PREFACE
To M. PLACIDE VALCOUR
M. D., Ph D., LL. D.
MY DEAR DR. VALCOUR: You gave me the Inspiration which made this
story haunt me until I wrote it. Gaspard Roussillon's letter,
a mildewed relic of the year 1788, which you so kindly permitted
me to copy, as far as it remained legible, was the point from
which my imagination, accompanied by my curiosity, set out upon
a long and delightful quest. You laughed at me when I became enthusiastic
regarding the possible historical importance at that ancient find,
alas! fragmentary epistle; but the old saying about the beatitude
of him whose cachinations are latest comes handy to me just now,
and I must remind you that "I told you so." True enough,
it was history pure and simple that I had in mind while enjoying
the large hospitality of your gulf-side home. Gaspard Roussillon's
letter then appealed to my greed for materials which would help
along the making of my little book "The Story of Louisiana."
Later, however, as my frequent calls upon you for both documents
and suggestions have informed you, I fell to strumming a different
guitar. And now to you I dedicate this historical romance of old
Vincennes, as a very appropriate, however slight, recognition
of your scholarly attainments, your distinguished career in a
noble profession, and your descent from one of the earliest French
families (if not the very earliest) long resident at that strange
little post on the Wabash, now one of the most beautiful cities
between the greet river and the ocean.
Following, with ever tantalized expectancy, the broken and breezy
hints in the Roussillon letter, I pursued a will-o'-the-wisp,
here, there, yonder, until by slowly arriving increments I gathered
up a large amount of valuable facts, which when I came to compare
them with the history of Clark's conquest of the Wabash Valley,
fitted amazingly well into certain spaces heretofore left open
in that important yet sadly imperfect record.
You will find that I was not so wrong in suspecting that Emile
Jazon, mentioned in the Roussillon letter, was a brother of Jean
Jazon and a famous scout in the time of Boone and Clark. He was,
therefore, a kinsman of yours on the maternal side, and I congratulate
you. Another thing may please you, the success which attended
my long and patient research with a view to clearing up the connection
between Alice Roussillon's romantic life, as brokenly sketched
in M. Roussillon's letter, and the capture of Vincennes by Colonel
George Rogers Clark.
Accept, then, this book, which to those who care only for history
will seem but an idle romance, while to the lovers of romance
it may look strangely like the mustiest history. In my mind, and
in yours I hope, it will always be connected with a breezy summer-
house on a headland of the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling
of palmetto leaves, the fine flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird
voices, the soft lilt of Creole patois, and the endless dash and
roar of a fragrant sea over which the gulls and pelicans never
ceased their flight, and beside which you smoked while I dreamed.
MAURICE THOMPSON.
JULY, 1900.
Contents
I. Under the Cherry Tree
II. A Letter from Afar
III. The Rape of the Demijohn
IV. The First Mayor of Vincennes
V. Father Gibault
VI. A Fencing Bout
VII. The Mayor's Party
VIII. The Dilemma of Captain Helm
IX. The Honors of War
X. M. Roussillon Entertains Colonel Hamilton
XI. A Sword and a Horse Pistol
XII. Manon Lescaut, and a Rapier-Thrust
XIII. A Meeting in the Wilderness
XIV. A Prisoner of Love
XV. Virtue in a Locket
XVI. Father Beret's Old Battle
XVII. A March through Cold Water
XVIII. A Duel by Moonlight
XIX. The Attack
XX. Alice's Flag
XXI. Some Transactions in Scalps
XXII. Clark Advises Alice
XXIII. And So It Ended
Alice of Old Vincennes
CHAPTER I
UNDER THE CHERRY TREE
Up to the days of Indiana's early statehood, probably as late
as 1825, there stood, in what is now the beautiful little city
of Vincennes on the Wabash, the decaying remnant of an old and
curiously gnarled cherry tree, known as the Roussillon tree, le
cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, as the French inhabitants called
it, which as long as it lived bore fruit remarkable for richness
of flavor and peculiar dark ruby depth of color. The exact spot
where this noble old seedling from la belle France flourished,
declined, and died cannot be certainly pointed out; for in the
rapid and happy growth of Vincennes many land-marks once notable,
among them le cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, have been destroyed
and the spots where they stood, once familiar to every eye in
old Vincennes, are now lost in the pleasant confusion of the new
town.
The security of certain land titles may have largely depended
upon the disappearance of old, fixed objects here and there. Early
records were loosely kept, indeed, scarcely kept at all; many
were destroyed by designing land speculators, while those most
carefully preserved often failed to give even a shadowy trace
of the actual boundaries of the estates held thereby; so that
the position of a house or tree not infrequently settled an important
question of property rights left open by a primitive deed. At
all events the Roussillon cherry tree disappeared long ago, nobody
living knows how, and with it also vanished, quite as mysteriously,
all traces of the once important Roussillon estate. Not a record
of the name even can be found, it is said, in church or county
books.
The old, twisted, gum-embossed cherry tree survived every other
distinguishing feature of what was once the most picturesque and
romantic place in Vincennes. Just north of it stood, in the early
French days, a low, rambling cabin surrounded by rude verandas
overgrown with grapevines. This was the Roussillon place, the
most pretentious home in all the Wabash country. Its owner was
Gaspard Roussillon, a successful trader with the Indians. He was
rich, for the time and the place, influential to a degree, a man
of some education, who had brought with him to the wilderness
a bundle of books and a taste for reading.
From faded letters and dimly remembered talk of those who once
clung fondly to the legends and traditions of old Vincennes, it
is drawn that the Roussillon cherry tree stood not very far away
from the present site of the Catholic church, on a slight swell
of ground overlooking a wide marshy flat and the silver current
of the Wabash. If the tree grew there, then there too stood the
Roussillon house with its cosy log rooms, its clay-daubed chimneys
and its grapevine-mantled verandas, while some distance away and
nearer the river the rude fort with its huddled officers' quarters
seemed to fling out over the wild landscape, through its squinting
and lopsided port-holes, a gaze of stubborn defiance.
Not far off was the little log church, where one good Father Beret,
or as named by the Indians, who all loved him, Father Blackrobe,
performed the services of his sacred calling; and scattered all
around were the cabins of traders, soldiers and woodsmen forming
a queer little town, the like of which cannot now be seen anywhere
on the earth.
It is not known just when Vincennes was first founded; but most
historians make the probable date very early in the eighteenth
century, somewhere between 1710 and 1730. In 1810 the Roussillon
cherry tree was thought by a distinguished botanical letter- writer
to be at least fifty years old, which would make the date of its
planting about 1760. Certainly as shown by the time-stained family
records upon which this story of ours is based, it was a flourishing
and wide-topped tree in early summer of 1778, its branches loaded
to drooping with luscious fruit. So low did the dark red clusters
hang at one point that a tall young girl standing on the ground
easily reached the best ones and made her lips purple with their
juice while she ate them.
That was long ago, measured by what has come to pass on the gentle
swell of rich country from which Vincennes overlooks the Wabash.
The new town flourishes notably and its appearance marks the latest
limit of progress. Electric cars in its streets, electric lights
in its beautiful homes, the roar of railway trains coming and
going in all directions, bicycles whirling hither and thither,
the most fashionable styles of equipages, from brougham to pony-
phaeton, make the days of flint-lock guns and buckskin trousers
seem ages down the past; and yet we are looking back over but
a little more than a hundred and twenty years to see Alice Roussillon
standing under the cherry tree and holding high a tempting cluster
of fruit, while a very short, hump-backed youth looks up with
longing eyes and vainly reaches for it. The tableau is not merely
rustic, it is primitive. "Jump!" the girl is saying
in French, "jump, Jean; jump high!"
Yes, that was very long ago, in the days when women lightly braved
what the strongest men would shrink from now.
Alice Roussillon was tall, lithe, strongly knit, with an almost
perfect figure, judging by what the master sculptors carved for
the form of Venus, and her face was comely and winning, if not
absolutely beautiful; but the time and the place were vigorously
indicated by her dress, which was of coarse stuff and simply designed.
Plainly she was a child of the American wilderness, a daughter
of old Vincennes on the Wabash in the time that tried men's souls.
"Jump, Jean!" she cried, her face laughing with a show
of cheek- dimples, an arching of finely sketched brows and the
twinkling of large blue-gray eyes.
"Jump high and get them!"
While she waved her sun-browned hand holding the cherries aloft,
the breeze blowing fresh from the southwest tossed her hair so
that some loose strands shone like rimpled flames. The sturdy
little hunchback did leap with surprising activity; but the treacherous
brown hand went higher, so high that the combined altitude of
his jump and the reach of his unnaturally long arms was overcome.
Again and again he sprang vainly into the air comically, like
a long-legged, squat-bodied frog.
"And you brag of your agility and strength, Jean," she
laughingly remarked; "but you can't take cherries when they
are offered to you. What a clumsy bungler you are."
"I can climb and get some," he said with a hideously
happy grin, and immediately embraced the bole of the tree, up
which he began scrambling almost as fast as a squirrel.
When he had mounted high enough to be extending a hand for a hold
on a crotch, Alice grasped his leg near the foot and pulled him
down, despite his clinging and struggling, until his hands clawed
in the soft earth at the tree's root, while she held his captive
leg almost vertically erect.
It was a show of great strength; but Alice looked quite unconscious
of it, laughing merrily, the dimples deepening in her plump cheeks,
her forearm, now bared to the elbow, gleaming white and shapely
while its muscles rippled on account of the jerking and kicking
of Jean.
All the time she was holding the cherries high in her other hand,
shaking them by the twig to which their slender stems attached
them, and saying in a sweetly tantalizing tone:
"What makes you climb downward after cherries. Jean? What
a foolish fellow you are, indeed, trying to grabble cherries out
of the ground, as you do potatoes! I'm sure I didn't suppose that
you knew so little as that."
Her French was colloquial, but quite good, showing here and there
what we often notice in the speech of those who have been educated
in isolated places far from that babel of polite energies which
we call the world; something that may be described as a bookish
cast appearing oddly in the midst of phrasing distinctly rustic
and local,--a peculiarity not easy to transfer from one language
to another.
Jean the hunchback was a muscular little deformity and a wonder
of good nature. His head looked unnaturally large, nestling grotesquely
between the points of his lifted and distorted shoulders, like
a shaggy black animal in the fork of a broken tree. He was bellicose
in his amiable way and never knew just when to acknowledge defeat.
How long he might have kept up the hopeless struggle with the
girl's invincible grip would be hard to guess. His release was
caused by the approach of a third person, who wore the robe of
a Catholic priest and the countenance of a man who had lived and
suffered a long time without much loss of physical strength and
endurance.
This was Pere Beret, grizzly, short, compact, his face deeply
lined, his mouth decidedly aslant on account of some lost teeth,
and his eyes set deep under gray, shaggy brows. Looking at him
when his features were in repose a first impression might not
have been favorable; but seeing him smile or hearing him speak
changed everything. His voice was sweetness itself and his smile
won you on the instant. Something like a pervading sorrow always
seemed to be close behind his eyes and under his speech; yet he
was a genial, sometimes almost jolly, man, very prone to join
in the lighter amusements of his people.
"Children, children, my children," he called out as
he approached along a little pathway leading up from the direction
of the church, "what are you doing now? Bah there, Alice,
will you pull Jean's leg off?"
At first they did not hear him, they were so nearly deafened by
their own vocal discords.
"Why are you standing on your head with your feet so high
in air, Jean?" he added. "It's not a polite attitude
in the presence of a young lady. Are you a pig, that you poke
your nose in the dirt?"
