The wax bore the impress of a flying Mercury, with cap, +caduceus and winged sandals. The ciphered address he could not +interpret; it was brief, written in two lines, in a bold clear hand. + +This, then, was the missive which Barboux had carried. + +Had Menehwehna discovered it and placed it here for him to discover? +Yes, undoubtedly. And this was a French dispatch; and at any cost he +must intercept it! His soldier's sacrament required no less. +He must conceal it--seek his opportunity to escape with it--go on +lying meanwhile in hope of an opportunity. + +Where now was the prospects of his soul's deliverance? + +He crept back to bed and was thrusting the letter under his pillow +when a slight sound drew his eyes towards the door. + +In the doorway stood Menehwehna with a breakfast-tray. The Indian's +eyes travelled calmly across the room as he entered and set the tray +down on the bed next to John's. Without speaking he picked up the +tumbled tunic from the floor and set it back on its peg. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +AGAIN THE WHITE TUNIC. + +"But touching this polygon of M. de Montcalm's--" + +Within the curtain-wall facing the waterside the ground had been +terraced up to form a high platform or _terre-plein_, whence six +guns, mounted in embrasures, commanded the river. Hither John had +crept, with the support of a stick, to enjoy the sunshine and the +view, and here the Commandant had found him and held him in talk, +walking him to and fro, with pauses now and again beside a gun for a +few minutes' rest. + +"But touching this polygon of M. de Montcalm's, he would doubtless +follow Courmontaigne rather than Vauban. The angles, you say, were +boldly advanced?" + +"So they appeared to me, monsieur; but you understand that I took no +part--" + +"By advancing the angles boldly"--here the Commandant pressed his +finger-tips together by way of illustration--"we allow so much more +play to enfilading fire. I speak only of defence against direct +assault; for of opposing such a structure to artillery the General +could have had no thought." + +"Half a dozen six-pounders, well directed, could have knocked it +about his ears in as many minutes." + +"That does not detract from his credit. Every general fights with +two heads--his own and his adversary's; and, for the rest, we have to +do what we can do with our material." The Commandant halted and +gazed down whimsically upon the courtyard, in the middle of which his +twenty-five militiamen were being drilled by M. Etienne and Sergeant +Bedard. "My whole garrison, sir! Eh? you seem incredulous. +My whole garrison, I give you my word! Five-and-twenty militiamen to +defend a post of this importance; and up at Fort Frontenac, the very +key of the West, my old friend Payan de Noyan has but a hundred in +command! I do not understand it, sir. Stores we have in abundance, +and ammunition and valuable presents to propitiate the Indians who no +longer exist in this neighbourhood. Yes, and--would you believe +it?--no longer than three months ago the Governor sent up a boatload +of women. It appeared that his Majesty had forwarded them all the +way from France, for wives for his faithful soldiers. I packed them +off, sir, and returned them to M. de Vaudreuil. 'With all submission +to his Majesty's fatherly wisdom,' I wrote, 'the requirements of New +France at this moment are best determined by sterner considerations'; +and I asked for fifty regulars to man our defences. M. de Vaudreuil +replied by sending me up one man, and _he_ had but one arm! I made +Noyan a present of him; his notions of fortification were +rudimentary, not to say puerile." + +The Commandant paused and dug the surface of the _terre-plein_ +indignantly with his heel. "As for fortification, do I not know +already what additional defences we need? Fort Amitie, monsieur, was +constructed by the great Frontenac himself, and with wonderful +sagacity, if we consider the times. Take, for example, the towers. +You are acquainted, of course, with the modern rule of giving the +bastions a salient angle of fifteen degrees in excess of half the +angle of the figure in all figures from the square up to the +dodecagon? Well, Fort Amitie being a square--or rather a +right-angled quadrilateral--the half of its angle will be forty-five +degrees; add fifteen, and we get sixty; which is as nearly as +possible the salience of our flanking towers; only they happen to be +round. So far, so good; but Frontenac had naturally no opportunity +of studying Vauban's masterpieces, and perhaps as the older man he +never digested Vauban's theories. He did not see that a +quadrilateral measuring fifty toises by thirty must need some +protection midway in its longer curtains, and more especially on the +riverside. A ravelin is out of the question, for we have no +counterscarp to stand it on--no ditch at all in fact; our glacis +slopes straight from the curtain to the river. I have thought of a +tenaille--of a flat bastion. We could do so much if only +M. de Vaudreuil would send us men!--but, as it is, on what are we +relying? Simply, M. a Clive, on our enemies' ignorance of our +weakness." + +John turned his face away and stared out over the river. The walls +of the fort seemed to stifle him; but in truth his own breast was the +prison. + +"Well now," the Commandant pursued, "your arrival has set me +thinking. We cannot strengthen ourselves against artillery; but they +say that these English generals learn nothing. They may come against +us with musketry, and what served Fort Carillon may also serve Fort +Amitie. A breastwork--call it a lunette--half-way down the slope +yonder, so placed as to command the landing-place at close musket +range--it might be useful, eh? There will be trouble with Polyphile +Cartier--'Sans Quartier,' as they call him. He is proud of his +cabbages, and we might have to evict them; yes, certainly our lunette +would impinge upon his cabbages. But the safety of the Fort would, +of course, override all such considerations." + +He caught John by the arm and hurried him along for a better view of +Sans Quartier's cabbage-patch. And just then Mademoiselle Diane came +walking swiftly towards them from the end of the _terre-plein_ by the +flagstaff tower. An instant later the head and shoulders of +Dominique Guyon appeared above the ascent. + +Clearly he was following her; and as she drew near John read, or +thought he read, a deep trouble in the child's eyes. But from her +eyes his glance fell upon a bundle that she carried, and his own +cheek paled. For the bundle was a white tunic, and it took a second +glance to assure him that the tunic was a new one and not Sergeant +Barboux's! + +"Eh? What did I tell you? She has been rifling the stores already!" +Here the Commandant caught sight of Dominique and hailed him. +"Hola, Dominique!" + +Dominique halted for a moment and then came slowly forward; while the +girl, having greeted John with a grown woman's dignity, stood close +by her father's elbow. + +"Dominique, how many men can you spare me from Boisveyrac, now that +the harvest is over?" + +"For what purpose do you wish men, Monseigneur?" + +"Eh? That is my affair, I hope." + +The young man's face darkened, but he controlled himself to say +humbly, "Monseigneur rebukes me with justice. I should not have +spoken so; but it was in alarm for his interests." + +"You mean that you are unwilling to spare me a single man? +Come, come, my friend--the harvest is gathered; and, apart from that, +my interests are the King's. Positively you must spare me half a +dozen for his Majesty's _corvee_." + +"The harvest is gathered, to be sure; but no one at Boisveyrac can be +trusted to finish the stacks. They are a good-for-nothing lot; and +now Damase, the best thatcher among them, has, I hear, been sent up +to Fort Frontenac along with 'Polyte Latulippe." + +"By my orders." + +Dominique bent his eyes on the ground. + +"Monseigneur's orders shall be obeyed. May I have his permission to +return at once to Boisveyrac?--at least, as soon as we have discussed +certain matters of business?" + +"Business? But since it is not convenient just now--" It seemed to +John that the old gentleman had suddenly grown uneasy. + +"I speak only of certain small repairs: the matter of Lagasse's +holding, for example," said Dominique tranquilly. "The whole will +not detain Monseigneur above ten minutes." + +"Ah, to be sure!" The Commandant's voice betrayed relief. "Come to +my orderly-room, then. You will excuse me, M. a Clive?" + +He turned to go, and Dominique stepped aside to allow the girl to +accompany her father. But she made no sign. He shot a look at her +and sullenly descended the terrace at his seigneur's heels. + +Mademoiselle Diane's brow grew clear again as the sound of his +footsteps died away, and presently she faced John with a smile so gay +and frank that (although, quite involuntarily, he had been watching +her) the change startled him. There was something in this girl at +once innocently candid and curiously elusive; to begin with, he could +not decide whether to think of her as child or woman. Last night her +eyes had rested on him with a child's open wonder, and a minute ago +in Dominique's presence she had seemed to shrink close to her father +with a child's timidity. Now, gaily as she smiled, her bearing had +grown dignified and self-possessed. + +"You are not to leave me, please, M. a Clive--seeing that I came +expressly to find you." + +John lifted his hat with mock gravity. "You do me great honour, +mademoiselle. And Dominique?" he added. "Was he also coming in +search of me?" + +She frowned, and turning towards a cannon in the embrasure behind +her, spread the white tunic carefully upon it. "Dominique Guyon is +tiresome," she said. "At times, as you have heard, he speaks with +too much freedom to my father; but it is the freedom of old service. +The Guyons have farmed Boisveyrac for our family since first the +Seigniory was built." She seemed about to say more, but checked +herself, and stood smoothing an arm of the tunic upon the gun. +"Ah, here is Felicite!" she exclaimed, as a stout middle-aged woman +came bustling along the terrace towards them. "You have kept me +waiting, Felicite. And, good heavens! what is that you carry? +Did I not tell you that I would get Jeremie to find me a tunic from +the stores? See, I have one already." + +"But this is not from the stores, mademoiselle!" panted Felicite, as +she came to a halt. "It appears that monsieur brought his tunic with +him--Jeremie told me he had seen it hanging by his bed in the sick +ward--and here it is, see you!" She displayed it triumphantly, +spreading its skirts to the sunshine. "A trifle soiled! but it will +save us all the trouble in the world with the measurements--eh, +mademoiselle?" + +Diane's eyes were on John's face. For a moment or two she did not +answer, but at length said slowly: + +"Nevertheless you shall measure monsieur. Have you the tapes? Good: +give me one, with the blue chalk, and I will check off your +measurements." + +She seated herself on the gun-carriage and drew the two tunics on to +her lap. John shivered as she touched the dead sergeant's. + +Felicite grinned as she advanced with the tape. "Do not be shy of +me, monsieur," she encouraged him affably. "You are a hero, and I +myself am the mother of eight, which is in its way heroic. +There should be a good understanding between us. Raise your arms a +little, pray, while I take first of all the measure of your chest." + +Her two arms--and they were plump, not to say brawny--went about him. +"Thirty-eight," she announced, after examining the tape. It's long +since I have embraced one so slight." + +"Thirty-eight," repeated Mademoiselle Diane, puckering up her lips +and beginning to measure off the _pouces_ across the breast and back +of Sergeant Barboux's tunic. "Thirty-eight, did you say?" + +"Thirty-eight, mademoiselle. We must remember that these brave +defenders of ours sometimes pad themselves a little; it will be +nothing amiss if you allow for forty. Eh, monsieur?" Felicite +laughed up in John's face. "But you find some difficulty, +mademoiselle. Can I help you?" + +"I thank you--it is all right," Diane answered hurriedly. + +"Waist, twenty-nine," Felicite continued. "One might even say +twenty-eight, only monsieur is drawing in his breath." + +"Where are the scissors, Felicite?" demanded her mistress, who had +carefully smuggled them beneath her skirt as she sat. + +"The scissors? Of a certainty now I brought them--but the sight +of that heathen Ojibway, when he gave me the tunic, was enough to +make any decent woman faint! I shook like an aspen, if you will +credit me, all the way across the drill-ground, and perhaps the +scissors . . . no, indeed, I cannot find them . . . but if +mademoiselle will excuse me while I run back for another pair. . . ." +She bustled off towards the Commandant's quarters. + +Mademoiselle Diane reached down a hand to the tunic which had fallen +at her feet, and drew it on to her lap again, as if to examine it. +But her eyes were searching John's face. + +"Why do you shiver?" she asked. + +"I beg of you not to touch it, mademoiselle. It--it hurts to see you +touching it." + +"Did you kill him?" + +"Of whom is mademoiselle speaking?" + +"Pray do not pretend to be stupid, monsieur. I am speaking of that +other man--the owner of this tunic--the sergeant who took you into +the forest. Did you kill him?" + +"He died in fair fight, mademoiselle." + +"It was a duel, then?" He did not answer, and she continued, "I can +trust your face, monsieur. I am sure it was only in fair fight. +But why should you think me afraid to touch _this_? Oh, why, +M. a Clive, will men take it so cruelly for granted that we women are +afraid of the thought of blood--nay, even that we owe it to ourselves +to be afraid? If we are what you all insist we should be, what right +have we to be born in these times? Think of New France fighting now +for dear life--ah! why should I ask _you_ to think, who have bled for +her? Yet you would have me shudder at the touch of a stained piece +of cloth; and while you hold these foolish prejudices, can you wonder +that New France has no Jeanne d'Arc? When I was at the Ursulines at +Quebec, they used to pray to her on this side of sainthood, and ask +for her intercession; but what they taught was needlework." + +"The world has altered since her time, mademoiselle," said John, +falsely and lamely. + +"Has it? It burnt her; even in those days it did its best according +to its lights," she answered bitterly. "Only in these days there are +no heroines to burn. No heroines . . . no fires . . . and even in +our needlework we must be demure, and not touch a garment that has +been touched with blood! Monsieur, was this man a coward?" +She lifted the tunic. + +"He was a vain fellow and a bully, mademoiselle, but by no means a +coward." + +"He fought for France?" + +"Yes; and, I believe, with credit." + +"Then, monsieur, because he was a bully, I commend the man who killed +him fairly. And because he was brave and fought for France, I am +proud to handle his tunic." + +As John a Cleeve gazed at her kindled face, the one thought that rose +above his own shame was a thought that her earnestness marvellously +made her beautiful. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE SECOND DISPATCH. + +Dominique Guyon departed shortly before noon; and a week later half a +dozen _habitants_ arrived from Boisveyrac to work at the entrenchment +which the Commandant had already opened across Sans Quartier's +cabbage plot. The Commandant himself donned a blouse and dug with +the rest; and M. Etienne; and even old Jeremie Tripier, though +grumbling over his rheumatism almost as bitterly as Sans Quartier +over his wasted cabbages. Every one, in fact, toiled, and with a +will, at the King's _corvee_: every one, that is, except the women, +and John, and Menehwehna (whose Indian dignity revolted against +spade-work), and old Father Joly, the chaplain of the fort, who was +too infirm. + +From him, as they sat together and watched the diggers, John learned +much of the fort's history, and something, too, of his hosts'; for +Father Joly delighted in gossip, and being too deaf to derive much +profit from asking questions kept the talk to himself--greatly to +John's relief. His gossip, be it said, was entirely innocent. +The good man seemed to love every one in his small world, except +Father Launoy. And again this exception was fortunate; for on +learning that John had been visited and exhorted at Boisveyrac by +Father Launoy, Father Joly showed no further concern in his spiritual +health. He was perhaps the oldest parochial priest in New France, +and since leaving the seminary at Quebec had spent almost all his +days at Boisveyrac. He remembered the Seigneur's father (he always +called the Commandant "the Seigneur"). "Such a man, monsieur! +He stood six feet four inches in his stockings, and could lift and +cast a grown bullock with his own hands." John pointed out that the +present Seigneur--in his working blouse especially--made a fine +figure of a man; but this the old priest could hardly be brought to +allow. "A heart of gold, I grant you; but to have seen his father +striding among his _censitaires_ on St. Martin's Feast! It may be +that, having watched the son from childhood, I still think of him as +a boy. . . ." + +Of Fort Amitie itself Father Joly had much to tell. It dated from +the early days of the great Frontenac, who had planted a settlement +here--a collection of wooden huts within a stockade--to be an +_entrepot_ of commerce with the Indians of the Upper Lakes. Later it +became a favourite haunt of deserters from the army and _coureurs de +bois_ outlawed by royal edict; and, strangely enough, these had been +the days of its prosperity. Its real decline began when the +Governor, toward the end of his rule, replaced the wooden huts with a +fortress of stone. The traders, trappers, ne'er-do-wells and Indians +deserted the lake-head, which had been a true camp of amity, and +moved their rendezvous farther west, leaving the fortress to its +Commandant and a sleepy garrison. + +From that time until the war the garrison had been composed of +regulars, who lived on the easiest terms with their Commandant and +his officers, and retired at the age of forty or fifty, when King +Louis presented them with a farm and farm stock and provisions for +two or three years, and often completed the outfit with a wife. + +"A veritable Age of Gold, monsieur! But war has put an end to it +all--war, and the greed of these English, whom God will confound! +The regulars went their ways, leaving only Sergeant Bedard; who had +retired upon a farm, but was persuaded by the Seigneur to come back +and drill the recruits of the militia." + +--"Who take very kindly to garrison life, so far as I can see." + +"Fort Amitie has its amenities, monsieur," said Father Joly, catching +John's glance rather than hearing the words. "There are the +allotments, to begin with--the fences between them, you may not have +observed, are made of stakes from the original palisade; the mould is +excellent. The Seigneur, too, offers prizes for vegetable-growing +and poultry-raising; he is an unerring judge of poultry, as one +has need to be at Boisveyrac, where the rents are mostly paid in +fowls. Indeed, yes, the young recruits are well enough content. +The Seigneur feeds them well, and they can usually have a holiday for +the asking and go a-hunting in the woods or a-fishing in the river. +But, for my part, I regret Boisveyrac. A man of my years does not +readily bear transplanting. And here is a curious thing, monsieur; +deaf though I am, I miss the sound of the rapids. I cannot tell you +how; nevertheless it seems to me that something has gone out of my +daily life, and the landscape here is still and empty." + +"And how," John managed to make him hear, "did the Seigneur come to +command Fort Amitie?" + +Father Joly glanced nervously down the slope and lowered his voice. +"That was M. Armand's doing, monsieur." Then, seeing that John did +not understand, "M. Armand--mademoiselle's brother and the Seigneur's +only son. He went to Quebec, when the Governor had given him a post +in his household; a small post, but with good prospects for a young +man of his birth and address. He had wits, monsieur, and good looks; +everything in short but money; and there is no better blood in the +province than that of the des Noel-Tilly. They have held Boisveyrac +now for five generations, and were Seigneurs of Deuxmanoirs and +Preaux-Sources even before that. Well, as I say, the lad started +with good prospects; but by and by he began to desert the Chateau +Saint-Louis for the Intendant's Palace. Monsieur has heard of the +Intendant Bigot--is perhaps acquainted with him? No? Then I may say +without hurting any one's feelings what I would say to the Intendant +himself were he here--that he is a corrupter of youth, and a +corrupter of the innocence of women, and a corrupter of honest +government. If New France lie under the scourge to-day, it is for +the sins of such men as he." The old man's voice shook with sudden +anger, but he calmed himself. "In brief, there was a gambling debt-- +a huge sum owing; and the Seigneur was forced to travel to Quebec and +fetch the lad home. How he paid the amount I cannot tell you; belike +he raised the money on Boisveyrac; but pay he did. Dominique Guyon +went with him to Quebec, having just succeeded his father, old +Bonhomme Guyon, as Boisveyrac's man of business; and doubtless +Dominique made some arrangements with the merchants there. He has a +head on his shoulders, that lad. M. de Vaudreuil, too, taking pity +on a distressed gentleman of New France, gave the Seigneur the +command of this fort, to grow fat on it, and hither we have all +migrated. But our good Seigneur will never grow fat, monsieur; he is +of the poor to whom shall belong the Kingdom of God." + +John did not clearly understand this, being unacquainted with the +official system of peculation by false vouchers--a system under which +the command of a backwoods fort was reckoned to be worth a small +fortune. His mind recurred to Dominique and to the Commandant's +uneasiness at Dominique's mention of business. + +"A queer fellow, that Dominique!" he muttered, half to himself; "and +a queer fate that made him the brother of Bateese." + +The priest heard, as deaf men sometimes will hear a word or two +spoken below ordinary pitch. + +"Ah!" said he, shaking his head. "You have heard of Bateese? +A sad case--a very sad case!" + +"There was an accident, I have heard." + +Father Joly glanced at John's face and, reading the question, bent +his own dim eyes on the river. John divined at once that the old man +knew more than he felt inclined to tell. + +"It was at Bord-a-Loup, a little above Boisveyrac, four years ago +last St. Peter's tide. The two brothers were driving some timber +which the Seigneur had cleared there; the logs had jammed around a +rock not far from shore and almost at the foot of the fall. +The two had managed to get across and were working the mass loose +with handspikes when, just as it began to break up, Bateese slipped +and fell between two logs." + +"Through some careless push of Dominique's, was it not?" + +But Father Joly did not hear, or did not seem to. + +"He was hideously broken, poor Bateese. For weeks it did not seem +possible that he could live. The _habitants_ find Dominique a queer +fellow, even as you do; and I have observed that even Mademoiselle +Diane treats him somewhat impatiently. But in truth he is a lad +grown old before his time. It is terrible when such a blow falls +upon the young. He and Bateese adored one another." + +And this was all John learned at the time. But three days later he +heard more of the story, and from Mademoiselle Diane. + +She was seated in an embrasure of the terrace--the same, in fact, in +which she had taken measurements for John's new tunic. She was +embroidering it now with the Bearnais badge, and had spread Barboux's +tunic on the gun-breach to give her the pattern. John, passing along +the terrace in a brown study, while his eyes followed the evolutions +of Sergeant Bedard's men at morning parade in the square below, did +not catch sight of her until she called to him to come and admire her +handiwork. + +"Monsieur is _distrait_, it appears," she said, mischievously. +"It must be weary work for him, whiling away the hours in this +contemptible fortress?" + +"I do not find Fort Amitie contemptible, mademoiselle." + +She shook her head and laughed. "If you wish to please me, monsieur, +you must find some warmer praise for it. For in some sort it is my +ancestral home, and I love every stone of it." + +"Mademoiselle speaks in riddles. I had thought that every one of the +Commandant's household--except the Commandant himself, perhaps--was +pining to get back to Boisveyrac." + +She let her needlework lie for a moment, and sat with her eyes +resting on the facade of the Commandant's quarters across the square. + +"It is foolish in me," she said musingly; "for in the days of which I +am thinking not one of these stones was laid. You must know, +monsieur, that in those days many and many a young man of family took +to the woods; no laws, no edicts would restrain them; the life of the +forest seemed to pass into their blood and they could not help +themselves . . . ah, I myself understand that, sometimes!" she added, +after a pause. + +"Well, monsieur," she went on, "there came to Fort Amitie a certain +young Raoul de Tilly, who suffered from this wandering fever. +The Government outlawed him in the end; but as yet his family had +hopes to reclaim him, and, being powerful in New France, they managed +to get his sentence delayed. He came here, and here he fell in love +with an Indian girl, and married her--putting, they say, a pistol at +the priest's head. The girl was a Wyandot from Lake Huron, and had +been baptised but a week before. For a year they lived together in +the Fort here; but when a child was born the husband sent her down +the river to his father's Seigniory below Three Rivers, and himself +wandered westward into the Lakes, and was never again heard of. +The mother died on the voyage, it is said; but the child-- +a daughter--reached the Seigniory and was acknowledged, and lived to +marry a cousin, a de Tilly of Roc Sainte-Anne. My mother was her +grand-daughter." + +Why had she chosen to tell him this story? He turned to her in some +wonder. But, for whatever reason she had told it, the truth of the +story was written in her face. Hardly could he recognise the +Mademoiselle Diane who had declaimed to him of Joan of Arc and the +glory of fighting for New France. She was gone, and in her place a +girl fronted him, a child almost, with a strange anguish in her +voice, and in her eyes the look of a wild creature trapped. She was +appealing to him. But again, why? + +"I think you must be in some trouble, mademoiselle," said he, +speaking the thought that came uppermost. Something prompted him to +add, "Has it to do with Dominique Guyon?" The question seemed to +stab her. She stood up trembling, with a scared face. + +"Why should you think I am troubled? What made you suppose--" she +stammered, and stopped again in confusion. "I only wanted you to +understand. Is it not much better when folks speak to one another +frankly? Something may be hidden which seems of no importance, and +yet for lack of knowing it we may misjudge utterly, may we not?" + +Heaven knew that of late John had been feeling sorely enough the +torment of carrying about a secret. But to the girl's broken +utterances he held no clue at all, nor could he hit on one. + +"See now," she went on, almost fiercely; "you speak of Dominique +Guyon. You suspected something--what, you could not tell; perhaps it +had not even come to a suspicion. But, seeing me troubled--as you +think--at once Dominique's name comes to your lips. Now listen to +the truth, how simple it is. When Armand and I were children . . . +you have heard of Armand?" + +"A little; from Father Joly." + +"Papa thinks he has behaved dishonourably, and will scarcely allow +his name to be uttered until he shall return from the army, having +redeemed his fault. Papa, though he seems easy, can be very stern on +all questions of honour. Well, when Armand and I were children, we +played with the two Guyon boys. Their father, Bonhomme Guyon, was +only my father's farmer; but in a lonely place like Boisveyrac, and +with no one to instruct us in difference of rank and birth--for my +mother died when I was a baby--" + +"I understand, mademoiselle." + +"And so we played about the farm, as children will. But by and by, +and a short while before I left Boisveyrac to go to school with the +Ursulines, Dominique began to be--what shall I say? He was very +tiresome." + +She paused. "I understand," repeated John quietly. "At first I did +not guess what he meant. And the others, of course, did not guess. +But he was furiously jealous, even of his brother, poor Bateese. And +when Bateese met with his accident--" + +"One moment, mademoiselle. When Bateese fell between the logs, was +it because Dominique had pushed him?" + +She wrung her hands as in a sudden fright. "You guessed that? +How did you guess? No one knows it but I, and Father Launoy, no +doubt, and perhaps Father Joly. But Dominique knows that _I_ know; +and his misery seems to give him some hold over me." + +"In what way can I help you, mademoiselle?" + +"Did I ask you to help me?" She had resumed her seat on the +gun-carriage and, drawing Sergeant Barboux's tunic off its gun, +began with her embroidery scissors to snip at the shanks of its +breast-buttons. His cheeks were burning now; she spoke with a +trained accent of levity. "I called you, monsieur, to say that I +cannot, of course, copy these buttons, and to ask if you consent to +my using them on your new tunic, or if you prefer to put up with +plain ones. But it appears that I have wandered to some distance +from my question." She attempted a laugh; which, however, failed +dolefully. + +"Decidedly I prefer any buttons to those. But, excuse me," persisted +John, drawing nearer, "though you asked for no help and need none, +yet I will not believe you have honoured me so far with your +confidence and all without purpose." + +"Oh," she replied, still in the same tone of hard, almost +contemptuous, levity. "I had a whim, monsieur, to be understood by +you, that is all; and perhaps to rebuke you by contrast for telling +us so little of yourself. It is as Felicite said--you messieurs of +the army keep yourselves well padded over the heart. See here--" +She began to dig with her scissor-point and lay bare the quilting +within Barboux's tunic; but presently stopped, with a sharp cry. + +"What is the matter, mademoiselle?" + +For a second or two she snipped furiously, and then--"This is the +matter!" she cried, plunging her fingers within the lining. +"A dispatch! He carried one after all!" She dragged forth a paper +and held it up in triumph. + +"Give it to me, please. But I say that you must and shall, +mademoiselle!" John's head swam, but he stepped and caught her by +the wrists. + +And with that the paper fell to the ground. He held her wrist; he +felt only the magnetic touch, looked into her eyes, and understood. +From wonder at his outburst they passed to fear, to appeal, to love. +Yes, they shrank from him, sick with shame and self-comprehension, +pitifully seeking to hide the wound. But it would not by any means +be hid. A light flowed from it, blinding him. + +"You hurt! Oh, you hurt!" + +He dropped her hands and strode away, leaving the paper at her feet. