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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Seats Of The Mighty, by G. Parker, v4
+#54 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+
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+Title: The Seats Of The Mighty, Volume 4.
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: August, 2004  [EBook #6227]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 4, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEATS OF THE MIGHTY, PARKER, V4 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Andrew Sly
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY
+
+BEING THE MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROBERT MORAY,
+SOMETIME AN OFFICER IN THE VIRGINIA REGIMENT,
+AND AFTERWARDS OF AMHERST'S REGIMENT
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+Volume 4.
+
+     XX   Upon the ramparts
+    XXI   La Jongleuse
+   XXII   The lord of Kamaraska
+  XXIII   With Wolfe at Montmorenci
+   XXIV   The sacred countersign
+
+
+
+XX
+
+UPON THE RAMPARTS
+
+
+The Governor visited me. His attitude was marked by nothing so
+much as a supercilious courtesy, a manner which said, You must
+see I am not to be trifled with; and though I have you here in
+my chateau, it is that I may make a fine scorching of you in the
+end. He would make of me an example to amaze and instruct the
+nations--when I was robust enough to die.
+
+I might easily have flattered myself on being an object of
+interest to the eyes of nations. I almost pitied him; for he
+appeared so lost in self-admiration and the importance of his
+office that he would never see disaster when it came.
+
+"There is but one master here in Canada," he said, "and I am he.
+If things go wrong it is because my orders are not obeyed. Your
+people have taken Louisburg; had I been there, it should never have
+been given up. Drucour was hasty--he listened to the women. I should
+allow no woman to move me. I should be inflexible. They might send
+two Amhersts and two Wolfes against me, I would hold my fortress."
+
+"They will never send two, your Excellency," said I.
+
+He did not see the irony, and he prattled on: "That Wolfe, they
+tell me, is bandy-legged; is no better than a girl at sea, and
+never well ashore. I am always in raw health--the strong mind in
+the potent body. Had I been at Louisburg, I should have held it,
+as I held Ticonderoga last July, and drove the English back with
+monstrous slaughter."
+
+Here was news. I had had no information in many months, and all
+at once two great facts were brought to me.
+
+"Your Excellency, then, was at Ticonderoga?" said I.
+
+"I sent Montcalm to defend it," he replied pompously. "I told
+him how he must act; I was explicit, and it came out as I had said:
+we were victorious. Yet he would have done better had he obeyed me
+in everything. If I had been at Louisburg--"
+
+I could not at first bring myself to flatter the vice-regal peacock;
+for it had been my mind to fight these Frenchmen always; to yield in
+nothing; to defeat them like a soldier, not like a juggler. But I
+brought myself to say half ironically, "If all great men had capable
+instruments, they would seldom fail."
+
+"You have touched the heart of the matter," he said credulously.
+"It is a pity," he added, with complacent severity, "that you
+have been so misguided and criminal; you have, in some things,
+more sense than folly."
+
+I bowed as to a compliment from a great man. Then, all at once,
+I spoke to him with an air of apparent frankness, and said that if
+I must die, I cared to do so like a gentleman, with some sort of
+health, and not like an invalid. He must admit that at least I was
+no coward. He might fence me about with what guards he chose, but
+I prayed him to let me walk upon the ramparts, when I was strong
+enough to be abroad, under all due espionage. I had already
+suffered many deaths, I said, and I would go to the final one
+looking like a man, and not like an outcast of humanity.
+
+"Ah, I have heard this before," said he. "Monsieur Doltaire, who
+is in prison here, and is to fare on to the Bastile, was insolent
+enough to send me message yesterday that I should keep you close in
+your dungeon. But I had had enough of Monsieur Doltaire; and indeed
+it was through me that the Grande Marquise had him called to
+durance. He was a muddler here. They must not interfere with me; I
+am not to be cajoled or crossed in my plans. We shall see, we shall
+see about the ramparts," he continued. "Meanwhile prepare to die."
+This he said with such importance that I almost laughed in his face.
+But I bowed with a sort of awed submission, and he turned and left
+the room.
+
+I grew stronger slowly day by day, but it was quite a month
+before Alixe came again. Sometimes I saw her walking on the banks
+of the river, and I was sure she was there that I might see her,
+though she made no sign towards me, nor ever seemed to look towards
+my window.
+
+Spring was now fully come. The snow had gone from the ground,
+the tender grass was springing, the air was so soft and kind. One
+fine day, at the beginning of May, I heard the booming of cannons
+and a great shouting, and, looking out, I could see crowds of
+people upon the banks, and many boats in the river, where yet the
+ice had not entirely broken up. By stretching from my window,
+through the bars of which I could get my head, but not my body, I
+noted a squadron sailing round the point of the Island of Orleans.
+I took it to be a fleet from France bearing re-enforcements
+and supplies--as indeed afterwards I found was so; but the
+re-enforcements were so small and the supplies so limited that
+it is said Montcalm, when he knew, cried out, "Now is all lost!
+Nothing remains but to fight and die. I shall see my beloved
+Candiac no more."
+
+For the first time all the English colonies had combined against
+Canada. Vaudreuil and Montcalm were at variance, and Vaudreuil
+had, through his personal hatred and envy of Montcalm, signed the
+death-warrant of the colony by writing to the colonial minister
+that Montcalm's agents, going for succour, were not to be trusted.
+Yet at that moment I did not know these things, and the sight made
+me grave, though it made me sure also that this year would find the
+British battering this same Chateau.
+
+Presently there came word from the Governor that I might walk
+upon the ramparts, and I was taken forth for several hours each
+day; always, however, under strict surveillance, my guards, well
+armed, attending, while the ramparts were, as usual, patrolled by
+soldiers. I could see that ample preparations were being made
+against a siege, and every day the excitement increased. I got to
+know more definitely of what was going on, when, under vigilance,
+I was allowed to speak to Lieutenant Stevens, who also was
+permitted some such freedom as I had enjoyed when I first came to
+Quebec. He had private information that General Wolfe or General
+Amherst was likely to proceed against Quebec from Louisburg, and
+he was determined to join the expedition.
+
+For months he had been maturing plans for escape. There was one
+Clark, a ship-carpenter (of whom I have before written), and two
+other bold spirits, who were sick of captivity, and it was intended
+to fare forth one night and make a run for freedom. Clark had had a
+notable plan. A wreck of several transports had occurred at Belle
+Isle, and it was thought to send him down the river with a sloop to
+bring back the crew, and break up the wreck. It was his purpose to
+arm his sloop with Lieutenant Stevens and some English prisoners
+the night before she was to sail, and steal away with her down
+the river. But whether or not the authorities suspected him, the
+command was given to another.
+
+It was proposed, however, on a dark night, to get away to some
+point on the river, where a boat should be stationed--though that
+was a difficult matter, for the river was well patrolled and boats
+were scarce--and drift quietly down the stream, till a good distance
+below the city. Mr. Stevens said he had delayed the attempt on the
+faint hope of fetching me along. Money, he said, was needed, for
+Clark and all were very poor, and common necessaries were now at
+exorbitant prices in the country. Tyranny and robbery had made corn
+and clothing luxuries. All the old tricks of Bigot and his La
+Friponne, which, after the outbreak the night of my arrest at the
+Seigneur Duvarney's, had been somewhat repressed, were in full swing
+again, and robbery in the name of providing for defense was the only
+habit.
+
+I managed to convey to Mr. Stevens a good sum of money, and
+begged him to meet me every day upon the ramparts, until I also
+should see my way to making a dart for freedom. I advised him in
+many ways, for he was more bold than shrewd, and I made him promise
+that he would not tell Clark or the others that I was to make trial
+to go with them. I feared the accident of disclosure, and any new
+failure on my part to get away would, I knew, mean my instant
+death, consent of King or no consent.
+
+One evening, a soldier entered my room, whom in the half-darkness
+I did not recognize, till a voice said, "There's orders new! Not
+dungeon now, but this room Governor bespeaks for gentlemen from
+France."
+
+"And where am I to go, Gabord?"
+
+"Where you will have fighting," he answered.
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"Yourself, aho!" A queer smile crossed his lips, and was followed
+by a sort of sternness. There was something graver in his manner
+than I had ever seen. I could not guess his meaning. At last he
+added, pulling roughly at his mustache, "And when that's done, if
+not well done, to answer to Gabord the soldier; for, God take my
+soul without bed-going, but I will call you to account! That
+Seigneur's home is no place for you."
+
+"You speak in riddles," said I. Then all at once the matter burst
+upon me. "The Governor quarters me at the Seigneur Duvarney's?"
+I asked.
+
+"No other," answered he. "In three days to go."
+
+I understood him now. He had had a struggle, knowing of the
+relations between Alixe and myself, to avoid telling the Governor
+all. And now, if I involved her, used her to effect my escape from
+her father's house! Even his peasant brain saw my difficulty, the
+danger to my honour--and hers. In spite of the joy I felt at being
+near her, seeing her, I shrank from the situation. If I escaped
+from the Seigneur Duvarney's, it would throw suspicion upon him,
+upon Alixe, and that made me stand abashed. Inside the Seigneur
+Duvarney's house I should now feel unhappy, bound to certain calls
+of honour concerning his daughter and himself. I stood long,
+thinking, Gabord watching me.
+
+Finally, "Gabord," said I, "I give you my word of honour that I
+will not put Mademoiselle or Monsieur Duvarney in peril."
+
+"You will not try to escape?"
+
+"Not to use them for escape. To elude my guards, to fight my way
+to liberty--yes--yes--yes!"
+
+"But that mends not. Who's to know the lady did not help you?"
+
+"You. You are to be my jailer again there?"
+
+He nodded, and fell to pulling his mustache. "'Tis not enough,"
+he said decisively.
+
+"Come, then," said I, "I will strike a bargain with you. If you
+will grant me one thing, I will give my word of honour not to escape
+from the seigneur's house."
+
+"Say on."
+
+"You tell me I am not to go to the seigneur's for three days yet.
+Arrange that mademoiselle may come to me to-morrow at dusk--at six
+o'clock, when all the world dines--and I will give my word. No more
+do I ask you--only that."
+
+"Done," said he. "It shall be so."
+
+"You will fetch her yourself?" I asked.
+
+"On the stroke of six. Guard changes then."
+
+Here our talk ended. He went, and I plunged deep into my great plan;
+for all at once, as we had talked, came a thing to me which I shall
+make clear ere long. I set my wits to work. Once since my coming to
+the chateau I had been visited by the English chaplain who had been
+a prisoner at the citadel the year before. He was now on parole, and
+had freedom to come and go in the town. The Governor had said he
+might visit me on a certain day every week, at a fixed hour, and
+the next day at five o'clock was the time appointed for his second
+visit. Gabord had promised to bring Alixe to me at six.
+
+The following morning I met Mr. Stevens on the ramparts. I told
+him it was my purpose to escape the next night, if possible. If
+not, I must go to the Seigneur Duvarney's, where I should be on
+parole--to Gabord. I bade him fulfill my wishes to the letter, for
+on his boldness and my own, and the courage of his men, I depended
+for escape. He declared himself ready to risk all, and die in the
+attempt, if need be, for he was sick of idleness. He could, he
+said, mature his plans that day, if he had more money. I gave him
+secretly a small bag of gold, and then I made explicit note of
+what I required of him: that he should tie up in a loose but safe
+bundle a sheet, a woman's skirt, some river grasses and reeds,
+some phosphorus, a pistol and a knife, and some saltpetre and
+other chemicals. That evening, about nine o'clock, which was the
+hour the guard changed, he was to tie this bundle to a string
+which I let down from my window, and I would draw it up. Then, the
+night following, the others must steal away to that place near
+Sillery--the west side of the town was always ill guarded--and wait
+there with a boat. He should see me at a certain point on the
+ramparts, and, well armed, we also would make our way to Sillery,
+and from the spot called the Anse du Foulon drift down the river
+in the dead of night.
+
+He promised to do all as I wished.
+
+The rest of the day I spent in my room fashioning strange toys
+out of willow rods. I had got these rods from my guards, to make
+whistles for their children, and they had carried away many of
+them. But now, with pieces of a silk handkerchief tied to the
+whistle and filled with air, I made a toy which, when squeezed,
+sent out a weird lament. Once when my guard came in, I pressed one
+of these things in my pocket, and it gave forth a sort of smothered
+cry, like a sick child. At this he started, and looked round the
+room in trepidation; for, of all peoples, these Canadian Frenchmen
+are the most superstitious, and may be worked on without limit.
+The cry had seemed to come from a distance. I looked around, also,
+and appeared serious, and he asked me if I had heard the thing
+before.
+
+"Once or twice," said I.
+
+"Then you are a dead man," said he; "'tis a warning, that!"
+
+"Maybe it is not I, but one of you," I answered. Then, with a
+sort of hush, "Is't like the cry of La Jongleuse?" I added. (La
+Jongleuse is their fabled witch, or spirit, of disaster.)
+
+He nodded his head, crossed himself, mumbled a prayer, and turned
+to go, but came back. "I'll fetch a crucifix," he said. "You are
+a heathen, and you bring her here. She is the devil's dam."
+
+He left with a scared face, and I laughed to myself quietly, for
+I saw success ahead of me. True to his word, he brought a crucifix
+and put it up--not where he wished, but, at my request, opposite
+the door, upon the wall. He crossed himself before it, and was
+most devout.
+
+It looked singular to see this big, rough soldier, who was in
+most things a swaggerer, so childlike in all that touched his
+religion. With this you could fetch him to his knees; with it
+I would cow him that I might myself escape.
+
+At half past five the chaplain came, having been delayed by the
+guard to have his order indorsed by Captain Lancy of the Governor's
+household. To him I told my plans so far as I thought he should
+know them, and then I explained what I wished him to do. He was
+grave and thoughtful for some minutes, but at last consented. He
+was a pious man, and of as honest a heart as I have known, albeit
+narrow and confined, which sprang perhaps from his provincial
+practice and his theological cutting and trimming. We were in the
+midst of a serious talk, wherein I urged him upon matters which
+shall presently be set forth, when there came a noise outside. I
+begged him to retire to the alcove where my bed was, and draw the
+curtain for a few moments, nor come forth until I called. He did
+so, yet I thought it hurt his sense of dignity to be shifted to a
+bedroom.
+
+As he disappeared the door opened, and Gabord and Alixe entered.
+"One half hour," said Gabord, and went out again.
+
+Presently Alixe told me her story.
+
+"I have not been idle, Robert, but I could not act, for my father
+and mother suspect my love for you. I have come but little to the
+chateau without them, and I was closely watched. I knew not how the
+thing would end, but I kept up my workings with the Governor, which
+is easier now Monsieur Doltaire is gone, and I got you the freedom
+to walk upon the ramparts. Well, once before my father suspected me,
+I said that if his Excellency disliked your being in the Chateau,
+you could be as well guarded in my father's house, with sentinels
+always there, until you could, in better health, be taken to the
+common jail again. What was my surprise when yesterday came word to
+my father that he should make ready to receive you as a prisoner;
+being sure that he, his Excellency's cousin, the father of the man
+you had injured, and the most loyal of Frenchmen, would guard you
+diligently; he now needed all extra room in the Chateau for the
+entertainment of gentlemen and officers lately come from France.