Alice now turned her bright head and gave Pere Beret a look of
frank welcome, which at the same time shot a beam of willful self-
assertion.
"My daughter, are you trying to help Jean up the tree feet
foremost?" the priest added, standing where he had halted
just outside of the straggling yard fence.
He had his hands on his hips and was quietly chuckling at the
scene before him, as one who, although old, sympathized with the
natural and harmless sportiveness of young people and would as
lief as not join in a prank or two.
"You see what I'm doing, Father Beret," said Alice,
"I am preventing a great damage to you. You will maybe lose
a good many cherry pies and dumplings if I let Jean go. He was
climbing the tree to pilfer the fruit; so I pulled him down, you
understand."
"Ta, ta!" exclaimed the good man, shaking his gray head;
"we must reason with the child. Let go his leg, daughter,
I will vouch for him; eh, Jean?"
Alice released the hunchback, then laughed gayly and tossed the
cluster of cherries into his hand, whereupon he began munching
them voraciously and talking at the same time.
"I knew I could get them," he boasted; "and see,
I have them now." He hopped around, looking like a species
of ill-formed monkey.
Pere Beret came and leaned on the low fence close to Alice. She
was almost as tall as he.
"The sun scorches to-day," he said, beginning to mop
his furrowed face with a red-flowered cotton handkerchief; "and
from the look of the sky yonder," pointing southward, "it
is going to bring on a storm. How is Madame Roussillon to-day?"
"She is complaining as she usually does when she feels extremely
well," said Alice; "that's why I had to take her place
at the oven and bake pies. I got hot and came out to catch a bit
of this breeze. Oh, but you needn't smile and look greedy, Pere
Beret, the pies are not for your teeth!"
"My daughter, I am not a glutton, I hope; I had meat not
two hours since--some broiled young squirrels with cress, sent
me by Rene de Ronville. He never forgets his old father."
"Oh, I never forget you either, mon pere; I thought of you
to-day every time I spread a crust and filled it with cherries;
and when I took out a pie all brown and hot, the red juice bubbling
out of it so good smelling and tempting, do you know what I said
to myself?"
"How could I know, my child?"
"Well, I thought this: 'Not a single bite of that pie does
Father Beret get.'"
"Why so, daughter?"
"Because you said it was bad of me to read novels and told
Mother Roussillon to hide them from me. I've had any amount of
trouble about it."
"Ta, ta! read the good books that I gave you. They will soon
kill the taste for these silly romances."
"I tried," said Alice; "I tried very hard, and
it's no use; your books are dull and stupidly heavy. What do I
care about something that a queer lot of saints did hundreds of
years ago in times of plague and famine? Saints must have been
poky people, and it is poky people who care to read about them,
I think. I like reading about brave, heroic men and beautiful
women, and war and love."
Pere Beret looked away with a curious expression in his face,
his eyes half closed.
"And I'll tell you now, Father Beret," Alice went on
after a pause, "no more claret and pies do you get until
I can have my own sort of books back again to read as I please."
She stamped her moccasin-shod foot with decided energy.
The good priest broke into a hearty laugh, and taking off his
cap of grass-straw mechanically scratched his bald head. He looked
at the tall, strong girl before him for a moment or two, and it
would have been hard for the best physiognomist to decide just
how much of approval and how much of disapproval that look really
signified.
Although, as Father Beret had said, the sun's heat was violent,
causing that gentle soul to pass his bundled handkerchief with
a wiping circular motion over his bald and bedewed pate, the wind
was momently freshening, while up from behind the trees on the
horizon beyond the river, a cloud was rising blue-black, tumbled,
and grim against the sky.
"Well," said the priest, evidently trying hard to exchange
his laugh for a look of regretful resignation, "you will
have your own way, my child, and--"
"Then you will have pies galore and no end of claret!"
she interrupted, at the same time stepping to the withe-tied and
peg- latched gate of the yard and opening it. "Come in, you
dear, good Father, before the rain shall begin, and sit with me
on the gallery" (the creole word for veranda) "till
the storm is over."
Father Beret seemed not loath to enter, albeit he offered a weak
protest against delaying some task he had in hand. Alice reached
forth and pulled him in, then reclosed the queer little gate and
pegged it. She caressingly passed her arm through his and looked
into his weather-stained old face with childlike affection.
There was not a photographer's camera to be had in those days;
but what if a tourist with one in hand could have been there to
take a snapshot at the priest and the maiden as they walked arm
in arm to that squat little veranda! The picture to-day would
be worth its weight in a first-water diamond. It would include
the cabin, the cherry-tree, a glimpse of the raw, wild background
and a sharp portrait-group of Pere Beret, Alice, and Jean the
hunchback. To compare it with a photograph of the same spot now
would give a perfect impression of the historic atmosphere, color
and conditions which cannot be set in words. But we must not belittle
the power of verbal description. What if a thoroughly trained
newspaper reporter had been given the freedom of old Vincennes
on the Wabash during the first week of June, 1778, and we now
had his printed story! What a supplement to the photographer's
pictures! Well, we have neither photographs nor graphic report;
yet there they are before us, the gowned and straw-capped priest,
the fresh- faced, coarsely-clad and vigorous girl, the grotesque
little hunchback, all just as real as life itself. Each of us
can see them, even with closed eyes. Led by that wonderful guide,
Imagination, we step back a century and more to look over a scene
at once strangely attractive and unspeakably forlorn.
What was it that drew people away from the old countries, from
the cities, the villages and the vineyards of beautiful France,
for example, to dwell in the wilderness, amid wild beasts and
wilder savage Indians, with a rude cabin for a home and the exposures
and hardships of pioneer life for their daily experience?
Men like Gaspard Roussillon are of a distinct stamp. Take him
as he was. Born in France, on the banks of the Rhone near Avignon,
he came as a youth to Canada, whence he drifted on the tide of
adventure this way and that, until at last he found himself, with
a wife, at Post Vincennes, that lonely picket of religion and
trade, which was to become the center of civilizing energy for
the great Northwestern Territory. M. Roussillon had no children
of his own; so his kind heart opened freely to two fatherless
and motherless waifs. These were Alice, now called Alice Roussillon,
and the hunchback, Jean. The former was twelve years old, when
he adopted her, a child of Protestant parents, while Jean had
been taken, when a mere babe, after his parents had been killed
and scalped by Indians. Madame Roussillon, a professed invalid,
whose appetite never failed and whose motherly kindness expressed
itself most often through strains of monotonous falsetto scolding,
was a woman of little education and no refinement; while her husband
clung tenaciously to his love of books, especially to the romances
most in vogue when he took leave of France.
M. Roussillon had been, in a way, Alice's teacher, though not
greatly inclined to abet Father Beret in his kindly efforts to
make a Catholic of the girl, and most treacherously disposed toward
the good priest in the matter of his well-meant attempts to prevent
her from reading and re-reading the aforesaid romances. But for
many weeks past Gaspard Roussillon had been absent from home,
looking after his trading schemes with the Indians; and Pere Beret
acting on the suggestion of the proverb about the absent cat and
the playing mouse, had formed an alliance offensive and defensive
with Madame Roussillon, in which it was strictly stipulated that
all novels and romances were to be forcibly taken and securely
hidden away from Mademoiselle Alice; which, to the best of Madame
Roussillon's ability, had accordingly been done.
Now, while the wind strengthened and the softly booming summer
shower came on apace, the heavy cloud lifting as it advanced and
showing under it the dark gray sheet of the rain, Pere Beret and
Alice sat under the clapboard roof behind the vines of the veranda
and discussed, what was generally uppermost in the priest's mind
upon such occasions, the good of Alice's immortal soul,--a subject
not absorbingly interesting to her at any time.
It was a standing grief to the good old priest, this strange perversity
of the girl in the matter of religious duty, as he saw it. True
she had a faithful guardian in Gaspard Roussillon; but, much as
he had done to aid the church's work in general, for he was always
vigorous and liberal, he could not be looked upon as a very good
Catholic; and of course his influence was not effective in the
right direction. But then Pere Beret saw no reason why, in due
time and with patient work, aided by Madame Roussillon and notwithstanding
Gaspard's treachery, he might not safely lead Alice, whom he loved
as a dear child, into the arms of the Holy Church, to serve which
faithfully, at all hazards and in all places, was his highest
aim.
"Ah, my child," he was saying, "you are a sweet,
good girl, after all, much better than you make yourself out to
be. Your duty will control you; you do it nobly at last, my child."
"True enough, Father Beret, true enough!" she responded,
laughing, "your perception is most excellent, which I will
prove to you immediately."
She rose while speaking and went into the house.
"I'll return in a minute or two," she called back from
a region which Pere Beret well knew was that of the pantry; "don't
get impatient and go away!"
Pere Beret laughed softly at the preposterous suggestion that
he would even dream of going out in the rain, which was now roaring
heavily on the loose board roof, and miss a cut of cherry pie--a
cherry pie of Alice's making! And the Roussillon claret, too,
was always excellent. "Ah, child," he thought, "your
old Father is not going away."
She presently returned, bearing on a wooden tray a ruby-stained
pie and a short, stout bottle flanked by two glasses.
"Of course I'm better than I sometimes appear to be,"
she said, almost humbly, but with mischief still in her voice
and eyes, "and I shall get to be very good when I have grown
old. The sweetness of my present nature is in this pie."
She set the tray on a three-legged stool which she pushed close
to him.
"There now," she said, "let the rain come, you'll
be happy, rain or shine, while the pie and wine last, I'll be
bound."
Pere Beret fell to eating right heartily, meantime handing Jean
a liberal piece of the luscious pie.
"It is good, my daughter, very good, indeed," the priest
remarked with his mouth full. "Madame Roussillon has not
neglected your culinary education." Alice filled a glass
for him. It was Bordeaux and very fragrant. The bouquet reminded
him of his sunny boyhood in France, of his journey up to Paris
and of his careless, joy- brimmed youth in the gay city. How far
away, how misty, yet how thrillingly sweet it all was! He sat
with half closed eyes awhile, sipping and dreaming.
The rain lasted nearly two hours; but the sun was out again when
Pere Beret took leave of his young friend. They had been having
another good-natured quarrel over the novels, and Madame Roussillon
had come out on the veranda to join in.
"I've hidden every book of them," said Madame, a stout
and swarthy woman whose pearl-white teeth were her only mark of
beauty. Her voice indicated great stubbornness.
"Good, good, you have done your very duty, Madame,"
said Pere Beret, with immense approval in his charming voice.
"But, Father, you said awhile ago that I should have my own
way about this," Alice spoke up with spirit; "and on
the strength of that remark of yours I gave you the pie and wine.
You've eaten my pie and swigged the wine, and now--"
Pere Beret put on his straw cap, adjusting it carefully over the
shining dome out of which had come so many thoughts of wisdom,
kindness and human sympathy. This done, he gently laid a hand
on Alice's bright crown of hair and said:
"Bless you, my child. I will pray to the Prince of Peace
for you as long as I live, and I will never cease to beg the Holy
Virgin to intercede for you and lead you to the Holy Church."
He turned and went away; but when he was no farther than the gate,
Alice called out:
"O Father Beret, I forgot to show you something!"
She ran forth to him and added in a low tone:
"You know that Madame Roussillon has hidden all the novels
from me."
She was fumbling to get something out of the loose front of her
dress.
"Well, just take a glance at this, will you?" and she
showed him a little leather bound volume, much cracked along the
hinges of the back.
It was Manon Lescaut, that dreadful romance by the famous Abbe
Prevost.
Pere Beret frowned and went his way shaking his head; but before
he reached his little hut near the church he was laughing in spite
of himself.