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +THE DISMISSAL. + +The Commandant tapped the dispatch on the table before him, with a +_ruse_ smile. + +"I was right then, after all, M. a Clive, in maintaining that your +comrade carried a message from the General. My daughter has told me +how you came, between you, to discover it. That you should have +preserved the tunic is no less than providential; indeed, I had all +along supposed it to be your own." + +John waited, with a glance at the document, which lay with the seal +downward, seemingly intact. + +"It is addressed," the Commandant pursued, "in our ordinary cypher to +the Marquis de Vaudreuil at Montreal. In my own mind I have not the +least doubt that it instructs him--the pressure to the south having +been relieved by the victory at Fort Carillon--to send troops up to +us and to M. de Noyan at Fort Frontenac. My good friend up there has +been sending down appeals for reinforcements at the rate of two a +week, and has only ceased of late in stark despair. It is evident +that your comrade carried a message of some importance to Montreal; +and I have sent for you, monsieur, to ask: Are you in a condition to +travel?" + +"You wish me to carry this dispatch, monsieur?" + +"If you tell me that you are fit to travel. Indeed it is a privilege +which you have a right to claim, and M. de Vaudreuil will doubtless +find some reward for the bearer. Young men were ambitious in my +day--eh, M. a Clive?" + +John, averting his face, gazed out of window upon the empty +courtyard, the slope of the terrace and the line of embrasures above +it. Diane was not there beside her accustomed gun, and he wondered +if he should see her again before departing. He wondered if he +desired to see her. To be sure he must accept this mission, having +gone so far in deceit. It would set him free from Fort Amitie; and, +once free, he could devise with Menehwehna some plan of escaping +southward. Within the fort he could devise nothing. He winced under +the Commandant's kindness; yet blessed it for offering, now at last, +a term to his humiliation. + +"M. de Vaudreuil will not be slow, I feel sure, to recognise your +services," pursued the Commandant genially. "But, that there may be +no mistake about it, I have done myself the pleasure to write him a +letter commending you. Would you care to hear a sentence or two? +No?"--for John's hand went up in protest--"Well, youth is never the +worse for a touch of modesty. Be so good, then, monsieur, as to pass +me the seal yonder." + +John picked up and handed the seal almost without glancing at it. +His thoughts were elsewhere as the Commandant lit a taper, heated the +wax, and let it drop upon the letter. But just as the seal was +impressed, old Jeremie Tripier entered without knocking, and in a +state of high perturbation. "Monseigneur! Monseigneur! A whole +fleet of boats in sight--coming down the river!" + +The Commandant pushed back his chair. + +"Boats? Down the river? Nonsense, Jeremie, it is up the river you +mean; you have the message wrong. They must be the relief from +Montreal!" + +"Nay, Monseigneur, it is down the river they are approaching. +The news came in from Sans Quartier, who is on sentry-go upstream. +He has seen them from Mont-aux-Ours, and reports them no more than +three miles away." + +"Please God no ill has befallen de Noyan!" muttered the Commandant. +"Excuse me, M. a Clive; I must look into this. We will talk of our +business later." + +But John scarcely heard. His eyes had fallen on the seal of the +Commandant's letter. It stared back at him--a facsimile of the one +hidden in his pocket--a flying Mercury, with, cap, winged sandals, +and caduceus. + +He pulled his wits together to answer the Commandant politely, he +scarcely knew how, and followed him out to the postern gate. +Half a dozen of the garrison--all, in fact, who happened to be off +duty--were hurrying along the ridge to verify Sans Quartier's news. +John, still weak from his wound, could not maintain the pace. +Halting on the slope for breath, while the Commandant with an apology +left him and strode ahead, he turned, caught sight of Diane, and +waited for her. + +She came as one who cannot help herself, with panting bosom and eyes +that supplicated him for mercy. But Love, not John a Cleeve, was the +master to grant her remission--and who can supplicate Love? + +They met without greeting, and for a while walked on in silence, he +with a flame in his veins and a weight of lead in his breast. + +"Is papa sending you to Montreal?" she asked, scarcely above a +whisper. + +"He was giving me orders when this news came." + +There was a long pause now, and when next she spoke he could hardly +catch her words. "You will come again?" + +His heart answered, "My love! O my love!" But he could not speak +it. He looked around upon sky, forest, sweeping river--all the +landscape of his bliss, the prison of his intolerable shame. +A fierce peremptory longing seized him to kill his bliss and his +shame at one stroke. Four words would do it. He had but to stand up +and cry aloud, "I am an Englishman!" and the whole beautiful hideous +dream would crack, shiver, dissolve. Only four words! Almost he +heard his voice shouting them and saw through the trembling heat her +body droop under the stab, her love take the mortal hurt and die with +a face of scorn. Only four words, and an end desirable as death! +What kept him silent then? He checked himself on the edge of a +horrible laugh. The thing was called Honour: and its service steeped +him in dishonour to the soul. + +"You will come again?" her eyes repeated. + +He commanded himself to say, "It may be that there is now no need to +go. If Fort Frontenac has fallen--" + +"Why should you believe that Fort Frontenac has fallen?" she broke +in; and then, clasping her hands, added in a sort of terror, "Do you +know that--that now--I hardly seem able to think about Fort +Frontenac, or to care whether it has fallen or not? What wickedness +has come to me that I should be so cruelly selfish?" + +He set his face. Even to comfort her he must not let his look or +voice soften; one touch of weakness now would send him over the +abyss. + +"Let us go forward," said he. "At the next bend we shall know what +has happened." + +But around the bend came a procession which told plainly enough what +had happened; a procession of boats filled with dark-coated +provincial soldiers, a few white-coats, many women and children. +No flags flew astern; the very lift of the oars told of disgrace and +humiliation. Thus came Payan de Noyan with his garrison, prisoners +on _parole_, sent down by the victorious British to report the fall +of Frontenac and be exchanged for prisoners taken at Ticonderoga. + +Already the Commandant and his men had surmised the truth, and were +hurrying back along the ridge to meet the unhappy procession at the +quay. John and Diane turned with them and walked homeward in +silence. + +The flotilla passed slowly beneath their eyes, but did not head in +toward the quay. An old man in the leading boat waved an arm from +mid-stream--or rather, lifted it in salutation and let it fall again +dejectedly. + +This was de Noyan himself, and apparently his _parole_ forbade him to +hold converse with his countrymen before reaching Montreal. On them +next, for aught the garrison of Fort Amitie could learn, the enemy +were even now descending. + +Diane, halting on the slope, heard her father call across the water +to de Noyan, who turned, but shook his head and waved a hand once +more with a gesture of refusal. + +"He was asking him to carry the dispatch to Montreal. Since he will +not, or cannot, you must follow with it." + +"For form's sake," John agreed. "It can have no other purpose now." + +They were standing at the verge of the forest, and she half turned +towards him with a little choking cry that asked, as plainly as +words, "Is this all you have to say? Are you blind, that you cannot +see how I suffer?" + +He stepped back a pace into the shadow of the trees. She lifted her +head and, as their eyes met, drooped it again, faint with love. +He stretched out his arms. + +"Diane!" + +But as she ran to him he caught her by the shoulders and held her at +arms' length. Her eyes, seeking his, saw that his gaze travelled +past her and down the slope. And turning in his grasp she saw +Menehwehna running towards them across the clearing from the postern +gate, and crouching as he ran. + +He must have seen them; for he came straight to where they stood, and +gripping John by the arm pointed towards the quay, visible beyond the +edge of the flagstaff tower. + +"Who are these newcomers?" cried Diane, recovering herself. +"Why, yes, it is Father Launoy and Dominique Guyon! Yes, yes--and +Bateese!--whom you have never seen." + +John turned to her quietly, without haste. + +"Mademoiselle," said he in a voice low and firm, and not altogether +unhappy, "I have met Bateese Guyon before now. And these men bring +death to me. Run, Menehwehna! For me, I return to the Fort with +mademoiselle." + +She stared at him. "Death?" she echoed, wondering. + +"Death," he repeated, "and I deserve it. On many accounts I have +deserved it, but most of all for having stolen your trust. I am an +Englishman." + +For a moment she did not seem to hear. Then slowly, very slowly, she +put out both hands and cowered from him. + +"Return, Menehwehna!" commanded John firmly. "Yes, mademoiselle, I +cannot expiate what I have done. But I go to expiate what I can." + +He took a step forward; but she had straightened herself up and stood +barring his path with her arm, fronting him with terrible scorn. + +"Expiate! What can you expiate? You can only die; and are you so +much afraid of death that you think it an atonement? You can only +die, and--and--" she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Menehwehna, +help me! He can only die, and I cannot let him die!" + +Menehwehna stepped forward with impassive face. "If my brother goes +down the hill, I go with him," he announced calmly. + +"You see?" Diane turned on John wildly. "You will only kill your +friend--and to what purpose? The wrong you have done you cannot +remedy; the remedy you seek would kill me surely. Ah, go! go! +Do not force me to kneel and clasp your knees--you that have already +brought me so low! Go, and let me learn to hate as well as scorn +you. You wish to expiate? This only will I take for expiation." + +"Come, brother!" urged Menehwehna, taking him by the arm. + +Diane bent close to the Indian, whispered a word in his ear, and, +turning about, looked John in the face. + +"Are you sorry at all? If you are sorry, you will obey me now." + +With one long searching look she left him and walked down the slope. +Menehwehna dragged him back into the undergrowth as the postern door +opened, and M. Etienne came through it, followed by Father Launoy, +Dominique, and Bateese. + +Peering over the bushes Menehwehna saw Diane descend to meet them--he +could not see with what face. + +Marvellous is woman. She met them with a gay and innocent smile. + + +Her whispered word to Menehwehna had been to keep by the waterside. +And later that night, when the garrison had given over beating the +woods for the fugitives, a canoe stole up the river, close under the +north bank. One man sat in it; and after paddling for a couple of +miles up-stream he began to sing as he went--softly at first, but +raising his voice by little and little-- + + "Chante, rossignol, chante, + Toi qui as le coeur gai; + Tu as le coeur a rire, + Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer." + +No answer came from the dark forest. He took up his chant again, more +boldly: + + "Tu as le coeur a rire, + Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer; + J'ai perdu ma maitresse + Sans pouvoir la trouver. + --Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime, + Jamais je ne t'oublierai." + +He listened. A low call sounded from the trees on his right, and he +brought the canoe under the bank. + +"Is that you, Bateese?" + +"Monsieur, forgive me! I said as little as I could, but the Reverend +Father and Dominique were too clever for me. And how was I to have +known? . . . . Take the canoe and travel fast, my friends; they will +be searching again at dawn." + +"Did mademoiselle send the canoe?" + +"Yes; and she charged you to answer one question. It was her +brother--M. Armand--whom the Iroquois slew in the Wilderness. +Ah, that cry! Can one ever forget?" + +"Her brother!" John's hand went to his breast in the darkness. + +"Monsieur did not know, then? I was sure that monsieur could not +have known! For myself I did not know until four days ago. +The Iroquois had not seen us, and we escaped back to the Richelieu-- +to Sorel--to Montreal, where I left my wounded man. Ah, monsieur, +but we suffered on the way! And from Montreal I made for Boisveyrac, +and there my tongue ran loose--but in all innocence. And there I +heard that M. Armand had been crossing the Wilderness . . . but +monsieur did not know it was her brother?" + +"That, at least, I never knew nor guessed, Bateese. Was this the +question Mademoiselle Diane desired you to ask me?" + +"It was, monsieur. And, according to your answer, I was to give you +her word." + +"What is her word, Bateese?" + +"She commends you to God, monsieur, and will pray for you." + +"Take back my word that I will pray to deserve her prayers, who can +never deserve her pardon." + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +FRONTENAC SHORE. + +"And what will my brother do?" + +For minutes before John heard and answered it the question had been +singing in his ears to the beat of the paddles. He supposed that +Menehwehna had asked it but a moment ago. + +"I cannot tell. Let us press on; it may be we shall find my +countrymen at Frontenac." + +"As a child breaks down a lodge which another child has built, and +runs away, so your countrymen will have departed." + +Fort Amitie lay far behind. They were threading their way now among +the Thousand Isles, and soon Lake Ontario opened before them, +spreading its blue waters to the horizon. But John heeded neither +green islands nor blue lake, nor their beauty, nor their peace, but +only the shame in his heart. He saw only the dazzle on the water, +heard only the swirl around his paddle, stroke by stroke, hour after +hour; prayed only for fatigue to drug the ache and bring about +oblivion with the night. + +Coasting the shore they came at the close of day upon the charred +skeletons of three ships lifting their ribs out of the shallows +against the sunset, and beyond these, where the water deepened, to a +deserted quay. + +They landed; and while they climbed the slope towards the fort, out +of one of its breaches its only inhabitant crawled to them--a young +dog, gaunt and tame with hunger. + +The dog fawned upon Menehwehna. But John turned his back on the +smoke-blackened walls in a sick despair, seated himself on the slope, +and let his gaze travel southward over the shoreless water. +Beyond the rim of it would lie Oswego, ruined by the French as the +English had ruined Frontenac. + +The dog came and stretched itself at his feet, staring up with eyes +that seemed at once to entreat his favour and to marvel why he sat +there motionless. Menehwehna had stepped down to the canoe to fetch +food for it, and by and by returned with a handful of biscuit. + +"He will be useful yet," said Menehwehna, seating himself beside the +dog and feeding it carefully with very small pieces. "He cannot be +more than a year old, and before the winter is ended we will make a +hunter of him." + +John did not answer. + +"You will come with me now, brother?" Still Menehwehna kept his eyes +on the dog. "There is no other way." + +"There is one way only," answered John, with his eyes fastened on the +south. "Teach me to build a canoe, and let me cross the water alone. +If I drown, I drown." + +"And if you reached? Your countrymen are all gathering back to the +south; until the snow has come and passed, there will be no more +fighting. You are better with me. Come, and when the corn begins to +shoot again you shall tell me if you are minded to return." + +"Menehwehna, you do not understand." + +"I have studied you, my brother, when you have not guessed it; and I +say to you that if you went back now to your people it would be +nothing to their gain, nor to yours, for the desire of fighting has +gone out of you. Now in my nation we do not wonder when a man loses +that desire, for we put it away as men by eating put away the desire +of food. All things come to us in their season. This month the corn +ripens, and at home my wife and children are gathering it; but anon +comes the Moon of Travel, and they will weary of the village and +watch the lake for me to arrive and lead them away to the +hunting-grounds. So the beasts have their seasons; the buck his +month for belling, and the beaver his month for taking shelter in his +house which he has stored. And with us, when the snow melts, it may +happen that the war-talk begins--none knowing how--and spreads +through the villages: first the young men take to dancing and +painting their faces, and the elder men catch fire, and a day sees us +taking leave of our womankind to follow the war-path. But in time we +surfeit even of fighting, and remember our lodges again." + +Menehwehna paused awhile, and patted the dog's head. + +"Therefore, brother, were you of our race, I should not wonder that +the spirit of war has gone out of you. I myself am weary of it +for a season; I forget that Frenchman differs from Englishman, and +think of the sound of thin ice above the beaver's wash, the blood of +the red-deer's hocks on the snow, the smell of his steak over the +fire. But of the pale-faces some are warriors, some are not; +and the warriors fight, year in and year out, whenever they can. +That is your calling, brother, is it not?" + +"I am not grown a coward, I hope." + +"No," said Menehwehna thoughtfully, "you are not a coward; else my +heart had never gone out to you. But I think there is something dead +within you that must come to life, and something alive within you +that must die, before you grow into a warrior again. As for your +going back to-day, listen-- + +"There was war once between our nation and the Pottawatamies, and +in an open fight our braves killed many of their enemies and +scattered the rest to their villages. Great was the victory, but +mournful; for in the chase that followed it an arrow pierced the +throat of the leader of the Ojibways. His name was Daimeka, and he a +chief in my own island of Michilimackinac. Where he fell there he +lay. His people lifted the body and propped it against a tree, +seated, with its face towards the forest into which the Pottawatamies +had fled. They wiped the dirt from his head-dress, set his bow +against his shoulder, and so, having lamented him, turned their faces +northward to their own country. + +"But Daimeka, although he could neither speak nor stir, saw all that +his friends did, and heard all that they said. He listened to their +praises of him and their talk of their victory, and was glad; he felt +the touch of their hands as they set out his limbs against the tree, +but his own hands he could not lift. His tears, indeed, ran as they +turned to abandon him; but this sign they did not see, and he could +give no other. + +"The story says that little by little his hot tears melted the +frost that bound him; and by and by, as he remembered the cry of +home-coming--'_Kumad-ji-wug!_ We have conquered!'--his spirit put +forth an effort as a babe in its mother's travail, and he found his +feet and ran after the braves. Then was he mad with rage to find +that they had no eyes for him, and he no voice to call their +attention. When they walked forward he walked forward, when they +halted he halted, when they slept he slept, when they awoke he awoke; +nay, when they were weary he felt weariness. But for all the profit +it brought him he might still have been sitting under the tree; for +their eyes would not see him, and his talk to them was as wind. + +"And this afflicted him so that at length he began to tear open his +wounds, saying, 'This, at least, will move them to shame, who owe +their victory to me!' But they heeded nothing; and when he upbraided +them they never turned their heads. + +"At length they came to the shore where they had left the canoes, and +put across for the island. As they neared it the men in Daimeka's +canoe raised the war-shout, '_Kumad-ji-wug!_ We have conquered!' and +old men, wives and children came running from the village, his own +father and wife and children among them. 'Daimeka is dead!' was +shouted many times in the uproar; and the warriors spoke his praises +while his father wept, and his wife, and his two small ones. + +"'But I am alive!' Daimeka shouted; for by this time he was in a +furious passion. Then he ran after his wife, who was fleeing towards +his own lodge, tearing her hair as she went. 'Listen to me, woman!' +he entreated, and would have held her, but could not. He followed +her into the lodge and stood over her as she sat on the bed, with her +hands in her lap, despairing. 'But I am alive!' he shouted again. +'See how my wounds bleed; bind them, and give me food. To bleed like +this is no joke, and I am hungry.' 'I have no long time to live,' +said the woman to one of the children, 'even now I hear my man +calling me, far away.' Daimeka, beside himself, beat her across the +head with all his force. She put up a hand. 'Children, even now I +felt his hand caressing me. Surely I have not long to live.' + +"'I was better off under the tree,' said Daimeka to himself, and +strode forth from the lodge. By the shore he launched one of the +canoes; and now he felt no wish in his heart but to return to the +battlefield and sit there dead, if only he could find his body again +which he had left--as he now felt sure--sitting beneath the tree. + +"On the fourth day he reached the battlefield. Night was falling, +and as he sought the tree he came on a blazing fire. Across it he +could see the tree plainly, and at the foot of it his body with the +light on its face. + +"He stepped aside to walk round the fire; but it moved as he moved, +and again stood in his path. A score of times he tried to slip by +it, but always it barred his way, and always beyond it stood the +tree, with his own face fronting him across the blaze. + +"'Fire, I am a fool,' said he at the last; 'but, fire, thou art a +worse fool to think that Daimeka would turn his back!' And so saying +he strode straight through its flame. At once he found himself +seated with his back to the tree in his dress of war, with his bow +resting against his shoulder. 'Now I am dead,' said he, contentedly; +nevertheless he began to finger his bow. 'On what do the dead feed +themselves?' he wondered; and, for a trial, fixed and shot an arrow +at a passing bird: for above the tree there was clear sky, though +darkness lay around its foot and in the darkness the fire still +burned. The bird fell; he plucked it, cooked it at the fire, and +ate. + +"'In life I never ate better partridge,' said Daimeka, `but now that +I am a real ghost I will return once more to Michilimackinac and +frighten my wife out of her senses, for she deserves it.' + +"So when the fire died down he arose, warm in all his limbs, and +started northward again. On the fourth day he found his canoe where +he had left it, and pushed off for the island. But, as he neared the +shore, a man who had been standing there ran back to the village, and +soon all his folk came running down to the beach, his wife in their +midst. + +"'Daimeka!' they cried. 'It is indeed Daimeka returned to us!' + +"'That may be,' said Daimeka, as his wife flung her arms around him; +'and again, it may not be. But, dead or alive, I find it good +enough.' + +"Such, my brother, is the tale of Daimeka. Is it better, now, to +return to your people as a ghost or as a man who has found himself?" + +John lifted a face of misery. + +"Come," said Menehwehna, looking him straight in the eyes, and +letting his hand rest from patting the dog, which turned and licked +it feebly. + +"I will come," said John. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +NETAWIS. + +The encampment stood under the lee of a tall sandhill, a few paces +back from the brink of a frozen river. Here the forest ended in a +ragged fringe of pines; and, below, the river spread into a lagoon, +with a sandy bar between it and the lake, and a narrow outlet which +shifted with every storm. The summer winds drove up the sand between +the pine-stems and piled it in hummocks, gaining a few yards annually +upon the forest as the old trees fell. The winter winds brought down +the snow and whirled it among the hummocks until these too were +covered. + +For three weeks the encampment had been pitched here; and for two +weeks snow had fallen almost incessantly, banking up the lodges and +freezing as it fell. At length wind and snow had ceased and given +place to a hard black frost, still and aching, and a sky of steel, +and a red, rayless sun. + +A man came down the river-bank, moving clumsily in his snow-shoes +over the hummocks; a man dressed as an Indian, in blanket-cloak and +scarlet _mitases_. His head was shaven to the crown around a +top-knot skewered with heron's feathers; his face painted with black, +vermilion, and a single streak of white between the eyebrows. +He carried a gun under his left arm, and over his shoulder a pole to +which he had slung the bodies of five beavers. Two dogs ran ahead of +him straight for the encampment, which he had not discerned until +they began to salute it with glad barking. + +Five lodges formed the encampment--four of them grouped in a rough +semicircle among the main lodge, which stood back close under the +sand-bank where an eddy of wind had scooped it comparatively clear of +snow. + +The hunter followed his dogs to the door of the main lodge and lifted +its frozen tent-flap. + +"Is it well done, Menehwehna?" he asked, and casting his pole with +its load upon the floor he clapped his mittened hands together for +warmth. "Ough!" He began to pull the mittens off cautiously. + +Menehwehna, seated with his back against the roof-pole (he had lain +sick and fasting there all day), looked triumphantly towards his +wife, who crouched with her two daughters by the lodge fire. + +"Said I not that he would bring us luck? And, being bitten, did they +bite, my brother?" he asked mischievously. + +"A little. It did not hurt at the time." + +One of the two girls rose from beside the fire. + +"Show me your hands, Netawis," she said. + +Netawis--that is to say, John a Cleeve--stretched out his lacerated +hands to the firelight. As he did so his blanket-cloak fell back, +showing a necklace of wampum about his throat and another looser +string dangling against the stained skin of his breast. On his +outstretched wrists two silver bangles twinkled, and two broad bands +of silver on the upper arms. + +The girl fetched a bladder of beaver-fat and anointed his hands, her +own trembling a little. Azoka was husband-high, and had been +conscious for some weeks of a bird in her breast, which stirred and +began to flutter whenever she and Netawis drew close. At first, when +he had been fit for little but to make kites for the children, she +had despised him and wondered at her father's liking. But Netawis +did not seem to care whether folks despised him or not; and this +piqued her. Whatever had to be learnt he learned humbly, and now the +young men had ceased to speak of him as a good-for-nothing, Azoka +began to think that his differing from them was not wholly against +him; and all the women acknowledged him to be slim and handsome. + +"Many thanks, cousin," said Netawis as she bound up the wounds. +Then he began to talk cheerfully over his shoulder to Menehwehna. +"Five washes I tried, and all were empty; but by the sixth the water +bubbled. Then I wished that I had you with me, for I knew that my +hands would suffer." He smiled; this was one of his un-Indian tricks. + +"It was well done, brother," said Menehwehna, and his eyes sought +those of his wife Meshu-kwa who, still crouching by the fire, gazed +across it at the youth and the girl. + +"But that is not all. While I was at work the dogs left me. +At first I did not miss them; and then, finding them gone, I made +sure they had run home in scorn of my hunting. But no; their tracks +led me to a tree, not far up the stream, and there I found them. +They were not barking, but sometimes they would nose around the trunk +and sometimes fall back to a little distance and sit whining and +trembling while they stared up at it." + +"And the tracks around the tree?" + +"I could find none but what the dogs themselves had made. I tapped +the tree, and it was hollow. Then I saw on the north side, a little +above my head, many deep scratches with moss hanging in strips from +them. The trunk ran up straight, and was so stout that my two arms +would not span more than a tenth of it; but the scratches went up to +the first fork, and there must be the opening, as I guess." + +"Said I not that Netawis would become a hunter and bring us luck?" +asked Menehwehna again. "He has found bear." + +"Bear! Bear! Our Netawis has found bear!" cried two small urchins +who had been rolling and tumbling with the dogs and almost burning +their toes at the edges of the fire. They were the children of +Azoka's elder sister Seeu-kwa, Muskingon's widow. Scrambling past +Menehwehna, who never spoke harshly to them, and paying no heed to +their mother's scolding, they ran out into the snow to carry the news +to the other lodges. + +"Our Netawis has found bear!" + +"What news is this?" asked some of the young men who lived in a +lodge apart--the bachelors' lodge--gathering round the doorway. +"Seeu-kwa, look to it that your children do not grow up to be little +liars." + +Now John, surprised to find his news so important, had turned to +Azoka with a puzzled smile. The firelight which danced on his face +danced also on the long bead necklace heaving like a snake with the +rise and fall of her bosom. He stared down at it, and Azoka--poor +girl--felt his wrist trembling under her touch; but it was with the +thought of another woman. She caught her hand away; and John, +looking up, saw a young Indian, Ononwe by name, watching him gloomily +from the doorway. + +"Ask Netawis to tell the story," said Menehwehna. So John told it +again, and added that it had been difficult to call the dogs away +from the tree. + +"But about the bear I say nothing; that is Menehwehna's talk. +I only tell you what I saw." + +"The wind has fallen," said one, "and soon the moon will be up. +Let us go and prove this tale of Netawis." + +Meshu-kwa opposed this, calling it folly. "We have no axes heavy +enough for tree-cutting," she said; not giving her real reason, which +was that she came of a family which claimed descent from a bear. +When they mocked at her she said, "Also--why should I hide it?--there +came to me an evil dream last night." + +"This is the first that I have heard of your evil dream," answered +Menehwehna, and gave order that after supper Netawis should lead the +party to the tree, promising that he himself would follow as soon as +the sickness left him. + +At moonrise, therefore, they set out--men and women together, and +even the small children. But Menehwehna called Azoka back from the +door of the lodge. + +"My daughter," he asked, they two being left alone, "has Ononwe a +cause of quarrel against Netawis?" + +"They are good friends," Azoka answered innocently. "Ononwe never +speaks of Netawis but to praise. Surely my father has heard him?" + +"That is returning a ball I never flung," her father said, fixing +grave eyes on her, under which she flinched. "I am thinking that the +face of Netawis troubles the clear water that once was between you +and Ononwe. Yet you tell me that Ononwe praises him. Sit down, +therefore, and hear this tale." + +Azoka looked rebellious; but no one in his own household disobeyed +Menehwehna--or out of it, except at peril. + +"There was a man of our nation once, a young man, and good-looking as +Ononwe; so handsome that all the village called him the Beau-man. +This Beau-man fell deeply in love with a maiden called Mamondago-kwa, +who also was passably handsome; but she had no right to scorn him as +she did, both in private and openly, so that all the village talked +of his ill-success. This talk so preyed on his mind that he fell +ill, and when his friends broke up their camp after a winter's +hunting to return to the village, he lay on his bed and would not +stir, but declared he would remain and die in the snow rather than +look again on the face of her who scorned him. So at length they +took down the lodge about him and went their ways, leaving him to +die. + +"But when the last of them was out of sight this Beau-man arose +and, wandering over the ground where the camp had been, he gathered +up all kinds of waste that his comrades had left behind--scraps of +cloth, beads, feathers, bones and offal of meat, with odds and ends +of chalk, soot, grease, everything that he could pick out of the +trodden snow. Then, having heaped them together, he called on his +guardian _manitou_, and together they set to work to make a man. +They stitched the rags into coat, _mitoses_ and mocassins, and +garnished them with beads and fringes; of the feathers they made a +head-dress, with a frontlet; and then, taking mud, they plastered the +offal and bones together and stuffed them tightly into the garments. +The _manitou_ breathed once, and to the eye all their patchwork +became fresh and fine clothing. The _manitou_ breathed twice, and +life came into the figure, which the Beau-man had been kneading into +the shape of a handsome youth. 'Your name,' said he, 'is Moowis, or +the Muck-man, and by you I shall take my revenge.' + +"So he commanded the Muck-man to follow, and together they went after +the tracks of the tribe and came to the village. All wondered at the +Beau-man's friend and his fine new clothes; and, indeed, this Moowis +had a frank appearance that won all hearts. The chief invited him to +his lodge, and begged the Beau-man to come too; he deserved no less +for bringing so distinguished a guest. The Beau-man accepted, but by +and by began to repent of his deception when he saw the Muck-man fed +with deer tongue and the moose's hump while he himself had to be +content with inferior portions, and when he observed further that +Mamondago-kwa had no eyes for anyone but the Muck-man, who began to +prove himself a clever rogue. The chief would have promoted Moowis +to the first place by the fire; but this (for it would have melted +him) he modestly refused. He kept shifting his place while he +talked, and the girl thought him no less vivacious than modest, and +no more modest than brave, since he seemed even to prefer the cold to +the cheerful warmth of the hearth. The Beau-man attempted to talk; +but the Muck-man had always a retort at which the whole company +laughed, until the poor fellow ran out of the lodge in a fury of +shame and rage. As he rose he saw the Muck-man rise, with the assent +of all, and cross over to the bridegroom's seat beside Mamondago-kwa, +who welcomed him as a modest maiden should when her heart has been +fairly won. + +"So it happened--attend to me well, my daughter--that Mamondago-kwa +married a thing of rags and bones, put together with mud. But when +the dawn broke her husband rose up and took a bow and spear, saying, +'I must go on a journey.' 'Then I will go with you,' said his bride. +'My journey is too long for you,' said the Muck-man. 'Not so,' +answered she; 'there is no journey that I could not take beside you, +no toil that I could not share for love of you.' He strode forth, +and she followed him at a distance; and the Beau-man, who had kept +watch all night outside their lodge, followed also at a distance, +unseen. All the way along the rough road Mamondago-kwa called to her +husband; but he went forward rapidly, not turning his head, and she +could not overtake him. Soon, as the sun rose, he began to melt. +Mamondago-kwa did not see the gloss go out of his clothes, nor his +handsome features change back again into mud and snow and filth. +But still as she followed she came on rags and feathers and scraps of +clothing, fluttering on bushes or caught in the crevices of the +rocks. She passed his mittens, his mocassins, his _mitases_, +his coat, his plume of feathers. At length, as he melted, his +footprints grew fainter, until she lost even his track on the snow. +'Moowis! Moowis!' she cried; but now there was none to answer her, +for the Muck-man had returned to that out of which he was made." + +Menehwehna ceased and looked at his daughter steadily. + +"And did the Beau-man find her and fetch her back?" asked Azoka. + +"The story does not say, to my knowledge; but it may be that Ononwe +could tell you." + +Azoka stepped to the moonlit doorway and gazed out over the snow. + +"And yet you love Netawis?" she asked, turning her head. + +"So much that I keep him in trust for his good, against a day when he +will go and never return. But that is not a maiden's way of loving, +unless maidens have changed since I went a-courting them." + +Netawis having led them to the tree, the young men fell to work upon +it at once. It measured well over ten fathoms in girth; and by +daybreak, their axes being light, they had hewed it less than +half-way through. After a short rest they attacked it again, but the +sun was close upon setting when the tree fell--with a rending scream +which swelled into a roar so human-like that the children ran with +one accord and caught hold of their elders' hands. + +John, with Seeu-kwa's small boys clinging to him, stood about thirty +paces from the fallen trunk. Two or three minutes passed, and he +wondered why the men did not begin to jeer at him for having found +them a mare's nest. For all was quiet. He wondered also why none of +them approached the tree to examine it. + +"I shall be the mock of the camp from this moment," he thought, and +said aloud, "Let go of my hands, little ones; there is no more +danger." + +But they clung to him more tightly than ever; for a great cry went +up. From the opening by the fork of the trunk a dark body rolled +lazily out upon the snow--an enormous she-bear. She uncurled and +gathered herself up on all fours, blinking and shaking her head as +though the fall had left her ears buzzing, and so began to waddle +off. Either she had not seen the crowd of men and women, or perhaps +she despised it. + +"Ononwe! Ononwe!" shouted the Indians; for Ononwe, gun in hand, had +been posted close to the opening. + +He half-raised his gun, but lowered it again. + +"Netawis found her," he said quietly. "Let Netawis shoot her." + +He stepped back towards John who, almost before he knew, found the +gun thrust into his hands; for the children had let go their clasp. + +Amid silence he lifted it and took aim, wondering all the while why +Ononwe had done this. The light was fading. To be sure he could not +miss the bear's haunches, now turned obliquely to him; but to hit her +without killing would be scarcely less dishonouring than to miss +outright, and might be far more dangerous. His hand and forearm +trembled too--with the exertion of hewing, or perhaps from the strain +of holding the children. Why had he been fool enough to take the +gun? He foretasted his disgrace even as he pulled the trigger. + +It seemed to him that as the smoke cleared the bear still walked +forward slowly. But a moment later she turned her head with one loud +snap of the jaws and lurched over on her side. Her great fore-pads +smote twice on the powdery snow, then were still. + +He had killed her, then; and, as he learned from the applause, by an +expert's shot, through the spine at the base of the skull. John had +aimed at this merely at a guess, knowing nothing of bears or their +vulnerable points, and in this ignorance neglecting a far easier mark +behind the pin of the shoulder. + +But more remained to wonder at; for the beast being certified for +dead, Meshu-kwa ran forward and kneeling in the snow beside it began +to fondle and smooth the head, calling it by many endearing names. +She seated herself presently, drew the great jaws on to her lap and +spoke into its ear, beseeching its forgiveness. "O bear!" she cried +for all to hear, "O respected grandmother! You yourself saw that +this was a stranger's doing. Believe not that Meshu-kwa is guilty of +your death, or any of her tribe! It was a stranger that disturbed +your sleep, a stranger who fired upon you with this unhappy result!" + +The men stood around patiently until this propitiation was ended; and +then fell to work to skin the bear, while Meshu-kwa went off with her +daughters to the lodges, to prepare the cooking pots. In passing +John she gave him a glance of no good will. + +That night, as Azoka stood by a cauldron in which the bear's fat +bubbled, and the young men idled around the blaze, she saw Netawis +draw Ononwe aside into the darkness. Being a quick-witted girl she +promptly let slip her ladle into the fat, as if by mischance, and ran +to her father's lodge for another, followed by Meshu-kwa's scolding +voice. The lodge had a back-exit towards the wall of the sandhill, +where the wind's eddy had swept a lane almost clear of snow; and +Azoka pushed her pretty head through the flap-way here in time to spy +the dark shadows of the pair before they disappeared behind the +bachelor's lodge. Quietly as a pantheress she stole after them, +smoothing out her footprints behind her until she reached the +trampled snow; and so, coming to the angle of the bachelors' lodge, +cowered listening. + +"But suppose that I had missed my shot?" said the voice of Netawis. +"I tell you that my heart was as wax; and when the lock fell, I saw +nothing. Why, what is the matter with you, Ononwe?" + +"I thought you had led me here to quarrel with me," Ononwe answered +slowly, and Azoka held her breath. + +"Quarrel, brother? Why should I quarrel with you? It was a risk, as +I am telling you; but you trusted me, and I brought you here to thank +you that in your good heart you gave the shot up to me." + +"But it was not my good heart." Ononwe's voice had grown hoarse. +"It was an evil thought in my head, and you will have to quarrel with +me, Netawis." + +"That Ononwe is a good man," said Azoka to herself. + +"I do not understand. Did you expect me, then, to miss? Do not say, +brother, that you gave me the gun _wishing_ me to miss and be the +mock of the camp!" + +"Yes, and no. I thought, if you took the gun, it would not matter +whether you hit or missed." + +"Why?" + +"Are you so simple, Netawis? Or is it in revenge that you force me +to tell? . . . Yes, I have played you an evil trick, and by an evil +tempting. I saw you with Azoka. . . . I gave you the gun, thinking, +'If he misses, the whole camp will mock him, and a maid turns from a +man whom others mock. But if he should kill the bear, he will have +to reckon with Meshu-kwa. Meshu-kwa fears ill-luck, and she will +think more than twice before receiving a son-in-law who has killed +her grandmother the bear.'" + +"I will marry Netawis," said Azoka to herself, shutting her teeth +hard. And yet she could not feel angry with Ononwe as she ought. +But it seemed that neither was Netawis angry; for he answered with +one of those strange laughs of his. She had never been able to +understand them, but she had never heard one that sounded so unhappy +as did this. + +"My brother," said Netawis--and his voice was gentle and bitterly +sorrowful--"if you did this in guile, I have shot better indeed than +you to-day. As for Meshu-kwa, I must try to be on good terms with +her again; and as for Azoka, she is a good girl, and thinks as little +of me as I of her. Last night when you saw us . . . I remember that +I looked down on her and something reminded me . . . of one . . ." +He leaned a hand against a pole of the lodge and gripped it as the +anguish came on him and shook him in the darkness. "Damn!" cried +John a Cleeve, with a sob. + +"Was that her name?" asked Ononwe gravely, hardly concealing the +relief in his voice. + +But Azoka did not hear Netawis' answer as she crept back, smoothing +the snow over her traces. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +THE LODGES IN THE SNOW. + +The fat lay six inches deep on the bear's ribs; and, being boiled +down, filled six porcupine skins. + +"Said I not that Netawis would bring us good luck?" demanded +Menehwehna. + +But Meshu-kwa claimed the head of her ancestress, and set it up on a +scaffold within the lodge, spreading a new blanket beneath it and +strewing tobacco-leaf in front of its nose. As though poor Azoka had +not enough misery, her mother took away her trinkets to decorate the +bear, and forced her to smear her pretty, ochred face with cinders. +Then for a whole day the whole family sat and fasted; and Azoka hated +fasting. But next morning she and Seeu-kwa swept out the lodge, +making all tidy. Pipes were lit, and Menehwehna, after blowing +tobacco-smoke into the bear's nostrils, began a long harangue on the +sad necessity which lay upon men to destroy their best friends. +His wife's eye being upon him, he made an excellent speech, though he +did not believe a word of it; but as a chief who had married the +daughter of a chief, he laid great stress upon her pedigree, +belittling his own descent from the _canicu_, or war eagle, with the +easier politeness because he knew it to be above reproach. When he +had ended, the family, Meshu-kwa included, seated themselves and ate +of the bear's flesh very heartily. + +A few days later, they struck their camp and moved inland, for the +beaver were growing scarcer, and the heavy fall of snow hid their +houses and made it difficult to search the banks for washes. +But raccoon were plentiful at their new station, and easy to hunt. +Before the coming of the Cold Moon--which is January--John was set to +number the peltries, which amounted to three hundred odd; and the +scaffold, on which the dried venison hung out of reach of the wolves, +was a sight to gladden the heart. Only the women grumbled when +Menehwehna gave order to strike camp, for theirs were the heaviest +loads. + +Azoka did not grumble. She could count now on Ononwe to help her +with her burden, since, like a sensible girl, she had long since made +up her quarrel with him and they were to be married in the spring on +their return to the village. She had quite forgiven Netawis. +Hers was that delicious stage of love when the heart, itself so +happy, wants all the world to be happy too. Once or twice John +caught her looking at him with eyes a little wistful in their +gladness; he never guessed that she had overheard his secret and +pitied him, but dared not betray herself. Ononwe, possessed with his +new felicity, delighted to talk of it whenever he and John hunted +together. + +Did it hurt? Not often; and at the moment not much. But at night, +when sleep would not come, when John lay staring at the chink in the +doorway beyond which the northern lights flickered, then the wound +would revive and ache with the aching silence. Once, only once, he +had started out of sleep to feel his whole body flooded with +happiness; in his dream the curtains of the lodge had parted and +through them Diane had come to him. Standing over his head she had +shaken the snow from her cloak and from her hair, and the scattered +flakes had changed into raindrops, and the raindrops into singing +birds, and the lodge into a roof of sunlit boughs, breaking into +leaf with a scent of English hawthorn, as she stretched out her hands +and knelt and he drew her to his heart. Her cheek was cold from her +long journey; but a warm breeze played beneath the boughs, and under +her falling hair against his shoulder her small hand stole up and +touched his silver armlets. Nay, surely that touch was too real for +any dream. . . . + +He had sprung up and pulled aside the curtain; but she was gone. +His eyes searched across a waste where only the snow-wraiths danced, +and far to the north the Aurora flickered with ribbons of ghostly +violet. + +Would she come again? Yes, surely, under the stars and across the +folds and hollows of the snow, that vision would return, disturbing +no huddled wild creature, waking no sleeper in the lodge; would lift +the curtain and stretch out both hands and be gathered to him. +Though it came but once in a year he could watch for it by night, +live for it by day. + +But by day he knew his folly. He was lost, and in forgetting lay his +only peace. He never once accused his fortune nor railed against a +God he could not believe in. He had come to disaster through his own +doubts; himself had been the only real enemy, and that sorry self +must be hidden and buried out of sight. + +On the whole he was burying it successfully. He liked these +Ojibways, and had unlearnt his first disgust of their uncleanly +habits, though as yet he could not imitate them. He had quite +unlearnt his old loathing of Menehwehna for the sergeant's murder. +Menehwehna was a fine fellow, a chief too, respected among all the +nations west of Fort Niagara. John's surprise had begun at Fort +Rouille, where, on Menehwehna's word of credit only, the Tobacco +Indians had fetched out paint and clothes to disguise him, and had +smuggled him, asking no questions, past the fort and up through the +Lake aux Claies to Lake Huron. At Michilimackinac a single speech +from Menehwehna had won his welcome from the tribe; and they were +hunting now on the borders of the Ottawas through the favour of +Menehwehna's friendship with the Ottawa chief at l'Arbre Croche. +John saw that the other Indians considered him fortunate in +Menehwehna's favour, and if he never understood the full extent of +the condescension, at least his respect grew for one who was at once +so kingly and so simple, who shared his people's hardships, and was +their master less by rank than by wisdom in council, skill of hand, +and native power to impress and rule. + +Of the deer especially Menehwehna was a mighty hunter; and in +February the wealth of the camp increased at a surprising rate. +For at this season the snow becomes hard enough to bear the hunter +and his dogs, but the sharp feet of the deer break through its crust +and his legs are cut to the bone. Often a hunting party would kill a +dozen stags in two or three hours, and soon the camp reckoned up five +thousand pounds of dried venison, all of which had to be carried back +seventy miles to the shore of the lake near l'Arbre Croche, where the +canoes had been left. + +Early in March the women began to prepare the bundles, and in the +second week the return began, all starting at daybreak with as much +as they could carry, and marching until noon, when they built a +scaffold, piled their loads upon it, and returned to the camp for +more. When all had been carried forward one stage, the lodge itself +was removed, and so, stage by stage, they brought their wealth down +to the coast. As they neared it they fell in with other lodges of +Ojibways, mostly from Michilimackinac, gathering for the return +voyage up the lake. + +Having recovered and launched their canoes, which had lain hidden +among the sandhills, they loaded up and coasted cheerfully homewards +by way of La Grande Traverse and l'Arbre Croche, and on the last day +of April landed under the French fort of Mackinac, which looked +across the strait to Cap Saint-Ignace. A dozen traders were here +awaiting them; and with these Menehwehna first settled out of the +common fund for guns, powder, and stores supplied on credit for the +winter's hunting. He then shared the residue among the camp, each +hunter receiving the portion fixed by custom; and John found himself +the owner of one hundred and twenty beaver skins, fifty raccoon, and +twelve otter, besides fifty dubious francs in cash. The bear skin, +which also fell to his share, he kept for his wedding gift to Ononwe. +Twenty pounds of beaver bought a couple of new shirts; another twenty +a blanket; and a handsome pair of scarlet _mitases_, fashionably +laced with ribbon, cost him fifteen. Out of what remained he offered +to pay Menehwehna for his first outfit, but received answer that he +had amply discharged this debt by bringing good luck to the camp. +Under Menehwehna's advice, therefore, he spent his gains in powder +and ball, fishing-lines, tobacco, and a new lock for his gun. + +"And I am glad," said Menehwehna, "that you consulted me to-day, for +to-night I shall drink too much rum." + +So indeed he did. That night his people--women and men--lay around +the fort in shameless intoxication. It pleased John to observe that +Azoka drank nothing; but on the other hand she made no attempt to +restrain her lover, who, having stupefied himself with rum, dropped +asleep with his head on her lap. + +John, seated and smoking his pipe by the camp fire, watched her +across its blaze. She leaned back against a pole of the lodge, her +hands resting on Ononwe's head, her eyes gazing out into the purple +night beyond the doorway. They were solemn, with the awe of a deep +happiness. "And why not?" John asked himself. Her father, mother, +and kinsfolk lay drunk around her; even the children had taken their +share of the liquor. A disgusting sight, no doubt! yet somehow it +did not move him to reprobation. He had lived for six months with +this people, and they had taught him some lessons outside the craft +of hunting: for example, that it takes all sorts to make a world, and +that only a fool condemns his fellows for being unlike himself. +At home in Devonshire he had never understood why the best +farm-labourers and workmen broke out at times into reckless drinking, +and lay sodden for days together; or how their wives could accept +these outbursts as a matter of course. He understood now, having +served apprentice to hardship, how the natural man must revolt now +and again from the penalty of Adam, the grinding toil, day in and day +out, to wrest food from the earth for himself, his womenkind, and +children. He understood, too, how noble is the discipline, though +pardonable the revolt. He had discovered how little a man truly +needs. He had seen in this strange life much cruelty, much