+
+"When my father got the news, he was thrown into dismay. He knew
+not what to do. On what ground could he refuse the Governor? Yet
+when he thought of me he felt it his duty to do so. Again, on what
+ground could he refuse this boon to you, to whom we all owe the
+blessing of his life? On my brother's account? But my brother has
+written to my father justifying you, and magnanimously praising you
+as a man, while hating you as an English soldier. On my account?
+But he could not give this reason to the Governor. As for me, I
+was silent, I waited--and I wait; I know not what will be the end.
+Meanwhile preparations go on to receive you."
+
+I could see that Alixe's mood was more tranquil since Doltaire
+was gone. A certain restlessness had vanished. Her manner had much
+dignity, and every movement a peculiar grace and elegance. She was
+dressed in a soft cloth of a gray tone, touched off with red and
+slashed with gold, and a cloak of gray, trimmed with fur, with
+bright silver buckles, hung loosely on her, thrown off at one
+shoulder. There was a sweet disorder in the hair, which indeed
+was prettiest when freest.
+
+When she had finished speaking, she looked at me, as I thought,
+with a little anxiety.
+
+"Alixe," I said, "we have come to the cross-roads, and the way
+we choose now is for all time."
+
+She looked up, startled, yet governing herself, and her hand
+sought mine and nestled there. "I feel that, too," she replied.
+"What is it, Robert?"
+
+"I can not in honour escape from your father's house. I can not
+steal his daughter and his safety too--"
+
+"You must escape," she interrupted firmly.
+
+"From here, from the citadel, from anywhere but your house; and
+so I will not go to it."
+
+"You will not go to it?" she repeated slowly and strangely. "How
+may you not? You are a prisoner. If they make my father your
+jailer--" She laughed.
+
+"I owe that jailer and that jailer's daughter--"
+
+"You owe them your safety and your freedom. Oh, Robert, I know,
+I know what you mean. But what care I what the world may think
+by-and-bye, or to-morrow, or to-day? My conscience is clear."
+
+"Your father--" I persisted.
+
+She nodded. "Yes, yes, you speak truth, alas! And yet you must
+be freed. And"--here she got to her feet, and with flashing eyes
+spoke out--"and you shall be set free. Let come what will, I owe
+my first duty to you, though all the world chatter; and I will
+not stir from that. As soon as I can make it possible, you
+shall escape."
+
+"You shall have the right to set me free," said I, "if I must go
+to your father's house. And if I do not go there, but out to my
+own good country, you shall still have the right before all the
+world to follow, or to wait till I come to fetch you."
+
+"I do not understand you, Robert," said she. "I do not--" Here
+she broke off, looking, looking at me, and trembling a little.
+
+Then I stooped and whispered softly in her ear. She gave a little
+cry, and drew back from me; yet instantly her hand came out and
+caught my arm.
+
+"Robert, Robert! I can not, I dare not!" she cried softly. "No,
+no, it may not be," she added in a whisper of fear.
+
+I went to the alcove, drew back the curtain, and asked Mr.
+Wainfleet to step forth.
+
+"Sir," said I, picking up my Prayer Book and putting it in his
+hands, "I beg you to marry this lady and myself."
+
+He paused, dazed. "Marry you--here--now?" he asked shakingly.
+
+"Before ten minutes go round, this lady must be my wife," said I.
+
+"Mademoiselle Duvarney, you--" he began.
+
+"Be pleased, dear sir, to open the book at 'Wilt thou have,'" said
+I. "The lady is a Catholic; she has not the consent of her people;
+but when she is my wife, made so by you, whose consent need we ask?
+Can you not tie us fast enough, a man and woman of sense sufficient,
+but you must pause here? Is the knot you tie safe against picking
+and stealing?"
+
+I had touched his vanity and his ecclesiasticism. "Married by me,"
+he replied, "once chaplain to the Bishop of London, you have a
+knot that no sword can cut. I am in full orders. My parish is in
+Boston itself."
+
+"You will hand a certificate to my wife to-morrow, and you will
+uphold this marriage against all gossip?" asked I.
+
+"Against all France and all England," he answered, roused now.
+
+"Then come," I urged.
+
+"But I must have a witness," he interposed, opening the book.
+
+"You shall have one in due time," said I. "Go on. When the
+marriage is performed, and at the point where you shall proclaim
+us man and wife, I will have a witness."
+
+I turned to Alixe, and found her pale and troubled. "Oh, Robert,
+Robert!" she cried, "it can not be. Now, now I am afraid, for the
+first time in my life, clear, the first time!"
+
+"Dearest lass in the world," I said, "it must be. I shall not go
+to your father's. To-morrow night, I make my great stroke for
+freedom, and when I am free I shall return to fetch my wife."
+
+"You will try to escape from here to-morrow?" she asked, her
+face flushing finely.
+
+"I will escape or die," I answered; "but I shall not think of
+death. Come--come and say with me that we shall part no more--in
+spirit no more; that, whatever comes, you and I have fulfilled our
+great hope, though under the shadow of the sword."
+
+At that she put her hand in mine with pride and sweetness, and
+said, "I am ready, Robert. I give my heart, my life, and my honour
+to you--forever."
+
+Then, with great sweetness and solemnity she turned to the
+clergyman: "Sir, my honour is also in your hands. If you have
+mother or sister, or any care of souls upon you, I pray you, in
+the future act as becomes good men."
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said earnestly, "I am risking my freedom,
+maybe my life, in this; do you think--"
+
+Here she took his hand and pressed it. "Ah, I ask your pardon. I
+am of a different faith from you, and I have known how men forget
+when they should remember." She smiled at him so perfectly that
+he drew himself up with pride.
+
+"Make haste, sir," said I. "Jailers are curious folk."
+
+The room was not yet lighted, the evening shadows were creeping
+in, and up out of the town came the ringing of the vesper bell from
+the church of the Recollets. For a moment there was stillness in the
+room and all around us, and then the chaplain began in a low voice:
+"I require and charge you both--" and so on. In a few moments I had
+made the great vow, and had put on Alixe's finger a ring which the
+clergyman drew from his own hand. Then we knelt down, and I know
+we both prayed most fervently with the good man that we might "ever
+remain in perfect love and perfect peace together."
+
+Rising, he paused, and I went to the door and knocked upon it.
+It was opened by Gabord. "Come in, Gabord," said I. "There is a
+thing that you must hear."
+
+He stepped back and got a light, and then entered, holding it up,
+and shutting the door. A strange look came upon his face when he saw
+the chaplain, and a stranger when, stepping beside Alixe, I took her
+hand, and Mr. Wainfleet declared us man and wife. He stood like one
+dumfounded, and he did not stir as Alixe, turning to me, let me
+kiss her on the lips, and then went to the crucifix on the wall and
+embraced the feet of it, and stood for a moment, praying. Nor did
+he move or make a sign till she came back and stood beside me.
+
+"A pretty scene!" he burst forth then with anger. "But, by God!
+no marriage is it!"
+
+Alixe's hand tightened on my arm, and she drew close to me.
+
+"A marriage that will stand at Judgment Day, Gabord," said I.
+
+"But not in France or here. 'Tis mating wild, with end of doom."
+
+"It is a marriage our great Archbishop at Lambeth Palace will
+uphold against a hundred popes and kings," said the chaplain with
+importance.
+
+"You are no priest, but holy peddler!" cried Gabord roughly.
+"This is not mating as Christians, and fires of hell shall
+burn--aho! I will see you all go down, and hand of mine shall
+not be lifted for you!"
+
+He puffed out his cheeks, and his great eyes rolled so like
+fire-wheels.
+
+"You are a witness to this ceremony," said the chaplain. "And
+you shall answer to your God, but you must speak the truth for this
+man and wife."
+
+"Man and wife?" laughed Gabord wildly. "May I die and be damned
+to--"
+
+Like a flash Alixe was beside him, and put to his lips most
+swiftly the little wooden cross that Mathilde had given her.
+
+"Gabord, Gabord," she said in a sweet, sad voice, "when you may
+come to die, a girl's prayers will be waiting at God's feet for
+you."
+
+He stopped, and stared at her. Her hand lay on his arm, and she
+continued: "No night gives me sleep, Gabord, but I pray for the
+jailer who has been kind to an ill-treated gentleman."
+
+"A juggling gentleman, that cheats Gabord before his eyes, and
+smuggles in a mongrel priest!" he blustered.
+
+I waved my hand at the chaplain, or I think he would have put
+his Prayer Book to rougher use than was its wont, and I was about
+to answer, but Alixe spoke instead, and to greater purpose than I
+could have done. Her whole mood changed, her face grew still and
+proud, her eyes flashed bravely.
+
+"Gabord," she said, "vanity speaks in you there, not honesty. No
+gentleman here is a juggler. No kindness you may have done warrants
+insolence. You have the power to bring great misery on us, and you
+may have the will, but, by God's help, both my husband and myself
+shall be delivered from cruel hands. At any moment I may stand alone
+in the world, friends, people, the Church, and all the land against
+me: if you desire to haste that time, to bring me to disaster,
+because you would injure my husband,"--how sweet the name sounded on
+her lips!--"then act, but do not insult us. But no, no," she broke
+off softly, "you spoke in temper, you meant it not, you were but
+vexed with us for the moment. Dear Gabord," she added, "did we not
+know that if we had asked you first, you would have refused us? You
+care so much for me, you would have feared my linking my life and
+fate with one--"
+
+"With one the death-man has in hand, to pay price for wicked
+deed," he interrupted.
+
+"With one innocent of all dishonour, a gentleman wronged every
+way. Gabord, you know it so, for you have guarded him and fought
+with him, and you are an honourable gentleman," she added gently.
+
+"No gentleman I," he burst forth, "but jailer base, and soldier
+born upon a truss of hay. But honour is an apple any man may eat
+since Adam walked in garden.... 'Tis honest foe, here," he
+continued magnanimously, and nodded towards me.
+
+"We would have told you all," she said, "but how dare we involve
+you, or how dare we tempt you, or how dare we risk your refusal? It
+was love and truth drove us to this; and God will bless this mating
+as the birds mate, even as He gives honour to Gabord who was born
+upon a truss of hay."
+
+"Poom!" said Gabord, puffing out his cheeks, and smiling on her
+with a look half sour, and yet with a doglike fondness, "Gabord's
+mouth is shut till 's head is off, and then to tell the tale to
+Twelve Apostles!"
+
+Through his wayward, illusive speech we found his meaning. He
+would keep faith with us, and be best proof of this marriage, at
+risk of his head even.
+
+As we spoke, the chaplain was writing in the blank fore-pages of
+the Prayer Book. Presently he said to me, handing me the pen, which
+he had picked from a table, "Inscribe your names here. It is a
+rough record of the ceremony, but it will suffice before all men,
+when to-morrow I have given Mistress Moray another record."
+
+We wrote our names, and then the pen was handed to Gabord. He took
+it, and at last, with many flourishes and ahos, and by dint of
+puffings and rolling eyes, he wrote his name so large that it filled
+as much space as the other names and all the writing, and was indeed
+like a huge indorsement across the record.
+
+When this was done, Alixe held out her hand to him. "Will you kiss
+me, Gabord?" she said.
+
+The great soldier was all taken back. He flushed like a schoolboy,
+yet a big humour and pride looked out of his eyes.
+
+"I owe you for the sables, too," she said. "But kiss me--not on my
+ears, as the Russian count kissed Gabord, but on both cheek."
+
+This won him to our cause utterly, and I never think of Gabord,
+as I saw him last in the sway and carnage of battle, fighting with
+wild uproar and covered with wounds, but the memory of that moment,
+when he kissed my young wife, comes back to me.
+
+At that he turned to leave. "I'll hold the door for ten minutes,"
+he added; and bowed to the chaplain, who blessed us then with tears
+in his eyes, and smiled a little to my thanks and praises and purse
+of gold, and to Alixe's sweet gratitude. With lifting chin--good
+honest gentleman, who afterwards proved his fidelity and truth--he
+said that he would die to uphold this sacred ceremony. And so he
+made a little speech, as if he had a pulpit round him, and he wound
+up with a benediction which sent my dear girl to tears and soft
+trembling:
+
+"The Lord bless you and keep you: the Lord make his face to shine
+upon you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you
+peace now and for evermore."
+
+A moment afterwards the door closed, and for ten minutes I looked
+into my wife's face, and told her my plans for escape. When
+Gabord opened the door upon us, we had passed through years of
+understanding and resolve. Our parting was brave--a bravery on
+her side that I do not think any other woman could match. She
+was quivering with the new life come upon her, yet she was
+self-controlled; she moved as in a dream, yet I knew her mind was
+alert, vigilant, and strong; she was aching with thought of this
+separation, with the peril that faced us both, yet she carried a
+quiet joy in her face, a tranquil gravity of bearing.
+
+"Whom God hath joined--" said I gravely at the last.
+
+"Let no man put asunder," she answered softly and solemnly.
+
+"Aho!" said Gabord, and turned his head away.
+
+Then the door shut upon me, and though I am no Catholic, I have
+no shame in saying that I kissed the feet on the crucifix which
+her lips had blessed.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+LA JONGLEUSE
+
+
+At nine o'clock I was waiting by the window, and even as a bugle
+sounded "lights out" in the barracks and change of guard, I let the
+string down. Mr. Stevens shot round the corner of the chateau, just
+as the departing sentinel disappeared, and attached a bundle to the
+string, and I drew it up.
+
+"Is all well?" I called softly down.
+
+"All well," said Mr. Stevens, and, hugging the wall of the chateau,
+he sped away. In another moment a new sentinel began pacing up and
+down, and I shut the window and untied my bundle. All that I had
+asked for was there. I hid the things away in the alcove and went to
+bed at once, for I knew that I should have no sleep on the following
+night.
+
+I did not leave my bed till the morning was well advanced. Once
+or twice during the day I brought my guards in with fear on their
+faces, the large fat man more distorted than his fellow, by the
+lamentable sounds I made with my willow toys. They crossed
+themselves again and again, and I myself appeared devout and
+troubled. When we walked abroad during the afternoon, I chose to
+saunter by the river rather than walk, for I wished to conserve my
+strength, which was now vastly increased, though, to mislead my
+watchers and the authorities, I assumed the delicacy of an invalid,
+and appeared unfit for any enterprise--no hard task, for I was
+still very thin and worn.
+
+So I sat upon a favourite seat on the cliff, set against a solitary
+tree, fixed in the rocks. I gazed long on the river, and my guards,
+stoutly armed, stood near, watching me, and talking in low tones.
+Eager to hear their gossip, I appeared to sleep. They came nearer,
+and, facing me, sat upon a large stone, and gossiped freely
+concerning the strange sounds heard in my room at the chateau.