"She's not so bad, not so bad," he thought aloud, "it's
only her young, independent spirit taking the bit for a wild run.
In her sweet soul she is as good as she is pure."
CHAPTER II
A LETTER FROM AFAR
Although Father Beret was for many years a missionary on the Wabash,
most of the time at Vincennes, the fact that no mention of him
can be found in the records is not stranger than many other things
connected with the old town's history. He was, like nearly all
the men of his calling in that day, a self-effacing and modest
hero, apparently quite unaware that he deserved attention. He
and Father Gibault, whose name is so beautifully and nobly connected
with the stirring achievements of Colonel George Rogers Clark,
were close friends and often companions. Probably Father Gibault
himself, whose fame will never fade, would have been to-day as
obscure as Father Beret, but for the opportunity given him by
Clark to fix his name in the list of heroic patriots who assisted
in winning the great Northwest from the English.
Vincennes, even in the earliest days of its history, somehow kept
up communication and, considering the circumstances, close relations
with New Orleans. It was much nearer Detroit; but the Louisiana
colony stood next to France in the imagination and longing of
priests, voyageurs, coureurs de bois and reckless adventurers
who had Latin blood in their veins. Father Beret first came to
Vincennes from New Orleans, the voyage up the Mississippi, Ohio,
and Wabash, in a pirogue, lasting through a whole summer and far
into the autumn. Since his arrival the post had experienced many
vicissitudes, and at the time in which our story opens the British
government claimed right of dominion over the great territory
drained by the Wabash, and, indeed, over a large, indefinitely
outlined part of the North American continent lying above Mexico;
a claim just then being vigorously questioned, flintlock in hand,
by the Anglo-American colonies.
Of course the handful of French people at Vincennes, so far away
from every center of information, and wholly occupied with their
trading, trapping and missionary work, were late finding out that
war existed between England and her colonies. Nor did it really
matter much with them, one way or another. They felt secure in
their lonely situation, and so went on selling their trinkets,
weapons, domestic implements, blankets and intoxicating liquors
to the Indians, whom they held bound to them with a power never
possessed by any other white dwellers in the wilderness. Father
Beret was probably subordinate to Father Gibault. At all events
the latter appears to have had nominal charge of Vincennes, and
it can scarcely be doubted that he left Father Beret on the Wabash,
while he went to live and labor for a time at Kaskaskia beyond
the plains of Illinois.
It is a curious fact that religion and the power of rum and brandy
worked together successfully for a long time in giving the French
posts almost absolute influence over the wild and savage men by
whom they were always surrounded. The good priests deprecated
the traffic in liquors and tried hard to control it, but soldiers
of fortune and reckless traders were in the majority, their interests
taking precedence of all spiritual demands and carrying everything
along. What could the brave missionaries do but make the very
best of a perilous situation?
In those days wine was drunk by almost everybody, its use at table
and as an article of incidental refreshment and social pleasure
being practically universal; wherefore the steps of reform in
the matter of intemperance were but rudimentary and in all places
beset by well-nigh insurmountable difficulties. In fact the exigencies
of frontier life demanded, perhaps, the very stimulus which, when
over indulged in, caused so much evil. Malaria loaded the air,
and the most efficacious drugs now at command were then undiscovered
or could not be had. Intoxicants were the only popular specific.
Men drank to prevent contracting ague, drank again, between rigors,
to cure it, and yet again to brace themselves during convalescence.
But if the effect of rum as a beverage had strong allurement for
the white man, it made an absolute slave of the Indian, who never
hesitated for a moment to undertake any task, no matter how hard,
bear any privation, even the most terrible, or brave any danger,
although it might demand reckless desperation, if in in the end
a well filled bottle or jug appeared as his reward.
Of course the traders did not overlook such a source of power.
Alcoholic liquor became their implement of almost magical work
in controlling the lives, labors, and resources of the Indians.
The priests with their captivating story of the Cross had a large
influence in softening savage natures and averting many an awful
danger; but when everything else failed, rum always came to the
rescue of a threatened French post.
We need not wonder, then, when we are told that Father Beret made
no sign of distress or disapproval upon being informed of the
arrival of a boat loaded with rum, brandy or gin. It was Rene
de Ronville who brought the news, the same Rene already mentioned
as having given the priest a plate of squirrels. He was sitting
on the doorsill of Father Beret's hut, when the old man reached
it after his visit at the Roussillon home, and held in his hand
a letter which he appeared proud to deliver.
"A batteau and seven men, with a cargo of liquor, came during
the rain," he said, rising and taking off his curious cap,
which, made of an animal's skin, had a tail jauntily dangling
from its crown- tip; "and here is a letter for you, Father.
The batteau is from New Orleans. Eight men started with it; but
one went ashore to hunt and was killed by an Indian."
Father Beret took the letter without apparent interest and said:
"Thank you, my son, sit down again; the door-log is not wetter
than the stools inside; I will sit by you."
The wind had driven a flood of rain into the cabin through the
open door, and water twinkled in puddles here and there on the
floor's puncheons. They sat down side by side, Father Beret fingering
the letter in an absent-minded way.
"There'll be a jolly time of it to-night," Rene de Ronville
remarked, "a roaring time."
"Why do you say that, my son?" the priest demanded.
"The wine and the liquor," was the reply; "much
drinking will be done. The men have all been dry here for some
time, you know, and are as thirsty as sand. They are making ready
to enjoy themselves down at the river house."
"Ah, the poor souls!" sighed Father Beret, speaking
as one whose thoughts were wandering far away.
"Why don't you read your letter, Father?" Rene added.
The priest started, turned the soiled square of paper over in
his hand, then thrust it inside his robe.
"It can wait," he said. Then, changing his voice; "the
squirrels you gave me were excellent, my son. It was good of you
to think of me," he added, laying his hand on Rene's arm.
"Oh, I'm glad if I have pleased you, Father Beret, for you
are so kind to me always, and to everybody. When I killed the
squirrels I said to myself: 'These are young, juicy and tender,
Father Beret must have these,' so I brought them along."
The young man rose to go; for he was somehow impressed that Father
Beret must wish opportunity to read his letter, and would prefer
to be left alone with it. But the priest pulled him down again.
"Stay a while," he said, "I have not had a talk
with you for some time."
Rene looked a trifle uneasy.
"You will not drink any to-night, my son," Father Beret
added. "You must not; do you hear?"
The young man's eyes and mouth at once began to have a sullen
expression; evidently he was not pleased and felt rebellious;
but it was hard for him to resist Father Beret, whom he loved,
as did every soul in the post. The priest's voice was sweet and
gentle, yet positive to a degree. Rene did not say a word.
"Promise me that you will not taste liquor this night,"
Father Beret went on, grasping the young man's arm more firmly;
"promise me, my son, promise me."
Still Rene was silent. The men did not look at each other, but
gazed away across the country beyond the Wabash to where a glory
from the western sun flamed on the upper rim of a great cloud
fragment creeping along the horizon. Warm as the day had been,
a delicious coolness now began to temper the air; for the wind
had shifted into the northwest. A meadowlark sang dreamingly in
the wild grass of the low lands hard by, over which two or three
prairie hawks hovered with wings that beat rapidly.
"Eh bien, I must go," said Rene presently, getting to
his feet nimbly and evading Father Beret's hand which would have
held him.
"Not to the river house, my son?" said the priest appealingly.
"No, not there; I have another letter; one for M'sieu' Roussillon;
it came by the boat too. I go to give it to Madame Roussillon."
Rene de Ronville was a dark, weather-stained young fellow, neither
tall nor short, wearing buckskin moccasins, trousers and tunic.
His eyes were dark brown, keen, quick-moving, set well under heavy
brows. A razor had probably never touched his face, and his thin,
curly beard crinkled over his strongly turned cheeks and chin,
while his moustaches sprang out quite fiercely above his full-
lipped, almost sensual mouth. He looked wiry and active, a man
not to be lightly reckoned with in a trial of bodily strength
and will power.
Father Beret's face and voice changed on the instant. He laughed
dryly and said, with a sly gleam in his eyes:
"You could spend the evening pleasantly with Madame Roussillon
and Jean. Jean, you know, is a very amusing fellow."
Rene brought forth the letter of which he had spoken and held
it up before Father Beret's face.
"Maybe you think I haven't any letter for M'sieu' Roussillon,"
he blurted; "and maybe you are quite certain that I am not
going to the house to take the letter."
"Monsieur Roussillon is absent, you know," Father Beret
suggested. "But cherry pies are just as good while he's gone
as when he's at home, and I happen to know that there are some
particularly delicious ones in the pantry of Madame Roussillon.
Mademoiselle Alice gave me a juicy sample; but then I dare say
you do not care to have your pie served by her hand. It would
interfere with your appetite; eh, my son?"
Rene turned short about wagging his head and laughing, and so
with his back to the priest he strode away along the wet path
leading to the Roussillon place.
Father Beret gazed after him, his face relaxing to a serious expression
in which a trace of sadness and gloom spread like an elusive twilight.
He took out his letter, but did not glance at it, simply holding
it tightly gripped in his sinewy right hand. Then his old eyes
stared vacantly, as eyes do when their sight is cast back many,
many years into the past. The missive was from beyond the sea--he
knew the handwriting--a waft of the flowers of Avignon seemed
to rise out of it, as if by the pressure of his grasp.
A stoop-shouldered, burly man went by, leading a pair of goats,
a kid following. He was making haste excitedly, keeping the goats
at a lively trot.
"Bon jour, Pere Beret," he flung out breezily, and walked
rapidly on.
"Ah, ah; his mind is busy with the newly arrived cargo,"
thought the old priest, returning the salutation; "his throat
aches for the liquor,--the poor man."
Then he read again the letter's superscription and made a faltering
move, as if to break the seal. His hands trembled violently, his
face looked gray and drawn.
"Come on, you brutes," cried the receding man, jerking
the thongs of skin by which he led the goats.
Father Beret rose and turned into his damp little hut, where the
light was dim on the crucifix hanging opposite the door against
the clay-daubed wall. It was a bare, unsightly, clammy room; a
rude bed on one side, a shelf for table and two or three wooden
stools constituting the furniture, while the uneven puncheons
of the floor wabbled and clattered under the priest's feet.
An unopened letter is always a mysterious thing. We who receive
three or four mails every day, scan each little paper square with
a speculative eye. Most of us know what sweet uncertainty hangs
on the opening of envelopes whose contents may be almost anything
except something important, and what a vague yet delicious thrill
comes with the snip of the paper knife; but if we be in a foreign
land and long years absent from home, then is a letter subtly
powerful to move us, even more before it is opened than after
it is read.
It had been many years since a letter from home had come to Father
Beret. The last, before the one now in his hand, had made him
ill of nostalgia, fairly shaking his iron determination never
to quit for a moment his life work as a missionary. Ever since
that day he had found it harder to meet the many and stern demands
of a most difficult and exacting duty. Now the mere touch of the
paper in his hand gave him a sense of returning weakness, dissatisfaction,
and longing. The home of his boyhood, the rushing of the Rhone,
a seat in a shady nook of the garden, Madeline, his sister, prattling
beside him, and his mother singing somewhere about the house--it
all came back and went over him and through him, making his heart
sink strangely, while another voice, the sweetest ever heard--but
she was ineffable and her memory a forbidden fragrance.
Father Beret tottered across the forlorn little room and knelt
before the crucifix holding his clasped hands high, the letter
pressed between than. His lips moved in prayer, but made no sound;
his whole frame shook violently.