crazy +superstition, much dirt and senseless discomfort; but he had made +acquaintance with love and self-denial. He had learnt, above all, +the great lesson--to think twice before judging, and thrice before +condemning. + +The camp fire was dying down untended. He arose and cast an armful +of logs upon it; and at the sound Azoka withdrew her eyes from the +doorway and fastened them upon him. + +"Netawis," said she, "when will you be leaving us?" + +"I have no thought of leaving." + +"You are not telling me the truth, now." + +"Indeed, I believe I am," John assured her. + +"But what, then, of the girl yonder, whom you wanted to marry? +Has she married another man, or is she dead? Yes, I know something +about it," Azoka went on, as he stood staring amazedly. "For a long +time I have wanted to tell you. That night, after you had killed the +bear and Ononwe took you aside--I was afraid that you two would be +quarrelling, and so I crept after you--" She waited for him to +understand. + +"I see," said John gravely. + +"Tell me what has become of her." + +"I suppose that she is living still with her own people; and there is +nothing more to tell, Azoka, except that she cannot be mine, and +would not if she could." + +"Whose fault was it, Netawis? Yours or hers?" + +"There was much fault indeed, and all of it mine; but against my +marrying her it did not count, for that was impossible from the +beginning. Suppose, now, your nation were at war with the Ottawas, +and a young Ottawa brave fell in love with you. What would you do?" + +"That is idle talk, for of course I should do nothing," said Azoka +composedly. "But if I were a man and fell in love with an Ottawa +maiden, it would be simple. I should carry her off." + +John, being unable to find an answer to this, lit his pipe and sat +staring into the fire. + +"Was she an Englishwoman then?" Azoka asked after a while. + +"An Englishwoman?" He looked up in surprise; then, with a glance +around at the sleepers, he leaned forward until his eyes met the +girl's at close range across the flame. "Since you have learnt one +secret, Azoka, I will tell you another. She was a Frenchwoman, and +it is I who am English." + +But Azoka kept her composure. "My father is always wise," she said +quietly. "If he had told the truth, you would have been in great +danger; for many had lost sons and brothers in the fighting, and +those who came back were full of revenge. You heard their talk." + +"Then you have only to tell them, Azoka, and they may take their +revenge. I shall not greatly care." + +"I am no babbler, Netawis; and, moreover, the men have put their +revenge away. When the summer comes very few will want to go +fighting. For my part I pay little heed to their talk of killing and +scalping; to me it is all boys' play, and I do not want to understand +it. But from what I hear they think that the Englishmen will be +victorious, and it is foolishness to fight on the losing side. +If so--" Azoka broke off and pressed her palms together in sudden +delight. + +"If so?" echoed John. + +"If the English win, why then you may carry off your Frenchwoman, +Netawis! I do very much want you to be happy." + +"And I thank you a thousand times, Azoka, for your good wishes; but I +fear it will not happen in that way." + +She smoothed the head of Ononwe in her lap. "Oh yes, it will," she +assured him. "My father told me that you would be leaving us, some +day; and now I know what he meant. He has seen her, has he not?" + +"He has seen her." + +"My father is never mistaken. You will go back when the time comes, +and take her captive. But bring her back that I may see her, +Netawis." + +"But if she should resist?" + +Azoka shook her pretty head. "You men never understand us. She will +not resist when once you have married her; and I do very much want +you to be happy." + +For three days the Ojibways sprawled in drunkenness around Fort +Mackinac, but on the fourth arose and departed for their island; very +sullenly at first, as they launched their canoes, but with rising +spirits as they neared home. And two days after their arrival Ononwe +and Azoka were married. + +In the midst of the marriage feast, which lasted a week, the great +thaw began; and thereafter for a month Menehwehna watched John +closely. But the springtime could not thaw the resolve which had +been hardening John's heart all the winter--to live out his life in +the wilderness and, when his time came, to die there a forgotten man. +He wondered now that he had ever besought Menehwehna for help to +return. Although it could never be proved against him, he must +acknowledge to himself that he, a British officer, was now in truth a +willing deserter. But to be a deserter he found more tolerable than +to return at the price of private shame. + +Menehwehna, cheated of his fears, watched him with a new and growing +hope. The snows melted; May came with its flowers, June with its +heat, July with the roaring of bucks in the forest; and still the men +hung about the village, fishing and shooting, or making short +excursions to Sault Sainte-Marie or the bay of Boutchitouay, or the +mouth of the Mississaki river on the north side of the lake (where +the wildfowl were plentiful), but showing no disposition to go out +again upon the war-path as they had gone the year before. The frenzy +which then had carried them hundreds of miles from their homes seemed +now to be entirely spent, and the war itself to have faded far away. +Once or twice a French officer from Fort Mackinac was paddled across +and landed and harangued the Indians; and the Indians listened +attentively, but never stirred. Of the French soldiers drilling at +the fort they spoke now with contempt. + +John saw no reason for this change, and set it down to that +flightiness of purpose which--as he had read in books--is common to +all savages. He had yet to learn that in solitary lands the very sky +becomes as it were a vast sounding-board, and rumour travels, no man +knows how. + +It was on his return from the isles aux Castors, where with two score +young men of his tribe he had spent three weeks in fishing for +sturgeon, that he heard of the capture of Fort Niagara by the +English. Azoka announced it to him. + +"Said I not how it would happen?" she reminded him. "But if you +leave us now, you must come back with her and see my boy. When he +comes to be born he shall be called Netawis. Ononwe and I are agreed +on it." + +"I have no thought of leaving," John answered. "Fort Niagara is far +from here." + +"They say also," Menehwehna announced later, "that Stadacona has +fallen." + +"Stadacona?" + +"The great fortress--Quebec." + +John mused for a while. "I had a dear friend once," he said, "and he +laid me a wager that he would enter Quebec before me. It appears +that he has won." + +"A friend, did my brother say?" + +"And a kinsman," John answered, recognising the old note of jealousy +in Menehwehna's voice. "But there's no likeness between us; for he +is one that always goes straight to his mark." + +"There was a name brought me with the news. Your chief was the Wolf, +they said; but whether it be his own name or that of his _manitou_, +I know not." + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +THE REVEILLE. + +A band of five-and-twenty Ojibways came filing down through the woods +to the shore of Lake Ontario, at the point where the City of Toronto +now stands. Back beyond the Lake aux Claies they had passed many +lodges inhabited by women and children only, and had heard everywhere +the same story: the men were all gone southward to Fort Niagara to +take counsel with the English. This, too, was the goal of the +Ojibways' journey, and Menehwehna hurried them forward. + +Fort Rouille by the waterside stood deserted and half ruined. +They had hoped to find canoes here to carry them across the lake to +Niagara; but here, too, all the male population had stampeded a week +ago for the south, and those who wanted canoes must make them. +This meant two days' delay but it could not be helped. They fell to +work at once, cutting down elm-trees by the shore and stripping off +their bark, while the children gathered from the lodges and stood at +a little distance, watching. + +It was by no desire of his own that John made one of the embassage. +As rumour after rumour of British successes came westward to +Michilimackinac, and the Indians held long and anxious councils, he +had grown aware that Menehwehna was watching him furtively, as if for +a sign which could not be demanded in words. + +"Menehwehna," said he at length, "what is all this talk of English +vengeance? It is not the way of my countrymen to remember wrongs +after they have won the battle." + +"But who will assure my people of that?" asked Menehwehna. +"They have heard that certain things were done in the south, and that +toll will be taken." + +"What matters that to your people, though it be true? They were not +at Fort William Henry." + +"But again, how shall they tell this to the English and hope to be +believed?" + +"You cannot hide your heart from me, Menehwehna. You wish two things +of me, and the first is my leave to tell your people that I am +English." + +"Without your leave I will never tell them, my brother." + +"Did I ever suppose that you would? Well, as soon as you have told +them, they will clamour for me to go to Fort Niagara, and at need to +entreat for them. Now I say that there will be no need; but they +will compel me to go, and you too will wish it. Have I not guessed?" + +Menehwehna was silent a while. "For my people I wish it," he said at +length; "but for my own part I fear more than I wish." + +"You fear it because I go into great danger. By my countrymen I +shall be rightly held a deserter; and, among them, for an officer to +desert is above all things shameful." + +"But," answered Menehwehna with a cheerful readiness which proved +that he had thought the matter out, "if, as you say, the Governor +receive us kindly, we will hide that you are English; to that every +man shall give his oath beforehand. If things go ill, we will hand +you back as our prisoner and prove that we have kept you against your +will." + +John shook his head, but did not utter the firm resolve of his +heart--that even from ignominy no such lies should save him while he +had a gun to turn against himself. "Why do you fear then, +Menehwehna," he demanded, "if not for me?" + +"Do not ask, my brother!" Menehwehna's voice was troubled, +constrained, and his eyes avoided John's. + +"Ah, well," said John lightly, after regarding him for a moment, +"to you at least I will pay some of my debt. Go and tell your people +that I am English; and add--for it will save talk--that I am ready to +go with them to Fort Niagara." + + +By dawn on the third day at Fort Rouille three canoes lay finished +and ready, each capable of carrying eight or nine men. Pushing off +from the Toronto shore, the embassage paddled southward across the +lake. + +They came late that evening to a point of land four miles from +Niagara, on the north side of the river mouth. Approaching it, +they discerned many clusters of Indian encampments, each sending up +its thin column of smoke against the sunset-darkened woods: but night +had fallen long before they beached their canoes, and for the last +three miles they paddled wide of the shore to skirt a fleet of +fishing-boats twinkling with flambeaux, from the rays of which voices +challenged them. The Ojibways answered with their own call and were +made welcome. A common fear, it seemed, lay over all the nations-- +Wyandots and Attiwandaronks from the west and north of Lake Erie, +Nettaways and Tobacco Indians from around Nottawasaga Bay, Ottawas +and Pottawatamies from the far west--who had not yet made their peace +with the English. But Menehwehna, whose fear of arriving too late +had kept him anxious throughout the voyage, grew cheerful again. + +They landed and pitched their camp on a spit of land close beside +their old friend the Ottawa chief from L'Arbre Croche, to whose lodge +Menehwehna at once betook himself to learn the news. But John, weary +with the day's toil, threw himself down and slept. + +A touch on his shoulder awakened him at dawn, and he opened his eyes +to see Menehwehna standing above him, gun in hand and dressed for an +expedition. + +"Come," commanded Menehwehna, adding, as John's gaze travelled around +upon the sleepers, "We two, alone." + +John caught up his gun, and the pair stepped out into the dawn +together. An Indian path led through the forest to the southward, +and Menehwehna took it, walking ahead and rapidly. Twice he turned +about and looked John in the face with a searching gaze, but held on +his way again without speaking. They walked in a dawn which as yet +resembled night rather than day; a night grown diaphanous and +ghostlike, a summer night surprised in its sleep and vanishing before +their footfall. The flicker of fire-flies hurrying into deeper +shades seemed, by a trick of eyesight, to pass into the glint of dew. +The birds had not yet broken into singing, the shadows stirred with +whispers, as though their broods of winged and creeping things held +breath together in alarm. A thin mist drifted through the +undergrowth, muffling the roar of distant waters; and at intervals +the path led across a clearing where, between the pine-trunks to the +left, the lake itself came into view, with clouds of vapour heaving +on its bosom. + +These clearings grew more frequent until at length Menehwehna halted +on the edge of one which sloped straight from his feet to a broad and +rushing river. There, stepping aside, he watched John's eyes as they +fell on Fort Niagara. + +It stood over the angle where the river swept into the lake; its +timbered walls terraced high upon earthworks rising from the +waterside, its roofs already bathed in sunlight, its foundations +standing in cool shadow. Eyes no doubt were watching the dawn from +its ramparts; but no sign of life appeared there. It seemed to sleep +with the forests around it, its river gate shut close-lidded against +the day, its empty flagstaff a needle of gold trembling upon the +morning sky. + +Menehwehna had seated himself, his gun across his knees, upon a +fallen trunk; and John, turning, met his eyes. + +"Do we cross over?" + +"To-day, or perhaps to-morrow. I wished you to see it first." + +"But why?" + +"Does my brother ask why? Well, then, I was afraid." + +"Were you afraid that I might wish to go back? Answer me, +Menehwehna--By whose wish am I here at all?" + +"When I was a young man," answered Menehwehna, "in the days when I +went wooing after Meshu-kwa, I would often be jealous, and this +jealousy would seize me when we were alone together. 'She is loving +enough now,' I said; 'but how will it be when other young men are +around her?' This thought tormented me so that many times it drove +me to prove her, pretending to be cold and purposely throwing her in +the company of others who were glad enough--for she had many suitors. +Then I would watch with pain in my heart, but secretly, that my shame +and rage might be hidden." + +John eyed him for a moment in wonder. "For what did you bring me +this long way from Michilimackinac?" he asked. "Was it not to speak +at need for you and your nation?" + +"For that, but not for that only. Brother, have you never loved a +friend so that you felt his friendship worthless to you unless you +owned it all? Have you never felt the need on you to test him, +though the test lay a hundred leagues away? So far have I brought +you, O Netawis, to show you your countrymen. In a while the fort +yonder will wake, and you shall see them on the parapet in their red +coats, and if the longing come upon you to return to them, we will +cross over together and I will tell my tale. They will believe it. +Look! Will you be an Englishman again?" + +"Let us turn back," answered John wearily. "That life is gone from +me for ever." + +"Say to me that you have no wish to go." + +"I had a wish once," said John, letting the words fall slowly as his +eyes travelled over the walls of the fort. "It seemed to me then +that no wish on earth could be dearer. Many things have helped to +kill it, I think." He passed a hand over his eyes and let it drop by +his side. "I have no wish to leave you, Menehwehna." + +The Indian stood up with a short cry of joy and laid a hand on his +shoulder. + +"No, my friend," John continued in the same dull voice; "I will say +to you only what is honest. If I return with you, it is not for your +sake." + +"So that you return, Netawis, I will have patience. There was a time +when you set your face against me; and this I overcame. Again there +was a time when you pleaded with me that I should let you escape; and +still I waited, though with so small a hope that when my child Azoka +began to listen for your step I scolded her out of her folly." + +"In that you did wisely, Menehwehna. It is not everything that I +have learned to forget." + +"I told her," said Menehwehna simply, "that, as the snow melts and +slides from the face of a rock, so one day all thought of us would +slip from your heart and you would go from us, not once looking back. +Even so I believed. But the spring came, and the summer, and I began +to doubt; and, as I questioned you, a hope grew in my heart, and I +played with it as a bitch plays with her pups, trying its powers +little by little, yet still in play, until a day came when I +discovered it to be strong and the master of me. Then indeed, my +brother, I could not rest until I had put it to this proof." +He lit his pipe solemnly, drew a puff or two and handed it to John. +"Let us smoke together before we turn back. He that has a friend as +well as wife and children needs not fear to grow old." + +John stretched out a hand and touched the earthen pipe bowl. +His fingers closed on it--but only to let it slip. It fell, struck +against the edge of the tree stump and was shivered in pieces. + +Across the valley in Fort Niagara the British drums were sounding the +_reveille_. + +He did not hear Menehwehna's voice lamenting the broken pipe. +He stood staring across at the fort. He saw the river-gate open, the +red-coats moving there, relieving guard. He saw the flagstaff +halliards shake out the red cross of England in the morning sunlight. +And still, like a river, rolled the music of British drums. + +"Netawis!" + +Menehwehna touched his arm. At first John did not seem to hear, then +his hand went up and began to unfasten the silver armlets there. + +"Netawis! O my brother!" + +But the ice had slipped from the rock and lay around its base in +ruin, and the music which had loosened it still sang across the +valley. He took a step down the slope towards it. + +"You shall not go!" cried Menehwehna, and lifting his gun pointed it +full at John's back. And John knew that Menehwehna's finger was on +the trigger. He walked on unregarding. + +But Menehwehna did not fire. He cast down his gun with a cry and ran +to clasp his friend's feet. What was he saying? Something about +"two years." + +"Two years?" Had they passed so quickly? God! how long the minutes +were now! He must win across before the drums ceased . . . + +He halted and began to talk to Menehwehna very patiently, this being +the easiest way to get rid of him. "Yes, yes," he heard himself +saying, "I go to them as an Indian and they will not know me. +I shall be safe. Return now back to my brothers and tell them that, +if need be, they will find me there and I will speak for them." + +And his words must have prevailed, for he stood by the river's edge +alone, and Menehwehna was striding back towards the wood. A boat lay +chained by the farther shore and two soldiers came down from the fort +and pushed across to him. + +They wore the uniform of the Forty-sixth, and one had been a private +in his company; but they did not recognise him. And he spoke to them +in the Ojibway speech, which they could not understand. + +From the edge of the woods Menehwehna watched the three as they +landed. They climbed the slope and passed into the fort. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +FORT AMITIE LEARNS ITS FATE. + +That Spring, three British generals sat at the three gates of Canada, +waiting for the signal to enter and end the last agony of New France. +But the snows melted, the days lengthened, and still the signal did +not come; for the general by the sea gate was himself besieged. + +Through the winter he and his small army sat patiently in the city +they had ruined. Conquerors in lands more southerly may bury their +dead with speed, rebuild captured walls, set up a pillar and statue +of Victory, and in a month or two, the green grass helping them, +forget all but the glory of the battle. But here in the north the +same hand arrests them and for six months petrifies the memorials of +their rage. Until the Spring dissolves it, the image of war lives +face to face with them, white, with frozen eyes, sparing them only +the colour of its wounds. + +General Murray, like many a soldier in his army, had dreams of +emulating Wolfe's glory. But Wolfe had snatched victory out of the +shadow of coming winter; and, almost before Murray's army could cut +wood for fuel, the cold was upon them. For two months Quebec had +been pounded with shot and shell. Her churches and hospitals stood +roofless; hundreds of houses had been fired, vaults and storehouses +pillaged, doors and windows riddled everywhere. There was no digging +entrenchments in the frozen earth. Walls six feet thick had been +breached by artillery; and the loose stones, so cold they were, could +hardly be handled. + +Among these ruins, on the frozen cliff over the frozen river, Murray +and his seven thousand men settled down to wear the winter through. +They were short of food, short of fuel. Frost-bite maimed them at +first; then scurvy, dysentery, fever, began to kill. They laid their +dead out on the snow, to be buried when spring should return and thaw +the earth; and by the end of April their dead numbered six hundred +and fifty. Yet they kept up their spirits. Early in November there +had been rumours that the French under Levis meant to march on the +city and retake it. In December deserters brought word that he was +on his way--that he would storm the city on the twenty-second, and +dine within the citadel on Christmas Day. In January news arrived +that he was preparing scaling-ladders and training his men in the use +of them. Still the days dragged by. The ice on the river began to +break up and swirl past the ramparts on the tides. The end of April +came, and with it a furious midnight storm, and out of the storm a +feeble cry--the voice of a half-dead Frenchman clinging to a floe of +ice far out on the river. He was rescued, placed in a hammock, and +carried up Mountain Street to the General's quarters; and Murray, +roused from sleep at three o'clock in the morning, listened to his +story. He was an artillery-sergeant of Levis's army; and that army, +twelve thousand strong, was close to the gates of Quebec. + +The storm had fallen to a cold drizzle of rain when at dawn Murray's +troops issued from the St. Louis gate and dragged their guns out +through the slush of the St. Foy road. On the ground where Wolfe had +given battle, or hard by, they unlimbered in face of the enemy and +opened fire. Two hours later, outflanked by numbers, having lost a +third of their three thousand in the short fight, they fell back on +the battered walls they had mistrusted. For a few hours the fate of +Quebec hung on a hair. But the garrison could build now; and, while +Levis dragged up his guns from the river, the English worked like +demons. They had guns, at any rate, in plenty; and, while the French +dug and entrenched themselves on the ground they had won, daily the +breaches closed and the English fire grew hotter. + +April gave place to May, and the artillery fire continued on the +heights; but, as it grew noisier it grew also less important, for now +the eyes of both commanders were fastened on the river. Two fleets +were racing for Quebec, and she would belong to the first to drop +anchor within her now navigable river. + +Then came a day when, as Murray sat brooding by the fire in his +quarters in St. Louis Street, an officer ran in with the news of a +ship of war in the Basin, beating up towards the city. "Whatever she +is," said the General, "we will hoist our colours." Weather had +frayed out the halliards on the flagstaff over Cape Diamond, but a +sailor climbed the pole and lashed the British colours beneath the +truck. By this time men and officers in a mob had gathered on the +ramparts of the Chateau St. Louis, all straining their eyes at a +frigate fetching up close-hauled against the wind. + +Her colours ran aloft; but they were bent, sailor-fashion, in a tight +bundle, ready to be broken out when they reached the top-gallant +masthead. + +An officer, looking through a glass, cried out nervously that the +bundle was white. But this they knew without telling. Only--what +would the flag carry on its white ground? The red cross? or the +golden fleurs-de-lys? + +The halliards shook; the folds flew broad to the wind; and, with a +gasp, men leaped on the ramparts--flung their hats in the air and +cheered--dropped, sobbing, on their knees. + +It was the red cross of England. + +They were cheering yet and shouting themselves hoarse when the +_Lowestoffe_ frigate dropped anchor and saluted with all her +twenty-four guns. On the heights the French guns answered +spitefully. Levis would not believe. He had brought his +artillery at length into position, and began to knock the defences +vigorously. He lingered until the battleship _Vanguard_ and the +frigate _Diane_ came sailing up into harbour; until the _Vanguard_, +pressing on with the _Lowestoffe_, took or burned the vessels which +had brought his artillery down from Montreal. Then, in the night, he +decamped, leaving his siege-train, baggage, and sick men behind him. +News of his retreat reached Murray at nightfall, and soon the English +guns were bowling round-shot after him in the dusk across the Plains +of Abraham; but by daybreak, when Murray pushed out after him, to +fall on his rear, he had hurried his columns out of reach. + + +Three months had passed since the flying of the signal from the +_Lowestoffe_, and now in the early days of August three British +armies were moving slowly upon Montreal, where Levis and Governor +Vaudreuil had drawn the main French forces together for a last +resistance. + +Murray came up the river from Quebec with twenty-four hundred men, in +thirty-two vessels and a fleet of boats in company; followed by Lord +Rollo with thirteen hundred men drawn off from dismantled +Louisbourg. As the ships tacked up the river, with their floating +batteries ranged in line to protect the advance, bodies of French +troops followed them along the shore--regiments of white-coated +infantry and horsemen in blue jackets faced with scarlet. +Bourlamaque watched from the southern shore, Dumas from the northern. +But neither dared to attack; and day after day through the lovely +weather, past fields and settlements and woodlands, between banks +which narrowed until from deck one could listen to the song of birds +on either hand and catch the wafted scent of wild flowers, the +British wound their way to Isle Sainte-Therese below Montreal, +encamped, and waited for their comrades. + +From the south came Haviland. He brought thirty-four hundred +regulars, provincials, and Indians from Crown Point on Lake +Champlain, and moved down the Richelieu, driving Bougainville before +him. + +Last, descending from the west by the gate of the Great Lakes, came +the Commander in Chief, the cautious Amherst, with eighteen hundred +soldiers and Indians and over eight hundred bateaux and whale-boats. +He had gathered them at Oswego in July, and now in the second week of +August had crossed the lake to its outlet, threaded the channels of +the Thousand Islands, and was bearing down on the broad river towards +Fort Amitie. + +And how did it stand with Fort Amitie? + +Well, to begin with, the Commandant was thoroughly perplexed. +The British must be near; by latest reports they had reached the +Thousand Islands; even hours were becoming precious, and yet most +unaccountably the reinforcements had not arrived! + +What could M. de Vaudreuil be dreaming of? Already the great Indian +leader, Saint-Luc de la Come, had reached Coteau du Lac with a strong +force of militia. Dominique Guyon had been sent down with an urgent +message of inquiry. But what had been La Corne's answer? "I know +not what M. de Vaudreuil intends. My business is to stay here and +watch the rapids." + +"Now what can be the