+
+"See you, my Bamboir," said the lean to the fat soldier, "the
+British captain, he is to be carried off in burning flames by that
+La Jongleuse. We shall come in one morning and find a smell of
+sulphur only, and a circle of red on the floor where the imps
+danced before La Jongleuse said to them, 'Up with him, darlings,
+and away!'"
+
+At this Bamboir shook his head, and answered, "To-morrow I'll to the
+Governor, and tell him what's coming. My wife, she falls upon my
+neck this morning. 'Argose,' she says, ''twill need the bishop and
+his college to drive La Jongleuse out of the grand chateau.'"
+
+"No less," replied the other. "A deacon and sacred palm and
+sprinkle of holy water would do for a cottage, or even for a little
+manor house, with twelve candles burning, and a hymn to the Virgin.
+But in a king's house--"
+
+"It's not the King's house."
+
+"But yes, it is the King's house, though his Most Christian
+Majesty lives in France. The Marquis de Vaudreuil stands for the
+King, and we are sentinels in the King's house. But, my faith, I'd
+rather be fighting against Frederick, the Prussian boar, than
+watching this mad Englishman."
+
+"But see you, my brother, that Englishman's a devil. Else how has he
+not been hanged long ago? He has vile arts to blind all, or he would
+not be sitting there. It is well known that M'sieu' Doltaire, even
+the King's son--his mother worked in the fields like your Nanette,
+Bamboir--"
+
+"Or your Lablanche, my friend. She has hard hands, with warts,
+and red knuckles therefrom--"
+
+"Or your Nanette, Bamboir, with nose that blisters in the summer,
+as she goes swingeing flax, and swelling feet that sweat in sabots,
+and chin thrust out from carrying pails upon her head--"
+
+"Ay, like Nanette and like Lablanche, this peasant mother of M'sieu'
+Doltaire, and maybe no such firm breasts like Nanette--"
+
+"Nor such an eye as has Lablanche. Well, M'sieu' Doltaire, who
+could override them all, he could not kill this barbarian. And
+Gabord--you know well how they fought, and the black horse and
+his rider came and carried him away. Why, the young M'sieu'
+Duvarney had him on his knees, the blade at his throat,
+and a sword flashed out from the dark--they say it was the
+devil's--and took him in the ribs and well-nigh killed him."
+
+"But what say you to Ma'm'selle Duvarney coming to him that day,
+and again yesterday with Gabord?"
+
+"Well, well, who knows, Bamboir? This morning I said to Nanette,
+'Why is't, all in one moment, you send me to the devil, and pray to
+meet me in Abraham's bosom too?' What think you she answered me?
+Why, this, my Bamboir: 'Why is't Adam loved his wife and swore
+her down before the Lord also, all in one moment?' Why Ma'm'selle
+Duvarney does this or that is not for muddy brains like ours. It
+is some whimsy. They say that women are more curious about the
+devil than about St. Jean Baptiste. Perhaps she got of him a
+magic book."
+
+"No, no! If he had the magic Petit Albert, he would have turned
+us into dogs long ago. But I do not like him. He is but thirty
+years, they say, and yet his hair is white as a pigeon's wing. It
+is not natural. Nor did he ever, says Gabord, do aught but laugh at
+everything they did to him. The chains they put would not stay,
+and when he was set against the wall to be shot, the watches
+stopped--the minute of his shooting passed. Then M'sieu' Doltaire
+came, and said a man that could do a trick like that should live
+to do another. And he did it, for M'sieu' Doltaire is gone to
+the Bastile. Voyez, this Englishman is a damned heretic, and has
+the wicked arts."
+
+"But see, Bamboir, do you think he can cast spells?"
+
+"What mean those sounds from his room?"
+
+"So, so. But if he be a friend of the devil, La Jongleuse would
+not come for him, but--"
+
+Startled and excited, they grasped each other's arms. "But for
+us--for us!"
+
+"It would be a work of God to send him to the devil," said Bamboir
+in a loud whisper. "He has given us trouble enough. Who can tell
+what comes next? Those damned noises in his room, eh--eh?"
+
+Then they whispered together, and presently I caught a fragment,
+by which I understood that, as we walked near the edge of the
+cliff, I should be pushed over, and they would make it appear
+that I had drowned myself.
+
+They talked in low tones again, but soon got louder, and presently
+I knew that they were speaking of La Jongleuse; and Bamboir--the
+fat Bamboir, who the surgeon had said would some day die of
+apoplexy--was rash enough to say that he had seen her. He
+described her accurately, with the spirit of the born raconteur:
+
+"Hair so black as the feather in the Governor's hat, and green
+eyes that flash fire, and a brown face with skin all scales. Oh,
+my saints of Heaven, when she pass I hide my head, and I go cold
+like stone. She is all covered with long reeds and lilies about her
+head and shoulders, and blue-red sparks fly up at every step. Flames
+go round her, and she burns not her robe--not at all. And as she go,
+I hear cries that make me sick, for it is, I said, some poor man
+in torture, and I think, perhaps it is Jacques Villon, perhaps Jean
+Rivas, perhaps Angele Damgoche. But no, it is a young priest of St.
+Clair, for he is never seen again--never!"
+
+In my mind I commended this fat Bamboir as an excellent
+story-teller, and thanked him for his true picture of La Jongleuse,
+whom, to my regret, I had never seen. I would not forget his
+stirring description, as he should see. I gave point to the tale by
+squeezing an inflated toy in my pocket, with my arm, while my hands
+remained folded in front of me; and it was as good as a play to see
+the faces of these soldiers, as they sprang to their feet, staring
+round in dismay. I myself seemed to wake with a start, and, rising
+to my feet, I asked what meant the noise and their amazement. We
+were in a spot where we could not easily be seen from any distance,
+and no one was in sight, nor were we to be remarked from the fort.
+They exchanged looks, as I started back towards the chateau,
+walking very near the edge of the cliff. A spirit of bravado came
+on me, and I said musingly to them as we walked:
+
+"It would be easy to throw you both over the cliff, but I love you
+too well. I have proved that by making toys for your children."
+
+It was as cordial to me to watch their faces. They both drew
+away from the cliff, and grasped their firearms apprehensively.
+
+"My God," said Bamboir, "those toys shall be burned to-night.
+Alphonse has the smallpox and Susanne the croup--damned devil!" he
+added furiously, stepping forward to me with gun raised, "I'll--"
+
+I believe he would have shot me, but that I said quickly, "If you
+did harm to me you'd come to the rope. The Governor would rather
+lose a hand than my life."
+
+I pushed his musket down. "Why should you fret? I am leaving the
+chateau to-morrow for another prison. You fools, d'ye think I'd
+harm the children? I know as little of the devil or La Jongleuse
+as do you. We'll solve the witcheries of these sounds, you and I,
+to-night. If they come, we'll say the Lord's Prayer, and make the
+sacred gesture, and if it goes not, we will have one of your good
+priests to drive out this whining spirit."
+
+This quieted them much, and I was glad of it, for they had looked
+bloodthirsty enough, and though I had a weapon on me, there was
+little use in seeking fighting or flight till the auspicious moment.
+They were not satisfied, however, and they watched me diligently as
+we came on to the chateau.
+
+I could not bear that they should be frightened about their
+children, so I said:
+
+"Make for me a sacred oath, and I will swear by it that those
+toys will do your children no harm."
+
+I drew out the little wooden cross that Mathilde had given me,
+and held it up. They looked at me astonished. What should I, a
+heretic and a Protestant, do with this sacred emblem? "This
+never leaves me," said I; "it was a pious gift."
+
+I raised the cross to my lips, and kissed it.
+
+"That's well," said Bamboir to his comrade. "If otherwise, he
+should have been struck down by the Avenging Angel."
+
+We got back to the chateau without more talk, and I was locked
+in, while my guards retired. As soon as they had gone I got to
+work, for my great enterprise was at hand.
+
+At ten o'clock I was ready for the venture. When the critical
+moment came, I was so arrayed that my dearest friend would not have
+known me. My object was to come out upon my guards as La Jongleuse,
+and, in the fright and confusion which should follow, make my
+escape through the corridors and to the entrance doors, past the
+sentinels, and so on out. It may be seen now why I got the woman's
+garb, the sheet, the horsehair, the phosphorus, the reeds, and such
+things; why I secured the knife and pistol may be guessed likewise.
+Upon the lid of a small stove in the room I placed my saltpetre,
+and I rubbed the horsehair on my head with phosphorus, also on my
+hands, and face, and feet, and on many objects in the room. The
+knife and pistol were at my hand, and when the clock struck ten,
+I set my toys to wailing.
+
+Then I knocked upon the door with solemn taps, hurried back to
+the stove, and waited for the door to open before I applied the
+match. I heard a fumbling at the lock, then the door was thrown wide
+open. All was darkness in the hall without, save for a spluttering
+candle which Bamboir held over his head, as he and his fellow,
+deadly pale, stood peering forward. Suddenly they gave a cry, for
+I threw the sheet from my face and shoulders, and to their excited
+imagination La Jongleuse stood before them, all in flames. As I
+started down on them, the coloured fire flew up, making the room all
+blue and scarlet for a moment, in which I must have looked devilish
+indeed, with staring eyes, and outstretched chalky hands, and
+wailing cries coming from my robe.
+
+I moved swiftly, and Bamboir, without a cry, dropped like a log
+(poor fellow, he never rose again! the apoplexy which the surgeon
+promised had come), his comrade gave a cry, and sank in a heap in
+a corner, mumbling a prayer, and making the sign of the cross, his
+face stark with terror.
+
+I passed him, came along the corridor and down one staircase,
+without seeing any one; then two soldiers appeared in the
+half-lighted hallway. Presently also a door opened behind me, and
+some one came out. By now the phosphorus light diminished a little,
+but still I was a villainous picture, for in one hand I held a
+small cup from which suddenly sprang red and blue fires. The men
+fell back, and I sailed past them, but I had not gone far down the
+lower staircase when a shot rang after me, and a bullet passed by
+my head. Now I came rapidly to the outer door, where two more
+sentinels stood. They shrank back, and suddenly one threw down his
+musket and ran; the other, terrified, stood stock-still. I passed
+him, opened the door, and came out upon the Intendant, who was
+just alighting from his carriage.
+
+The horses sprang away, frightened at sight of me, and nearly threw
+Bigot to the ground. I tossed the tin cup with its chemical fires
+full in his face, as he made a dash for me. He called out, and drew
+his sword. I wished not to fight, and I sprang aside; but he made a
+pass at me, and I drew my pistol and was about to fire, when another
+shot came from the hallway and struck him. He fell, almost at my
+feet, and I dashed away into the darkness. Fifty feet ahead I cast
+one glance hack, and saw Monsieur Cournal standing in the doorway.
+I was sure that his second shot had not been meant for me, but for
+the Intendant--a wild attempt at a revenge, long delayed, for the
+worst of wrongs.
+
+I ran on, and presently came full upon five soldiers, two of
+whom drew their pistols, fired, and missed. Their comrades ran away
+howling. They barred my path, and now I fired, too, and brought one
+down; then came a shot from behind them, and another fell. The last
+one took to his heels, and a moment later I had my hand in that of
+Mr. Stevens. It was he who had fired the opportune shot that rid me
+of one foe. We came quickly along the river brink, and, skirting
+the citadel, got clear of it without discovery, though we could see
+soldiers hurrying past, roused by the firing at the chateau.
+
+In about half an hour of steady running, with a few bad stumbles
+and falls, we reached the old windmill above the Anse du Foulon at
+Sillery, and came plump upon our waiting comrades. I had stripped
+myself of my disguise, and rubbed the phosphorus from my person as
+we came along, but enough remained to make me an uncanny figure.
+It had been kept secret from these people that I was to go with
+them, and they sullenly kept their muskets raised and cocked; but
+when Mr. Stevens told them who I was, they were agreeably surprised.
+I at once took command of the enterprise, saying firmly at the
+same time that I would shoot the first man who disobeyed my
+orders. I was sure that I could bring them to safety, but my will
+must be law. They took my terms like men, and swore to stand by me.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE LORD OF KAMARSKA
+
+
+We were five altogether--Mr. Stevens, Clark, the two Boston
+soldiers, and myself; and presently we came down the steep passage
+in the cliff to where our craft lay, secured by my dear wife--a
+birch canoe, well laden with necessaries. Our craft was none too
+large for our party, but she must do; and safely in, we pushed out
+upon the current, which was in our favour, for the tide was going
+out. My object was to cross the river softly, skirt the Levis
+shore, pass the Isle of Orleans, and so steal down the river.
+There was excitement in the town, as we could tell from the lights
+flashing along the shore, and boats soon began to patrol the banks,
+going swiftly up and down, and extending a line round to the St.
+Charles River towards Beauport.
+
+It was well for us the night was dark, else we had run that
+gantlet. But we were lucky enough, by hard paddling, to get past
+the town on the Levis side. Never were better boatmen. The paddles
+dropped with agreeable precision, and no boatswain's rattan was
+needed to keep my fellows to their task. I, whose sight was long
+trained to darkness, could see a great distance round us, and so
+could prevent a trap, though once or twice we let our canoe drift
+with the tide, lest our paddles should be heard. I could not paddle
+long, I had so little strength. After the Isle of Orleans was
+passed, I drew a breath of relief, and played the part of captain
+and boatswain merely.
+
+Yet when I looked back at the town on those strong heights, and saw
+the bonfires burn to warn the settlers of our escape, saw the lights
+sparkling in many homes, and even fancied I could make out the
+light shining in my dear wife's window, I had a strange feeling of
+loneliness. There in the shadow of my prison walls, was the dearest
+thing on earth to me. Ought she not to be with me? She had begged to
+come, to share with me these dangers and hardships; but that I could
+not, would not grant. She would be safer with her people. As for us
+desperate men bent on escape, we must face hourly peril.
+
+Thank God, there was work to do. Hour after hour the swing and
+dip of the paddles went on. No one showed weariness, and when the
+dawn broke slow and soft over the eastern hills, I motioned my good
+boatmen towards the shore, and landed safely. We lifted our frigate
+up, and carried her into a thicket, there to rest with us till
+night, when we would sally forth again into the friendly darkness.
+We were in no distress all that day, for the weather was fine, and
+we had enough to eat; and in such case were we for ten days and
+nights, though indeed some of the nights were dreary and very cold,
+for it was yet but the beginning of May.
+
+It might thus seem that we were leaving danger well behind,
+after having travelled so many heavy leagues, but it was yet
+several hundred miles to Louisburg, our destination; and we had
+escaped only immediate danger. We passed Isle aux Coudres and the
+Isles of Kamaraska, and now we ventured by day to ramble the woods
+in search of game, which was most plentiful. In this good outdoor
+life my health came slowly back, and I should soon be able to bear
+equal tasks with any of my faithful comrades. Never man led better
+friends, though I have seen adventurous service near and far since
+that time. Even the genial ruffian Clark was amenable, and took
+sharp reprimand without revolt.