It would be unpardonable desecration to enter the chamber of Father
Beret's soul and look upon his sacred and secret trouble; nor
must we even speculate as to its particulars. The good old man
writhed and wrestled before the cross for a long time, until at
last he seemed to receive the calmness and strength he prayed
for so fervently; then he rose, tore the letter into pieces so
small that not a word remained whole, and squeezed them so firmly
together that they were compressed into a tiny, solid ball, which
he let fall through a crack between the floor puncheons. After
waiting twenty years for that letter, hungry as his heart was,
he did not even open it when at last it arrived. He would never
know what message it bore. The link between him and the old sweet
days was broken forever. Now with God's help he could do his work
to the end.
He went and stood in his doorway, leaning against the side. Was
it a mere coincidence that the meadowlark flew up just then from
its grass-tuft, and came to the roof's comb overhead, where it
lit with a light yet audible stroke of its feet and began fluting
its tender, lonesome-sounding strain? If Father Beret heard it
he gave no sign of recognition; very likely he was thinking about
the cargo of liquor and how he could best counteract its baleful
influence. He looked toward the "river house," as the
inhabitants had named a large shanty, which stood on a bluff of
the Wabash not far from where the road-bridge at present crosses,
and saw men gathering there.
Meantime Rene de Ronville had delivered Madame Roussillon's letter
with due promptness. Of course such a service demanded pie and
claret. What still better pleased him, Alice chose to be more
amiable than was usually her custom when he called. They sat together
in the main room of the house where M. Roussillon kept his books,
his curiosities of Indian manufacture collected here and there,
and his surplus firearms, swords, pistols, and knives, ranged
not unpleasingly around the walls.
Of course, along with the letter, Rene bore the news, so interesting
to himself, of the boat's tempting cargo just discharged at the
river house. Alice understood her friend's danger--felt it in
the intense enthusiasm of his voice and manner. She had once seen
the men carousing on a similar occasion when she was but a child,
and the impression then made still remained in her memory. Instinctively
she resolved to hold Rene by one means or another away from the
river house if possible. So she managed to keep him occupied eating
pie, sipping watered claret and chatting until night came on and
Madame Roussillon brought in a lamp. Then he hurriedly snatched
his cap from the floor beside him and got up to go.
"Come and look at my handiwork," Alice quickly said;
"my shelf of pies, I mean." She led him to the pantry,
where a dozen or more of the cherry pates were ranged in order.
"I made every one of them this morning and baked them; had
them all out of the oven before the rain came up. Don't you think
me a wonder of cleverness and industry? Father Beret was polite
enough to flatter me; but you-- you just eat what you want and
say nothing! You are not polite, Monsieur Rene de Ronville."
"I've been showing you what I thought of your goodies,"
said Rene; "eating's better than talking, you know; so I'll
just take one more," and he helped himself. "Isn't that
compliment enough?"
"A few such would make me another hot day's work," she
replied, laughing. "Pretty talk would be cheaper and more
satisfactory in the long run. Even the flour in these pates I
ground with my own hand in an Indian mortar. That was hard work
too."
By this time Rene had forgotten the river house and the liquor.
With softening eyes he gazed at Alice's rounded cheeks and sheeny
hair over which the light from the curious earthen lamp she bore
in her hand flickered most effectively. He loved her madly; but
his fear of her was more powerful than his love. She gave him
no opportunity to speak what he felt, having ever ready a quick,
bright change of mood and manner when she saw him plucking up
courage to address her in a sentimental way. Their relations had
long been somewhat familiar, which was but natural, considering
their youth and the circumstances of their daily life; but Alice
somehow had kept a certain distance open between them, so that
very warm friendship could not suddenly resolve itself into a
troublesome passion on Rene's part.
We need not attempt to analyze a young girl's feeling and motives
in such a case; what she does and what she thinks are mysteries
even to her own understanding. The influence most potent in shaping
the rudimentary character of Alice Tarleton (called Roussillon)
had been only such as a lonely frontier post could generate. Her
associations with men and women had, with few exceptions, been
unprofitable in an educational way, while her reading in M. Roussillon's
little library could not have given her any practical knowledge
of manners and life.
She was fond of Rene de Ronville, and it would have been quite
in accordance with the law of ordinary human forces, indeed almost
the inevitable thing, for her to love and marry him in the fullness
of time; but her imagination was outgrowing her surroundings.
Books had given her a world of romance wherein she moved at will,
meeting a class of people far different from those who actually
shared her experiences. Her day-dreams and her night- dreams partook
much more of what she had read and imagined than of what she had
seen and heard in the raw little world around her.
Her affection for Rene was interfered with by her large admiration
for the heroic, masterful and magnetic knights who charged through
the romances of the Roussillon collection. For although Rene was
unquestionably brave and more than passably handsome, he had no
armor, no war-horse, no shining lance and embossed shield--the
difference, indeed, was great.
Those who love to contend against the fatal drift of our age toward
over-education could find in Alice Tarleton, foster daughter of
Gaspard Roussillon, a primitive example, an elementary case in
point. What could her book education do but set up stumbling blocks
in the path of happiness? She was learning to prefer the ideal
to the real. Her soul was developing itself as best it could for
the enjoyment of conditions and things absolutely foreign to the
possibilities of her lot in life.
Perhaps it was the light and heat of imagination, shining out
through Alice's face, which gave her beauty such a fascinating
power. Rene saw it and felt its electrical stroke send a sweet
shiver through his heart, while he stood before her.
"You are very beautiful to-night Alice," he presently
said, with a suddenness which took even her alertness by surprise.
A flush rose to his dark face and immediately gave way to a grayish
pallor. His heart came near stopping on the instant, he was so
shocked by his own daring; but he laid a hand on her hair, stroking
it softly.
Just a moment she was at a loss, looking a trifle embarrassed,
then with a merry laugh she stepped aside and said:
"That sounds better, Monsieur Rene de Ronville much better;
you will be as polite as Father Beret after a little more training."
She slipped past him while speaking and made her way back again
to the main room, whence she called to him:
"Come here, I've something to show you."
He obeyed, a sheepish trace on his countenance betraying his self-
consciousness.
When he came near Alice she was taking from its buckhorn hook
on the wall a rapier, one of a beautiful pair hanging side by
side.
"Papa Roussillon gave me these," she said with great
animation. "He bought them of an Indian who had kept them
a long time; where he came across them he would not tell; but
look how beautiful! Did you ever see anything so fine?"
Guard and hilt were of silver; the blade, although somewhat corroded,
still showed the fine wavy lines of Damascus steel and traces
of delicate engraving, while in the end of the hilt was set a
large oval turquoise.
"A very queer present to give a girl," said Rene; "what
can you do with them?"
A captivating flash of playfulness came into her face and she
sprang backward, giving the sword a semicircular turn with her
wrist. The blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close,
very close to Rene's nose. He jerked his head and flung up his
hand.
She laughed merrily, standing beautifully poised before him, the
rapier's point slightly elevated. Her short skirt left her feet
and ankles free to show their graceful proportions and the perfect
pose in which they held her supple body.
"You see what I can do with the colechemarde, eh, Monsieur
Rene de Ronville!" she exclaimed, giving him a smile which
fairly blinded him. "Notice how very near to your neck I
can thrust and yet not touch it. Now!"
She darted the keen point under his chin and drew it away so quickly
that the stroke was like a glint of sunlight.
"What do you think of that as a nice and accurate piece of
skill?"
She again resumed her pose, the right foot advanced, the left
arm well back, her lissome, finely developed body leaning slightly
forward.
Rene's hands were up before his face in a defensive position,
palms outward.
Just then a chorus of men's voices sounded in the distance. The
river house was beginning its carousal with a song. Alice let
fall her sword's point and listened.
Rene looked about for his cap.
"I must be going," he said.
Another and louder swish of the rapier made him pirouette and
dodge again with great energy.
"Don't," he cried, "that's dangerous; you'll put
out my eyes; I never saw such a girl!"
She laughed at him and kept on whipping the air dangerously near
his eyes, until she had driven him backward as far as he could
squeeze himself into a comer of the room.
Madame Roussillon came to the door from the kitchen and stood
looking in and laughing, with her hands on her hips. By this time
the rapier was making a criss-cross pattern of flashing lines
close to the young man's head while Alice, in the enjoyment of
her exercise, seemed to concentrate all the glowing rays of her
beauty in her face, her eyes dancing merrily.
"Quit, now, Alice," he begged, half in fun and half
in abject fear; "please quit--I surrender!"
She thrust to the wall on either side of him, then springing lightly
backward a pace, stood at guard. Her thick yellow hair had fallen
over her neck and shoulders in a loose wavy mass, out of which
her face beamed with a bewitching effect upon her captive.
Rene, glad enough to have a cessation of his peril, stood laughing
dryly; but the singing down at the river house was swelling louder
and he made another movement to go.
"You surrendered, you remember," cried Alice, renewing
the sword- play; "sit down on the chair there and make yourself
comfortable. You are not going down yonder to-night; you are going
to stay here and talk with me and Mother Roussillon; we are lonesome
and you are good company."
A shot rang out keen and clear; there was a sudden tumult that
broke up the distant singing; and presently more firing at varying
intervals cut the night air from the direction of the river.
Jean, the hunchback, came in to say that there was a row of some
sort; he had seen men running across the common as if in pursuit
of a fugitive; but the moonlight was so dim that he could not
be sure what it all meant.
Rene picked up his cap and bolted out of the house.
CHAPTER III
THE RAPE OF THE DEMIJOHN
The row down at the river house was more noise than fight, so
far as results seemed to indicate. It was all about a small dame
jeanne of fine brandy, which an Indian by the name of Long-Hair
had seized and run off with at the height of the carousal. He
must have been soberer than his pursuers, or naturally fleeter;
for not one of them could catch him, or even keep long in sight
of him. Some pistols were emptied while the race was on, and two
or three of the men swore roundly to having seen Long-Hair jump
sidewise and stagger, as if one of the shots had taken effect.
But, although the moon was shining, he someway disappeared, they
could not understand just how, far down beside the river below
the fort and the church.
It was not a very uncommon thing for an Indian to steal what he
wanted, and in most cases light punishment followed conviction;
but it was felt to be a capital offense for an Indian or anybody
else to rape a demijohn of fine brandy, especially one sent as
a present, by a friend in New Orleans, to Lieutenant Governor
Abbott, who had until recently been the commandant of the post.
Every man at the river house recognized and resented the enormity
of Long-Hair's crime and each was, for the moment, ready to be
his judge and his executioner. He had broken at once every rule
of frontier etiquette and every bond of sympathy. Nor was Long-Hair
ignorant of the danger involved in his daring enterprise. He had
beforehand carefully and stolidly weighed all the conditions,
and true to his Indian nature, had concluded that a little wicker
covered bottle of brandy was well worth the risk of his life.
So he had put himself in condition for a great race by slipping
out and getting rid of his weapons and all surplus weight of clothes.
This incident brought the drinking bout at the river house to
a sudden end; but nothing further came of it that night, and no
record of it would be found in these pages, but for the fact that
Long-Hair afterwards became an important character in the stirring
historical drama which had old Vincennes for its center of energy.
Rene de Ronville probably felt himself in bad luck when he arrived
at the river house just too late to share in the liquor or to
join in chasing the bold thief. He listened with interest, however,
to the story of Long-Hair's capture of the commandant's demijohn
and could not refrain from saying that if he had been present
there would have been a quite different result.
"I would have shot him before he got to that door,"
he said, drawing his heavy flint-lock pistol and going through
the motions of one aiming quickly and firing. Indeed, so vigorously
in earnest was he with the pantomime, that he actually did fire,
unintentionally of course,--the ball burying itself in the door-
jamb.