meaning of that?" the Commandant demanded of his +brother. + +M. Etienne shook his head pensively. "_Rusticus expectat_ . . . +I should have supposed the rapids to stand in no danger." + +"Had the Governor sent word to abandon the Fort, I might have +understood. It would have been the bitterest blow of my life--" + +"Yes, yes, brother," M. Etienne murmured in sympathy. + +"But to leave us here without a word! No; it is impossible. +They _must_ be on their way!" + +In the strength of this confidence Dominique and Bateese had been +dispatched down the river again to meet the reinforcements and hurry +them forward. + +Dominique and Bateese had been absent for a week now on this errand. +Still no relief-boats hove in sight, and the British were coming down +through the Thousand Islands. + +Save in one respect the appearance of the Fort had not changed since +the evening of John a Cleeve's dismissal. The garrison cows still +graced along the river-bank, and in the clearing under the eastern +wall the Indian corn was ripe for harvest (M. Etienne suggested +reaping it; the labour, he urged, would soothe everyone's nerves). +Only on Sans Quartier's cabbage-patch the lunette now stood complete. +All the _habitants_ of Boisveyrac had been brought up to labour in +its erection, building it to the height of ten feet, with an abattis +of trees in front and a raised platform within for the riflemen. +Day after day the garrison manned it and burned powder in defence +against imaginary assaults, and by this time the Commandant and +Sergeant Bedard between them had discussed and provided against every +possible mode of attack. + + +Diane stood in the dawn on the _terre-plein_ of the river-wall. +The latest news of the British had arrived but a few hours since, +with a boatload of fugitives from the upstream mission-house of La +Galette, off which an armed brig lay moored with ten cannon and one +hundred men to check the advance of the flotilla. It could do no +more. + +The fugitives included Father Launoy, and he had landed and begged +Diane to take his place in the crowded boat. For himself (he said) +he would stay and help to serve out ammunition to Fort Amitie--that +was, if the Commandant meant to resist. + +"Do you suppose, then, that I would retire?" the Commandant asked +with indignation. + +"It may be possible to do neither," suggested Father Launoy. + +But this the Commandant could by no means understand. It seemed to +him that either he must be losing his wits or the whole of New +France, from M. de Vaudreuil down, was banded in a league of folly. +"Resist? Of course I shall resist! My men are few enough, Father; +but I beg you to dismiss the notion that Fort Amitie is garrisoned by +cowards." + +"I will stay with you then," said the Jesuit. "I may be useful, in +many ways. But mademoiselle will take my place in the boat and +escape to Montreal." + +"I also stay," answered Diane simply. + +"Excuse me, but there is like to be serious work. They bring the +Iroquois with them, besides Indians from the West." Father Launoy +spoke as one reasoning with a child. + +Diane drew a small pistol from her bodice. "I have thought of that, +you see." + +"But M. de Noel--" He swung round upon the Commandant, +expostulating. + +"In a few hours," said the Commandant, meeting his eyes with a smile, +"New France will have ceased to be. I have no authority to force my +child to endure what I cannot endure myself. She has claimed a +promise of me, and I have given it." + +The priest stepped back a pace, wondering. Swiftly before him passed +a vision of the Intendant's palace at Quebec, with its women and riot +and rottenness. His hand went up to his eyes, and under the shade of +it he looked upon father and daughter--this pair of the old +_noblesse_, clean, comely, ready for the sacrifice. What had New +France done for these that they were cheerful to die for her? +She had doled them out poverty, and now, in the end, betrayal; she +had neglected her children for aliens, she had taken their revenues +to feed extortioners and wantons, and now in the supreme act of +treachery, herself falling with them, she turned too late to read in +their eyes a divine and damning love. There all the while she had +lived--the true New France, loyally trusted, innocently worshipped. +"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." . . . +Father Launoy lowered his gaze to the floor. He had looked and +learned why some nations fall and others worthily endure. + +All that night the garrison had slept by their arms, until with the +first streak of day the drums called them out to their alarm-post. + +Diane stood on the _terre-plein_ watching the sunrise. As yet the +river lay indistinct, a broad wan-coloured band of light stretching +away across the darkness. The outwork on the slope beneath her was a +formless shadow astir with smaller shadows equally formless. +She heard the tread of feet on the wooden platform, the clink of +side-arms and accoutrements, the soft thud of ramrods, the voice of +old Bedard, peevish and grumbling as usual. + +Her face, turned to the revealing dawn, was like and yet curiously +unlike the face into which John a Cleeve had looked and taken his +dismissal; a woman's face now, serener than of old and thoughtfuller. +These two years had lengthened it to a perfect oval, adding a touch +of strength to the brow, a touch of decision to the chin; and, lest +these should overweight it, had removed from the eyes their clouded +trouble and left them clear to the depths. The elfin Diane, the +small woodland-haunting Indian, no longer looked forth from those +windows; no search might find her captive shadow behind them. +She had died young, or had faded away perhaps and escaped back to her +native forests. + +But she is not all forgotten, this lost playmate. Some trick of +gesture reappears as Diane lifts her face suddenly towards the +flagstaff tower. The watchman there has spied something on the +river, and is shouting the news from the summit. + +His arm points down the river. What has he seen? "Canoes!"--the +relief is at hand then! No: there is only one canoe. It comes +swiftly and yet the day overtakes and passes it, spreading a causeway +of light along which it shoots to the landing-quay. + +Two men paddle it--Dominique and Bateese Guyon. Their faces are +haggard, their eyes glassy with want of sleep, their limbs so stiff +that they have to be helped ashore. + +The Commandant steps forward. "What news, my children?" he asks. +His voice is studiously cheerful. + +Dominique shakes his head. + +"There is no relief, Monseigneur." + +"You have met none, you mean?" + +"None is coming, Monseigneur. We have heard it in Montreal." + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +DOMINIQUE. + +"Montreal?" + +While they stood wondering, a dull wave of sound broke on their ears +from the westward, and another, and yet another--the booming of +cannon far up the river. + +"That will be at La Galette," said the Commandant, answering the +question in Dominique's eyes. "Come up to your quarters, my +children, and get some sleep. We have work before us." He motioned +the others to fall back out of hearing while he and Dominique mounted +the slope together. "You had audience, then, of the Governor?" +he asked. + +"He declined to see us, Monseigneur, and I do not blame him, since he +could not send us back telling you to fight. Doubtless it does not +become one in M. de Vaudreuil's position to advise the other thing-- +aloud." + +"I do not understand you. Why could not M. de Vaudreuil order me to +fight?" + +Dominique stared at his master. "Why, Monseigneur,--seeing that he +sends no troops, it would be a queer message. He could not have the +face." + +"Yet he must be intending to strike at the English coming from +Quebec?" + +"They are already arrived and encamped at Isle Sainte-Therese below +the city, and another army has come down the Richelieu from the south +and joined them." + +"It is clear as daylight. M. de Vaudreuil must be meaning to attack +them instantly, and therefore he cannot spare a detachment--You +follow me?" + +"It may be so, Monseigneur," Dominique assented doubtfully. + +"'May be so'! It must be so! But unhappily he does not know of this +third army descending upon him; or, rather, he does not know how near +it is. Yet, to win time for him, we must hold up this army at all +costs." + +"It is I, Monseigneur, who am puzzled. You cannot be intending--" + +"Eh? Speak it out, man!" + +"You cannot be intending to await these English!" + +"Name of thunder! What else do you suppose? Pray, my dear +Dominique, use your wits. We have to gain time, I tell you--time for +our friends below at Montreal." + +"With twenty odd men against as many hundreds? Oh, pardon me, +Monseigneur, but I cannot bring my mind to understand you." + +"But since it gains time--" + +"They will not stay to snap up such a mouthful. They will sail past +your guns, laughing; unless--great God, Monseigneur! If in truth you +intend this folly, where is Mademoiselle Diane? I did not see her in +any of the boats from La Galette. Whither have you sent her, and in +whose charge?" + +"She is yonder on the wall, looking down on us. She will stay; I +have given her my promise." + +Dominique came to a halt, white as a ghost. His tongue touched his +dry lips. "Monseigneur!"--the cry broke from him, and he put out a +hand and caught his seigneur by the coat sleeve. + +"What is the matter with the man?" The Commandant plucked his arm +away and stood back, outraged by this breach of decorum. + +But Dominique, having found his voice, continued heedless. "She must +go! She _shall_ go! It is a wickedness you are doing--do you hear +me, Monseigneur?--a wickedness, a wickedness! But you shall not keep +her here; I will not allow it!" + +"Are you stark mad, Dominique Guyon?" + +"I will not allow it. I love her, I tell you--there, I have said it! +Listen again, Monseigneur, if you do not understand: I love her, I +love her--oh, get that into your head! I love her, and will not +allow it!" + +"Certainly your brain is turned. Go to your quarters, sir; it must +be sleep you want. Yes, yes, my poor fellow, you are pale as a +corpse! Go, get some sleep, and when you wake we will forget all +this." + +"Before God, Monseigneur, I am telling you the truth. I need no +sleep but the sleep of death, and that is like to come soon enough. +But since we were children I have loved your daughter, and in the +strength of that love I forbid you to kill her." + +The Commandant swung round on his heel. + +"Follow me, if you please." + +He led the way to his orderly-room, seated himself at the table, and +so confronted the young man, who stood humbly enough, though with his +pale face twitching. + +"Dominique Guyon, once in my life I made a great mistake; and that +was when, to save my poor son's honour, I borrowed money of one of my +_censitaires_. I perceive now what hopes you have nursed, feeding +them on my embarrassments. You saw me impoverished, brought low, +bereaved by God's will of my only son; you guessed that I lay awake +of nights, troubled by the thought of my daughter, who must inherit +poverty; and on these foundations you laid your schemes. You dreamed +of becoming a _gentilhomme_, of marrying my daughter, of sitting in +my chair at Boisveyrac and dealing justice among the villagers. +And a fine dream it seemed to you, eh?" He paused. + +"Monseigneur," Dominique answered simply, "you say some things that +are true; but you say them so that all seems false and vile. Yes, I +have dreamed dreams--even dreams of becoming a _gentilhomme_, as you +say; but my dreams were never wicked as you colour them, seeing that +they all flowed from love of Mademoiselle Diane, and returned to +her." + +He glanced towards the window, through which the pair could see Diane +pacing the _terre-plein_ in the sunlight. The sight kindled the +elder man to fresh anger. + +"If," said he harshly, "I tried to explain to you exactly how you +insult us, it would be wasting my time and yours; and, however much +you deserve it, I have no wish to wound your feelings beyond need. +Let us come to business." He unlocked a drawer and drew out three +bundles of notes. "As my farmer you will know better than I the +current discount on these. You come from Montreal. At what price +was the Government redeeming its paper there?" + +As he unfolded them, Dominique glanced at the notes, and then let his +gaze wander out through the window. + +"Is Monseigneur proposing to pay me the interest on his bonds?" + +"To be sure I am." + +"I do not ask for it." + +"Devil care I if you ask or not! Count the notes, if you please." + +Dominique took a packet in his hands for a moment, still with his +eyes bent absently on the window, fingered the notes, and laid them +back on the table. + +"Monseigneur will do me the justice to own that in former times I +have given him good advice in business. I beg him to keep these +notes for a while. In a month or two their value will have trebled, +whichever Government redeems them." + +The Commandant struck the table. "In a few hours, sir, I shall be a +dead man. My honour cannot wait so long; and since the question is +now of honour, not of business, you will keep your advice to +yourself. Be quick, please; for time presses, and I have some +instructions to leave to my brother. At my death he will sell the +Seigniory. The Government will take its quint of the purchase-money, +and out of the remainder you shall be paid. My daughter will then go +penniless, but at least I shall have saved her from a creditor with +such claims as you are like to press. And so, sir, I hope you have +your answer." + +"No, Monseigneur, not my answer. That I will never take but from +Mademoiselle Diane herself." + +"By God, you shall have it here and now!" The Commandant stepped to +the window and threw open the casement. "Diane!" he called. + +She came. She stood in the doorway; and Dominique--a moment before +so bold--lowered his eyes before hers. At sight of him her colour +rose, but bravely. She was young, and had been making her account +with death. She had never loved Dominique; she had feared him at +times, and at times pitied him; but now fate had lifted her and set +her feet on a height from which she looked down upon love and fear +with a kind of wonder that they had ever seemed important, and even +her pity for him lost itself in compassion for all men and women in +trouble. In truth, Dominique looked but a miserable culprit before +her. + +The Commandant eyed him grimly for a moment before turning to her. + +"Diane," he said with grave irony, "you will be interested to learn +that Monsieur Dominique Guyon here has done you the honour to request +your hand in marriage." + +She did not answer, but stood reading their faces. + +"Moreover, on my declining that honour, he tells me that he will take +his answer from you alone." + +Still for a few seconds she kept silence. + +"Why should I not answer him, papa?" she said at length, and softly. +"It is not for us to choose what he should ask." She paused. +"All his life Dominique Guyon has been helping us; see how he has, +even in these few days, worn himself in our service!" + +Her father stared at her, puzzled, not following her thought. He had +expected her to be shocked, affronted; he did not know that +Dominique's passion was an old tale to her; and as little did he +perceive that in her present mood she put herself aside and thought +only of Dominique as in trouble and needing help. + +But apparently something in her face reassured him, for he stepped +toward the door. + +"You prefer to give him his answer alone?" + +She bent her head. + +For a while after the door had closed upon the Commandant, Dominique +stood with eyes abased. Then, looking up and meeting the divine +compassion in hers, he fell on his knees and stretched out both hands +to her. + +"Is there no hope for me, ma'amzelle?" + +She shook her head. Looking down on him through tears, she held out +a hand; he took it between his palms and clung to it, sobbing like a +child. + +Terrible, convulsive sobs they were at first, but grew quieter by +degrees, and as the outburst spent itself a deep silence fell upon +the room. + +A tear had fallen upon his clasped knuckles. He put his lips to it +and, imprisoning her fingers, kissed them once, reverently. + +He was a man again. He stood up, yet not releasing her hand, and +looked her in the face. + +"Ma'amzelle, you will leave the Fort? You will let Bateese carry you +out of danger? For me, of course, I stay with the Seigneur." + +"No, Dominique. All New France is dying around us, and I stay with +my father to see the end. Perhaps at the last I shall need you to +help me." She smiled bravely. "You have been trying to persuade my +father, I know." + +"I have been trying to persuade him, and yet--yet--Oh, I will tell to +you a wickedness in my heart that I could not tell even to Father +Launoy! There was a moment when I thought to myself that even to +have you die here and to die beside you were better than to let you +go. Can you forgive me such a thought as that?" + +"I forgive." + +"And will you grant one thing more?" + +"What is it, Dominique?" + +"A silly favour, ma'amzelle--but why not? The English will be here +soon, maybe in a few hours. Let me call Bateese, and we three will +be children again and go up to the edge of the forest and watch for +our enemies. They will be real enemies, this time; but even that we +may forget, perhaps." + +She stood back a pace and laughed--yes, laughed--and gaily, albeit +with dewy eyes. Her hands went up as if she would have clapped them. +"Why, to be sure!" she cried. "Let us fetch Bateese at once!" + +They passed out into the sunlight together, and she waited in the +courtyard while Dominique ran upstairs to fetch Bateese. In five +minutes' time the two brothers appeared together, Bateese with his +pockets enormously bulging--whereat Diane laughed again. + +"So you have brought the larder, as ever. Bateese was always +prudent, and never relied on the game he killed in hunting. +You remember, Dominique?" + +"He was always a poor shot, ma'amzelle," answered Dominique gravely. + +"But this is not the larder!" Bateese began to explain with a queer +look at his brother. + +"Eh?" + +"Never mind explanations! Come along, all three!" cried Dominique, +and led the way. They passed out by the postern unobserved--for the +garrison was assembled in the lunette under the river wall--and +hurried toward the shade of the forest. + +How well Diane remembered the old childish make-believe! How many +scores of times had they played it together, these three, in the +woods around Boisveyrac!--when Dominique and Bateese were bold +huntsmen, and she kept house for them, cooking their imaginary spoils +of the chase. + +"We must have a fire!" she exclaimed, and hurried off to gather +sticks. But when she returned with the lap of her gown well filled, +a fire was already lit and blazing. + +"How have you managed it so quickly?" she asked, and with that her +eyes fell on a scrap of ashes. "Where did you get this? You have +been lighting with paper, Bateese--and that is not playing fair!" + +Bateese, very red in the face, stooped in the smoke and crammed +another handful upon the blaze. + +"They were papers, ma'amzelle, upon which Dominique and I for a long +time could not agree. But now "--he turned to Dominique--"there is +no longer any quarrel between us. Eh, brother?" + +"None, Bateese; none, if you forgive." + +"What did I tell you?" cried Bateese triumphantly. "Did I not always +tell you that your heart would be lighter, with this shadow gone? +And there was never any shadow but this; none--none!" + +"That is all very well," Diane remonstrated; "but you two have no +business to hide a secret from me to-day, even though it make you +happier." + +"We have burnt it for a propitiation, ma'amzelle; it no longer +exists." Bateese cast himself on his back at full length in the +herbage and gazed up through the drifting smoke into the tree-tops +and sky. "A-ah!" said he with a long sigh, "how good God has been to +me! How beautiful He has made all my life!" He propped himself on +one elbow and continued with shining eyes: "What things we were going +to do, in those days! What wonders we looked forward to! And all +the while we were doing the most wonderful thing in the world, for we +loved one another." He stretched out a hand and pointed. "There, by +the bend, the English boats will come in sight. Suppose, Dominique, +that as they come you launched out against them, and fought and sank +the fleet single-handed, like the men in the old tales--" + +"He would save New France, and live in song," Diane put in. +"Would that not content any man, Bateese?" She threw back her head +with a gesture which Dominique noted; a trick of her childhood, when +in moments of excitement her long hair fell across her eyes and had +to be shaken back. + +"Ma'amzelle," he pleaded, "there is yet one favour." + +"Can I grant it easily?" + +"I hope so; it is that you will let down your hair for us." + +Diane blushed, but put up a hand and began to uncoil the tresses. +"Bateese has not answered me," she insisted. "I tell him that a man +who should do such a feat as he named would live in song for ever and +ever." + +"But I say to you humbly, ma'amzelle, that though he lived in song +for ever and ever, the true sweetness of his life would be unknown to +the singers; for he found it here under the branches, and, stepping +forth to his great deed, he left the memory for a while, to meet him +again and be his reward in Heaven." + +"And I say to you 'no,' and 'no,' and again 'no'!" cried Diane, +springing to her feet--the childish, impetuous Diane of old. +"It is in the great deed that he lives--the deed, and the moment that +makes him everlasting! If Dominique now, or I, as these English came +round the bend--" + +She paused, meeting Dominique's eyes. She had not said "or you," +and could not say it. Why? Because Bateese was a cripple. +"Bateese's is a cripple's talk," said their glances one to another, +guiltily, avoiding him. + +Dominique's gaze, flinching a little, passed down the splendid coils +of her hair and rested on the grass at her feet. She lifted a tress +on her forefinger and smoothed it against the sunlight. + +"There was a war once," said she, "between the Greeks and the +Persians; and the Persians overran the Greeks' country until they +came to a pass in the mountains where a few men could stand against +many. There three hundred of the Greeks had posted themselves, +despising death, to oppose an army of tens and hundreds of thousands. +The Persian king sent forward a horseman, and he came near and looked +along the pass and saw but a few Greeks combing their hair and +dressing it carefully, as I am dressing mine." + +"What happened, ma'amzelle?" + +"They died, and live in song for ever and ever!" + +She faced them, her cheeks glowing, and lifted a hand as the note of +a sweet-toned bell rose upon the morning air above the voices of the +birds; of the chapel-bell ringing the garrison to Mass. + +The two young men scrambled to their feet. + +"Come!" said Diane, and they walked back to the Fort together. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +THE FLAGSTAFF TOWER. + +Time pressing, the Commandant had gone straight from the orderly-room +in search of Father Joly. As a soldier and a good Catholic he +desired to be shriven, and as a man of habit he preferred the old +Cure to Father Launoy. To be sure the Cure was deaf as a post, but +on the other hand the Commandant's worst sins would bear to be +shouted. + +"There is yet one thing upon my conscience," he wound up. "The fact +is, I feel pretty sure of myself in this business, but I have some +difficulty in trusting God." + +It is small wonder that a confession so astonishing had to be +repeated twice, and even when he heard it Father Joly failed to +understand. + +"But how is it possible to mistrust God?" he asked. + +"Well, I don't know. I suppose that even in bringing New France so +near to destruction He is acting in loving mercy; but all the same it +will be a wrench to me if these English pass without paying us the +honour of a siege. For if we cannot force them to a fight, Montreal +is lost." The Commandant believed this absolutely. + +Father Joly was Canadian born and bred; had received his education in +the Seminary of Quebec; and knowing nothing of the world beyond New +France, felt no doubt upon which side God was fighting. If it were +really necessary to New France that the English should be delayed-- +and he would take the Commandant's word for it--why then delayed they +would be. This he felt able to promise. "And I in my heart of +hearts am sure of it," said the Commandant. "But in war one has to +take account of every chance, and this may pass sometimes for want of +faith." + +So, like an honest gentleman, he took his absolution, and afterwards +went to Mass and spent half an hour with his mind withdrawn from all +worldly care, greatly to his soul's refreshment. But with the +ringing of the sanctus bell a drum began to beat--as it seemed, on +the very ridge of the chapel roof, but really from the leads of the +flagstaff tower high above it. Father Launoy paused in the +celebration, but was ordered by a quiet gesture to proceed. Even at +the close the garrison stood and waited respectfully for their +Commandant to walk out, and followed in decent order to the porch. +Then they broke into a run pell-mell for the walls. + +But an hour passed before the first whaleboat with its load of red +uniforms pushed its way into sight through the forest screen. +Then began a spectacle--slow, silent, by little and little +overwhelming. It takes a trained imagination to realise great +numbers, and the men of Fort Amitie were soon stupefied and ceased +even to talk. It seemed to them that the forest would never cease +disgorging boats. + +"A brave host, my children! But we will teach them that they handle +a wasps' nest." + +His men eyed the Commandant in doubt; they could scarcely believe +that he intended to resist, now that the enemy's strength was +apparent. To their minds war meant winning or losing, capturing or +being captured. To fight an impossible battle, for the mere sake of +gaining time for troops they had never seen, did not enter into their +calculations. + +So they eyed him, while still the flotilla increased against the far +background and came on--whaleboats, gunboats, bateaux, canoes; and +still in the lessening interval along the waterway the birds sang. +For the British moved, not as once upon Lake George startling the +echoes with drums and military bands, but so quietly that at half a +mile's distance only the faint murmur of splashing oars and creaking +thole-pins reached the ears of the watchers. + +The Commandant suddenly lowered his glass and closed it with a snap, +giving thanks to God. For at that distance the leading boats began +heading in for shore. + +"Etienne, he intends at least to summon us!" + +So it proved. General Amherst was by no means the man to pass and +leave a hostile post in his rear. His detractors indeed accused him +of spending all his time upon forts, either in building or in +reducing them. But he had two very good reasons for pausing before +Fort Amitie; he did not know the strength of its defenders, and he +wanted pilots to guide his boats down the rapids below. + +Therefore he landed and sent an officer forward to summon the +garrison. + +The officer presented himself at the river-gate, and having politely +suffered Sergeant Bedard to blindfold him, was led to the +Commandant's quarters. A good hour passed before he reappeared, the +Commandant himself conducting him; and meantime the garrison amused +itself with wagering on the terms of capitulation. + +At the gate the Englishman's bandage was removed. He saluted, and +was saluted, with extreme ceremony. The Commandant watched him out +of earshot, and then, rubbing his hands, turned with a happy smile. + +"To your guns, my children!" + +They obeyed him, while they wondered. He seemed to take for granted +that they must feel the compliment paid them by a siege in form. + +The day was now well advanced, and it seemed at first +that the British meant to let it pass without a demonstration. +Toward nightfall, however, four gunboats descended the river, +anchored and dropped down the current, paying out their hawsers and +feeling their way into range. But the Fort was ready for them, +and opened fire before they could train their guns; a lucky shot +cut the moorings of one clean and close by the stem; and, the +current carrying her inshore, she was hulled twice as she drifted +down-stream. The other three essayed a few shots without effect in +the dusk, warped back out of range, and waited for daylight to +improve their marksmanship. + +And with daylight began one of the strangest of sieges, between an +assailant who knew only that he had to deal with stout walls, and a +defender who dared not attempt even a show of a sortie for fear of +exposing the weakness of his garrison. The French had ammunition +enough to last for a month, and cannon enough to keep two hundred men +busy; and ran from one gun to another, keeping up pretences but doing +little damage in their hurry. Their lucky opening shots had +impressed Amherst, and he was one to cling to a notion of his enemy's +strength. He solemnly effected a new landing at six hundred yards' +distance, opened his lines across the north-western corner of the +fort, kept his men entrenching for two days and two nights, brought +up thirty guns, and, advancing them within two hundred yards, began +at his leisure to knock holes in the walls. Meantime, twenty guns, +anchored out in the river, played on the broad face of the fort and +swept the Commandant's lunette out of existence. And with all this +prodigious waste of powder but five of the garrison had fallen, and +three of these by the bursting of a single shell. The defenders +understood now that they were fighting for time, and told each other +that when their comedy was played out and the inevitable moment came, +the British General would not show himself fierce in revenge-- +"provided," they would add, "the Seigneur does not try his patience +too far." It was Father Launoy who set this whisper going from lip +to lip, and so artfully that none suspected him for its author; +Father Launoy, who had been wont to excite the patriotism of the +faithful by painting the English as devils in human shape. He was a +brave man; but he held this resistance to be senseless and did not +believe for an instant that Montreal would use the delay or, using +it, would strike with any success. + +At first the tremendous uproar of the enemy's artillery and its +shattering effect on the masonry of their fortress, had numbed the +militiamen's nerves; they felt the place tumbling about their ears. +But as the hours passed they discovered that round-shot could be +dodged and that even bursting shells, though effective against stones +and mortar, did surprisingly small damage to life and limb; and with +this discovery they began almost to taste the humour of the +situation. They fed and rested in bomb-proof chambers which the +Commandant and M. Etienne had devised in the slope of earth under the +_terre-plein_; and from these they watched and discussed in safety +the wreckage done upon the empty buildings across the courtyard. + +One of these caves had at the beginning of the siege been assigned +to Diane; and from the mouth of it, seated with Felicite beside her, +she too watched the demolition; but with far different thoughts. +She knew better than these militiamen her father's obstinacy, and +that his high resolve reached beyond the mere gaining of time. +It seemed to her that God was drawing out the agony; and with the end +before her mind she prayed Him to shorten this cruel interval. + +Early on the third morning the British guns had laid open a breach +six feet wide at the north-western angle, close by the foot of the +flagstaff tower; and Amherst, who had sent off a detachment of the +Forty-sixth with a dozen Indian guides to fetch a circuit through the +woods and open a feint attack in the rear of the fort, prepared for a +general assault. But first he resolved to summon the garrison again. + +To carry his message he chose the same officer as before, a Captain +Muspratt of the Forty-fourth Regiment. + +Now as yet the cannonade had not slackened, and it chanced that as +the General gave Muspratt his instructions, an artillery sergeant in +command of a battery of mortars on the left, which had been advanced +within two hundred yards of the walls, elevated one of his pieces and +lobbed a bomb clean over the summit of the flagstaff tower. + +It was a fancy shot, fired--as the army learnt afterwards--for a +wager; but its effect staggered all who watched it. The fuse was +quick, and the bomb, mounting on its high curve, exploded in a direct +line between the battery and the flagstaff. One or two men from the +neighbouring guns shouted bravos. The sergeant slapped his thigh and +was turning for congratulations, but suddenly paused, stock-still and +staring upward. + +The flagstaff stood, apparently untouched. But what had become of +the flag? + +A moment before it had been floating proudly enough, shaking its +folds loose to the light breeze. Now it was gone. Had the explosion +blown it to atoms? Not a shred of it floated away on the wind. + +A man on the sergeant's right called out positively that a couple of +seconds after the explosion, and while the smoke was clearing, he had +caught a glimpse of something white--something which looked like a +flag--close by the foot of the staff; and that an arm had reached up +and drawn it down hurriedly. He would swear to the arm; he had seen +it distinctly above the edge of the battlements. In his opinion the +fort was surrendering, and someone aloft there had been pulling down +the flag as the bomb burst. + +The General, occupied for the moment in giving Captain Muspratt his +instructions, had not witnessed the shot. But he turned at the shout +which followed, caught sight of the bare flagstaff, and ordering his +bugler to sound the "Cease firing," sent forward the captain at once +to parley. + +With Muspratt went a sergeant of the Forty-sixth and a bugler. +The sergeant carried a white flag. Ascending the slope briskly, they +were met at the gate by M. Etienne. + +The sudden disappearance of the flag above the tower had mystified +the garrison no less thoroughly than the British. They knew the +Commandant to be aloft there with Sergeant Bedard, and the most of +the men could only guess, as their enemies had guessed, that he was +giving the signal of surrender. + +But this M. Etienne could by no means believe; it belied his +brother's nature as well as his declared resolve. And so, while the +English captain with great politeness stated his terms--which were +unconditional surrender and nothing less--the poor gentleman kept +glancing over his shoulder and answering at random, "Yes, yes," or +"Precisely--if you will allow me," or "Excuse me a moment, until my +brother--" In short, he rambled so that Captain Muspratt could only +suppose his wits unhinged. It was scarce credible that a sane man +could receive such a message inattentively, and yet this old +gentleman did not seem to be listening! + +Diane meanwhile stood at the mouth of her shelter with her eyes +lifted, intent upon the tower's summit. She, too had seen the flag +run down with the bursting of the bomb, and she alone had hit in her +mind on the true explanation--that a flying shard had cut clean +through the up-halliard close to the staff, and the flag--heavy with +golden lilies of her own working--had at once dropped of its own +weight. She had caught sight, too, of her father's arm reaching up +to grasp it, and she knew why. The flagstaff had a double set of +halliards. + +She waited--waited confidently, since her father was alive up there. +She marvelled that he had escaped, for the explosion had seemed to +wrap the battlements in one sheet of fire. Nevertheless he was +safe--she had seen him--and she waited for the flag to rise again. + +Minutes passed. She took a step forward from her shelter. +The firing had ceased and the courtyard was curiously still and +empty. Then four of the five militiamen posted to watch the back +of the building came hurrying across towards the gateway. +She understood--her senses being strung for the moment so tensely +that they seemed to relieve her of all trouble of thinking--she +understood that a parley was going forward at the gate and that these +men were hurrying from their posts to hear it. In her ears the +bugles still sounded the "Cease firing "; and still she gazed up at +the tower. + +Yes--she had made no mistake! The spare halliards were shaking; in a +second or two--but why did they drag so interminably?--the flag would +rise again. + +And it rose. Before her eyes, before the eyes of the parleyers in +the gateway and of the British watching from their batteries, it rose +above the edge of the battlements and climbed half-way up the mast, +or a little short of half-way. There it stopped--climbed a few feet +higher--and stopped again--climbed yet another foot--and slowly, very +slowly, fluttered downward. + +With a dreadful surmise Diane started to run across the courtyard +toward the door at the foot of the tower; and even as she started a +yell went up from the rear of the fort, followed by a random volley +of musketry and a second yell--a true Iroquois war-whoop. + +In the gateway Captain Muspratt called promptly to his bugler. +The first yell had told him what was happening; that the men of the +Forty-sixth, sent round for the feint attack, had found the rear wall +defenceless and were escalading, in ignorance of the parley at the +gate. + +Quick as thought the bugler sounded the British recall, and its notes +were taken up by bugle after bugle down the slope. The Major +commanding the feint attack heard, comprehended after a fashion, and +checked his men; and the Forty-sixth, as a well-disciplined regiment, +dropped off its scaling ladders and came to heel. + +But he could not check his Indian guides. Once already on their +progress down the river they had been baulked of their lust to kill; +and this restraint had liked them so little that already +three-fourths of Sir William Johnson's Iroquois were marching back to +their homes in dudgeon. These dozen braves would not be cheated a +second time if they could help it. Disregarding the shouts and the +bugle-calls they swarmed up the ladders, dropped within the fort, and +swept through the Commandant's quarters into the courtyard. + +In the doorway at the foot of the flagstaff tower a woman's skirt +fluttered for an instant and was gone. They raced after it like a +pack of mad dogs, and with them ran one, an Ojibway, whom neither +hate nor lust, but a terrible fear, made fleeter than any. + +Six of them reached the narrow doorway together, snarling and +jostling in their rage. The Ojibway broke through first and led the +way up the winding stairway, taking it three steps at a time, with +death behind him now--though of this he recked nothing--since he had +clubbed an Oneida senseless in the doorway, and these Indians, +Oneidas all, had from the start resented his joining the party of +guides. + +Never a yard separated him from the musket-butt of the Indian who +panted next after him; but above, at the last turning of the stair +under a trap-door through which the sunlight poured, he caught again +the flutter of a woman's skirt. A ladder led through the hatchway, +and--almost grasping her frock--he sprang up after Diane, flung +himself on the leads, reached out, and clutching the hatch, slammed +it down on the foremost Oneida's head. + +As he slipped the bolt--thank God it had a bolt!--he heard the man +drop from the ladder with a muffled thud. Then, safe for a moment, +he ran to the battlements and shouted down at the pitch of his voice. + +"Forty-sixth! This way, Forty-sixth!" + +His voice sounded passing strange to him. Nor for two years had it +been lifted to pronounce an English word. + +Having sent down his call he ran back swiftly to the closed hatchway; +and as he knelt, pressing upon it with both hands, his eyes met +Diane's. + +She stood by the flagstaff with a pistol in her hand. But her hand +hung stiffly by her hip as it had dropped at the sound of his shout, +and her eyes stared on him. At her feet lay the Commandant, his hand +still rigid upon the halliards, his breast covered by the folds of +the fallen flag, and behind her, as the bursting shell had killed and +huddled it, the body of old Sergeant Bedard. + +Why she stood there, pistol in hand, he could partly guess. +How these two corpses came here he could not guess at all. +The Commandant, mortally wounded, had grasped at the falling flag, +and with a dying effort had bent it upon the spare halliards and +tried to hoist. It lay now, covering a wound which had torn his +chest open, coat and flesh, and laid his ribs bare. + +But John a Cleeve, kneeling upon the hatchway, understood nothing of +this. What beat on his brain was the vision of a face below--the +face of the officer commanding--turned upwards in blank astonishment +at his shout of "Forty-sixth! This way, Forty-sixth!" + +The Indians were battering the hatch with their musket-butts. +The bolt shook. He pressed his weight down on the edge, keeping his +head well back to be out of the way of bullets. Luckily the timbers +of the hatch were stout, and moreover it had a leaden casing, but +this would avail nothing when the Indians began to fire at the +hinges--as they surely would. + +He found himself saying aloud in French, "Run, mademoiselle!--I won't +answer for the hinges. Call again to the red-coats! They will +help." + +But still, while blow after blow shook the hatch, Diane crouched +motionless, staring at him with wild eyes. + +"They will help," he repeated with the air of one striving to speak +lucidly; then with a change of tone, "Give me your pistol, please." + +She held it out obediently, at arm's length; but as he took it she +seemed to remember, and crept close. + +"Non--non!" she whispered. "C'est a moi-que tu le dois, enfin!" + +From the staircase--not close beneath the hatch, but, as it seemed, +far below their feet--came the muffled sound of shots, and between +the shots hoarse cries of rage. + +"Courage!" whispered John. He could hear that men were grappling and +fighting down there, and supposed the Forty-sixth to be at hand. +He could not know that the parleyers at the gate, appalled for an +instant by the vision of Diane with a dozen savages in chase, had +rallied at a yell from Dominique Guyon, pelted after him to the +rescue, and were now at grips with the rearmost Oneidas--a locked and +heaving mass choking the narrow spirals of the stairway. + +"Courage!" he whispered again, and pressing a knee on the edge of the +hatch reached out a hand to steady her. What mattered it if they +died now--together--he and she? "_Tu dois_"--she loved him; her lips +had betrayed her. "_Tu dois_"--the words sang through him, +thrilling, bathing him in bliss. + +"O my love! O my love!" + +The blows beat upward against the hatch and ceased. He sprang erect, +slid an arm around her and dragged her back--not a second too soon. +A gun exploded against the hinges at their feet, blowing one loose. +John saw the crevice gaping and the muzzle of a gun pushed through to +prise it open. He leaped upon the hatch, pistol in hand. + +"Forty-sixth! Forty-sixth!" + +What was that? Through the open crevice a British cheer answered +him. The man levering against his weight lost hold of the gun, +leaving it jammed. John heard the slide and thud of his fall. + +"Hallo!" hailed a cheerful voice from the foot of the ladder. +"You there!--open the trap-way and show us some light!" + +John knelt, slipped back the bolt, and turned to Diane. She had +fallen on her knees--but what had happened to her? She was cowering +before the joy in his face, shrinking away from him and yet +beseeching. + +"Le pistolet--donne-moi le pistolet!"--her voice hissed on the word, +her eyes petitioned him desperately. "Ah, de grace! tu n'a pas le +droit--" + +He understood. With a passing bitter laugh he turned from her +entreaties and hurled the pistol across the battlements into air. +A hand flung open the hatch. A British officer--Etherington, Major +of the Forty-sixth--pushed his head and shoulders through he opening +and stared across the leads, panting, with triumphant jolly face. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +THE FORT SURRENDERS. + +The red-coats, who had forced their way up the tower by weight of +numbers and at the point of the bayonet, were now ordered to face +about and clear the stairway; which they did, driving the mixed +rabble of Canadians and Indians down before them, and collecting the +dead and wounded as they went. Five of the Oneidas had been +bayoneted or trampled to death in the struggle; two of the garrison +would never fight again, and scarcely a man had escaped cuts or +bruises. + +But Diane, as she followed her father's body down the stairs, knew +nothing of this. The dead and wounded had been removed. The narrow +lancet windows let in a faint light, enough to reveal some ugly +stains and splashes on the walls; but she walked with fixed unseeing +eyes. Once only on the way down her foot slid on the edge of a +slippery step, and she shivered. + +In the sunlight outside the doorway a group of men, mauled and +sullen, some wearing bandages, others with blood yet trickling down +their faces, stood listening to an altercation between M. Etienne and +a couple of spick-and-span British officers. As their Commandant's +body came through the doorway they drew together with a growl. +Love was in that sound, and sorrow, and helpless rage. One or two +broke into sobs. + +The British officers--one of them was the General himself, the other +his messenger, Captain Muspratt--bared their heads. M. Etienne, +checked in the midst of an harangue, stepped to Diane and took her +hand tenderly. + +She gazed slowly around on the group of battered men. There was no +reproach in her look--Had she not failed as miserably as they?--and +yet it held a word of injustice. She could not know that for her +sake they carried these wounds. And Dominique Guyon, the one man who +could have answered her thoughts, stared savagely at the ground, +offering no defence. + +"Dominique Guyon," commanded M. Etienne, "four of you will relieve +these _messieurs_ of their burden. Carry your master to the chapel, +where you will find Father Launoy and Father Joly." + +"But pardon me, monsieur," interposed Amherst politely, "my soldiers +will be proud to bear so gallant a foe." + +"I thank you "--M. Etienne's bow was stiff and obstinate--"but I +assert again that I still command this fortress, and the bearers +shall be of my choosing." + +Diane laid a hand on her uncle's arm. "He is dead," said she. +"What matters it?" She did not understand this dispute. "Perhaps if +I promise M. le General that these men shall return to him when they +have laid my father in the chapel--" + +The General--a tall, lean, horse-faced man with a shrewd and not +unkindly eye--yielded the point at once. "Willingly, mademoiselle, +and with all the respect an enemy may pay to your sorrow." + +He ordered the men to give place to the new bearers. + +In the chapel Diane sank on her knees, but not to pray--rather to +escape the consolations of the two priests and be alone with her +thoughts. And her thoughts were not of her father. The stroke had +fallen; but not yet could she feel the pain. He was happy; he alone +of them all had kept his quiet vow, and died disdaining defeat; +whereas she--ah, there lay the terrible thought!--she had not merely +failed, had not been overpowered. In the crisis, beside her father's +corpse, she had played the traitress to her resolve. + +The two priests moved about the body, arranging it, fetching +trestles, draperies, and candles for the _lit de parade_, always with +stealthy glances at the bowed figure in the shadow just within the +door. But she knelt on, nor lifted her face. + +In the sunlit courtyard without the two commanders were still +disputing. M. Etienne flatly refused to yield up his sword, +maintaining that he had never surrendered, had agreed to no terms of +capitulation; that the redcoats had swarmed over his walls in the +temporary absence of their defenders, gathered at the gateway to +parley under a flag of truce, and should be drawn off at once. + +The mischief was, he could not be gainsaid. Major Etherington +explained--at first in English, to his General, and again, at his +General's request, in the best French he could command, for the +benefit of all, that he had indeed heard the recall blown, and had +with difficulty drawn off his men from the scaling-ladders, +persuading them (as he himself was persuaded) that the fort had +surrendered. He knew nothing of the white flag at the gateway, but +had formed his conclusions from the bugle-calls and the bare +flagstaff above the tower. + +"Nevertheless, we had not capitulated," persisted M. Etienne. + +The Major continued that, albeit he had tried his best, the Indians +were not to be restrained. They had poured into the fort, and, +although he had obeyed the bugles and kept his men back, it had cost +him grave misgivings. But when the Ojibway called down so urgently +from the summit of the tower, he had risked disobedience, hoping to +prevent the massacre which he knew to be afoot. He appealed to his +General to approve, or at least condone, this breach of orders. +For undoubtedly massacre had been prevented. Witness the crowd he +had found jammed in the stairway, and fighting ferociously. +Witness the scene that had met him at the head of the stairs. +Here he swung round upon John and beckoned him to stand out from the +listening group of red-coats. + +"It can be proved, sir," he went on, addressing M. Etienne, "that the +lady--your niece, is she not?--owes her life, and more than her life +perhaps, to this savage. I claim only that, answering his call, I +led my men with all possible speed to the rescue. Up there on the +leads I found your brother lying dead, with a sergeant dead beside +him; and their wounds again will prove to you that they had perished +by the bursting of a shell. But this man alone stood on the hatchway +and held it against a dozen Iroquois, as your niece will testify. +What you suppose yourself to owe him, I won't pretend to say; but I +tell you--and I tell you, General--that cleaner pluck I never saw in +my life." + +John, the soldiers pushing him forward, stood out with bent head. +He prayed that there might be no Ojibway interpreter at hand; he knew +of none in the fort but Father Launoy, now busy in the chapel laying +out the Commandant's body. Of all the spectators there was but one-- +the General himself--who had not known him either as Ensign John a +Cleeve or as the wounded sergeant from Ticonderoga. He had met +Captain Muspratt at Albany, and remembered him well on the march up +the Hudson to Lake George. With Major Etherington he had marched, +messed, played at cards, and lived in close comradeship for months +together--only two years ago! It was not before their eyes that he +hung his head, but before the thought of two eyes that in the chapel +yonder were covered by the hands of a kneeling girl. + +M. Etienne stepped forward and took his hand. + +"I thank you, my friend--if you can understand my thanks." + +Dominique Guyon, returning from the chapel, saw only an Indian +stepping back upon the ranks of the red-coats, who clapped him on the +shoulder for a good fellow; and Dominique paid him no more attention, +being occupied with M. Etienne's next words. + +"Nevertheless," said M. Etienne, turning upon Amherst, "my duty to +his Majesty obliges me to insist that I have not capitulated; and +your troops, sir, though they have done me this service, must be at +once withdrawn." + +And clearly, by all the rules of war, M. Etienne had the right on his +side. Amherst shrugged his shoulders, frowning and yet forced to +smile--the fix was so entirely absurd. As discipline went in these +North American campaigns, he commanded a well-disciplined army; but +numbers of provincials and bateau-men had filtered in through the +breaches almost unobserved during the parley, and were now strolling +about the fortifications like a crowd of inquisitive tourists. +He ordered Major Etherington to clear them out, and essayed once more +to reason with the enemy. + +"You do not seriously urge me, monsieur, to withdraw my men and renew +the bombardment?" + +"That is precisely what I require of you." + +"But--good heavens, my dear sir!--look at the state of your walls!" +He waved a hand towards the defences. + +"I see them; but _you_, sir, as a gentleman, should have no eyes for +their condition--on this side." + +The General arched his eyebrows and glanced from M. Etienne to the +Canadians; he did not for a moment mean to appeal to them, but his +glance said involuntarily, "A pretty madman you have for commander!" + +And in fact they were already murmuring. What nonsense was this of +M. Etienne's? The fort had fallen, as any man with eyes could see. +Their Commandant was dead. They had fought to gain time? Well, they +had succeeded, and won compliments even from their enemy. + +Corporal Sans Quartier spoke up. "With all respect, M. le Capitaine, +if we fight again some of us would like to know what we are fighting +for." + +M. Etienne swung round upon him. + +"Tais-toi, poltron!" + +A murmur answered him; and looking along the line of faces he read +sympathy, respect, even a little shame, but nowhere the response he +sought. + +Nor did he reproach them. Bitter reproaches indeed shook his lips, +but trembled there and died unuttered. For five--maybe ten--long +seconds he gazed, and so turned towards the General. + +"Achevez, monsieur! . . . Je vous demande pardon si vous me trouvez +un peu pointilleux." His voice shook; he unbuckled his sword, held +it for a moment between his hands as if hesitating, then offered it +to Amherst with the ghost of a bitter smile. "Cela ne vaut pas--sauf +a moi--la peine de le casser . . ." + +He bowed, and would have passed on towards the chapel. Amherst +gently detained him. + +"I spare you my compliments, sir, and my condolence; they would be +idly offered to a brave man at such a moment. Forgive me, though, +that I cannot spare to consult you on my own affairs. Time presses +with us. You have, as I am told, good pilots here who know the +rapids between this and Montreal, and I must beg to have them pointed +out to me." + +M. Etienne paused. "The best pilots, sir, are Dominique Guyon there, +and his brother Bateese. But you will find that most of these men +know the river tolerably well." + +"And the rest of your garrison? Your pardon, again, but I must hold +you responsible, to deliver up _all_ your men within the Fort." + +"I do not understand . . . This, sir, is all the garrison of Fort +Amitie." + +Amherst stared at the nineteen or twenty hurt and dishevelled men +ranged against the tower wall, then back into a face impossible to +associate with untruth. + +"M. le Capitaine," said he very slowly, "if with these men you have +made a laughing-stock of me for two days and a half, why then I owe +you a grudge. But something else I owe, and must repay at once. +Be so good as to receive back a sword, sir, of which I am all +unworthy to deprive you." + +But as he proffered it, M. Etienne put up both hands to thrust the +gift away, then covered his face with them. + +"Not now, monsieur--not now! To-morrow perhaps . . . but not now, or +I may break it indeed!" + +Still with his face covered, he tottered off towards the chapel. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +THE RAPIDS. + +They had run the Galops rapids, Point Iroquois, Point Cardinal, the +Rapide Plat, without disaster though not without heavy toil. The +fury of the falls far exceeded Amherst's expectations, but he +believed that he had seen the worst, and he blessed the pilotage of +Dominique and Bateese Guyon. + +Here and there the heavier bateaux carrying the guns would be warped +or pushed and steadied along shore in the shallow water under the +bank, by gangs, to avoid some peril over which the whaleboats rode +easily; and this not only delayed the flotilla but accounted for the +loss of a few men caught at unawares by the edge of the current, +swept off their legs, and drowned. + +On the first day of September they ran the Long Saut and floated +across the still basin of Lake St. Francis. At the foot of the lake +the General landed a company or two of riflemen to dislodge La +Corne's militia; but La Corne was already falling back upon the lower +rapids, and, as it turned out, this redoubtable partisan gave no +trouble at all. + +They reached and passed Coteau du Lac on the 3rd. + +Dominique and Bateese steered the two leading whaleboats, setting the +course for the rest as they had set it all the way down from Fort +Amitie. By M. Etienne's request, he and his niece and the few +disabled prisoners from the fort travelled in these two boats under a +small guard. It appeared that the poor gentleman's wits were shaken; +he took an innocent pride now in the skill of the two brothers, his +family's _censitaires_, and throughout the long days he discoursed on +it wearisomely. The siege--his brother's death--Fort Amitie itself +and his two years and more of residence there--seemed to have faded +from his mind. He spoke of Boisveyrac as though he had left it but a +few hours since. + +"And the General," said he to Diane, "will be interested in seeing +the Seigniory." + +"A sad sight, monsieur!" put in Bateese, overhearing him. +(Just before embarking, M. Etienne, Diane and Felicite had been +assigned to Bateese's boat, while Father Launoy, Father Joly and two +wounded prisoners travelled in Dominique's.) "A sight to break the +heart! We passed it, Dominique and I, on our way to and from +Montreal. Figure to yourself that the corn was standing already +over-ripe, and it will be standing yet, though we are in September!" + +"The General will make allowances," answered M. Etienne with grave +simplicity. "He will understand that we have had no time for +harvesting of late. Another year--" + +Diane shivered. And yet--was it not better to dote thus, needing no +pity, happy as a child, than to live sane and feel the torture? +Better perhaps, but best and blessedest to escape the choice as her +father had escaped it! As the river bore her nearer to Boisveyrac +she saw his tall figure pacing the familiar shores, pausing to con +the acres that were his and had been his father's and his father's +father's. She saw and understood that smile of his which had so +often puzzled her as a child when she had peered up into his face +under its broad-brimmed hat and noted his eyes as they rested on the +fields, the clearings, the forest; noted his cheeks reddened with +open-air living; his firm lips touched with pride--the pride of a +king treading his undisputed ground. In those days she and Armand +had been something of an enigma to their father, and he to them; +their vision tinged and clouded, perhaps, by a drop or two of dusky +Indian blood. But now he had suddenly become intelligible to her, an +heroic figure, wonderfully simple. She let her memory call up +picture after picture of him--as he sat in the great parlour hearing +"cases," dispensing fatherly justice; as he stood up at a marriage +feast to drink the bride's and bridegroom's health and commend their +example to all the young _habitants_; as he patted the heads of the +children trooping to their first communion; as he welcomed his +_censitaires_ on St. Martin's day, when they poured in with their +rents--wheat, eggs and poultry--the poultry all alive, heels tied, +heads down, throats distended and squalling--until the barnyard +became Babel, and still he went about pinching the fowls' breasts, +running the corn through his hands, dispensing a word of praise here, +a prescription there, and kindness everywhere. Now bad harvests +would vex him no more, nor the fate of his familiar fields. +In the wreck of all he had lived for, his life had stood up clear for +a moment, complete in itself and vindicated. And the moment which +had revealed had also ended it; he lay now beneath the chapel +pavement at Fort Amitie, indifferently awaiting judgment, his sword +by his side. + +They ran the Cedars and, taking breath on the smooth waters below, +steered for the shore where the towers and tall chimneys of +Boisveyrac crept into view, and the long facade of the Seigniory, +slowly unfolding itself from the forest. + +Here the leading boats were brought to land while the flotilla +collected itself for the next descent. A boat had capsized and +drowned its crew in the Long Saut, and Amherst had learnt the lesson +of that accident and thenceforward allowed no straggling. Constant +to his rule, too, of leaving no post in his rear until satisfied that +it was harmless, he proposed to inspect the Seigniory, and sent a +message desiring M. Etienne's company--and Mademoiselle's, if to +grant this favour would not distress her. + +Diane prayed to be excused; but M. Etienne accepted with alacrity. +He had saluted the first glimpse of the homestead with a glad cry, +eager as a schoolboy returning for his holidays. He met the General +on the slope with a gush of apologies. 'He must overlook the unkempt +condition of the fields. . . . Boisveyrac was not wont to make so +poor a show . . . the estate, in fact, though not rich, had always +been well kept up . . . the stonework was noted throughout New +France, and every inch of timber (would M. le General observe?) +thoroughly well seasoned. . . . Yes, those were the arms above the +entrance--Noel quartering Tilly--two of the oldest families in the +province . . . If M. le General took an interest in heraldry, these +other quarterings were worth perusal . . . de Repentigny, +de Contrecoeur, Traversy, St. Ours, de Valrennes, de la Mothe, +d'Ailleboust . . . and the windmill would repay an ascent . . . +the view from its summit was magnificent. . . .' + +Diane, seated in the boat and watching, saw him halt and point out +the escutcheons; saw him halt again in the gateway and spread out his +arms to indicate the solidity of the walls; could almost, reading his +gestures, hear the words they explained; and her cheeks burned with +shame. + +"A fine estate!" said a voice in the next boat. + +"Yes, indeed," answered Bateese at her elbow; "there is no Seigniory +to compare with Boisveyrac. And we will live to welcome you back to +it, mademoiselle. The English are no despoilers, they tell me." + +She glanced at Dominique. He had filled a pipe, and, as he smoked, +his eyes followed her uncle's gestures placidly. Scorn of him, scorn +of herself, intolerable shame, rose in a flood together. + +"If my uncle behaves like a _roturier_, it is because his mind is +gone. Shall _we_ spy on him and laugh?--ghosts of those who are +afraid to die!" + +Father Launoy looked up from his breviary. + +"Mademoiselle is unjust," said he quietly. "To my knowledge, those +servants of hers, whom she reproaches, have risked death and taken +wounds, in part for her sake." + +Diane sat silent, gazing upon the river. Yes, she had been unjust, +and she knew it. Felicite had told her how the garrison had rushed +after Dominique to rescue her, and of the struggle in the stairway of +the tower. Dominique bore an ugly cut, half-healed yet, reaching +from his right eyebrow across the cheekbone--the gash of an Indian +knife. Bateese could steer with his left hand only; his right he +carried in a sling. And the two men lying at this moment by Father +Launoy's feet had taken their wounds for her sake. Unjust she had +been; bitterly unjust. How could she explain the secret of her +bitterness--that she despised herself? + +Boats were crowding thick around them now, many of them half filled +with water. The crews, while they baled, had each a separate tale to +tell of their latest adventure; each, it seemed, had escaped +destruction by a hair's-breadth. The Cedars had been worse even than +the Long Saut. They laughed and boasted, wringing their clothes. +The nearest flung questions at Dominique, at Bateese. The Cascades, +they understood, were the worst in the whole chain of rapids, always +excepting the La Chine. But the La Chine were not to be attempted; +the army would land above them, at Isle Perrot perhaps, or at the +village near the falls, and cover the last nine or ten miles on foot. +But what of the Buisson? and of the Roches Fendues? + +More than an hour passed in this clamour, and still the boats +continued to crowd around. The first-comers, having baled, were +looking to their accoutrements, testing the powder in their flasks, +repolishing the locks and barrels of their muskets. "To be sure La +Corne and his militiamen had disappeared, but there was still room +for a skirmish between this and Lake St. Louis; if he had posted +himself on the bank below, he might prove annoying. The rapids were +bad enough without the addition of being fired upon during the +descent, when a man had work enough to hold tight by the gunwale and +say his prayers. Was the General sending a force down to clear La +Corne out?" + +"Diane!" + +A crowd of soldiers had gathered on the bank, shutting out all view +of the Seigniory. Diane, turning at the sound of her uncle's voice, +saw the men make way, and caught her breath. He was not alone. +He came through the press triumphantly, dragging by the hand an +Indian--an Indian who hung back from the river's brink with eyes +averted, fastened on the ground--the man whom, of all men, she most +feared to meet. + +"Diane, the General has been telling me--this honest fellow--we have +been most remiss--" + +M. Etienne panted as he picked his steps down the bank. His face was +glowing. + +"--He understands a little French, it seems. I have the General's +permission to give him a seat in our boat. He tells me he is averse +to being thanked, but that is nonsense. I insisted on his coming." + +"You have thanked me once already, monsieur," urged John a Cleeve in +a voice as low as he could pitch it. + +"But not sufficiently. You hear, Diane?--he speaks French! I was +confused at the time; I did not gather--" + +She felt Dominique's eyes upon her. Was her face so white then? +He must not guess. . . . She held out her hand, commanding her voice +to speak easily, wondering the while at the sound of it. + +"Welcome, my friend. My uncle is right; we have been remiss--" + +Her voice trailed off, as her eyes fell on Father Launoy. He was +staring, not at her, but at the Indian; curiously at first, then with +dawning suspicion. + +Involuntarily she glanced again towards Dominique. He, too, slowly +moved his gaze from her face and fastened it on the Indian. + +He knew. . . . Father Launoy knew. . . . Oh, when would the boats +push off? + +They pushed off and fell into their stations at length, amid almost +interminable shouting of orders and cross-shouting, pulling and +backing of oars. She had stolen one look at Bateese. . . . He did +not suspect . . . but, in the other boat, they knew. + +Her uncle's voice ran on like a brook. She could not look up, for +fear of meeting her lover's eyes--yes, her lover's! She was reckless +now. They knew. She would deceive herself no longer. She was +base--base. He stood close, and in his presence she was glad-- +fiercely, deliciously, desperately. She, betrayed in all her vows, +was glad. The current ran smoothly. If only, beyond the next ledge, +might lie annihilation! + +The current ran with an oily smoothness. They were nearing the +Roches Fendues. Dominique's boat led. + +A clear voice began to sing, high and loud, in a ringing tenor: + + "Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre: + Mironton, mironton, mirontaine . . ." + +At the first note John a Cleeve, glancing swiftly at Bateese, saw his +body stiffen suddenly with his hand on the tiller; saw his eyes +travel forward, seeking his brother's; saw his face whiten. +Dominique stood erect, gazing back, challenging. Beyond him John +caught a glimpse of Father Launoy looking up from his breviary; and +the priest's face, too, was white and fixed. + +Voices in the boats behind began to curse loudly; for "Malbrouck" was +no popular air with the English. But Bateese took up the chant: + + "Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre-- + Ne sais quand reviendra!" + +They were swinging past Bout de l'lsle. Already the keel under foot +was gathering way. From Bateese, who stood with eyes stiffened now +and inscrutable, John looked down upon Diane. She lifted her face +with a wan smile, but she, too, was listening to the challenge flung +back from the leading boat. + + "Il reviendra-z a Paques . . ." + +He flung one glance over his shoulder, and saw the channel dividing +ahead. Dominique was leaning over, pressing down the helm to +starboard. Over Dominique's arm Father Launoy stared rigidly. +Father Joly, as if aware of something amiss, had cast out both hands +and was grasping the gunwale. The boat, sucked into the roar of the +rapids, shot down the left channel--the channel of death. + + "Il reviendra-z a Paques, + Ou--a la Trinite!" + +The voice was lost in the roar of the falls, now drumming loud in +John's ears. He knew nothing of these rapids; but two channels lay +ahead and the choice between them. He leapt across M. Etienne, and +hurling Bateese aside, seized the tiller and thrust it hard over, +heading for the right. + +Peering back through the spray as he bent he saw the helmsmen astern +staring--hesitating. They had but a second or two in which to +choose. He shouted and shouted again--in English. But the tumbling +waters roared high above his shouts. + +He reached out and gripping Bateese by the collar, forced the tiller +into his hand. Useless now to look back to try to discover how many +boats were following! + +Bateese, with a sob, crept back to the tiller and steered. + + +Not until the foot of the falls was reached did John know that the +herd had followed him. But forty-six boats had followed Dominique's +fatal lead: and of their crews ninety red-coated corpses tossed with +Dominique's and the two priests' and spun in the eddies beneath the +_Grand Bouilli_. + +At dawn next morning the sentries in Montreal caught sight of them +drifting down past the walls, and carried the news. So New France +learnt that its hour was near. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +DICK'S JUDGMENT. + +Two days later Amherst landed his troops at La Chine, marched them +unopposed to Montreal, and encamped before the city on its western +side. Within the walls M. de Vaudreuil called a council of war. + +Resistance was madness. From east, south, west, the French +commanders--Bourlamaque, Bougainville, Roquemaure, Dumas, La Corne-- +had all fallen back, deserted by their militias. The provincial army +had melted down to two hundred men; the troops of the line numbered +scarce above two thousand. The city, crowded with non-combatant +refugees, held a bare fortnight's provisions. Its walls, built for +defence against Indians, could not stand against the guns which +Amherst was already dragging up from the river; its streets of wooden +houses awaited only the first shell to set them ablaze. + +On the eastern side Murray was moving closer, to encamp for the +siege. To the south the tents of Haviland's army dotted the river +shore. Seventeen thousand British and British-Colonials ringed about +all that remained of New France, ready to end her by stroke of sword +if Vaudreuil would not by stroke of pen. + +Next morning Bougainville sought Amherst's tent and presented a bulky +paper containing fifty-five articles of capitulation. Amherst read +them through, and came to the demand that the troops should march out +with arms, cannon, flags, and all the honours of war. "Inform the +Governor," he answered, "that the whole garrison of Montreal, and +all other French troops in Canada, must lay down their arms, and +undertake not to serve again in this war." Bougainville bore his +message, and returned in a little while to remonstrate; but in vain. +Then Levis tried his hand, sending his quartermaster-general to plead +against terms so humiliating--"terms," he wrote, "to which it will +not be possible for us to subscribe." Amherst replied curtly that +the terms were harsh, and he had made them so intentionally; they +marked his sense of the conduct of the French throughout the war in +exciting their Indian allies to atrocity and murder. + +So Fort William Henry was avenged at length, in the humiliation of +gallant men; and human vengeance proved itself, perhaps, neither more +nor less clumsy than usual. + +Vaudreuil tried to exact that the English should, on their side, pack +off their Indians. He represented that the townsfolk of Montreal +stood in terror of being massacred. Again Amherst refused. +"No Frenchman," said he, "surrendering under treaty has ever suffered +outrage from the Indians of our army." This was on the 7th of +September. + +Early on the 8th Vaudreuil yielded and signed the capitulation. +Levis, in the name of the army, protested bitterly. "If the Marquis +de Vaudreuil, through political motives, believes himself obliged to +surrender the colony at once, we beg his leave to withdraw with the +troops of the line to Isle Sainte-Helene, to maintain there, on our +own behalf, the honour of the King's arms." To this, of course, the +Governor could not listen. Before the hour of surrender the French +regiments burnt their flags. + + +On the southern shore of the St. Lawrence, in the deepest recess of a +small curving bay, the afternoon sun fell through a screen of +bulrushes upon a birch canoe and a naked man seated in the shallows +beside it. In one hand he held out, level with his head, a lock of +hair, dark and long and matted, while the other sheared at it with a +razor. The razor flashed as he turned it this way and that against +the sun. On his shoulders and raised upper arm a few water-drops +glistened, for he had been swimming. + +The severed locks fell into the stream that rippled beside him +through the bulrush stems. Some found a channel at once and were +swept out of sight, others were caught against the stems and trailed +out upon the current like queer water-flags. He laid the razor back +in the canoe and, rising cautiously, looked about for a patch of +clear, untroubled water to serve him for a mirror; but small eddies +and cross-currents dimpled the surface everywhere, and his search was +not a success. Next he fetched forth from the canoe an earthenware +pan with lye and charcoal, mixed a paste, and began to lather his +head briskly. + +Twice he paused in his lathering. Before his shelter rolled the +great river, almost two miles broad; and clear across that distance, +from Montreal, came the sound of drums beating, bells ringing, men +shouting and cheering. In the Place d'Armes, over yonder, Amherst +was parading his troops to receive the formal surrender of the +Marquis de Vaudreuil. Murray and Haviland were there, leading their +brigades, with Gage and Fraser and Burton; Carleton and Haldfmand and +Howe--Howe of the Heights of Abraham, brother of him who fell in the +woods under Ticonderoga; the great Johnson of the Mohawk Valley, whom +the Iroquois obeyed; Rogers of the backwoods and his brothers, +bravest of the brave; Schuyler and Lyman: and over against them, +drinking the bitterest cup of their lives, Levis and Bourlamaque and +Bougainville, Dumas, Pouchot, and de la Corne--victors and +vanquished, all the surviving heroes of the five years' struggle face +to face in the city square. + +_Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta_--the half of North +America was changing hands at this moment, and how a bare two miles' +distance diminished it all! What child's play it made of the +rattling drums! From his shelter John a Cleeve could see almost the +whole of the city's river front--all of it, indeed, but a furlong or +two at its western end; and the clean atmosphere showed up even the +loopholes pierced in the outer walls of the great Seminary. +Above the old-fashioned square bastions of the citadel a white flag +floated; and that this flag bore a red cross instead of the golden +lilies it had borne yesterday was the one and only sign, not easily +discerned, of a reversal in the fates of two nations. The steeples +and turrets of Montreal, the old windmill, the belfry and +high-pitched roof of Notre Dame de Bonsecours, the massed buildings +of the Seminary and the Hotel Dieu, the spire of the Jesuits, rose +against the green shaggy slopes of the mountain, and over the +mountain the sky paled tranquilly toward evening. Sky, mountain, +forests, mirrored belfry and broad rolling river--a permanent peace +seemed to rest on them all. + +Half a mile down-stream, where Haviland's camp began, the men of the +nearest picket were playing chuck-farthing. Duty deprived them of +the spectacle in the Place d'Armes, and thus, as soldiers, they +solaced themselves. Through the bulrush stems John heard their +voices and laughter. + +A canoe came drifting down the river, across the opening of the +little creek. A man sat in it with his paddle laid across his knees; +and as the stream bore him past, his eyes scanned the water inshore. +John recognised Bateese at once; but Bateese, after a glance, went by +unheeding. It was no living man he sought. + +John finished his lathering at leisure, waded out beyond the rushes +and cast himself forward into deep water. He swam a few strokes, +ducked his head, dived, and swam on again; turned on his back and +floated, staring up into the sky; breasted the strong current and +swam against it, fighting it in sheer lightness of heart. Boyhood +came back to him with his cleansing, and a boyish memory--of an hour +between sunset and moonrise; of a Devonshire lane, where the harvest +wagons had left wisps of hay dangling from the honeysuckles; of a +triangular patch of turf at the end of the lane, and a whitewashed +Meeting-House with windows open, and through the windows a hymn +pouring forth upon the Sabbath twilight-- + + "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, + Bears all his sons away . . ." + +An ever-rolling stream! It would bear him down, and the generals +yonder, victors and vanquished, drums and trumpets, hopes and +triumphs and despair--overwhelming, making equal the greater with the +less. But meanwhile, how good to be alive and a man, to swim and +breast it! So this river, if he fought it, would out-tire him, sweep +him away and roll on unheeding, majestic, careless of life and of +time. But for this moment he commanded it. Let his new life bring +what it might, this hour the river should be his servant, should +prepare and wash him clean, body and soul. He lifted his head, +shaking the water from his eyes, and the very volume of the lustral +flood contented him. He felt the strong current pressing against his +arms, and longed to embrace it all. And again, tickled by the +absurdity of his fancies, he lay on his back and laughed up at the +sky. + +He swam to shore, flung himself down, and panted. Across the river, +by the landing-stage beneath the citadel, a band was playing down +Haviland's brigade to its boats; and one of the boats was bringing a +man whom John had great need to meet. When the sun had dried and +warmed him, he dressed at leisure, putting on a suit complete, with +striped shirt, socks, and cowhide boots purchased from a waterside +trader across the river and paid for with the last of his moneys +earned in the wilderness. The boots, though a world too wide, +cramped him painfully; and he walked up and down the bank for a +minute or two, to get accustomed to them, before strolling down to +meet the challenge of the pickets. + +They were men of the 17th, and John inquired for their adjutant. +They pointed to the returning boats. The corporal in charge of the +picket, taking note of his clothes, asked if he belonged to Loring's +bateau-men, and John answered that he had come down with them through +the falls. + +"A nice mess you made of it up yonder," was the corporal's comment. +"Two days we were on fatigue duty picking up the bodies you sent down +to us, and burying them. Only just now a fellow came along in a +canoe--a half-witted kind of Canadian. Said he was searching for his +brother." + +"Yes," said John, "I saw him go by. I know the man." + +"Hell of a lot of brother he's likely to find. We've tidied up the +whole length of the camp front. But there's corpses yet, a mile or +two below, they say. I sent him down to take his pick." + +He put a question or two about the catastrophe. "Scandalous sort of +bungle," he pronounced it, being alike ignorant of the strength of +the rapids, and fain, as an honest soldier of Haviland's army, to +take a discrediting view of anything done by Amherst's. He waxed +very scornful indeed. + +"Now _we_ was allowing you didn't find the stream fast enough, by the +way you kept us cooling our heels here." Perceiving that John was +indisposed to quarrel, he went wearily back to his chuck-farthing. + +John sat down and waited, scanning the boats as they drew to shore. +Dick, whom he had left an ensign, was now adjutant of the 17th. +This meant, of course, that he had done creditably and made himself +felt. It meant certain promotion, too; Dick being the very man, as +adjutant, to lick a regiment into shape. John could not help +pondering a little, by contrast, on his own career, but without any +tinge of jealousy or envy. Dick owed nothing to luck; would honestly +earn or justify any favour that Fortune might grant. + +The young adjutant, stepping ashore, swung round on his heel to call +an order to the crowding boats. His voice, albeit John thrilled to +the sound of it, was not the voice he remembered. It had hardened +somehow. And his face, when John caught sight of it in profile, was +not the face of a man on the sunny side of favour. It was manlier, +more resolute perhaps than of old, but it had put on reserve and +showed even some discontent in the set of the chin--a handsome face +yet, and youthful, and full of eager strength; but with a shadow on +it (thought John) that it had not worn in the days when Dick +Montgomery took his young ease in Sion and criticised men and +generals. + +He was handling the disembarkation well. Clearly, too, his men +respected and liked him. But (thought John again) who could help +loving him? John had not bargained for the rush of tenderness that +shook him as he stood there unperceived, and left him trembling. +For a moment he longed only to escape; and then, mastered by an +impulse, scarce knowing what he did, stepped forward and touched his +cousin's arm. + +"Dick!" he said softly. + +Montgomery turned, cast a sharp glance at him, and fell back staring. + +"_You!_" John saw the lips form the word, but no sound came. +He himself was watching Dick's eyes. + +Yes, as incredulity passed, joy kindled in them, and the old +affection. For once in his life Richard Montgomery fairly broke +down. + +"Jack!"--he stretched out both hands. "We heard--You were not among +the prisoners--" His voice stammered to a halt: his eyes brimmed. + +"Come, and hear all about it. Oh, Dick, Dick, 'tis good to see your +face again!" + +They linked arms, and Dick suffered John to lead him back to the +canoe among the rushes. + +"My mother . . . ?" asked John, halting there by the brink. + +"You haven't heard?" Dick turned his face and stared away across the +river. + +"I have heard nothing. . . . Is she dead?" + +Dick bent his head gravely. "A year since. . . . Your brother Philip +wrote the news to me. It was sudden: just a failure of the heart, he +said. She had known of the danger for years, but concealed it." + +John seated himself on the bank, and gazed out over the river for a +minute or so in silence. "She believed me dead, of course?" he +began, but did not ask how the blow had affected her. Likely enough +Dick would not know. "Is there any more bad news?" he asked at +length. + +"None. Your brother is well, and there's another child born. +The a Cleeves are not coming to an end just yet. No more questions, +Jack, until you've told me all about yourself!" + +He settled down to listen, and John, propping himself on an elbow, +began his tale. + +Twice or thrice during the narrative Dick furrowed his brows in +perplexity. When, however, John came to tell of his second year's +sojourn with the Ojibways, he sat up with a jerk and stared at his +cousin in a blank dismay. + +"But, good Lord! You said just now that this fellow--this +Menehwehna--had promised to help you back to the army, as soon as +Spring came. Did he break his word, then?" + +"No! he would have kept his word. But I didn't want to return." + +"You didn't--want--to return!" Dick repeated the words slowly, +trying to grasp them. "Man alive, were you clean mad? Don't you see +what cards you held? Oh," he groaned, "you're not going on to tell +me that you threw them away--the chance of a life-time!" + +"I don't see," answered John simply. + +Dick sprang up and paced the bank with his hands clenched, half +lifted. "God! if such a chance had fallen to _me_! You had +intercepted two dispatches, one of which might have hurried the +French up from Montreal here to save Fort Frontenac. Wherever you +could, you bungled; but you rode on the full tide of luck. And even +when you tumbled in love with this girl--oh, you needn't deny it!