+
+On the eleventh night after our escape, our first real trial
+came. We were keeping the middle of the great river, as safest from
+detection, and when the tide was with us we could thus move more
+rapidly. We had had a constant favouring wind, but now suddenly,
+though we were running with the tide, the wind turned easterly, and
+blew up the river against the ebb. Soon it became a gale, to which
+was added snow and sleet, and a rough, choppy sea followed.
+
+I saw it would be no easy task to fetch our craft to the land.
+The waves broke in upon us, and presently, while half of us were
+paddling with laboured and desperate stroke, the other half were
+bailing. Lifted on a crest, our canoe, heavily laden, dropped at
+both ends; and again, sinking into the hollows between the short,
+brutal waves, her gunwales yielded outward, and her waist gaped
+in a dismal way. We looked to see her with a broken back at any
+moment. To add to our ill fortune, a violent current set in from
+the shore, and it was vain to attempt a landing. Spirits and bodies
+flagged, and it needed all my cheerfulness to keep my good fellows
+to their tasks.
+
+At last, the ebb of tide being almost spent, the waves began to
+fall, the wind shifted a little to the northward, and a piercing
+cold instantly froze our drenched clothes on our backs. But with
+the current changed there was a good chance of reaching the shore.
+As daylight came we passed into a little sheltered cove, and sank
+with exhaustion on the shore. Our frozen clothes rattled like tin,
+and we could scarce lift a leg. But we gathered a fine heap of
+wood, flint and steel were ready, and the tinder was sought; which,
+when found, was soaking. Not a dry stitch or stick could we find
+anywhere, till at last, within a leather belt, Mr. Stevens found a
+handkerchief, which was, indeed, as he told me afterwards, the gift
+and pledge of a lady to him; and his returning to her with out it
+nearly lost him another and better gift and pledge, for this went
+to light our fire. We had had enough danger and work in one night
+to give us relish for some days of rest, and we piously took them.
+
+The evening of the second day we set off again, and had a good
+night's run, and in the dawn, spying a snug little bay, we stood
+in, and went ashore. I sent my two Provincials foraging with their
+guns, and we who remained set about to fix our camp for the day and
+prepare breakfast. A few minutes only passed, and the two hunters
+came running back with rueful faces to say they had seen two
+Indians near, armed with muskets and knives. My plans were made at
+once. We needed their muskets, and the Indians must pay the price
+of their presence here, for our safety should be had at any cost.
+
+I urged my men to utter no word at all, for none but Clark could
+speak French, and he but poorly. For myself, my accent would pass
+after these six years of practice. We came to a little river,
+beyond which we could observe the Indians standing on guard. We
+could only cross by wading, which we did; but one of my Provincials
+came down, wetting his musket and himself thoroughly. Reaching the
+shore, we marched together, I singing the refrain of an old French
+song as we went,
+
+  En roulant, ma boule roulant,
+  En roulant, ma boule
+
+so attracting the attention of the Indians. The better to deceive,
+we all were now dressed in the costume of the French peasant--I had
+taken pains to have Mr. Stevens secure these for us before starting;
+a pair of homespun trousers, a coarse brown jacket, with thrums like
+waving tassels, a silk handkerchief about the neck, and a strong
+thick worsted wig on the head; no smart toupet, nor buckle; nor
+combed, nor powdered; and all crowned by a dull black cap. I myself
+was, as became my purpose, most like a small captain of militia,
+doing wood service, and in the braver costume of the coureur de bois.
+
+I signalled to the Indians, and, coming near, addressed them in
+French. They were deceived, and presently, abreast of them, in the
+midst of apparent ceremony, their firelocks were seized, and Mr.
+Stevens and Clark had them safe. I said we must be satisfied as
+to who they were, for English prisoners escaped from Quebec were
+abroad, and no man could go unchallenged. They must at once lead me
+to their camp. So they did, and at their bark wigwam they said they
+had seen no Englishman. They were guardians of the fire; that is,
+it was their duty to light a fire on the shore when a hostile fleet
+should appear; and from another point farther up, other guardians,
+seeing, would do the same, until beacons would be shining even to
+Quebec, three hundred leagues away.
+
+While I was questioning them, Clark rifled the wigwam; and
+presently, the excitable fellow, finding some excellent stores of
+skins, tea, maple sugar, coffee, and other things, broke out into
+English expletives. Instantly the Indians saw they had been
+trapped, and he whom Mr. Stevens held made a great spring from him,
+caught up a gun, and gave a wild yell which echoed far and near.
+Mr. Stevens, with great rapidity, leveled his pistol and shot him
+in the heart, while I, in a close struggle with my captive, was
+glad--for I was not yet strong--that Clark finished my assailant:
+and so both lay there dead, two foes less of our good King.
+
+Not far from where we stood was a pool of water, black and deep,
+and we sank the bodies there; but I did not know till long
+afterwards that Clark, with a barbarous and disgusting spirit,
+carried away their scalps to sell them in New York, where they
+would bring, as he confided to one of the Provincials, twelve
+pounds each. Before we left, we shot a poor howling dog that
+mourned for his masters, and sank him also in the dark pool.
+
+We had but got back to our camp, when, looking out, we saw a
+well-manned four-oared boat making for the shore. My men were in
+dismay until I told them that, having begun the game of war, I
+would carry it on to the ripe end. This boat and all therein should
+be mine. Safely hidden, we watched the rowers draw in to shore,
+with brisk strokes, singing a quaint farewell song of the
+voyageurs, called La Pauvre Mere, of which the refrain is:
+
+  "And his mother says, 'My dear,
+  For your absence I shall grieve;
+  Come you home within the year.'"
+
+They had evidently been upon a long voyage, and by their toiling
+we could see their boat was deep loaded; but they drove on, like a
+horse that, at the close of day, sees ahead the inn where he is to
+bait and refresh, and, rousing to the spur, comes cheerily home.
+The figure of a reverend old man was in the stern, and he sent
+them in to shore with brisk words. Bump came the big shallop on
+the beach, and at that moment I ordered my men to fire, but to
+aim wide, for I had another end in view than killing.
+
+We were exactly matched as to numbers, so that a fight would be
+fair enough, but I hoped for peaceful conquest. As we fired I
+stepped out of the thicket, and behind me could be seen the shining
+barrels of our threatening muskets. The old gentleman stood up
+while his men cried for quarter. He waved them down with an
+impatient gesture, and stepped out on the beach. Then I recognized
+him. It was the Chevalier de la Darante. I stepped towards him, my
+sword drawn.
+
+"Monsieur the Chevalier de la Darante, you are my prisoner," said I.
+
+He started, then recognized me. "Now, by the blood of man! now,
+by the blood of man!" he said, and paused, dumfounded.
+
+"You forget me, monsieur?" asked I.
+
+"Forget you, monsieur?" said he. "As soon forget the devil at
+mass! But I thought you dead by now, and--"
+
+"If you are disappointed," said I, "there is a way"; and I waved
+towards his men, then to Mr. Stevens and my own ambushed fellows.
+
+He smiled an acid smile, and took a pinch of snuff. "It is not
+so fiery-edged as that," he answered; "I can endure it."
+
+"You shall have time too for reverie," answered I.
+
+He looked puzzled. "What is't you wish?" he asked.
+
+"Your surrender first," said I, "and then your company at
+breakfast."
+
+"The latter has meaning and compliment," he responded, "the former
+is beyond me. What would you do with me?"
+
+"Detain you and your shallop for the services of my master, the
+King of England, soon to be the master of your master, if the signs
+are right."
+
+"All signs fail with the blind, monsieur."
+
+"I will give you good reading of those
+signs in due course," retorted I.
+
+"Monsieur," he added, with great, almost too great dignity, "I am
+of the family of the Duc de Mirepoix. The whole Kamaraska Isles are
+mine, and the best gentlemen in this province do me vassalage. I
+make war on none, I have stepped aside from all affairs of state, I
+am a simple gentleman. I have been a great way down this river, at
+large expense and toil, to purchase wheat, for all the corn of
+these counties goes to Quebec to store the King's magazine, the
+adored La Friponne. I know not your purposes, but I trust you will
+not push your advantage"--he waved towards our muskets--"against a
+private gentleman."
+
+"You forget, Chevalier," said I, "that you gave verdict for my
+death."
+
+"Upon the evidence," he replied. "And I have no doubt you
+deserve hanging a thousand times."
+
+I almost loved him for his boldness. I remembered also that he
+had no wish to be one of my judges, and that he spoke for me in
+the presence of the Governor. But he was not the man to make a
+point of that.
+
+"Chevalier," said I, "I have been foully used in yonder town; by
+the fortune of war you shall help me to compensation. We have come
+a long, hard journey; we are all much overworked; we need rest, a
+better boat, and good sailors. You and your men, Chevalier, shall
+row us to Louisburg. When we are attacked, you shall be in the
+van; when we are at peace, you shall industriously serve under
+King George's flag. Now will you give up your men, and join me
+at breakfast?"
+
+For a moment the excellent gentleman was mute, and my heart
+almost fell before his venerable white hair and his proud bearing;
+but something a little overdone in his pride, a little ludicrous
+in the situation, set me smiling; there came back on me the
+remembrance of all I had suffered, and I let no sentiment stand
+between me and my purposes.
+
+"I am the Chevalier de la--" he began.
+
+"If you were King Louis himself, and every man there in your
+boat a peer of his realm, you should row a British subject now,"
+said I; "or, if you choose, you shall have fighting instead."
+I meant there should be nothing uncertain in my words.
+
+"I surrender," said he; "and if you are bent on shaming me, let
+us have it over soon."
+
+"You shall have better treatment than I had in Quebec," answered I.
+
+A moment afterwards, his men were duly surrendered, disarmed,
+and guarded, and the Chevalier breakfasted with me, now and again
+asking me news of Quebec. He was much amazed to hear that Bigot
+had been shot, and distressed that I could not say whether fatally
+or not.
+
+I fixed on a new plan. We would now proceed by day as well as by
+night, for the shallop could not leave the river, and, besides,
+I did not care to trust my prisoners on shore. I threw from the
+shallop into the stream enough wheat to lighten her, and now, well
+stored and trimmed, we pushed away upon our course, the Chevalier
+and his men rowing, while my men rested and tended the sail, which
+was now set. I was much loath to cut our good canoe adrift, but she
+stopped the shallop's way, and she was left behind.
+
+After a time, our prisoners were in part relieved, and I made the
+Chevalier rest also, for he had taken his task in good part, and
+had ordered his men to submit cheerfully. In the late afternoon,
+after an excellent journey, we saw a high and shaggy point of land,
+far ahead, which shut off our view. I was anxious to see beyond it,
+for ships of war might appear at any moment. A good breeze brought
+up this land, and when we were abreast of it a lofty frigate was
+disclosed to view--a convoy (so the Chevalier said) to a fleet of
+transports which that morning had gone up the river. I resolved
+instantly, since fight was useless, to make a run for it. Seating
+myself at the tiller, I declared solemnly that I would shoot the
+first man who dared to stop the shallop's way, to make sign, or
+speak a word. So, as the frigate stood across the river, I had all
+sail set, roused the men at the oars, and we came running by her
+stern. Our prisoners were keen enough to get by in safety, for
+they were between two fires, and the excellent Chevalier was as
+alert and laborious as the rest. They signalled us from the frigate
+by a shot to bring to, but we came on gallantly. Another shot
+whizzed by at a distance, but we did not change our course, and
+then balls came flying over our heads, dropping round us, cooling
+their hot protests in the river. But none struck us, and presently
+all fell short.
+
+We durst not slacken pace that night, and by morning, much
+exhausted, we deemed ourselves safe, and rested for a while, making
+a hearty breakfast, though a sombre shadow had settled on the face
+of the good Chevalier. Once more he ventured to protest, but I
+told him my resolution was fixed, and that I would at all costs
+secure escape from my six years' misery. He must abide the fortune
+of this war.
+
+For several days we fared on, without more mishap. At last, one
+morning, we hugged the shore, I saw a large boat lying on the
+beach. On landing we found the boat of excellent size, and made
+for swift going, and presently Clark discovered the oars. Then I
+turned to the Chevalier, who was watching me curiously, yet hiding
+anxiety, for he had upheld his dignity with some accent since he
+had come into my service:
+
+"Chevalier," said I, "you shall find me more humane than my
+persecutors at Quebec. I will not hinder your going, if you will
+engage on your honour--as would, for instance, the Duc de
+Mirepoix!"--he bowed to my veiled irony--"that you will not divulge
+what brought you back thus far, till you shall reach your Kamaraska
+Isles; and you must undertake the same for your fellows here."
+
+He consented, and I admired the fine, vain old man, and lamented
+that I had had to use him so.
+
+"Then," said I, "you may depart with your shallop. Your mast and
+sail, however, must be ours; and for these I will pay. I will also
+pay for the wheat which was thrown into the river, and you shall
+have a share of our provisions, got from the Indians."
+
+"Monsieur," said he, "I shall remember with pride that I have
+dealt with so fair a foe. I can not regret the pleasure of your
+acquaintance, even at the price. And see, monsieur, I do not
+think you the criminal they have made you out, and so I will
+tell a lady--"
+
+I raised my hand at him, for I saw that he knew something, and
+Mr. Stevens was near us at the time.
+
+"Chevalier," said I, drawing him aside, "if, as you say, you
+think I have used you honourably, then, if trouble falls upon my
+wife before I see her again, I beg you to stand her friend. In the
+sad fortunes of war and hate of me, she may need a friend--even
+against her own people, on her own hearthstone."
+
+I never saw a man so amazed; and to his rapid questionings I
+gave the one reply, that Alixe was my wife. His lip trembled.
+
+"Poor child! poor child!" he said; "they will put her in a
+nunnery. You did wrong, monsieur."
+
+"Chevalier," said I, "did you ever love a woman?"
+
+He made a motion of the hand, as if I had touched upon a tender
+point, and said, "So young, so young!"
+
+"But you will stand by her," I urged, "by the memory of some
+good woman you have known!"
+
+He put out his hand again with a chafing sort of motion. "There,
+there," said he, "the poor child shall never want a friend. If I
+can help it, she shall not be made a victim of the Church or of
+the State, nor yet of family pride--good God, no!"
+
+Presently we parted, and soon we lost our grateful foes in the
+distance. All night we jogged along with easy sail, but just at
+dawn, in a sudden opening of the land, we saw a sloop at anchor
+near a wooded point, her pennant flying. We pushed along, unheeding
+its fiery signal to bring to; and declining, she let fly a swivel
+loaded with grape, and again another, riddling our sail; but we
+were travelling with wind and tide, and we soon left the indignant
+patrol behind. Towards evening came a freshening wind and a cobbling
+sea, and I thought it best to make for shore. So, easing the sail,
+we brought our shallop before the wind. It was very dark, and there
+was a heavy surf running; but we had to take our fortune as it came,
+and we let drive for the unknown shore, for it was all alike to us.