He was laughed at by those present for being more excited than
they who witnessed the whole thing. One of them, a leathery-faced
and grizzled old sinner, leered at him contemptuously and said
in queer French, with a curious accent caught from long use of
backwoods English:
"Listen how the boy brags! Ye might think, to hear Rene talk,
that he actually amounted to a big pile."
This personage was known to every soul in Vincennes as Oncle Jazon,
and when Oncle Jazon spoke the whole town felt bound to listen.
"An' how well he shoots, too," he added with an intolerable
wink; "aimed at the door and hit the post. Certainly Long-Hair
would have been in great danger! O yes, he'd 'ave killed Long-Hair
at the first shot, wouldn't he though!"
Oncle Jazon had the air of a large man, but the stature of a small
one; in fact he was shriveled bodily to a degree which suggested
comparison with a sun-dried wisp of hickory bark; and when he
chuckled, as he was now doing, his mouth puckered itself until
it looked like a scar on his face. From cap to moccasins he had
every mark significant of a desperate character; and yet there
was about him something that instantly commanded the confidence
of rough men,--the look of self-sufficiency and superior capability
always to be found in connection with immense will power. His
sixty years of exposure, hardship, and danger seemed to have but
toughened his physique and strengthened his vitality. Out of his
small hazel eyes gleamed a light as keen as ice.
"All right, Oncle Jazon," said Rene laughing and blowing
the smoke out of his pistol; "'twas you all the same who
let Long-Hair trot off with the Governor's brandy, not I. If you
could have hit even a door-post it might have been better."
Oncle Jazon took off his cap and looked down into it in a way
he had when about to say something final.
"Ventrebleu! I did not shoot at Long-Hair at all," he
said, speaking slowly, "because the scoundrel was unarmed.
He didn't have on even a knife, and he was havin' enough to do
dodgin' the bullets that the rest of 'em were plumpin' at 'im
without any compliments from me to bother 'im more."
"Well," Rene replied, turning away with a laugh, "if
I'd been scalped by the Indians, as you have, I don't think there
would be any particular reason why I should wait for an Indian
thief to go and arm himself before I accepted him as a target."
Oncle Jazon lifted a hand involuntarily and rubbed his scalpless
crown; then he chuckled with a grotesque grimace as if the recollection
of having his head skinned were the funniest thing imaginable.
"When you've killed as many of 'em as Oncle Jazon has,"
remarked a bystander to Rene, "you'll not be so hungry for
blood, maybe."
"Especially after ye've took fifty-nine scalps to pay for
yer one," added Oncle Jazon, replacing his cap over the hairless
area of his crown.
The men who had been chasing Long-Hair, presently came straggling
back with their stories--each had a distinct one--of how the fugitive
escaped. They were wild looking fellows, most of them somewhat
intoxicated, all profusely liberal with their stock of picturesque
profanity. They represented the roughest element of the well-nigh
lawless post.
"I'm positive that he's wounded," said one. "Jacques
and I shot at him together, so that our pistols sounded just as
if only one had been fired--bang! that way--and he leaped sideways
for all the world like a bird with a broken leg. I thought he'd
fall; but ve! he ran faster'n ever, and all at once he was gone;
just disappeared."
"Well, to-morrow we'll get him," said another. "You
and I and Jacques, we'll take up his trail, the thief, and follow
him till we find him. He can't get off so easy."
"I don't know so well about that," said another; "it's
Long-Hair, you must remember, and Long-Hair is no common buck
that just anybody can find asleep. You know what Long-Hair is.
Nobody's ever got even with 'im yet. That's so, ain't it? Just
ask Oncle Jazon, if you don't believe it!"
The next morning Long-Hair was tracked to the edge. He had been
wounded, but whether seriously or not could only be conjectured.
A sprinkle of blood, here and there quite a dash of it, reddened
the grass and clumps of weeds he had run through, and ended close
to the water into which it looked as if he had plunged with a
view to baffling pursuit. Indeed pursuit was baffled. No further
trace could be found, by which to follow the cunning fugitive.
Some of the men consoled themselves by saying, without believing,
that Long-Hair was probably lying drowned at the bottom of the
river.
"Pas du tout," observed Oncle Jazon, his short pipe
askew far over in the corner of his mouth, "not a bit of
it is that Indian drowned. He's jes' as live as a fat cat this
minute, and as drunk as the devil. He'll get some o' yer scalps
yet after he's guzzled all that brandy and slep' a week."
It finally transpired that Oncle Jazon was partly right and partly
wrong. Long-Hair was alive, even as a fat cat, perhaps; but not
drunk, for in trying to swim with the rotund little dame jeanne
under his arm he lost hold of it and it went to the bottom of
the Wabash, where it may be lying at this moment patiently waiting
for some one to fish it out of its bed deep in the sand and mud,
and break the ancient wax from its neck!
Rene de Ronville, after the chase of Long-Hair had been given
over, went to tell Father Beret what had happened, and finding
the priest's hut empty turned into the path leading to the Roussillon
place, which was at the head of a narrow street laid out in a
direction at right angles to the river's course. He passed two
or three diminutive cabins, all as much alike as bee-hives. Each
had its squat veranda and thatched or clapboarded roof held in
place by weight-poles ranged in roughly parallel rows, and each
had the face of the wall under its veranda neatly daubed with
a grayish stucco made of mud and lime. You may see such houses
today in some remote parts of the creole country of Louisiana.
As Rene passed along he spoke with a gay French freedom to the
dames and lasses who chanced to be visible. His air would be regarded
as violently brigandish in our day; we might even go so far as
to think his whole appearance comical. His jaunty cap with a tail
that wagged as he walked, his short trousers and leggins of buckskin,
and his loose shirt-like tunic, drawn in at the waist with a broad
belt, gave his strong figure just the dash of wildness suited
to the armament with which it was weighted. A heavy gun lay in
the hollow of his shoulder under which hung an otter-skin bullet-pouch
with its clear powder-horn and white bone charger. In his belt
were two huge flint-lock pistols and a long case-knife.
"Bon jour, Ma'm'selle Adrienne," he cheerily called,
waving his free hand in greeting to a small, dark lass standing
on the step of a veranda and indolently swinging a broom. "Comment
allez-vous auj ourd'hui?"
"J'm'porte tres bien, merci, Mo'sieu Rene," was the
quick response; "et vous?"
"Oh, I'm as lively as a cricket."
"Going a hunting?"
"No, just up here a little way--just on business--up to Mo'sieu
Roussillon's for a moment."
"Yes," the girl responded in a tone indicative of something
very like spleen, "yes, undoubtedly, Mo'sieu de Ronville;
your business there seems quite pressing of late. I have noticed
your industrious application to that business."
"Ta-ta, little one," he wheedled, lowering his voice;
"you mustn't go to making bug-bears out of nothing."
"Bug-bears!" she retorted, "you go on about your
business and I'll attend to mine," and she flirted into the
house.
Rene laughed under his breath, standing a moment as if expecting
her to come out again; but she did not, and he resumed his walk
singing softly--
"Elle a les joues vermeilles, vermeilles, Ma belle, ma belle
petite."
But ten to one he was not thinking of Madamoiselle Adrienne Bourcier.
His mind, however, must have been absorbingly occupied; for in
the straight, open way he met Father Beret and did not see him
until he came near bumping against the old man, who stepped aside
with astonishing agility and said--
"Dieu vous benisse, mon fils; but what is your great hurry--where
can you be going in such happy haste?" Rene did not stop
to parley with the priest. He flung some phrase of pleasant greeting
back over his shoulder as he trudged on, his heart beginning a
tattoo against his ribs when the Roussillon place came in sight,
and he took hold of his mustache to pull it, as some men must
do in moments of nervousness and bashfulness. If sounds ever have
color, the humming in his ears was of a rosy hue; if thoughts
ever exhale fragrance, his brain overflowed with the sweets of
violet and heliotrope.
He had in mind what he was going to say when Alice and he should
be alone together. It was a pretty speech, he thought; indeed
a very thrilling little speech, by the way it stirred his own
nerve- centers as he conned it over.
Madame Roussillon met him at the door in not a very good humor.
"Is Mademoiselle Alice here?" he ventured to demand.
"Alice? no, she's not here; she's never here just when I
want her most. V'la le picbois et la grive--see the woodpecker
and the robin--eating the cherries, eating every one of them,
and that girl running off somewhere instead of staying here and
picking them," she railed in answer to the young man's polite
inquiry. "I haven't seen her these four hours, neither her
nor that rascally hunchback, Jean. They're up to some mischief,
I'll be bound!"
Madame Roussillon puffed audibly between phrases; but she suddenly
became very mild when relieved of her tirade.
"Mais entrez," she added in a pleasant tone, "come
in and tell me the news."
Rene's disappointment rushed into his face, but he managed to
laugh it aside.
"Father Beret has just been telling me," said Madame
Roussillon, "that our friend Long-Hair made some trouble
last night. How about it?"
Rene told her what he knew and added that Long-Hair would probably
never be seen again.
"He was shot, no doubt of it," he went on, "and
is now being nibbled by fish and turtles. We tracked him by his
blood to where he jumped into the Wabash. He never came out."
Strangely enough it happened that, at the very time of this chat
between Madame Roussillon and Rene Alice was bandaging Long-Hair's
wounded leg with strips of her apron. It was under some willows
which overhung the bank of a narrow and shallow lagoon or slough,
which in those days extended a mile or two back into the country
on the farther side of the river. Alice and Jean went over in
a pirogue to see if the water lilies, haunting a pond there, were
yet beginning to bloom. They landed at a convenient spot some
distance up the little lagoon, made the boat fast by dragging
its prow high ashore, and were on the point of setting out across
a neck of wet, grassy land to the pond, when a deep grunt, not
unlike that of a self-satisfied pig, attracted them to the willows,
where they discovered Long-Hair, badly wounded, weltering in some
black mud.
His hiding-place was cunningly chosen, save that the mire troubled
him, letting him down by slow degrees, and threatening to engulf
him bodily; and he was now too weak to extricate himself. He lifted
his head and glared. His face was grimy, his hair matted with
mud. Alice, although brave enough and quite accustomed to startling
experiences, uttered a cry when she saw those snaky eyes glistening
so savagely amid the shadows. But Jean was quick to recognize
Long-Hair; he had often seen him about town, a figure not to be
forgotten.
"They've been hunting him everywhere," he said in a
half whisper to Alice, clutching the skirt of her dress. "It's
Long-Hair, the Indian who stole the brandy; I know him."
Alice recoiled a pace or two.
"Let's go back and tell 'em," Jean added, still whispering,
"they want to kill him; Oncle Jazon said so. Come on!"
He gave her dress a jerk; but she did not move any farther back;
she was looking at the blood oozing from a wound in the Indian's
leg.
"He is shot, he is hurt, Jean, we must help him," she
presently said, recovering her self-control, yet still pale. "We
must get him out of that bad place."
Jean caught Alice's merciful spirit with sympathetic readiness,
and showed immediate willingness to aid her.
It was a difficult thing to do; but there was a will and of course
a way. They had knives with which they cut willows to make a standing
place on the mud. While they were doing this they spoke friendly
words to Long-Hair, who understood French a little, and at last
they got hold of his arms, tugged, rested, tugged again, and finally
managed to help him to a dry place, still under the willows, where
he could lie more at ease. Jean carried water in his cap with
which they washed the wound and the stolid savage face. Then Alice
tore up her cotton apron, in which she had hoped to bear home
a load of lilies, and with the strips bound the wound very neatly.
It took a long time, during which the Indian remained silent and
apparently quite indifferent.