-- +even when you walked straight into the pitfall that ninety-nine men +in a hundred would have seen and avoided--your very folly pulled you +out of the mess! You escaped, by her grace, having foiled two +dispatches and possessed your self of knowledge that might have saved +Amherst from wasting ten minutes where he wasted two days. And now +you stare at me when I tell you that you held the chance of a +lifetime! Why, man, you could have asked what promotion you willed! +Some men have luck--!" Speech failed him and he cast himself down at +full length on the turf again. "Go on," he commanded grimly. + +And John resumed, but in another, colder tone. The rest of the +story he told perfunctorily, omitting all mention of the fight +on the flagstaff tower and telling no more than was needful of the +last adventure of the rapids. Either he or Dick had changed. +Having begun, he persevered, but now without hope to make himself +understood. + +"Did ever man have such luck?" grumbled Dick. "You have made +yourself a deserter. You did all you could to earn being shot; you +walked back, and again did all you could to leave Amherst no other +choice but to shoot you. And, again, you blunder into saving half an +army! Have you seen Amherst?" + +"He sent for me at La Chine, to reward me." + +"You told him all, of course?" + +"I did--or almost all!" + +"Then, since he has not shot you, I presume you are now restored to +the Forty-sixth, and become the just pride of the regiment?" + +Dick's voice had become bitter with a bitterness at which John +wondered; but all his answer was: + +"Look at these clothes. They will tell you if I am restored to the +Forty-sixth." + +"So that was more than Amherst could bring himself to stomach?" + +"On the contrary, he gave me my choice. But I am resigning my +commission." + +"Eh? Well, I suppose your monstrous luck with the dispatches had +earned you his leniency. You told him of Fort Frontenac, I presume?" + +"I did not tell him of that. But someone else had taken care that he +should learn something of it." + +"The girl? You don't mean to tell me that your luck stepped in once +again?" + +"Mademoiselle Diane must have guessed that I meant to tell the +General all. She left a sealed letter which he opened in my +presence. As for my luck," continued John--and now it was his turn +to speak bitterly--"you may think how I value it when I tell you how +the letter ended. With the General's help, it said, she was hiding +herself for ever; and as a man of honour I must neither seek her nor +hope for sight of her again." + +And Dick's comment finally proved to John that between them these two +years had fixed a gulf impassable. "Well, and you ought to respect +her wishes," he said. "She interfered to save you, if ever a woman +saved a man." He was striding to and fro again on the bank. +"And what will you do now?" he demanded, halting suddenly. + +"The General thinks Murray will be the new Governor, and promises to +recommend me to him. There's work to be done in reducing the +outlying French forts and bringing the Indians to reason. Probably I +shall be sent west." + +"You mean to live your life out in Canada?" + +"I do." + +"Tell me at least that you have given up hope of this girl." + +John flushed. "I shall never seek her," he answered. "But while +life lasts I shall not give up hope of seeing her once again." + +"And I am waiting for my captaincy," said Dick grimly; "who with less +than half your luck would have commanded a regiment!" + +He swung about suddenly to confront a corporal--John's critical +friend of the picket--who had come up the bank seeking him. + +"Beg pardon, sir," said the corporal, saluting, "but there's a +Canadian below that has found a corpse along-shore, and wants to bury +him on his own account." + +"That will be Bateese Guyon," said John. They walked together down +the shore to the spot where Bateese bent over his brother. + +"This is the man," said he, "who led us through the Roches Fendues. +Respect his dead body, Dick." + +"I hope," said Dick, half-lifting his hat as he stood by the corpse, +"I can respect a man who did a brave deed and died for his country." + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +PRES-DE-VILLE. + +Fifteen years have gone by, and a few months. In December 1775, on +the rock of Quebec, Great Britain clung with a last desperate grip +upon Canada, which on that September day in 1760 had passed so +completely into her hands. + +All through December the snow had fallen almost incessantly; and +almost incessantly, through the short hours of daylight, the American +riflemen, from their lodgings in the suburbs close under the walls, +had kept up a fire on the British defenders of Quebec. For the +assailants of Great Britain now were her own children; and the man +who led them was a British subject still, and but three years ago had +been a British officer. + +Men see their duty by different lights, but Richard Montgomery had +always seen his clearly. He had left the British Army for sufficient +cause; had sought America, and married an American wife. He served +the cause of political freedom now, and meant to serve it so as to +win an imperishable name. The man whom King George had left for ten +years a captain had been promoted by Congress Brigadier-General at a +stroke. It recognised the greatness of which his own soul had always +assured him. "Come what will," he had promised his young wife at +parting, "you shall never be ashamed of me." His men adored him for +his enthusiasm, his high and almost boyish courage, his dash, his +bright self-confidence. + +And his campaign had been a triumph. Ticonderoga and Crown Point had +fallen before him. He had swept down the Richelieu, capturing St. +John's, Chambly, Sorel. Montreal had capitulated without a blow. +And so success had swept him on to the cliffs of Quebec--there to +dash itself and fail as a spent wave. + +He would not acknowledge this; not though smallpox had broken out +among his troops and they, remembering that their term of service +was all but expired, began to talk of home; not though his guns, +mounted on frozen mounds, had utterly failed to batter a way into the +city. As a subaltern he had idolised Wolfe, and here on the ground +of Wolfe's triumphant stroke he still dreamed of rivalling it. +In Quebec a cautious phlegmatic British General sat and waited, +keeping, as the moonless nights drew on, his officers ready against +surprise. For a week they had slept in their clothes and with their +arms beside them. + + +From the lower town of Quebec a road, altered since beyond +recognition, ran along the base of Cape Diamond between the cliff and +the river. As it climbed it narrowed to a mere defile, known as +Pres-de-Ville, having the scarped rock on one hand and on the other a +precipice dropping almost to the water's edge. Across this defile +the British had drawn a palisade and built, on the edge of the pass +above, a small three-pounder battery, with a _hangar_ in its rear to +shelter the defenders. + +Soon after midnight on the last morning of the year, a man came +battling his way down from the upper town to the Pres-de-Ville +barrier. A blinding snow-storm raged through the darkness, and +although it blew out of the north the cliff caught its eddies and +beat them back swirling about the useless lantern he carried. +The freshly fallen snow encumbering his legs held him steady against +the buffets of the wind; and foot by foot, feeling his way--for he +could only guess how near lay the edge of the precipice--he struggled +toward the stream of light issuing from the _hangar_. + +As he reached it the squall cleared suddenly. He threw back his +snow-caked hood and gazed up at the citadel on the cliff. The walls +aloft there stood out brilliant against the black heavens, and he +muttered approvingly; for it was he who, as Officer of the Works, had +suggested to the Governor the plan of hanging out lanterns and +firepots from the salient angles of the bastions; and he flattered +himself that, if the enemy intended an assault up yonder, not a dog +could cross the great ditch undetected. + +But it appeared to him that the men in the _hangar_ were not watching +too alertly, or they would never have allowed him to draw so near +unchallenged. + +He was lifting a hand to hammer on the rough door giving entrance +from the rear, when it was flung open and a man in provincial uniform +peered out upon the night. + +"Is that you, Captain Chabot?" asked the visitor. + +The man in the doorway smothered an exclamation. "The wind was +driving the snow in upon us by the shovelful," he explained. +"We are keeping a sharp enough look-out down the road." + +"So I perceived," answered John a Cleeve curtly, and stepped past him +into the _hangar_. About fifty men stood packed there in a steam of +breath around the guns--the most of them Canadians and British +militiamen, with a sprinkling of petticoated sailors. + +"Who is working these?" asked John a Cleeve, laying his hand on the +nearest three-pounder. + +"Captain Barnsfare." A red-faced seaman stepped forward and saluted +awkwardly: Adam Barnsfare, master of the _Tell_ transport. + +"Your crew all right, captain?" + +"All right, sir." + +"The Governor sends me down with word that he believes the enemy +means business to-night. Where's your artilleryman?" + +"Sergeant McQuarters, sir? He stepped down, a moment since, to the +barrier, to keep the sentry awake." + +John a Cleeve glanced up at the lamp smoking under the beam. + +"You have too much light here," he said. "If McQuarters has the guns +well pointed, you need only one lantern for your lintstocks." + +He blew out the candle in his own, and reaching up a hand, lowered +the light until it was all but extinct. As he did so his hood fell +back and the lamp-rays illumined his upturned face for two or three +seconds; a tired face, pinched just now with hard living and +wakefulness, but moulded and firmed by discipline. Fifteen years had +bitten their lines deeply about the under-jaw and streaked the +temples with grey. But they had been years of service; and, whatever +he had missed in them, he had found self-reliance. + +He stepped out upon the pent of the _hangar_, and, with another glance +up at the night, plunged into the deep snow, and trudged his way down +to the barricade. + +"Sergeant McQuarters!" + +"Here sir!" The Highlander saluted in the darkness, "Any word from +up yonder, sir?" A faint glow touched the outline of his face as he +lifted it toward the illuminated citadel. + +"The Governor looks for an assault to-night. So you know me, +McQuarters?" + +"By your voice, sir," answered McQuarters, and added quaintly, +"Ah, but it was different weather in those days!" + +"Ay," said John, "we have come around by strange roads; you an +artilleryman, and I--" He broke off, musing. For a moment, standing +there knee-deep in snow, he heard the song of the waters, saw the +forests again, the dripping ledges, the cool, pendant boughs, and +smelt the fragrance of the young spruces. The spell of the woodland +silence held him, and he listened again for the rustle of wild life +in the undergrowth. + +"Hist! What was that?" + +"Another squall coming, sir. It's on us too, and a rasper!" + +But, as the snow-charged gust swept down and blinded them in its +whirl, John leaned towards McQuarters and lifted his voice sharply. + +"It was more than that--Hark you!" He gripped McQuarters' arm and +pointed to the barricade, over which for an instant a point of steel +had glimmered. "Back, man!--back to the guns!" he yelled to the +sentry. But the man was already running; and together the three +floundered back to the _hangar_. Behind them blows were already +sounding above the howl of the wind; blows of musket-butts hammering +on the wooden palisade. + +"Steady, men," grunted McQuarters as he reached the pent. "Give them +time to break an opening--their files will be nicely huddled by +this." + +John a Cleeve glanced around and was satisfied. Captain Chabot had +his men lined up and ready: two ranks of them, the front rank +kneeling. + +"Give the word, my lad," said Captain Barnsfare cheerfully, lintstock +in hand. + +"Fire then!--and God defend Quebec!" + +The last words were lost in an explosion which seemed to lift the +roof off the _hangar_. In the flare of it John saw the faces +of the enemy--their arms outstretched and snatching at the palisade. +Down upon them the grape-shot whistled, tearing through the gale it +outstripped, and close on it followed the Canadians' volleys. + +Barnsfare had sprung to the second gun. McQuarters nodded to +him. . . . + +For ten minutes the guns swept the pass. The flame of them lit up no +faces now by the shivered palisade, and between the explosions came +no cheering from down the road. The riflemen loaded, fired, and +reloaded; but they aimed into darkness and silence. + +Captain Chabot lifted a hand. + +The squall had swept by. High in the citadel, drums were beating; +and below, down by the waterside to the eastward, volleys of musketry +crackled sharply. But no sound came up the pass of Pres-de-Ville. + +"That will be at the Sault-au-Matelot barrier," said McQuarters, +nodding his head in the direction of the musketry. + +"We've raked decks here, anyhow," Captain Barnsfare commented, +peering down the road; and one or two Canadians volunteered to +descend and explore the palisade. For a while Captain Chabot +demurred, fearing that the Americans might have withdrawn around the +angle of the cliff and be holding themselves in ambush there. + +"A couple of us could make sure of that," urged John. "They have +left their wounded, at all events, as you may hear by the groans. +With your leave, Captain--" + +Captain Chabot yielded the point, and John with a corporal and a +drummer descended the pass. + +A dozen bodies lay heaped by the palisade. For the moment he could +not stay to attend to them, but, passing through, followed the road +down to the end of its curve around the cliff. Two corpses lay here +of men who, mortally wounded, had run with the crowd before dropping +to rise no more. The tracks in the snow told plainly enough that the +retreat had been a stampede. + +Returning to the palisade he shouted up that the coast was clear, and +fell to work searching the faces of the fallen. The fresh snow, in +which they lay deep, had already frozen about them; and his eye, as +he swung the lantern slowly round, fell on a hand and arm which stood +up stiffly above the white surface. + +He stepped forward, flashing his lantern on the dead man's face--and +dropped on his knees beside it. + +"Do you know him, sir?" McQuarters' voice was speaking, close by. + +"I know him," answered John dully, and groped and found a thin blade +which lay beside the corpse. "He was my cousin, and once my best +friend." + +He felt the edge of the sword with his gloved hand, all the while +staring at the arm pointing upwards and fixed in the rigor of death, +frozen in its last gesture as Richard Montgomery had lifted it to +wave forward his men. And as if the last thirty or forty minutes had +never been, he found himself saying to McQuarters: + +"We have come around by strange roads, sergeant, and some of us have +parted with much on the way." + +He looked up; but his gaze, travelling past McQuarters who stooped +over the corpse, fell on the figure of a woman who had approached and +halted at three paces' distance; a hooded figure in the dress of the +Hospitalieres. + +Something in her attitude told him that she had heard. He arose, +holding the lantern high; and stared, shaking, into a face which no +uncomely linen swathings could disguise from him--into eyes which +death only would teach him to forget. + +The fatigue-party lifted the corpse. So Richard Montgomery entered +Quebec as he had promised--a General of Brigade. + + +The drums had ceased to call the alarm from the Citadel; musketry +no longer crackled in the riverside quarter of Sault-au-Matelot. +The assault had been beaten off, and close on four hundred prisoners +were being marched up the hill followed by crowds of excited +Quebecers. But John a Cleeve roamed the streets at random, alone, +unconscious that all the while he gripped the hilt of his cousin's +naked sword. + +He was due to carry his report to the Governor. By and by he +remembered this, and ploughed his way up the snowy incline to the +Citadel. The sentry told him that the Governor was at the Seminary; +had gone down half an hour ago, to number and take the names of the +prisoners. John turned back. + +Some two hundred prisoners were drawn up in the great hall of the +Seminary, and from the doorway John spied the Governor at the far +end, interrogating them. + +"Eh?" Carleton turned, caught sight of him and smiled gaily. +"I fancy, Mr. a Cleeve, your post is going to be a sinecure after +to-night's work. Chabot reports that you were at Pres-de-Ville and +discovered General Montgomery's body." + +He turned at the sound of a murmur among the prisoners behind him. +One or two had turned to the wall and were weeping audibly. +Others stared at John and one or two pointed. + +John, following their eyes, looked down at the sword in his hand and +stammered an apology. + +"Excuse me--I did not know that I carried it. . . . Sirs, believe me, +I intended no offence! Richard Montgomery was my cousin." + +From the Seminary he walked back to his quarters, meaning to snatch a +few hours' sleep before daybreak. But having lit his candle, he +found that he could not undress. The narrow room stifled him. +He flung the sword on his bed, and went down to the streets again. + +Dawn found him pacing the narrow sidewalk opposite a small log house +in St. Louis Street. Lights shone from the upper storey. In the +room to the right they had laid Montgomery's body, and were arraying +it for burial. + +The house door opened, and a lamp in the passage behind it cast a +broadening ray across the snow. A woman stepped out, and, in the act +of closing the door, caught sight of him. He made no doubt that she +would pass up the street; but, after seeming to hesitate, she came +slowly over and stood before him. + +"You knew me, then?" she asked. + +He bent his head humbly. + +"I have seen you many times, and heard of you," she continued. +"I heard what you said, down yonder. . . . Has life been so bitter +for you?" + +"Diane!" + +He turned towards the house. "He has a noble face," she said, gazing +up at the bright window. + +"He was a great man." + +"And yet he fought in the end against his country." + +"He believed that he did right." + +"Should _you_ have believed it right?" + +John was silent. + +"John!" + +He gave a start at the sound of his name and she smiled faintly. + +"I have learnt to say it in English, you see." + +"Do not mock me, mademoiselle! Fifteen years--" + +"That is just what I was going to say. Fifteen years is a very long +time--and--and it has not been easy for me, John. I do not think I +can do without you any longer." + +So in the street, under the dawn, they kissed for the first time. + + + +EPILOGUE. + + + +I. + + +HUDSON RIVER. + + "Il reviendra-z a Paques, + Ou--a la Trinite!" + +On a summer's afternoon of the year 1818, in the deep veranda of a +house terraced high above the Hudson, a small company stood +expectant. Schuylers and Livingstones were there, with others of the +great patroon families; one or two in complete black, and all wearing +some badge of mourning. Some were young, others well advanced in +middle life; but amidst them, and a little apart, reclined a lady to +whose story the oldest had listened in his childhood. + +She lay back in an invalid chair, with her face set toward the noble +river sweeping into view around the base of a wooded bluff, and +toward the line of its course beyond, where its hidden waters +furrowed the forests to the northward and divided hill from hill. +Yet to her eyes the landscape was but a blur, and she saw it only in +memory. + +For forty-three years she had worn black and a widow's goffered cap. +The hair beneath it was thin now, and her body frail and very far on +its decline to the grave. On the table at her elbow lay a letter +beside a small field-glass, towards which, once and again, she +stretched out a hand. + +"It is heavy for you, aunt," said her favourite grand-niece, who +stood at the back of her chair--a beautiful girl in a white frock, +high-waisted and tied with a broad, black sash. "We will tell you +when they come in sight." + +"I know, my dear; I know. It was only to make sure." + +"But you tried yesterday, and with the glass your sight was as good +as mine, almost." + +"Even so short a while makes a difference, now. You cannot +understand that, Janet; you will, some day." + +"We will tell you," the girl repeated, "as soon as ever they come in +sight; perhaps before. We may see the smoke first between the trees, +you know." + +"Ay," the old lady answered, and added, "There was no such thing in +those days." Her hand went out toward the field-glass again, and +rested, trembling a little, on the edge of the table. "I thought-- +yesterday--that the trees had grown a good deal. They have closed +in, and the river is narrower; or perhaps it looks narrower, through +a glass." + +The men at the far end of the veranda, who had been talking apart +while they scanned the upper bends of the river, lowered their voices +suddenly. They had heard a throbbing sound to the northward; either +the beat of a drum or the panting stroke of a steamboat's paddles. + +All waited, with their eyes on the distant woods. By and by a film +of dark smoke floated up as through a crevice in the massed +tree-tops, lengthened, and spread itself in the sunlight. +The throbbing grew louder--the beat of a drum, slow and funereal, +with the clank of paddle-wheels filling its pauses. And now--hark!-- +a band playing the Dead March! + +The girl knelt and lifted the glass, ready focused. The failing +woman leaned forward, and with fingers that trembled on the tube, +directed it where the river swept broadly around the headland. + +What did she see? At first an ugly steamboat nosing into view and +belching smoke from its long funnel; then a double line of soldiers +crowding the deck, and between their lines what seemed at first to be +a black mound with a scarlet bar across it. But the mound was the +plumed hearse of her husband, and the scarlet bar the striped flag of +the country for which he had died--his adopted country, long since +invited to her seat among the nations. + +The men in the veranda had bared their heads. They heard a bell ring +on board the steamboat. Her paddles ceased to rotate, and after a +moment began to churn the river with reversed motion, holding the +boat against its current. The troops on her deck, standing with +reversed arms; the muffled drums; the half-masted flag; all saluted a +hero and the widow of a hero. + +So, after forty-three years, Richard Montgomery returned to the wife +he had left with a promise that, come what might, she should be proud +of him. + +Proud she was; she, a worn old woman sitting in the shadow of death, +proud of a dry skeleton and a handful of dust under a crape pall. +And they had parted in the hey-day of youth, young and ardent, with +arms passionately loth to untwine. + +What did her eyes seek beneath the pall, the plumes, the flag? +Be sure she saw him laid there at his manly length, inert, with +cheeks only a little paler than they had been as he stood looking +down into her eyes a moment before he strode away. In truth, the +searchers, opening his grave in Quebec, had found a few bones, and a +skull from which, as they lifted it, a musket-ball dropped back into +the rotted coffin; these, and a lock of hair, tied with a leathern +thong. + +They did not bring him ashore to her. Even after forty years his +return must be for a moment only; his country still claimed him. +The letter beside her was from Governor Clinton, written in +courtliest words, telling her of the grave in New York prepared for +him beneath the cenotaph set up by Congress many years before. + +Again a bell rang sharply, the paddles ceased backing and ploughed +forward again. To the sound of muffled drums he passed down the +river, and out of her sight for ever. + + + +II. + + +THE PHANTOM GUARD. + + +Just a hundred years have passed since the assault on Pres-de-Ville. +It is the last day of 1875, and in the Citadel above the cliff the +Commandant and his lady are holding a ball. Outside the warm rooms +winter binds Quebec. The St. Lawrence is frozen over, and the +copings and escarpments of the old fortress sparkle white under a +flying moon. + +The Commandant's lady had decreed fancy dress for her dancers, and +further, that their costumes shall be those of 1775. The Commandant +himself wears the antique uniform of the Royal Artillery, and some of +his guests salute him in the very coats, and carry the very swords, +their ancestors wore this night a hundred years ago. They pass up +the grand staircase hung with standards--golden leopards of England, +golden irises of France, the Dominion ensign, the Stars and Stripes-- +and come face to face with a trophy, on the design of which Captain +Larne of the B Battery has spent some pious hours. Here, above +stacks of muskets piled over drums and trumpets, is draped the red +and black "rebel" pennant so that its folds fall over the escutcheon +of the United States; and against this hangs a sword, heavily craped, +with the letters R.I.P. beneath it. + +It is the same thin blade of steel which dropped on the snow, its +hilt warm from Richard Montgomery's hand, as he turned to wave +forward his men. His enemies salute it to-night. + +They pass into the upper ballroom. They are met to dance a new year +in, and the garrison band is playing a waltz of Strauss's--"Die guten +alten Zeiten." So dance follows dance, and the hours fly by to +midnight--outside, the moon in chase past the clouds and over fields +and wastes of snow--inside, the feet of dancers warming to their work +under the clustered lights. + +But on the stroke of midnight a waltz ceases suddenly. From the +lower ballroom the high, clear note of a trumpet rings out, silencing +the music of the bandsmen. A panel has flown open there and a +trumpeter steps forth blowing a call which, as it dies away, is +answered by a skirl of pipes and tapping of drums from a remote +corner of the barracks. The guests fall back as the sound swells on +the night, drawing nearer. Pipes are shrieking now; the rattle of +drums shakes the windows. Two folding doors fall wide, and through +them stalks a ghostly guard headed by the ghost of Sergeant Hugh +McQuarters, in kilt and tartan and cross-belt yet spotted with the +blood of a brave Highlander who died in 1775, defending Quebec. +The guard looks neither to right nor to left; it passes on through +hall and passage and ballroom, halts beneath Montgomery's sword, +salutes it in silence, and vanishes. + +Some of the ladies are the least bit scared. But the men are +pronouncing it a brilliant _coup de theatre_, and presently crowd +about the trophy, discussing Montgomery and what manner of man he +was. + +Down in St. Louis Street the windows have been illuminated in the old +house in which his body lay. Up in the Citadel the boom of guns +salutes his memory. + +So the world commemorates its heroes, the brave hearts and high minds +that never doubted but pressed straight to their happy or unhappy +goals. But some of us hear the guns saluting those who doubted and +were lost, or seemed to achieve little; whose high hopes perished by +the way; whom fate bound or frustrated; whom conscience or divided +counsel drove athwart into paths belying their promise; whom, +wrapping both in one rest, earth covers at length indifferently with +its heroes. + +So let these guns, a hundred years late, salute the meeting of two +lovers who, before they met and were reconciled, suffered much. +The flying moon crosses the fields over which they passed forth +together, and a hundred winters have smoothed their tracks on the +snow. There is a tradition that they sought Boisveyrac; that +children were born to them there; and that they lived and died as +ordinary people do. But a thriving town hides the site of the +Seigniory, and their graves are not to be found. + +And north of Lake Michigan there long lingered another tradition--but +it has died now--of an Englishman and his wife who came at rare +intervals and would live among the Ojibways for a while, accepted by +them and accepting their customs; that none could predict the time of +their coming or of their departure; but that the man had, in his +time, been a famous killer of bears. + + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Fort Amity, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORT AMITY *** + +***** This file should be named 20612.txt or 20612.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20612/ + +Produced by Lionel Sear + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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