+Presently, as we ran close in, our boat came hard upon a rock, which
+bulged her bows open. Taking what provisions we could, we left our
+poor craft upon the rocks, and fought our way to safety.
+
+We had little joy that night in thinking of our shallop breaking
+on the reefs, and we discussed the chances of crossing overland
+to Louisburg; but we soon gave up that wild dream: this river
+was the only way. When daylight came, we found our boat, though
+badly wrecked, still held together. Now Clark rose to the great
+necessity, and said that he would patch her up to carry us on, or
+never lift a hammer more. With labour past reckoning we dragged her
+to shore, and got her on the stocks, and then set about to find
+materials to mend her. Tools were all too few--a hammer, a saw, and
+an adze were all we had. A piece of board or a nail were treasures
+then, and when the timbers of the craft were covered, for oakum we
+had resort to tree-gum. For caulking, one spared a handkerchief,
+another a stocking, and another a piece of shirt, till she was
+stuffed in all her fissures. In this labour we passed eight days,
+and then were ready for the launch again.
+
+On the very afternoon fixed for starting, we saw two sails
+standing down the river, and edging towards our shore. One of them
+let anchor go right off the place where our patched boat lay. We
+had prudently carried on our work behind rocks and trees, so that
+we could not be seen, unless our foes came ashore. Our case seemed
+desperate enough, but all at once I determined on a daring
+enterprise.
+
+The two vessels--convoys, I felt sure--had anchored some distance
+from each other, and from their mean appearance I did not think that
+they would have a large freight of men and arms; for they seemed not
+ships from France, but vessels of the country. If I could divide the
+force of either vessel, and quietly, under cover of night, steal on
+her by surprise, then I would trust our desperate courage, and open
+the war which soon General Wolfe and Admiral Saunders were to wage
+up and down this river.
+
+I had brave fellows with me, and if we got our will it would be
+a thing worth remembrance. So I disclosed my plan to Mr. Stevens
+and the others, and, as I looked for, they had a fine relish for
+the enterprise. I agreed upon a signal with them, bade them to
+lie close along the ground, picked out the nearer (which was
+the smaller) ship for my purpose, and at sunset, tying a white
+handkerchief to a stick, came marching out of the woods, upon the
+shore, firing a gun at the same time. Presently a boat was put out
+from the sloop, and two men and a boy came rowing towards me.
+Standing off a little distance from the shore, they asked what
+was wanted.
+
+"The King's errand," was my reply in French, and I must be
+carried down the river by them, for which I would pay generously.
+Then, with idle gesture, I said that if they wished some drink,
+there was a bottle of rum near my fire, above me, to which they
+were welcome; also some game, which they might take as a gift to
+their captain and his crew.
+
+This drew them like a magnet, and, as I lit my pipe, their boat
+scraped the sand, and, getting out, they hauled her up and came
+towards me. I met them, and, pointing towards my fire, as it might
+appear, led them up behind the rocks, when, at a sign, my men
+sprang up, the fellows were seized, and were forbidden to cry out
+on peril of their lives. I compelled them to tell what hands and
+what arms were left on board. The sloop from which they came, and
+the schooner, its consort, were bound for Gaspe, to bring provisions
+for several hundred Indians assembled at Miramichi and Aristiguish,
+who were to go by these same vessels to re-enforce the garrison of
+Quebec.
+
+The sloop, they said, had six guns and a crew of twenty men; but
+the schooner, which was much larger, had no arms save muskets,
+and a crew and guard of thirty men.
+
+In this country there is no twilight, and with sunset came instantly
+the dusk. Already silence and dark inclosed the sloop. I had the men
+bound to a tree, and gagged also, engaging to return and bring them
+away safe and unhurt when our task was over. I chose for pilot the
+boy, and presently, with great care, launching our patched shallop
+from the stocks--for the ship-boat was too small to carry six
+safely--we got quietly away. Rowing with silent stroke, we came
+alongside the sloop. No light burned save that in the binnacle, and
+all hands, except the watch, were below at supper and at cards.
+
+I could see the watch forward as we dropped silently alongside
+the stern. My object was to catch this fellow as he came by. This
+I would trust to no one but myself; for now, grown stronger, I
+had the old spring in my blood, and I had also a good wish that
+my plans should not go wrong through the bungling of others. I
+motioned my men to sit silent, and then, when the fellow's back was
+toward me, coming softly up the side, I slid over quietly, and drew
+into the shadow of a boat that hung near.
+
+He came on lazily, and when just past me I suddenly threw my
+arms about him, clapping my hand upon his mouth. He was stoutly
+built, and he began at once to struggle. He was no coward, and
+feeling for his knife, he drew it, and would have had it in me but
+that I was quicker, and, with a desperate wrench, my hand still
+over his mouth, half swung him round, and drove my dagger home.
+
+He sank in my arms with a heaving sigh, and I laid him down,
+still and dead, upon the deck. Then I whispered up my comrades, the
+boy leading. As the last man came over, his pistol, stuck in his
+belt, caught the ratlings of the shrouds, and it dropped upon the
+deck. This gave the alarm, but I was at the companion-door on the
+instant, as the first master came bounding up, sword showing, and
+calling to his men, who swarmed after him. I fired; the bullet
+travelled his spine, and he fell back stunned.
+
+A dozen others came on. Some reached the deck and grappled with
+my men. I never shall forget with what fiendish joy Clark fought
+that night--those five terrible minutes. He was like some mad
+devil, and by his imprecations I knew that he was avenging the
+brutal death of his infant daughter some years before. He was armed
+with a long knife, and I saw four men fall beneath it, while he
+himself got but one bad cut. Of the Provincials, one fell wounded,
+and the other brought down his man. Mr. Stevens and myself held the
+companion-way, driving the crew back, not without hurt, for my
+wrist was slashed by a cutlass, and Mr. Stevens had a bullet in his
+thigh. But presently we had the joy of having those below cry
+quarter.
+
+We were masters of the sloop. Quickly battening down the prisoners,
+I had the sails spread, the windlass going, and the anchor apeak
+quickly, and we soon were moving down upon the schooner, which was
+now all confusion, commands ringing out on the quiet air. But when,
+laying alongside, we gave her a dose, and then another, from all
+our swivels at once, sweeping her decks, the timid fellows cried
+quarter, and we boarded her. With my men's muskets cocked, I ordered
+her crew and soldiers below, till they were all, save two lusty
+youths, stowed away. Then I had everything of value brought from
+the sloop, together with the swivels, which we fastened to the
+schooner's side; and when all was done, we set fire to the sloop,
+and I stood and watched her burn with a proud--too proud--spirit.
+
+Having brought our prisoners from the shore, we placed them with
+the rest below. At dawn I called a council with Mr. Stevens and
+the others--our one wounded Provincial was not omitted--and we all
+agreed that some of the prisoners should be sent off in the long
+boat, and a portion of the rest be used to work the ship. So we had
+half the fellows up, and giving them fishing-lines, rum, and
+provisions, with a couple of muskets and ammunition, we sent them
+off to shift for themselves, and, raising anchor, got on our way
+down the broad river, in perfect weather.
+
+The days that followed are like a good dream to me, for we came
+on all the way without challenge and with no adventure, even round
+Gaspe, to Louisburg, thirty-eight days after my escape from
+the fortress.
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+WITH WOLFE AT MONTMORENCI
+
+
+At Louisburg we found that Admiral Saunders and General Wolfe
+were gone to Quebec. They had passed us as we came down, for we had
+sailed inside some islands of the coast, getting shelter and better
+passage, and the fleet had, no doubt, passed outside. This was a
+blow to me, for I had hoped to be in time to join General Wolfe and
+proceed with him to Quebec, where my knowledge of the place should
+be of service to him. It was, however, no time for lament, and I
+set about to find my way back again. Our prisoners I handed over
+to the authorities. The two Provincials decided to remain and take
+service under General Amherst; Mr. Stevens would join his own
+Rangers at once, but Clark would go back with me to have his hour
+with his hated foes.
+
+I paid Mr. Stevens and the two Provincials for their shares in
+the schooner, and Clark and I manned her afresh, and prepared
+to return instantly to Quebec. From General Amherst I received
+correspondence to carry to General Wolfe and Admiral Saunders.
+Before I started back, I sent letters to Governor Dinwiddie and to
+Mr. (now Colonel) George Washington, but I had no sooner done so
+than I received others from them through General Amherst. They had
+been sent to him to convey to General Wolfe at Quebec, who was, in
+turn, to hand them to me, when, as was hoped, I should be released
+from captivity, if not already beyond the power of men to free me.
+
+The letters from these friends almost atoned for my past sufferings,
+and I was ashamed that ever I had thought my countrymen forgot me in
+my worst misery; for this was the first matter I saw when I opened
+the Governor's letter:
+
+  By the House of Burgesses.
+
+Resolved, That the sum of three hundred pounds be paid to Captain
+Robert Moray, in consideration of his services to the country,
+and his singular sufferings in his confinement, as a hostage, in
+Quebec.
+
+This, I learned, was one of three such resolutions.
+
+But there were other matters in his letter which much amazed me.
+An attempt, he said, had been made one dark night upon his
+strong-room, which would have succeeded but for the great bravery
+and loyalty of an old retainer. Two men were engaged in the
+attempt, one of whom was a Frenchman. Both men were masked,
+and, when set upon, fought with consummate bravery, and escaped.
+It was found the next day that the safe of my partner had also
+been rifled and all my papers stolen. There was no doubt in my mind
+what this meant. Doltaire, with some renegade Virginian who knew
+Williamsburg and myself, had made essay to get my papers. But they
+had failed in their designs, for all my valuable documents--and
+those desired by Doltaire among them--remained safe in the
+Governor's strong-room.
+
+I got away again for Quebec five days after reaching Louisburg.
+We came along with good winds, having no check, though twice we
+sighted French sloops, which, however, seemed most concerned to
+leave us to ourselves. At last, with colours flying, we sighted
+Kamaraska Isles, which I saluted, remembering the Chevalier de la
+Darante; then Isle aux Coudres, below which we poor fugitives came
+so near disaster. Here we all felt new fervour, for the British
+flag flew from a staff on a lofty point, tents were pitched thereon
+in a pretty cluster, and, rounding a point, we came plump upon
+Admiral Durell's little fleet, which was here to bar advance of
+French ships and to waylay stragglers.
+
+On a blithe summer day we sighted, far off, the Island of
+Orleans and the tall masts of two patrol ships of war, which in
+due time we passed, saluting, and ran abreast of the island in the
+North Channel. Coming up this passage, I could see on an eminence,
+far distant, the tower of the Chateau Alixe.
+
+Presently there opened on our sight the great bluff at the Falls
+of Montmorenci, and, crowning it, tents and batteries, the camp of
+General Wolfe himself, with the good ship Centurion standing off
+like a sentinel at a point where the Basin, the River Montmorenci,
+and the North Channel seem to meet. To our left, across the shoals,
+was Major Hardy's post, on the extreme eastern point of the Isle
+Orleans; and again beyond that, in a straight line, Point Levis on
+the south shore, where Brigadier-General Monckton's camp was
+pitched; and farther on his batteries, from which shell and shot
+were poured into the town. How all had changed in the two months
+since I left there! Around the Seigneur Duvarney's manor, in the
+sweet village of Beauport, was encamped the French army, and
+redoubts and batteries were ranged where Alixe and I and her brother
+Juste had many a time walked in a sylvan quiet. Here, as it were,
+round the bent and broken sides of a bowl, war raged, and the centre
+was like some caldron out of which imps of ships sprang and sailed
+to hand up fires of hell to the battalions on the ledges. Here swung
+Admiral Saunders's and Admiral Holmes's divisions, out of reach of
+the French batteries, yet able to menace and destroy, and to feed
+the British camps with men and munitions. There was no French ship
+in sight--only two old hulks with guns in the mouth of the St.
+Charles River, to protect the road to the palace gate--that is,
+at the Intendance.
+
+It was all there before me, the investment of Quebec, for which
+I had prayed and waited seven long years.
+
+All at once, on a lull in the fighting which had lasted
+twenty-four hours, the heavy batteries from the Levis shore opened
+upon the town, emptying therein the fatal fuel. Mixed feelings
+possessed me. I had at first listened to Clark's delighted
+imprecations and devilish praises with a feeling of brag almost
+akin to his own--that was the soldier and the Briton in me. But all
+at once the man, the lover, and the husband spoke: my wife was in
+that beleaguered town under that monstrous shower! She had said
+that she would never leave it till I came to fetch her. For I knew
+well that our marriage must become known after I had escaped; that
+she would not, for her own good pride and womanhood, keep it secret
+then; that it would be proclaimed while yet Gabord and the
+excellent chaplain were alive to attest all.
+
+Summoned by the Centurion, we were passed on beyond the eastern
+point of the Isle of Orleans to the admiral's ship, which lay in
+the channel off the point, with battleships in front and rear, and
+a line of frigates curving towards the rocky peninsula of Quebec.
+Then came a line of buoys beyond these, with manned boats moored
+alongside to protect the fleet from fire rafts, which once already
+the enemy had unavailingly sent down to ruin and burn our fleet.
+
+Admiral Saunders received me with great cordiality, thanked me
+for the dispatches, heard with applause of my adventures with the
+convoy, and at once, with dry humour, said he would be glad, if
+General Wolfe consented, to make my captured schooner one of his
+fleet. Later, when her history and doings became known in the
+fleet, she was at once called the Terror of France; for she did a
+wild thing or two before Quebec fell, though from first to last
+she had but her six swivel guns, which I had taken from the burnt
+sloop. Clark had command of her.
+
+From Admiral Saunders I learned that Bigot had recovered from
+his hurt, which had not been severe, and of the death of Monsieur
+Cournal, who had ridden his horse over the cliff in the dark.
+From the Admiral I came to General Wolfe at Montmorenci.
+
+I shall never forget my first look at my hero, my General, that
+flaming, exhaustless spirit, in a body so gauche and so unshapely.
+When I was brought to him, he was standing on a knoll alone,
+looking through a glass towards the batteries of Levis. The
+first thing that struck me, as he lowered the glass and leaned
+against a gun, was the melancholy in the lines of his figure. I
+never forget that, for it seemed to me even then that, whatever
+glory there was for British arms ahead, there was tragedy for
+him. Yet, as he turned at the sound of our footsteps, I almost
+laughed; for his straight red hair, his face defying all
+regularity, with the nose thrust out like a wedge and the chin
+falling back from an affectionate sort of mouth, his tall
+straggling frame and far from athletic shoulders, challenged
+contrast with the compact, handsome, graciously shaped Montcalm.
+In Montcalm was all manner of things to charm--all save that
+which presently filled me with awe, and showed me wherein this
+sallow-featured, pain-racked Briton was greater than his rival
+beyond measure: in that searching, burning eye, which carried
+all the distinction and greatness denied him elsewhere. There
+resolution, courage, endurance, deep design, clear vision, dogged
+will, and heroism, lived: a bright furnace of daring resolves and
+hopes, which gave England her sound desire.