Long-Hair was a man of superior physique, tall, straight, with
the muscles of a Vulcan; and while he lay stretched on the ground
half clad and motionless, he would have been a grand model for
an heroic figure in bronze. Yet from every lineament there came
a strange repelling influence, like that from a snake. Alice felt
almost unbearable disgust while doing her merciful task; but she
bravely persevered until it was finished.
It was now late in the afternoon, and the sun would be setting
before they could reach home.
"We must hurry back, Jean," Alice said, turning to depart.
"It will be all we can do to reach the other side in daylight.
I'm thinking that they'll be out hunting for us too, if we don't
move right lively. Come."
She gave the Indian another glance when she had taken but a step.
He grunted and held up something in his hand--something that shone
with a dull yellow light. It was a small, oval, gold locket which
she had always worn in her bosom. She sprang and snatched it from
his palm.
"Thank you," she exclaimed, smiling gratefully. "I
am so glad you found it."
The chain by which the locket had hung was broken, doubtless by
some movement while dragging Long-Hair out of the mud, and the
lid had sprung open, exposing a miniature portrait of Alice, painted
when she was a little child, probably not two years old. It was
a sweet baby face, archly bright, almost surrounded with a fluff
of golden hair. The neck and the upper line of the plump shoulders,
with a trace of richly delicate lace and a string of pearls, gave
somehow a suggestion of patrician daintiness.
Long-Hair looked keenly into Alice's eyes, when she stooped to
take the locket from his hand, but said nothing.
She and Jean now hurried away, and, so vigorously did they paddle
the pirogue, that the sky was yet red in the west when they reached
home and duly received their expected scolding from Madame Roussillon.
Alice sealed Jean's lips as to their adventure; for she had made
up her mind to save Long-Hair if possible, and she felt sure that
the only way to do it would be to trust no one but Father Beret.
It turned out that Long-Hair's wound was neither a broken bone
nor a cut artery. The flesh of his leg, midway between the hip
and the knee, was pierced; the bullet had bored a neat hole clean
through. Father Beret took the case in hand, and with no little
surgical skill proceeded to set the big Indian upon his feet again.
The affair had to be cleverly managed. Food, medicines and clothing
were surreptitiously borne across the river; a bed of grass was
kept fresh under Long-Hair's back; his wound was regularly dressed;
and finally his weapons--a tomahawk, a knife, a strong bow and
a quiver of arrows--which he had hidden on the night of his bold
theft, were brought to him.
"Now go and sin no more," said good Father Beret; but
he well knew that his words were mere puffs of articulate wind
in the ear of the grim and silent savage, who limped away with
an air of stately dignity into the wilderness.
A load fell from Alice's mind when Father Beret informed her of
Long-Hair's recovery and departure. Day and night the dread lest
some of the men should find out his hiding-place and kill him
had depressed and worried her. And now, when it was all over,
there still hovered like an elusive shadow in her consciousness
a vague haunting impression of the incident's immense significance
as an influence in her life. To feel that she had saved a man
from death was a new sensation of itself; but the man and the
circumstances were picturesque; they invited imagination; they
furnished an atmosphere of romance dear to all young and healthy
natures, and somehow stirred her soul with a strange appeal.
Long-Hair's imperturbable calmness, his stolid, immobile countenance,
the mysterious reptilian gleam of his shifty black eyes, and the
soulless expression always lurking in them, kept a fascinating
hold on the girl's memory. They blended curiously with the impressions
left by the romances she had read in M. Roussillon's mildewed
books.
Long-Hair was not a young man; but it would have been impossible
to guess near his age. His form and face simply showed long experience
and immeasurable vigor. Alice remembered with a shuddering sensation
the look he gave her when she took the locket from his hand. It
was of but a second's duration, yet it seemed to search every
nook of her being with its subtle power.
Romancers have made much of their Indian heroes, picturing them
as models of manly beauty and nobility; but all fiction must be
taken with liberal pinches of salt. The plain truth is that dark
savages of the pure blood often do possess the magnetism of perfect
physical development and unfathomable mental strangeness; but
real beauty they never have. Their innate repulsiveness is so
great that, like the snake's charm, it may fascinate; yet an indescribable,
haunting disgust goes with it. And, after all, if Alice had been
asked to tell just how she felt toward the Indian she had labored
so hard to save, she would promptly have said:
"I loathe him as I do a toad!"
Nor would Father Beret, put to the same test, have made a substantially
different confession. His work, to do which his life went as fuel
to fire, was training the souls of Indians for the reception of
divine grace; but experience had not changed his first impression
of savage character. When he traveled in the wilderness he carried
the Word and the Cross; but he was also armed with a gun and two
good pistols, not to mention a dangerous knife. The rumor prevailed
that Father Beret could drive a nail at sixty yards with his rifle,
and at twenty snuff a candle with either one of his pistols.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST MAYOR OF VINCENNES
Governor Abbott probably never so much as heard of the dame jeanne
of French brandy sent to him by his creole friend in New Orleans.
He had been gone from Vincennes several months when the batteau
arrived, having been recalled to Detroit by the British authorities;
and he never returned. Meantime the little post with its quaint
cabins and its dilapidated block-house, called Fort Sackville,
lay sunning drowsily by the river in a blissful state of helplessness
from the military point of view. There was no garrison; the two
or three pieces of artillery, abandoned and exposed, gathered
rust and cobwebs, while the pickets of the stockade, decaying
and loosened in the ground by winter freezes and summer rains,
leaned in all directions, a picture of decay and inefficiency.
The inhabitants of the town, numbering about six hundred, lived
very much as pleased them, without any regular municipal government,
each family its own tribe, each man a law unto himself; yet for
mutual protection, they all kept in touch and had certain common
rights which were religiously respected and defended faithfully.
A large pasturing ground was fenced in where the goats and little
black cows of the villagers browsed as one herd, while the patches
of wheat, corn and vegetables were not inclosed at all. A few
of the thriftier and more important citizens, however, had separate
estates of some magnitude, surrounding their residences, kept
up with care and, if the time and place be taken into account,
with considerable show of taste.
Monsieur Gaspard Roussillon was looked upon as the aristocrat
par excellence of Vincennes, notwithstanding the fact that his
name bore no suggestion of noble or titled ancestry. He was rich
and in a measure educated; moreover the successful man's patent
of leadership, a commanding figure and a suave manner, came always
to his assistance when a crisis presented itself. He traded shrewdly,
much to his own profit, but invariably with the excellent result
that the man, white or Indian, with whom he did business felt
himself especially favored in the transaction. By the exercise
of firmness, prudence, vast assumption, florid eloquence and a
kindly liberality he had greatly endeared himself to the people;
so that in the absence of a military commander he came naturally
to be regarded as the chief of the town, Mo'sieu' le maire.
He returned from his extended trading expedition about the middle
of July, bringing, as was his invariable rule, a gift for Alice.
This time it was a small, thin disc of white flint, with a hole
in the center through which a beaded cord of sinew was looped.
The edge of the disc was beautifully notched and the whole surface
polished so that it shone like glass, while the beads, made of
very small segments of porcupine quills, were variously dyed,
making a curiously gaudy show of bright colors. "There now,
ma cherie, is something worth fifty times its weight in gold,"
said M. Roussillon when he presented the necklace to his foster
daughter with pardonable self-satisfaction. "It is a sacred
charm-string given me by an old heathen who would sell his soul
for a pint of cheap rum. He solemnly informed me that whoever
wore it could not by any possibility be killed by an enemy."
Alice kissed M. Roussillon.
"It's so curious and beautiful," she said, holding it
up and drawing the variegated string through her fingers. Then,
with her mischievous laugh, she added; "and I'm glad it is
so powerful against one's enemy; I'll wear it whenever I go where
Adrienne Bourcier is, see if I don't!"
"Is she your enemy? What's up between you and la petite Adrienne,
eh?" M. Roussillon lightly demanded. "You were always
the best of good friends, I thought. What's happened?"
"Oh, we are good friends," said Alice, quickly, "very
good friends, indeed; I was but chaffing."
"Good friends, but enemies; that's how it is with women.
Who's the young man that's caused the coolness? I could guess,
maybe!" He laughed and winked knowingly. "May I be so
bold as to name him at a venture?"
"Yes, if you'll be sure to mention Monsieur Rene de Ronville,"
she gayly answered. "Who but he could work Adrienne up into
a perfect green mist of jealousy?"
"He would need an accomplice, I should imagine; a young lady
of some beauty and a good deal of heartlessness."
"Like whom, for example?" and she tossed her bright
head. "Not me, I am sure."
"Poh! like every pretty maiden in the whole world, ma petite
coquette; they're all alike as peas, cruel as blue jays and as
sweet as apple-blossoms." He stroked her hair clumsily with
his large hand, as a heavy and roughly fond man is apt to do,
adding in an almost serious tone:
"But my little girl is better than most of them, not a foolish
mischief-maker, I hope."
Alice was putting her head through the string of beads and letting
the translucent white disc fall into her bosom.
"It's time to change the subject," she said; "tell
me what you have seen while away. I wish I could go far off and
see things. Have you been to Detroit, Quebec, Montreal?"
"Yes, I've been to all, a long, hard journey, but reasonably
profitable. You shall have a goodly dot when you get married,
my child."
"And did you attend any parties and balls?" she inquired
quickly, ignoring his concluding remark. "Tell me about them.
How do the fine ladies dress, and do they wear their hair high
with great big combs? Do they have long skirts and--"
"Hold up, you double-tongued chatterbox!" he interrupted;
"I can't answer forty questions at once. Yes, I danced till
my legs ached with women old and girls young; but how could I
remember how they were dressed and what their style of coiffure
was? I know that silk rustled and there was a perfume of eau de
Cologne and mignonette and my heart expanded and blazed while
I whirled like a top with a sweet lady in my arms."
"Yes, you must have cut a ravishing figure!" interpolated
Madame Roussillon with emphatic disapproval, her eyes snapping.
"A bull in a lace shop. How delighted the ladies must have
been!"
"Never saw such blushing faces and burning glances--such
fluttering breasts, such--"
"Big braggart," Madame Roussillon broke in contemptuously,
"it's a piastre to a sou that you stood gawping in through
a window while gentlemen and ladies did the dancing. I can imagine
how you looked --I can!" and with this she took her prodigious
bulk at a waddling gait out of the room. "I remember how
you danced even when you were not clumsy as a pig on ice!"
she shrieked back over her shoulder.
"Parbleu! true enough, my dear," he called after her,
"I should think you could--you mind how we used trip it together.
You were the prettiest dancer them all, and the young fellows
all went to the swords about you!"
"But tell me more," Alice insisted; "I want to
know about what you saw in the great towns--in the fine houses--how
the ladies looked, how they acted--what they said--the dresses
they wore--how--"
"Ciel! you will split my ears, child; can't you fill my pipe
and bring it to me with a coal on it? Then I'll try to tell you
what I can," he cried, assuming a humorously resigned air.
"Perhaps if I smoke I can remember everything."
Alice gladly ran to do what he asked. Meantime Jean was out on
the gallery blowing a flute that M. Roussillon had brought him
from Quebec.
The pipe well filled and lighted apparently did have the effect
to steady and encourage M. Roussillon's memory; or if not his
memory, then his imagination, which was of that fervid and liberal
sort common to natives of the Midi, and which has been exquisitely
depicted by the late Alphonse Daudet in Tartarin and Bompard.
He leaned far back in a strong chair, with his massive legs stretched
at full length, and gazed at the roof-poles while he talked.