+
+An officer of his staff presented me. He looked at me with
+piercing intelligence, and then, presently, his long hand made
+a swift motion of knowledge and greeting, and he said:
+
+"Yes, yes, and you are welcome, Captain Moray. I have heard of
+you, of much to your credit. You were for years in durance
+there."
+
+He pointed towards the town, where we could see the dome of the
+cathedral shine, and the leaping smoke and flame of the roaring
+batteries.
+
+"Six years, your Excellency," said I.
+
+"Papers of yours fell into General Braddock's hands, and they
+tried you for a spy--a curious case--a curious case! Wherein were
+they wrong and you justified, and why was all exchange refused?"
+
+I told him the main, the bare facts, and how, to force certain
+papers from me, I had been hounded to the edge of the grave. He
+nodded, and seemed lost in study of the mud-flats at the Beauport
+shore, and presently took to beating his foot upon the ground.
+After a minute, as if he had come back from a distance, he said:
+"Yes, yes, broken articles. Few women have a sense of national
+honour, such as La Pompadour none! An interesting matter."
+
+Then, after a moment: "You shall talk with our chief engineer;
+you know the town you should be useful to me, Captain Moray. What
+do you suggest concerning this siege of ours?"
+
+"Has any attack been made from above the town, your Excellency?"
+
+He lifted his eyebrows. "Is it vulnerable from there? From Cap
+Rouge, you mean?"
+
+"They have you at advantage everywhere, sir," I said. "A thousand
+men could keep the town, so long as this river, those mud-flats,
+and those high cliffs are there."
+
+"But above the town--"
+
+"Above the citadel there is a way--the only way: a feint from
+the basin here, a sham menace and attack, and the real action at
+the other door of the town."
+
+"They will, of course, throw fresh strength and vigilance above,
+if our fleet run their batteries and attack there; the river at Cap
+Rouge is like this Montmorenci for defense." He shook his head.
+"There is no way, I fear."
+
+"General," said I, "if you will take me into your service, and
+then give me leave to handle my little schooner in this basin and
+in the river above, I will prove that you may take your army into
+Quebec by entering it myself, and returning with something as
+precious to me as the taking of Quebec to you."
+
+He looked at me piercingly for a minute, then a sour sort of smile
+played at his lips. "A woman!" he said. "Well, it were not the first
+time the love of a wench opened the gates to a nation's victory."
+
+"Love of a wife, sir, should carry a man farther."
+
+He turned on me a commanding look. "Speak plainly," said he. "If
+we are to use you, let us know you in all."
+
+He waved farther back the officers with him.
+
+"I have no other wish, your Excellency," I answered him. Then I told
+him briefly of the Seigneur Duvarney, Alixe, and of Doltaire.
+
+"Duvarney! Duvarney!" he said, and a light came into his look.
+Then he called an officer. "Was it not one Seigneur Duvarney who
+this morning prayed protection for his chateau on the Isle of
+Orleans?" he asked.
+
+"Even so, your Excellency," was the reply; "and he said that if
+Captain Moray was with us, he would surely speak for the humanity
+and kindness he and his household had shown to British prisoners."
+
+"You speak, then, for this gentleman?" he asked, with a dry sort
+of smile.
+
+"With all my heart," I answered. "But why asks he protection at
+this late day?"
+
+"New orders are issued to lay waste the country; hitherto all
+property was safe," was the General's reply. "See that the Seigneur
+Duvarney's suit is granted," he added to his officer, "and say it
+is by Captain Moray's intervention.--There is another matter of
+this kind to be arranged this noon," he continued: "an exchange
+of prisoners, among whom are some ladies of birth and breeding,
+captured but two days ago. A gentleman comes from General Montcalm
+directly upon the point. You might be useful herein," he added,
+"if you will come to my tent in an hour." He turned to go.
+
+"And my ship, and permission to enter the town, your Excellency?"
+I asked.
+
+"What do you call your--ship?" he asked a little grimly.
+
+I told him how the sailors had already christened her. He
+smiled. "Then let her prove her title to Terror of France," he
+said, "by being pilot to the rest of our fleet, up the river, and
+you, Captain Moray, be guide to a footing on those heights"--he
+pointed to the town. "Then this army and its General, and all
+England, please God, will thank you. Your craft shall have
+commission as a rover--but if she gets into trouble?"
+
+"She will do as her owner has done these six years, your
+Excellency: she will fight her way out alone."
+
+He gazed long at the town and at the Levis shore. "From above,
+then, there is a way?"
+
+"For proof, if I come back alive--"
+
+"For proof that you have been--" he answered meaningly, with an
+amused flash of his eyes, though at the very moment a spasm of pain
+crossed his face, for he was suffering from incurable disease, and
+went about his great task in daily misery, yet cheerful and
+inspiring.
+
+"For proof, my wife, sir," said I.
+
+He nodded, but his thoughts were diverted instantly, and he went
+from me at once abstracted. But again he came back. "If you
+return," said he, "you shall serve upon my staff. You will care to
+view our operations," he added, motioning towards the intrenchments
+at the river. Then he stepped quickly away, and I was taken by an
+officer to the river, and though my heart warmed within me to hear
+that an attack was presently to be made from the shore not far
+distant from the falls, I felt that the attempt could not succeed:
+the French were too well intrenched.
+
+At the close of an hour I returned to the General's tent. It was
+luncheon-time, and they were about to sit as I was announced. The
+General motioned me to a seat, and then again, as if on second
+thought, made as though to introduce me to some one who stood
+beside him. My amazement was unbounded when I saw, smiling
+cynically at me, Monsieur Doltaire.
+
+He was the envoy from Quebec. I looked him in the eyes steadily
+for a moment, into malicious, unswerving eyes, as maliciously and
+unswervingly myself, and then we both bowed.
+
+"Captain Moray and I have sat at meat together before," he said,
+with mannered coolness. "We have played host and guest also: but
+that was ere he won our hearts by bold, romantic feats. Still, I
+dared scarcely hope to meet him at this table."
+
+"Which is sacred to good manners," said I meaningly and coolly,
+for my anger and surprise were too deep for excitement.
+
+I saw the General look at both of us keenly, then his marvellous
+eyes flashed intelligence, and a grim smile played at his lips a
+moment. After a little general conversation Doltaire addressed
+me:
+
+"We are not yet so overwhelmed with war but your being here
+again will give a fillip to our gossip. It must seem sad to
+you--you were so long with us--you have broken bread with so many
+of us--to see us pelted so. Sometimes a dinner-table is disordered
+by a riotous shell."
+
+He bent on torturing me. And it was not hard to do that, for
+how knew I what had happened? How came he back so soon from the
+Bastile? It was incredible. Perhaps he had never gone, in spite
+of all. After luncheon, the matter of exchange of prisoners was
+gone into, and one by one the names of the French prisoners in
+our hands--ladies and gentlemen apprehended at the chateau were
+ticked off, and I knew them all save two. The General deferred to
+me several times as to the persons and positions of the captives,
+and asked my suggestions. Immediately I proposed Mr. Wainfleet,
+the chaplain, in exchange for a prisoner, though his name was not
+on the list, but Doltaire shook his head in a blank sort of way.
+
+"Mr. Wainfleet! Mr. Wainfleet! There was no such prisoner in the
+town," he said.
+
+I insisted, but he stared at me inscrutably, and said that he
+had no record of the man. Then I spoke most forcibly to the
+General, and said that Mr. Wainfleet should be produced, or an
+account of him be given by the French Governor. Doltaire then
+said:
+
+"I am only responsible for these names recorded. Our General
+trusts to your honour, and you to ours, Monsieur le General."
+
+There was nothing more to say, and presently the exchanges were
+arranged, and, after compliments, Doltaire took his leave. I left
+the Governor also, and followed Doltaire. He turned to meet me.
+
+"Captain Moray and I," he remarked to the officers near, "are
+old--enemies; and there is a sad sweetness in meetings like these.
+May I--"
+
+The officers drew away at a little distance at once before the
+suggestion was made, and we were left alone. I was in a white heat,
+but yet in fair control.
+
+"You are surprised to see me here," he said. "Did you think the
+Bastile was for me? Tut! I had not got out of the country when we a
+packet came, bearing fresh commands. La Pompadour forgave me, and
+in the King's name bade me return to New France, and in her own she
+bade me get your papers, or hang you straight. And--you will think
+it singular--if need be, I was to relieve the Governor and Bigot
+also, and work to save New France with the excellent Marquis de
+Montcalm." He laughed. "You can see how absurd that is. I have held
+my peace, and I keep my commission in my pocket."
+
+I looked at him amazed that he should tell me this. He read my
+look, and said:
+
+"Yes, you are my confidant in this. I do not fear you. Your
+enemy is bound in honour, your friend may seek to serve himself."
+Again he laughed. "As if I, Tinoir Doltaire--note the agreeable
+combination of peasant and gentleman in my name--who held his hand
+from ambition for large things in France, should stake a lifetime
+on this foolish hazard! When I play, Captain Moray, it is for
+things large and vital. Else I remain the idler, the courtier--the
+son of the King."
+
+"Yet you lend your vast talent, the genius of those unknown
+possibilities, to this, monsieur--this little business of exchange
+of prisoners," I retorted ironically.
+
+"That is my whim--a social courtesy."
+
+"You said you knew nothing of the chaplain," I broke out.
+
+"Not so. I said he was on no record given me. Officially I know
+nothing of him."
+
+"Come," said I, "you know well how I am concerned for him. You
+quibble; you lied to our General."
+
+A wicked light shone in his eyes. "I choose to pass that by, for the
+moment," said he. "I am sorry you forget yourself; it were better
+for you and me to be courteous till our hour of reckoning, Shall
+we not meet some day?" he said, with a sweet hatred in his tone.
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"But where?"
+
+"In yonder town," said I, pointing.
+
+He laughed provokingly. "You are melodramatic," he rejoined. "I
+could hold that town with one thousand men against all your army
+and five times your fleet."
+
+"You have ever talked and nothing done," said I. "Will you tell
+me the truth of the chaplain?"
+
+"Yes, in private the truth you shall hear," he said. "The man is
+dead."
+
+"If you speak true, he was murdered," I broke out. "You know
+well why."
+
+"No, no," he answered. "He was put in prison, escaped, made for
+the river, was pursued, fought, and was killed. So much for serving
+you."
+
+"Will you answer me one question?" said I. "Is my wife well? Is
+she safe? She is there set among villainies."
+
+"Your wife?" he answered, sneering. "If you mean Mademoiselle
+Duvarney, she is not there." Then he added solemnly and slowly:
+"She is in no fear of your batteries now--she is beyond them. When
+she was there, she was not child enough to think that foolish game
+with the vanished chaplain was a marriage. Did you think to gull a
+lady so beyond the minute's wildness? She is not there," he added
+again in a low voice.
+
+"She is dead?" I gasped. "My wife is dead?"
+
+"Enough of that," he answered with cold fierceness. "The lady
+saw the folly of it all, before she had done with the world.
+You--you, monsieur! It was but the pity of her gentle heart, of
+a romantic nature. You--you blundering alien, spy, and seducer!"
+
+With a gasp of anger I struck him in the face, and whipped out
+my sword. But the officers near came instantly between us, and I
+could see that they thought me gross, ill-mannered, and wild, to
+do this thing before the General's tent, and to an envoy.
+
+Doltaire stood still a moment. Then presently wiped a little
+blood from his mouth, and said:
+
+"Messieurs, Captain Moray's anger was justified; and for the
+blow he will justify that in some happier time--for me. He said
+that I had lied, and I proved him wrong. I called him a spy and a
+seducer--he sought to shame, he covered with sorrow, one of the
+noblest families of New France--and he has yet to prove me wrong.
+As envoy I may not fight him now, but I may tell you that I have
+every cue to send him to hell one day. He will do me the credit
+to say that it is not cowardice that stays me."
+
+"If no coward in the way of fighting, coward in all other
+things," I retorted instantly.
+
+"Well, well, as you may think." He turned to go. "We will meet
+there, then?" he said, pointing to the town. "And when?"
+
+"To-morrow," said I.
+
+He shrugged his shoulder as to a boyish petulance, for he thought
+it an idle boast. "To-morrow? Then come and pray with me in the
+cathedral, and after that we will cast up accounts--to-morrow,"
+he said, with a poignant and exultant malice. A moment afterwards
+he was gone, and I was left alone.
+
+Presently I saw a boat shoot out from the shore below, and he
+was in it. Seeing me, he waved a hand in an ironical way. I paced
+up and down, sick and distracted, for half an hour or more. I knew
+not whether he lied concerning Alixe, but my heart was wrung with
+misery, for indeed he spoke with an air of truth.
+
+Dead! dead! dead! "In no fear of your batteries now," he had
+said. "Done with the world!" he had said. What else could it mean?
+Yet the more I thought, there came a feeling that somehow I had
+been tricked. "Done with the world!" Ay, a nunnery--was that it?
+But then, "In no fear of your batteries now"--that, what did that
+mean but death?
+
+At this distressful moment a message came from the General, and
+I went to his tent, trying to calm myself, but overcome with
+apprehension. I was kept another half hour waiting, and then,
+coming in to him, he questioned me closely for a little about
+Doltaire, and I told him the whole story briefly. Presently
+his secretary brought me the commission for my appointment to
+special service on the General's own staff.
+
+"Your first duty," said his Excellency, "will be to--reconnoitre;
+and if you come back safe, we will talk further."
+
+While he was speaking I kept looking at the list of prisoners
+which still lay upon his table. It ran thus:
+
+  Monsieur and Madame Joubert.
+  Monsieur and Madame Carcanal.
+  Madame Rousillon.
+  Madame Champigny.
+  Monsieur Pipon.
+  Mademoiselle La Rose.
+  L'Abbe Durand.
+  Monsieur Halboir.
+  La Soeur Angelique.
+  La Soeur Seraphine.
+
+I know not why it was, but the last three names held my eyes.
+Each of the other names I knew, and their owners also. When I
+looked close, I saw that where "La Soeur Angelique" now was
+another name had been written and then erased. I saw also that
+the writing was recent. Again, where "Halboir" was written there
+had been another name, and the same process of erasure and
+substitution had been made. It was not so with "La Soeur Seraphine."
+I said to the General at once, "Your excellency, it is possible
+you have been tricked." Then I pointed out what I had discovered.
+He nodded.
+
+"Will you let me go, sir?" said I. "Will you let me see this
+exchange?"
+
+"I fear you will be too late," he answered. "It is not a vital
+matter, I fancy."
+
+"Perhaps to me most vital," said I, and I explained my fears.
+
+"Then go, go," he said kindly. He quickly gave directions to
+have me carried to Admiral Saunders's ship, where the exchange
+was to be effected, and at the same time a general passport.
+
+In a few moments we were hard on our way. Now the batteries were
+silent. By the General's orders, the bombardment ceased while the
+exchange was being effected, and the French batteries also were
+still. A sudden quietness seemed to settle on land and sea, and
+there was only heard, now and then, the note of a bugle from a ship
+of war. The water in the basin was moveless, and the air was calm
+and quiet. This heraldry of war was all unnatural in the golden
+weather and sweet-smelling land.
+
+I urged the rowers to their task, and we flew on. We passed
+another boat loaded with men, singing boisterously a disorderly
+sort of song, called "Hot Stuff," set to the air "Lilies of
+France." It was out of touch with the general quiet:
+
+  "When the gay Forty-Seventh is dashing ashore,
+  While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar,
+  Says Montcalm, 'Those are Shirleys--I know the lapels.'
+  'You lie,' says Ned Botwood, 'we swipe for Lascelles!
+  Though our clothing is changed, and we scout powder-puff,
+  Here's at you, ye swabs--here's give you Hot Stuff!'"
+
+While yet we were about two miles away, I saw a boat put out
+from the admiral's ship, then, at the same moment, one from the
+Lower Town, and they drew towards each other. I urged my men to
+their task, and as we were passing some of Admiral Saunders's ships,
+their sailors cheered us. Then came a silence, and it seemed to me
+that all our army and fleet, and that at Beauport, and the garrison
+of Quebec, were watching us; for the ramparts and shore were
+crowded. We drove on at an angle, to intercept the boat that left
+the admiral's ship before it reached the town.
+
+War leaned upon its arms and watched a strange duel. There was
+no authority in any one's hands save my own to stop the boat,
+and the two armies must avoid firing, for the people of
+both nations were here in this space between--ladies and gentlemen
+in the French boat going to the town, Englishmen and a poor woman
+or two coming to our own fleet.
+
+My men strained every muscle, but the pace was impossible--it
+could not last; and the rowers in the French boat hung over their
+oars also with enthusiasm. With the glass of the officer near
+me--Kingdon of Anstruther's Regiment--I could now see Doltaire
+standing erect in the boat, urging the boatmen on.
+
+All round that basin, on shore and cliff and mountains,
+thousands of veteran fighters--Fraser's, Otway's, Townsend's,
+Murray's; and on the other side the splendid soldiers of La Sarre,
+Languedoc, Bearn, and Guienne--watched in silence. Well they
+might, for in this entr'acte was the little weapon forged which
+opened the door of New France to England's glory. So may the little
+talent or opportunity make possible the genius of the great.
+
+The pain of this suspense grew so, that I longed for some sound
+to break the stillness; but there was nothing for minute after
+minute. Then, at last, on the halcyon air of that summer day
+floated the Angelus from the cathedral tower. Only a moment, in
+which one could feel, and see also, the French army praying, then
+came from the ramparts the sharp inspiring roll of a drum, and
+presently all was still again. Nearer and nearer the boat of
+prisoners approached the stone steps of the landing, and we were
+several hundred yards behind.
+
+I motioned to Doltaire to stop, but he made no sign. I saw the
+cloaked figures of the nuns near him, and I strained my eyes, but I
+could not note their faces. My men worked on ardently, and presently
+we gained. But I saw that it was impossible to reach them before
+they set foot on shore. Now their boat came to the steps, and one by
+one they hastily got out. Then I called twice to Doltaire to stop.
+The air was still, and my voice carried distinctly. Suddenly one of
+the cloaked figures sprang towards the steps with arms outstretched,
+calling aloud, "Robert! Robert!" After a moment, "Robert, my
+husband!" rang out again, and then a young officer and the other
+nun took her by the arm to force her away. At the sharp instigation
+of Doltaire, instantly some companies of marines filed in upon the
+place where they had stood, leveled their muskets on us, and hid my
+beloved wife from my view. I recognized the young officer who had
+put a hand upon Alixe. It was her brother Juste.
+
+"Alixe! Alixe!" I called, as my boat still came on.
+
+"Save me, Robert!" came the anguished reply, a faint but
+searching sound, and then no more.
+
+Misery and mystery were in my heart all at once. Doltaire had
+tricked me. "Those batteries can not harm her now!" Yes, yes, they
+could not while she was a prisoner in our camp. "Done with the
+world!" Truly, when wearing the garb of the Sister Angelique. But
+why that garb? I swore that I would be within that town by the
+morrow, that I would fetch my wife into safety, out from the
+damnable arts and devices of Master Devil Doltaire, as Gabord had
+called him.
+
+The captain of the marines called to us that another boat's length
+would fetch upon us the fire of his men. There was nothing to do,
+but to turn back, while from the shore I was reviled by soldiers
+and by the rabble. My marriage with Alixe had been made a national
+matter--of race and religion. So, as my men rowed back towards our
+fleet, I faced my enemies, and looked towards them without moving.
+I was grim enough that moment, God knows; I felt turned to stone.
+I did not stir when--ineffaceable brutality--the batteries on the
+heights began to play upon us, the shot falling round us, and
+passing over our heads, and musket-firing followed.
+
+"Damned villains! Faithless brutes!" cried Kingdon beside me. I
+did not speak a word, but stood there defiant, as when we first
+had turned back. Now, sharply, angrily, from all our batteries,
+there came reply to the French; and as we came on with only one
+man wounded and one oar broken, the whole fleet cheered us. I
+steered straight for the Terror of France, and there Clark and I,
+he swearing violently, laid plans.
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE SACRED COUNTERSIGN
+
+
+That night, at nine o'clock, the Terror of France, catching the
+flow of the tide, with one sail set and a gentle wind, left the
+fleet, and came slowly up the river, under the batteries of the
+town. In the gloom we passed lazily on with the flow of the tide,
+unquestioned, soon leaving the citadel behind, and ere long came
+softly to that point called Anse du Foulon, above which Sillery
+stood. The shore could not be seen distinctly, but I knew by a
+perfect instinct the cleft in the hillside where was the path
+leading up the mountain. I bade Clark come up the river again two
+nights hence to watch for my signal, which was there agreed upon.
+If I did not come, then, with General Wolfe's consent, he must
+show the General this path up the mountain. He swore that all
+should be as I wished; and indeed you would have thought that he
+and his Terror of France were to level Quebec to the water's edge.
+
+I stole softly to the shore in a boat, which I drew up among the
+bushes, hiding it as well as I could in the dark, and then, feeling
+for my pistols and my knife, I crept upwards, coming presently to
+the passage in the mountain. I toiled on to the summit without a
+sound of alarm from above. Pushing forward, a light flashed from
+the windmill, and a man, and then two men, appeared in the open
+door. One of them was Captain Lancy, whom I had very good reason
+to remember. The last time I saw him was that famous morning when
+he would have had me shot five minutes before the appointed hour,
+rather than endure the cold and be kept from his breakfast. I
+itched to call him to account then and there, but that would have
+been foolish play. I was outside of the belt of light falling from
+the door, and stealing round I came near to the windmill on the
+town side. I was not surprised to see such poor watch kept. Above
+the town, up to this time, the guard was of a perfunctory sort, for
+the great cliffs were thought impregnable; and even if surmounted,
+there was still the walled town to take, surrounded by the St.
+Lawrence, the St. Charles, and these massive bulwarks.
+
+Presently Lancy stepped out into the light, and said, with a
+hoarse laugh, "Blood of Peter, it was a sight to-day! She has a
+constant fancy for the English filibuster. 'Robert! my husband!'
+she bleated like a pretty lamb, and Doltaire grinned at her."
+
+"But Doltaire will have her yet."
+
+"He has her pinched like a mouse in a weasel's teeth."
+
+"My faith, mademoiselle has no sweet road to travel since her
+mother died," was the careless reply.
+
+I almost cried out. Here was a blow which staggered me. Her
+mother dead!
+
+Presently the scoffer continued: "The Duvarneys would remain in
+the city, and on that very night, as they sit at dinner, a shell
+disturbs them, a splinter strikes Madame, and two days after she
+is carried to her grave."
+
+They linked arms and walked on.
+
+It was a dangerous business I was set on, for I was sure that I
+would be hung without shrift if captured. As it proved afterwards,
+I had been proclaimed, and it was enjoined on all Frenchmen and
+true Catholics to kill me if the chance showed.
+
+Only two things could I depend on: Voban and my disguise, which
+was very good. From the Terror of France I had got a peasant's
+dress, and by rubbing my hands and face with the stain of
+butternut, cutting again my new-grown beard, and wearing a wig,
+I was well guarded against discovery.
+
+How to get into the city was the question. By the St. Charles
+River and the Palace Gate, and by the St. Louis Gate, not far from
+the citadel, were the only ways, and both were difficult. I had,
+however, two or three plans, and these I chewed as I went across
+Maitre Abraham's fields, and came to the main road from
+Sillery to the town.
+
+Soon I heard the noise of clattering hoofs, and jointly with
+this I saw a figure rise up not far ahead of me, as if waiting for
+the coming horseman. I drew back. The horseman passed me, and,
+as he came on slowly, I saw the figure spring suddenly from the
+roadside and make a stroke at the horseman. In a moment they were
+a rolling mass upon the ground, while the horse trotted down the
+road a little, and stood still. I never knew the cause of that
+encounter--robbery, or private hate, or paid assault; but there
+was scarcely a sound as the two men struggled. Presently, there
+was groaning, and both lay still. I hurried to them, and found one
+dead, and the other dying, and dagger wounds in both, for the
+assault had been at such close quarters that the horseman had had
+no chance to use a pistol.
+
+My plans were changed on the instant. I drew the military coat,
+boots, and cap off the horseman, and put them on myself; and
+thrusting my hand into his waistcoat--for he looked like a
+courier--I found a packet. This I put into my pocket, and then,
+making for the horse which stood quiet in the road, I mounted it
+and rode on towards the town. Striking a light, I found that the
+packet was addressed to the Governor. A serious thought disturbed
+me: I could not get into the town through the gates without the
+countersign. I rode on, anxious and perplexed.
+
+Presently a thought pulled me up. The courier was insensible
+when I left him, and he was the only one who could help me in this.
+I greatly reproached myself for leaving him while he was still
+alive. "Poor devil," thought I to myself, "there is some one whom
+his death will hurt. He must not die alone. He was no enemy of
+mine." I went back, and, getting from the horse, stooped to him,
+lifted up his head, and found that he was not dead. I spoke in his
+ear. He moaned, and his eyes opened.
+
+"What is your name?" said I.
+
+"Jean--Labrouk," he whispered.
+
+Now I remembered him. He was the soldier whom Gabord had sent as
+messenger to Voban the night I was first taken to the citadel.
+
+"Shall I carry word for you to any one?" asked I.
+
+There was a slight pause; then he said, "Tell my--Babette--Jacques
+Dobrotte owes me ten francs--and--a leg--of mutton. Tell--my
+Babette--to give my coat of beaver fur to Gabord the soldier.
+Tell"...he sank back, but raised himself, and continued: "Tell my
+Babette I weep with her.... Ah, mon grand homme de Calvaire--bon
+soir!" He sank back again, but I roused him with one question more,
+vital to me. I must have the countersign.
+
+"Labrouk! Labrouk!" said I sharply.
+
+He opened his dull, glazed eyes.
+
+"Qui va la?" said I, and I waited anxiously.
+
+Thought seemed to rally in him, and, staring--alas! how helpless
+and how sad: that look of a man brought back for an instant from
+the Shadows!--his lips moved.
+
+"France," was the whispered reply.
+
+"Advance and give the countersign!" I urged.
+
+"Jesu--" he murmured faintly. I drew from my breast the cross that
+Mathilde had given me, and pressed it to his lips. He sighed softly,
+lifted his hand to it, and then fell back, never to speak again.
+
+After covering his face and decently laying the body out, I mounted
+the horse again. Glancing up, I saw that this bad business had
+befallen not twenty feet from a high Calvary at the roadside.
+
+I was in a painful quandary. Did Labrouk mean that the countersign
+was "Jesu," or was that word the broken prayer of his soul as it
+hurried forth? So strange a countersign I had never heard, and yet
+it might be used in this Catholic country. This day might be some
+great feast of the Church--possibly that of the naming of Christ
+(which was the case, as I afterwards knew). I rode on, tossed
+about in my mind. So much hung on this. If I could not give the
+countersign, I should have to fight my way back again the road I
+came. But I must try my luck. So I went on, beating up my heart to
+confidence; and now I came to the St. Louis Gate. A tiny fire was
+burning near, and two sentinels stepped forward as I rode boldly on
+the entrance.
+
+"Qui va la?" was the sharp call.
+
+"France," was my reply, in a voice as like the peasant's as
+possible.
+
+"Advance and give the countersign," came the demand.
+
+Another voice called from the darkness of the wall: "Come and
+drink, comrade; I've a brother with Bougainville."
+
+"Jesu," said I to the sentinel, answering his demand for the
+countersign, and I spurred on my horse idly, though my heart was
+thumping hard, for there were several sturdy fellows lying beyond
+the dull handful of fire.
+
+Instantly the sentinel's hand came to my bridle-rein. "Halt!"
+roared he.
+
+Surely some good spirit was with me then to prompt me, for,
+with a careless laugh, as though I had not before finished the
+countersign, "Christ," I added--"Jesu Christ!"
+
+With an oath the soldier let go the bridle-rein, the other
+opened the gates, and I passed through. I heard the first fellow
+swearing roundly to the others that he would "send yon courier to
+fires of hell, if he played with him again so."
+
+The gates closed behind me, and I was in the town which had seen
+the worst days and best moments of my life. I rode along at a trot,
+and once again beyond the citadel was summoned by a sentinel.
+Safely passed on, I came down towards the Chateau St. Louis. I rode
+boldly up to the great entrance door, and handed the packet to the
+sentinel.
+
+"From whom?" he asked.
+
+"Look in the corner," said I. "And what business is't of yours?"
+
+"There is no word in the corner," answered he doggedly. "Is't
+from Monsieur le General at Cap Rouge?"
+
+"Bah! Did you think it was from an English wolf?" I asked.
+
+His dull face broke a little. "Is Jean Labrouk with Bougainville
+yet?"
+
+"He's done with Bougainville; he's dead," I answered.
+
+"Dead! dead!" said he, a sort of grin playing on his face.
+
+I made a shot at a venture. "But you're to pay his wife Babette
+the ten francs and the leg of mutton in twenty-four hours, or his
+ghost will follow you. Swallow that, pudding-head! And see you pay
+it, or every man in our company swears to break a score of shingles
+on your bare back."
+
+"I'll pay, I'll pay," he said, and he took to trembling.
+
+"Where shall I find Babette?" asked I. "I come from Isle aux
+Coudres; I know not this rambling town."
+
+"A little house hugging the cathedral rear," he explained. "Babette
+sweeps out the vestry, and fetches water for the priests."