He sympathized fully, in his crude way, with Alice's lively curiosity,
and his affection for her made him anxious to appease her longing
after news from the great outside world. If the sheer truth must
come out, however, he knew precious little about that world, especially
the polite part of it in which thrived those femininities so dear
to the heart of an isolated and imaginative girl. Still, as he,
too, lived in Arcadia, there was no great effort involved when
he undertook to blow a dreamer's flute.
In the first place he had not been in Quebec or Montreal during
his absence from home. Most of the time he had spent disposing
of pelts and furs at Detroit and in extending his trading relations
with other posts; but what mattered a trifling want of facts when
his meridional fancy once began to warm up? A smattering of social
knowledge gained at first hand in his youthful days in France
while he was a student whose parents fondly expected him to conquer
the world, came to his aid, and besides he had saturated himself
all his life with poetry and romance. Scudery, Scarron, Prevost,
Madame La Fayette and Calprenede were the chief sources of his
information touching the life and manners, morals and gayeties
of people who, as he supposed, stirred the surface of that resplendent
and far-off ocean called society. Nothing suited him better than
to smoke a pipe and talk about what he had seen and done; and
the less he had really seen and done the more he had to tell.
His broad, almost over-virile, kindly and contented face beamed
with the warmth of wholly imaginary recollections while he recounted
with minute circumstantiality to the delighted Alice his gallant
adventures in the crowded and brilliant ball-rooms of the French-Canadian
towns. The rolling burr of his bass voice, deep and resonant,
gave force to the improvised descriptions. Madame Roussillon heard
the heavy booming and presently came softly back into the door
from the kitchen to listen. She leaned against the facing in an
attitude of ponderous attention, a hand, on her bulging hip. She
could not suppress her unbounded admiration of her liege lord's
manly physique, and jealous to fierceness as she was of his experiences
so eloquently and picturesquely related, her woman's nature took
fire with enjoyment of the scenes described.
This is the mission of the poet and the romancer--to sponge out
of existence, for a time, the stiff, refractory, and unlovely
realities and give in their place a scene of ideal mobility and
charm. The two women reveled in Gaspard Roussillon's revelations.
They saw the brilliant companies, the luxurious surroundings,
heard the rustle of brocade and the fine flutter of laces, the
hum of sweet voices, breathed in the wafts of costly perfumeries,
looked on while the dancers whirled and flickered in the confusion
of lights; and over all and through all poured and vibrated such
ravishing music as only the southern imagination could have conjured
up out of nothing.
Alice was absolutely charmed. She sat on a low wooden stool and
gazed into Gaspard Roussillon's face with dilating eyes in which
burned that rich and radiant something we call a passionate soul.
She drank in his flamboyant stream of words with a thirst which
nothing but experience could ever quench. He felt her silent applause
and the admiring involuntary absorption that possessed his wife;
the consciousness of his elementary magnetism augmented the flow
of his fine descriptions, and he went on and on, until the arrival
of Father Beret put an end to it all.
The priest, hearing of M. Roussillon's return, had come to inquire
about some friends living at Detroit. He took luncheon with the
family, enjoying the downright refreshing collation of broiled
birds, onions, meal-cakes and claret, ending with a dish of blackberries
and cream.
M. Roussillon seized the first opportunity to resume his successful
romancing, and presently in the midst of the meal began to tell
Father Beret about what he had seen in Quebec.
"By the way," he said, with expansive casualness in
his voice, "I called upon your old-time friend and co-adjutor,
Father Sebastien, while up there. A noble old man. He sent you
a thousand good messages. Was mightily delighted when I told him
how happy and hale you have always been here. Ah, you should have
seen his dear old eyes full of loving tears. He would walk a hundred
miles to see you, he said, but never expected to in this world.
Blessings, blessings upon dear Father Beret, was what he murmured
in my ear when we were parting. He says that he will never leave
Quebec until he goes to his home above--ah!"
The way in which M. Roussillon closed his little speech, his large
eyes upturned, his huge hands clasped in front of him, was very
effective.
"I am under many obligations, my son," said Father Beret,
"for what you tell me. It was good of you to remember my
dear old friend and go to him for his loving messages to me. I
am very, very thankful. Help me to another drop of wine, please."
Now the extraordinary feature of the situation was that Father
Beret had known positively for nearly five years that Father Sebastien
was dead and buried.
"Ah, yes," M. Roussillon continued, pouring the claret
with one hand and making a pious gesture with the other; "the
dear old man loves you and prays for you; his voice quavers whenever
he speaks of you."
"Doubtless he made his old joke to you about the birth-mark
on my shoulder," said Father Beret after a moment of apparently
thoughtful silence. "He may have said something about it
in a playful way, eh?"
"True, true, why yes, he surely mentioned the same,"
assented M. Roussillon, his face assuming an expression of confused
memory; "it was something sly and humorous, I mind; but it
just escapes my recollection. A right jolly old boy is Father
Sebastien; indeed very amusing at times."
"At times, yes," said Father Beret, who had no birth-mark
on his shoulder, and had never had one there, or on any other
part of his person.
"How strange!" Alice remarked, "I, too, have a
mark on my shoulder--a pink spot, just like a small, five-petaled
flower. We must be of kin to each other, Father Beret."
The priest laughed.
"If our marks are alike, that would be some evidence of kinship,"
he said.
"But what shape is yours, Father?"
"I've never seen it," he responded.
"Never seen it! Why?"
"Well, it's absolutely invisible," and he chuckled heartily,
meantime glancing shrewdly at M. Roussillon out of the tail of
his eye.
"It's on the back part of his shoulder," quickly spoke
up M. Roussillon, "and you know priests never use looking-glasses.
The mark is quite invisible therefore, so far as Father Beret
is concerned!"
"You never told me of your birth-mark before, my daughter,"
said Father Beret, turning to Alice with sudden interest. "It
may some day be good fortune to you."
"Why so, Father?"
"If your family name is really Tarleton, as you suppose from
the inscription on your locket, the birth-mark, being of such
singular shape, would probably identify you. It is said that these
marks run regularly in families. With the miniature and the distinguishing
birth-mark you have enough to make a strong case should you once
find the right Tarleton family."
"You talk as they write in novels," said Alice. "I've
read about just such things in them. Wouldn't it be grand if I
should turn out to be some great personage in disguise!"
The mention of novels reminded Father Beret of that terrible book,
Manon Lescaut, which he last saw in Alice's possession, and he
could not refrain from mentioning it in a voice that shuddered.
"Rest easy, Father Beret," said Alice; "that is
one novel I have found wholly distasteful to me. I tried to read
it, but could not do it, I flung it aside in utter disgust. You
and mother Roussillon are welcome to hide it deep as a well, for
all I care. I don't enjoy reading about low, vile people and hopeless
unfortunates; I like sweet and lovely heroines and strong, high-
souled, brave heroes."
"Read about the blessed saints, then, my daughter; you will
find in them the true heroes and heroines of this world,"
said Father Beret.
M. Roussillon changed the subject, for he always somehow dreaded
to have the good priest fall into the strain of argument he was
about to begin. A stray sheep, no matter how refractory, feels
a touch of longing when it hears the shepherd's voice. M. Roussillon
was a Catholic, but a straying one, who avoided the confessional
and often forgot mass. Still, with all his reckless independence,
and with all his outward show of large and breezy self- sufficiency,
he was not altogether free from the hold that the church had laid
upon him in childhood and youth. Moreover, he was fond of Father
Beret and had done a great deal for the little church of St. Xavier
and the mission it represented; but he distinctly desired to be
let alone while he pursued his own course; and he had promised
the dying woman who gave Alice to him that the child should be
left as she was, a Protestant, without undue influence to change
her from the faith of her parents. This promise he had kept with
stubborn persistence and he meant to keep it as long as he lived.
Perhaps the very fact that his innermost conscience smote him
with vague yet telling blows at times for this departure from
the strict religion of his fathers, may have intensified his resistance
of the influence constantly exerted upon Alice by Father Beret
and Madame Roussillon, to bring her gently but surely to the church.
Perverseness is a force to be reckoned with in all original characters.
A few weeks had passed after M. Roussillon's return, when that
big-hearted man took it into his head to celebrate his successful
trading ventures with a moonlight dance given without reserve
to all the inhabitants of Vincennes. It was certainly a democratic
function that he contemplated, and motley to a most picturesque
extent.
Rene de Ronville called upon Alice a day or two previous to the
occasion and duly engaged her as his partenaire; but she insisted
upon having the engagement guarded in her behalf by a condition
so obviously fanciful that he accepted it without argument.
"If my wandering knight should arrive during the dance, you
promise to stand aside and give place to him," she stipulated.
"You promise that? You see I'm expecting him all the time.
I dreamed last night that he came on a great bay horse and, stooping,
whirled me up behind the saddle, and away we went!"
There was a childish, half bantering air in her look; but her
voice sounded earnest and serious, notwithstanding its delicious
timbre of suppressed playfulness.
"You promise me?" she insisted.
"Oh, I promise to slink away into a corner and chew my thumb,
the moment he comes," Rene eagerly assented. "Of course
I'm taking a great risk, I know; for lords and barons and knights
are very apt to appear Suddenly in a place like this."
"You may banter and make light if you want to," she
said, pouting admirably. "I don't care. All the same the
laugh will jump to the other corner of your mouth, see if it doesn't.
They say that what a person dreams about and wishes for and waits
for and believes in, will come true sooner or later."
"If that's so," said Rene, "you and I will get
married; for I've dreamed it every night of the year, wished for
it, waited for it and believed in it, and--"
It was a madly sudden rush. He made it on an impulse quite irresistible,
as hypnotized persons are said to do in response to the suggestion
of the hypnotist, and his heart was choking his throat before
he could end his speech. Alice interrupted him with a hearty burst
of laughter.
"A very pretty twist you give to my words, I must declare,"
she said; "but not new by any means. Little Adrienne Bourcier
could tell you that. She says that you have vowed to her over
and over that you dream about her, and wish for her, and wait
for her, precisely as you have just said to me,"
Rene's brown face flushed to the temples, partly with anger, partly
with the shock of mingled surprise and fear. He was guilty, and
the guilt showed in his eyes and paralyzed his tongue, so that
he sat there before Alice with his under jaw sagging ludicrously.
"Don't you rather think, Monsieur Rene de Ronville,"
she presently added in a calmly advisory tone, "that you
had better quit trying to say such foolish things to me, and just
be my very good friend? If you don't, I do, which comes to the
same thing. What's more, I won't be your partenaire at the dance
unless you promise me on your word of honor that you will dance
two dances with Adrienne to every one that you have with me. Do
you promise?"
He dared not oppose her outwardly, although in his heart resistance
amounted to furious revolt and riot.
"I promise anything you ask me to," he said resignedly,
almost sullenly; "anything for you."
"Well, I ask nothing whatever on my own account," Alice
quickly replied; "but I do tell you firmly that you shall
not maltreat little Adrienne Bourcier and remain a friend of mine.
She loves you, Rene de Ronville, and you have told her that you
love her. If you are a man worthy of respect you will not desert
her. Don't you think I am right?"
Like a singed and crippled moth vainly trying to rise once again
to the alluring yet deadly flame, Rene de Ronville essayed to
break out of his embarrassment and resume equal footing with the
girl so suddenly become his commanding superior; but the effort
disclosed to him as well as to her that he had fallen to rise
no more. In his abject defeat he accepted the terms dictated by
Alice and was glad when she adroitly changed her manner and tone
in going on to discuss the approaching dance.
"Now let me make one request of you," he demanded after
a while. "It's a small favor; may I ask it?"
"Yes, but I don't grant it in advance."
"I want you to wear, for my sake, the buff gown which they
say was your grandmother's."
"No, I won't wear it."
"But why, Alice?"