+
+"Good," said I. "Take that to the Governor at once, and send the
+corporal of the guard to have this horse fed and cared for, and
+he's to carry back the Governor's messenger. I've further business
+for the General in the town. And tell your captain of the guard to
+send and pick up two dead men in the highway, just against the
+first Calvary beyond the town."
+
+He did my bidding, and I dismounted, and was about to get away,
+when I saw the Chevalier de la Darante and the Intendant appear at
+the door. They paused upon the steps. The Chevalier was speaking
+most earnestly:
+
+"To a nunnery--a piteous shame! it should not be, your Excellency."
+
+"To decline upon Monsieur Doltaire, then?" asked Bigot, with a
+sneer.
+
+"Your Excellency believes in no woman," responded the Chevalier
+stiffly.
+
+"Ah yes, in one!" was the cynical reply.
+
+"Is it possible? And she remains a friend of your Excellency?"
+came back in irony.
+
+"The very best; she finds me unendurable."
+
+"Philosophy shirks the solving of that problem, your
+Excellency," was the cold reply.
+
+"No, it is easy. The woman to be trusted is she who never trusts."
+
+"The paragon--or prodigy--who is she?"
+
+"Even Madame Jamond."
+
+"She danced for you once, your Excellency, they tell me."
+
+"She was a devil that night; she drove us mad."
+
+So Doltaire had not given up the secret of that affair! There
+was silence for a moment, and then the Chevalier said, "Her father
+will not let her go to a nunnery--no, no. Why should he yield to
+the Church in this?"
+
+Bigot shrugged a shoulder. "Not even to hide--shame?"
+
+"Liar--ruffian!" said I through my teeth. The Chevalier answered
+for me:
+
+"I would stake my life on her truth and purity."
+
+"You forget the mock marriage, dear Chevalier."
+
+"It was after the manner of his creed and people."
+
+"It was after a manner we all have used at times."
+
+"Speak for yourself, your Excellency," was the austere reply.
+Nevertheless, I could see that the Chevalier was much troubled.
+
+"She forgot race, religion, people--all, to spend still hours with
+a foreign spy in prison," urged Bigot, with damnable point and
+suggestion.
+
+"Hush, sir!" said the Chevalier. "She is a girl once much beloved
+and ever admired among us. Let not your rancour against the man be
+spent upon the maid. Nay, more, why should you hate the man so? It
+is said, your Excellency, that this Moray did not fire the shot
+that wounded you, but one who has less reason to love you."
+
+Bigot smiled wickedly, but said nothing.
+
+The Chevalier laid a hand on Bigot's arm. "Will you not oppose
+the Governor and the bishop? Her fate is sad enough."
+
+"I will not lift a finger. There are weightier matters. Let
+Doltaire, the idler, the Don Amato, the hunter of that fawn, save
+her from the holy ambush. Tut, tut, Chevalier. Let her go. Your
+nephew is to marry her sister; let her be swallowed up--a shame
+behind the veil, the sweet litany of the cloister."
+
+The Chevalier's voice set hard as he said in quick reply, "My
+family honour, Francois Bigot, needs no screen. And if you
+doubt that, I will give you argument at your pleasure;" so saying,
+he turned and went back into the chateau.
+
+Thus the honest Chevalier kept his word, given to me when I
+released him from serving me on the St. Lawrence.
+
+Bigot came down the steps, smiling detestably, and passed me
+with no more than a quick look. I made my way cautiously through
+the streets towards the cathedral, for I owed a duty to the poor
+soldier who had died in my arms, through whose death I had been
+able to enter the town.
+
+Disarray and ruin met my sight at every hand. Shot and shell had
+made wicked havoc. Houses where, as a hostage, I had dined, were
+battered and broken; public buildings were shapeless masses,
+and dogs and thieves prowled among the ruins. Drunken soldiers
+staggered past me; hags begged for sous or bread at corners; and
+devoted priests and long-robed Recollet monks, cowled and alert,
+hurried past, silent, and worn with labours, watchings, and
+prayers. A number of officers in white uniforms rode by, going
+towards the chateau, and a company of coureurs de bois came up
+from Mountain Street, singing:
+
+  "Giron, giran! le canon grand--
+  Commencez-vous, commencez-vous!"
+
+Here and there were fires lighted in the streets, though it was
+not cold, and beside them peasants and soldiers drank and quarreled
+over food--for starvation was abroad in the land.
+
+By one of these fires, in a secluded street--for I had come a
+roundabout way--were a number of soldiers of Languedoc's regiment
+(I knew them by their trick of headgear and their stoutness), and
+with them reckless girls, who, in their abandonment, seemed to me
+like those revellers in Herculaneum, who danced their way into the
+Cimmerian darkness. I had no thought of staying there to moralize
+upon the theme; but, as I looked, a figure came out of the dusk
+ahead, and moved swiftly towards me.
+
+It was Mathilde. She seemed bent on some errand, but the
+revellers at the fire caught her attention, and she suddenly
+swerved towards them, and came into the dull glow, her great black
+eyes shining with bewildered brilliancy and vague keenness, her
+long fingers reaching out with a sort of chafing motion. She did
+not speak till she was among them. I drew into the shade of a
+broken wall, and watched. She looked all round the circle, and
+then, without a word, took an iron crucifix which hung upon her
+breast, and silently lifted it above their heads for a moment. I
+myself felt a kind of thrill go through me, for her wild beauty
+was almost tragical. Her madness was not grotesque, but solemn
+and dramatic. There was something terribly deliberate in her
+strangeness; it was full of awe to the beholder, more searching
+and painfully pitiful than melancholy.
+
+Coarse hands fell away from wanton waists; ribaldry hesitated;
+hot faces drew apart; and all at once a girl with a crackling
+laugh threw a tin cup of liquor into the fire. Even as she did it,
+a wretched dwarf sprang into the circle without a word, and,
+snatching the cup out of the flames, jumped back again into the
+darkness, peering into it with a hollow laugh. As he did so a
+soldier raised a heavy stick to throw at him; but the girl caught
+him by the arms, and said, with a hoarse pathos, "My God, no,
+Alphonse! It is my brother!"
+
+Here Mathilde, still holding out the cross, said in a loud
+whisper, "'Sh, 'sh! My children, go not to the palace, for there
+is Francois Bigot, and he has a devil. But if you have no cottage,
+I will give you a home. I know the way to it up in the hills.
+Poor children, see, I will make you happy."
+
+She took a dozen little wooden crosses from her girdle, and,
+stepping round the circle, gave each person one. No man refused,
+save a young militiaman; and when, with a sneering laugh, he threw
+his into the fire, she stooped over him and said, "Poor boy! poor
+boy!"
+
+She put her fingers on her lips, and whispered, "Beati
+immaculati--miserere mei, Deus," stray phrases gathered from
+the liturgy, pregnant to her brain, order and truth flashing out of
+wandering and fantasy. No one of the girls refused, but sat there,
+some laughing nervously, some silent; for this mad maid had come
+to be surrounded with a superstitious reverence in the eyes of the
+common people. It was said she had a home in the hills somewhere,
+to which she disappeared for days and weeks, and came back hung
+about the girdle with crosses; and it was also said that her red
+robe never became frayed, shabby, or disordered.
+
+Suddenly she turned and left them. I let her pass, unchecked,
+and went on towards the cathedral, humming an old French chanson.
+I did this because now and then I met soldiers and patrols, and my
+free and careless manner disarmed notice. Once or twice drunken
+soldiers stopped me and threw their arms about me, saluting me on
+the cheeks a la mode, asking themselves to drink with me. Getting
+free of them, I came on my way, and was glad to reach the cathedral
+unchallenged. Here and there a broken buttress or a splintered wall
+told where our guns had played upon it, but inside I could hear an
+organ playing and a Miserere being chanted. I went round to its
+rear, and there I saw the little house described by the sentinel
+at the chateau. Coming to the door, I knocked, and it was opened
+at once by a warm-faced, woman of thirty or so, who instantly
+brightened on seeing me. "Ah, you come from Cap Rouge, m'sieu',"
+she said, looking at my clothes--her own husband's, though she
+knew it not.
+
+"I come from Jean," said I, and stepped inside.
+
+She shut the door, and then I saw, sitting in a corner, by a
+lighted table, an old man, bowed and shrunken, white hair and white
+beard falling all about him, and nothing of his features to be seen
+save high cheek-bones and two hawklike eyes which peered up at me.
+
+"So, so, from Jean," he said in a high, piping voice. "Jean's a
+pretty boy--ay, ay, Jean's like his father, but neither with a foot
+like mine--a foot for the Court, said Frotenac to me--yes, yes, I
+knew the great Frotenac--"
+
+The wife interrupted his gossip. "What news from Jean?" said she.
+"He hoped to come one day this week."
+
+"He says," responded I gently, "that Jacques Dobrotte owes you
+ten francs and a leg of mutton, and that you are to give his great
+beaver coat to Gabord the soldier."
+
+"Ay, ay, Gabord the soldier, he that the English spy near sent
+to heaven." quavered the old man.
+
+The bitter truth was slowly dawning upon the wife. She was
+repeating my words in a whisper, as if to grasp their full
+meaning.
+
+"He said also," I continued, "'Tell Babette I weep with her.'"
+
+She was very still and dazed; her fingers went to her white lips,
+and stayed there for a moment. I never saw such a numb misery in
+any face.
+
+"And last of all, he said, 'Ah, mon grand homme de Calvaire--bon
+soir!'"
+
+She turned round, and went and sat down beside the old man,
+looked into his face for a minute silently, and then said,
+"Grandfather, Jean is dead; our Jean is dead."
+
+The old man peered at her for a moment, then broke into a
+strange laugh, which had in it the reflection of a distant misery,
+and said, "Our little Jean, our little Jean Labrouk! Ha! ha! There
+was Villon, Marmon, Gabriel, and Gouloir, and all their sons;
+and they all said the same at the last, 'Mon grand homme--de
+Calvaire--bon soir!' Then there was little Jean, the pretty
+little Jean. He could not row a boat, but he could ride a horse,
+and he had an eye like me. Ha, ha! I have seen them all say
+good-night. Good-morning, my children, I will say one day, and I
+will give them all the news, and I will tell them all I have
+done these hundred years. Ha, ha, ha--"
+
+The wife put her fingers on his lips, and, turning to me, said
+with a peculiar sorrow, "Will they fetch him to me?"
+
+I assured her that they would.
+
+The old man fixed his eyes on me most strangely, and then,
+stretching out his finger and leaning forward, he said, with a
+voice of senile wildness, "Ah, ah, the coat of our little Jean!"
+
+I stood there like any criminal caught in his shameful act.
+Though I had not forgotten that I wore the dead man's clothes, I
+could not think that they would be recognized, for they seemed like
+others of the French army--white, with violet facings. I can not
+tell to this day what it was that enabled them to detect the coat;
+but there I stood condemned before them.
+
+The wife sprang to her feet, came to me with a set face, and
+stared stonily at the coat for an instant. Then, with a cry of
+alarm, she made for the door; but I stepped quickly before her, and
+bade her wait till she heard what I had to say. Like lightning it
+all went through my brain. I was ruined if she gave an alarm: all
+Quebec would be at my heels, and my purposes would be defeated.
+There was but one thing to do--tell her the whole truth, and trust
+her; for I had at least done fairly by her and by the dead man.
+
+So I told them how Jean Labrouk had met his death; told them who
+I was, and why I was in Quebec--how Jean died in my arms; and,
+taking from my breast the cross that Mathilde had given me, I swore
+by it that every word which I said was true. The wife scarcely
+stirred while I spoke, but with wide dry eyes and hands clasping
+and unclasping heard me through. I told her how I might have left
+Jean to die without a sign or message to them, how I had put the
+cross to his lips as he went forth, and how by coming here at all I
+placed my safety in her hands, and now, by telling my story, my
+life itself.
+
+It was a daring and a difficult task. When I had finished, both
+sat silent for a moment, and then the old man said, "Ay, ay, Jean's
+father and his uncle Marmon were killed a-horseback, and by the
+knife. Ay, ay, it is our way. Jean was good company--none better,
+mass over, on a Sunday. Come, we will light candles for Jean, and
+comb his hair back sweet, and masses shall be said, and--"
+
+Again the woman interrupted, quieting him. Then she turned to
+me, and I awaited her words with a desperate sort of courage.
+
+"I believe you," she said. "I remember you now. My sister was
+the wife of your keeper at the common jail. You shall be safe.
+Alas! my Jean might have died without a word to me all alone in
+the night. Merci mille fois, monsieur!" Then she rocked a little
+to and fro, and the old man looked at her like a curious child. At
+last, "I must go to him," she said. "My poor Jean must be brought
+home."
+
+I told her I had already left word concerning the body at
+headquarters. She thanked me again. Overcome as she was, she went
+and brought me a peasant's hat and coat. Such trust and kindness
+touched me. Trembling, she took from me the coat and hat I had
+worn, and she put her hands before her eyes when she saw a little
+spot of blood upon the flap of a pocket. The old man reached out
+his hands, and, taking them, he held them on his knees, whispering
+to himself.
+
+"You will be safe here," the wife said to me. "The loft above is
+small, but it will hide you, if you have no better place."
+
+I was thankful that I had told her all the truth. I should be snug
+here, awaiting the affair in the cathedral on the morrow. There
+was Voban, but I knew not of him, or whether he was open to aid or
+shelter me. His own safety had been long in peril; he might be dead,
+for all I knew. I thanked the poor woman warmly, and then asked her
+if the old man might not betray me to strangers. She bade me leave
+all that to her--that I should be safe for a while, at least.
+
+Soon afterwards I went abroad, and made my way by a devious
+route to Voban's house. As I did so, I could see the lights of our
+fleet in the Basin, and the camp-fires of our army on the Levis
+shore, on Isle Orleans, and even at Montmorenci, and the myriad
+lights in the French encampment at Beauport. How impossible it all
+looked--to unseat from this high rock the Empire of France! Ay,
+and how hard it would be to get out of this same city with Alixe!
+
+Voban's house stood amid a mass of ruins, itself broken a little,
+but still sound enough to live in. There was no light. I clambered
+over debris, made my way to his bedroom window, and tapped on the
+shutter. There was no response. I tried to open it, but it would not
+stir. So I thrust beneath it, on the chance of his finding it if he
+opened the casement in the morning, a little piece of paper, with
+one word upon it--the name of his brother. He knew my handwriting,
+and he would guess where to-morrow would find me, for I had also
+hastily drawn upon the paper the entrance of the cathedral.
+
+I went back to the little house by the cathedral, and was
+admitted by the stricken wife. The old man was abed. I climbed up
+to the small loft, and lay there wide-awake for hours. At last came
+the sounds that I had waited for, and presently I knew by the tramp
+beneath, and by low laments floating up, that a wife was mourning
+over the dead body of her husband. I lay long and listened to the
+varying sounds, but at last all became still, and I fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEATS OF THE MIGHTY, PARKER, V4 ***
+
+********** This file should be named 6227.txt or 6227.zip **********
+
+This eBook was produced by Andrew Sly.
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