"None of the other girls have anything like such a dress;
it would not be right for me to put it on and make them all feel
that I had taken the advantage of them, just because I could;
that's why."
"But then none of them is beautiful and educated like you,"
he said; "you'll outshine them anyway."
"Save your compliments for poor pretty little Adrienne,"
she firmly responded, "I positively do not wish to hear them.
I have agreed to be your partenaire at this dance of Papa Roussillon's,
but it is understood between us that Adrienne is your sweet-heart.
I am not, and I'm not going to be, either. So for your sake and
Adrienne's, as well as out of consideration for the rest of the
girls who have no fine dresses, I am not going to wear the buff
brocade gown that belonged to Papa Roussillon's mother long ago.
I shall dress just as the rest do."
It is safe to say that Rene de Ronville went home with a troublesome
bee in his bonnet. He was not a bad-hearted fellow. Many a right
good young man, before him and since, has loved an Adrienne and
been dazzled by an Alice. A violet is sweet, but a rose is the
garden's queen. The poor youthful frontiersman ought to have been
stronger; but he was not, and what have we to say?
As for Alice, since having a confidential talk with Adrienne Bourcier
recently, she had come to realize what M. Roussillon meant when
he said; "But my little girl is better than most of them,
not a foolish mischief-maker, I hope." She saw through the
situation with a quick understanding of what Adrienne might suffer
should Rene prove permanently fickle. The thought of it aroused
all her natural honesty and serious nobleness of character, which
lay deep under the almost hoydenish levity usually observable
in her manner. Crude as her sense of life's larger significance
was, and meager as had been her experience in the things which
count for most in the sum of a young girl's existence under fair
circumstances, she grasped intuitively the gist of it all.
The dance did not come off; it had to be postponed indefinitely
on account of a grave change in the political relations of the
little post. A day or two before the time set for that function
a rumor ran through the town that something of importance was
about to happen. Father Gibault, at the head of a small party,
had arrived from Kaskaskia, far away on the Mississippi, with
the news that France and the American Colonies had made common
cause against the English in the great war of which the people
of Vincennes neither knew the cause nor cared a straw about the
outcome.
It was Oncle Jazon who came to the Roussillon place to tell M.
Roussillon that he was wanted at the river house. Alice met him
at the door.
"Come in, Oncle Jazon," she cheerily said, "you
are getting to be a stranger at our house lately. Come in; what
news do you bring? Take off your cap and rest your hair, Oncle
Jazon."
The scalpless old fighter chuckled raucously and bowed to the
best of his ability. He not only took off his queer cap, but looked
into it with a startled gaze, as if he expected something infinitely
dangerous to jump out and seize his nose.
"A thousand thanks, Ma'm'selle," he presently said,
"will ye please tell Mo'sieu' Roussillon that I would wish
to see 'im?"
"Yes, Oncle Jazon; but first be seated, and let me offer
you just a drop of eau de vie; some that Papa Roussillon brought
back with him from Quebec. He says it's old and fine."
She poured him a full glass, then setting the bottle on a little
stand, went to find M. Roussillon. While she was absent Oncle
Jazon improved his opportunity to the fullest extent. At least
three additional glasses of the brandy went the way of the first.
He grinned atrociously and smacked his corrugated lips; but when
Gaspard Roussillon came in, the old man was sitting at some distance
from the bottle and glass gazing indifferently out across the
veranda. He told his story curtly. Father Gibault, he said, had
sent him to ask M. Roussillon to come to the river house, as he
had news of great importance to communicate.
"Ah, well, Oncle Jazon, we'll have a nip of brandy together
before we go," said the host.
"Why, yes, jes" one agin' the broilin' weather,"
assented Oncle Jazon; "I don't mind jes' one."
"A very rich friend of mine in Quebec gave me this brandy,
Oncle Jazon," said M. Roussillon, pouring the liquor with
a grand flourish; "and I thought of you as soon as I got
it. Now, says I to myself, if any man knows good brandy when he
tastes it, it's Oncle Jazon, and I'll give him a good chance at
this bottle just the first of all my friends."
"It surely is delicious," said Oncle Jazon, "very
delicious." He spoke French with a curious accent, having
spent long years with English-speaking frontiersmen in the Carolinas
and Kentucky, so that their lingo had become his own.
As they walked side by side down the way to the river house they
looked like typical extremes of rough, sun-burned and weather-
tanned manhood; Oncle Jazon a wizened, diminutive scrap, wrinkled
and odd in every respect; Gaspard Roussillon towering six feet
two, wide shouldered, massive, lumbering, muscular, a giant with
long curling hair and a superb beard. They did not know that they
were going down to help dedicate the great Northwest to freedom.
CHAPTER V
FATHER GIBAULT
Great movements in the affairs of men are like tides of the seas
which reach and affect the remotest and quietest nooks and inlets,
imparting a thrill and a swell of the general motion. Father Gibault
brought the wave of the American Revolution to Vincennes. He was
a simple missionary; but he was, besides, a man of great worldly
knowledge and personal force. Colonel George Rogers Clark made
Father Gibault's acquaintance at Kaskaskia, when the fort and
its garrison surrendered to his command, and, quickly discerning
the fine qualities of the priest's character, sent him to the
post on the Wabash to win over its people to the cause of freedom
and independence. Nor was the task assumed a hard one, as Father
Gibault probably well knew before he undertook it.
A few of the leading men of Vincennes, presided over by Gaspard
Roussillon, held a consultation at the river house, and it was
agreed that a mass meeting should be called bringing all of the
inhabitants together in the church for the purpose of considering
the course to be taken under the circumstances made known by Father
Gibault. Oncle Jazon constituted himself an executive committee
of one to stir up a noise for the occasion.
It was a great day for Vincennes. The volatile temperament of
the French frontiersmen bubbled over with enthusiasm at the first
hint of something new, and revolutionary in which they might be
expected to take part. Without knowing in the least what it was
that Father Gibault and Oncle Jazon wanted of them, they were
all in favor of it at a venture.
Rene de Ronville, being an active and intelligent young man, was
sent about through the town to let everybody know of the meeting.
In passing he stepped into the cabin of Father Beret, who was
sitting on the loose puncheon floor, with his back turned toward
the entrance and so absorbed in trying to put together a great
number of small paper fragments that he did not hear or look up.
"Are you not going to the meeting, Father?" Rene bluntly
demanded. In the hurry that was on him he did not remember to
be formally polite, as was his habit.
The old priest looked up with a startled face. At the same time
he swept the fragments of paper together and clutched them hard
in his right hand. "Yes, yes, my son--yes I am going, but
the time has not yet come for it, has it?" he stammered.
"Is it late?"
He sprang to his feet and appeared confused, as if caught in doing
something very improper.
Rene wondered at this unusual behavior, but merely said:
"I beg pardon, Father Beret, I did not mean to disturb you,"
and went his way.
Father Beret stood for some minutes as if dazed, then squeezed
the paper fragments into a tight ball, just as they were when
he took them from under the floor some time before Rene came in,
and put it in his pocket. A little later he was kneeling, as we
have seen him once before, in silent yet fervent prayer, his clasped
hands lifted toward the crucifix on the wall.
"Jesus, give me strength to hold on and do my work,"
he murmured beseechingly, "and oh, free thy poor servant
from bitter temptation."
Father Gibault had come prepared to use his eloquence upon the
excitable Creoles, and with considerable cunning he addressed
a motley audience at the church, telling them that an American
force had taken Kaskaskia and would henceforth hold it; that France
had joined hands with the Americans against the British, and that
it was the duty of all Frenchmen to help uphold the cause of freedom
and independence.
"I come," said he, "directly from Colonel George
Rogers Clark, a noble and brave officer of the American army,
who told me the news that I have brought to you. He sent me here
to say to you that if you will give allegiance to his government
you shall be protected against all enemies and have the full freedom
of citizens. I think you should do this without a moment's hesitation,
as I and my people at Kaskaskia have already done. But perhaps
you would like to have a word from your distinguished fellow-citizen,
Monsieur Gaspard Roussillon. Speak to your friends, my son, they
will be glad to take counsel of your wisdom."
There was a stir and a craning of necks. M. Roussillon presently
appeared near the little chancel, his great form towering majestically.
He bowed and waved his hand with the air of one who accepts distinction
as a matter of course; then he took his big silver watch and looked
at it. He was the only man in Vincennes who owned a watch, and
so the incident was impressive. Father Gibault looked pleased,
and already a murmur of applause went through the audience. M.
Roussillon stroked the bulging crystal of the time-piece with
a circular motion of his thumb and bowed again, clearing his throat
resonantly, his face growing purplish above his beard.
"Good friends," he said, "what France does all
high-class Frenchmen applaud." He paused for a shout of approbation,
and was not disappointed. "The other name for France is glory,"
he added, "and all true Frenchmen love both names. I am a
true Frenchman!" and he struck his breast a resounding blow
with the hand that still held the watch. A huge horn button on
his buckskin jerkin came iu contact with the crystal, and there
was a smash, followed by a scattered tinkling of glass fragments.
All Vincennes stood breathless, contemplating the irreparable
accident. M. Roussillon had lost the effect of a great period
in his speech, but he was quick. Lifting the watch to his ear,
he listened a moment with superb dignity, then slowly elevating
his head and spreading his free hand over his heart he said:
"The faithful time-piece still tells off the seconds, and
the loyal heart of its owner still throbs with patriotism."
Oncle Jazon, who stood in front of the speaker, swung his shapeless
cap as high as he could and yelled like a savage. Then the crowd
went wild for a time.
"Vive la France! A bas l' Angleterre!" Everybody shouted
at the top of his voice.
"What France does we all do," continued M. Roussillon,
when the noise subsided. "France has clasped hands with George
Washington and his brave compatriots; so do we."
"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!" shrieked Oncle Jazon in a piercing
treble, tiptoeing and shaking his cap recklessly under M. Roussillon's
nose.
The orator winced and jerked his head back, but nobody saw it,
save perhaps Father Gibault, who laughed heartily.
Great sayings come suddenly, unannounced and unexpected. They
have the mysterious force of prophetic accident combined with
happy economy of phrasing. The southern blood in M. Roussillon's
veins was effervescing upon his brain; his tongue had caught the
fine freedom and abandon of inspired oratory. He towered and glowed;
words fell melodiously from his lips; his gestures were compelling,
his visage magnetic. In conclusion he said:
"Frenchmen, America is the garden-spot of the world and will
one day rule it, as did Rome of old. Where freedom makes her home,
there is the centre of power!"
It was in a little log church on the verge of a hummock overlooking
a marshy wild meadow. Westward for two thousand miles stretched
the unbroken prairies, woods, mountains, deserts reaching to the
Pacific; southward for a thousand miles rolled the green billows
of the wilderness to the warm Gulf shore; northward to the pole
and eastward to the thin fringe of settlements beyond the mountains,
all was houseless solitude.
If the reader should go to Vincennes to-day and walk southward
along Second Street to its intersection with Church Street, the
spot then under foot would be probably very near where M. Roussillon
stood while uttering his great sentence. Mind you, the present
writer does not pretend to know the exact site of old Saint Xavier
church. If it could be fixed beyond doubt the spot should have
an imperishable monument of Indiana stone.
When M, Roussillon ceased speaking the audience again exhausted
its vocal resources; and then Father Gibault called upon each
man to come forward and solemnly pledge his loyalty to the American
cause. Not one of them hesitated.
Meantime a woman was doing her part in the transformation of Post
Vincennes from a French-English picket to a full-fledged American
fort and town. Madame Godere, finding out what was about to happen,
fell to work making a flag in imitation of that under which George
Washington was fighting. Alice chanced to be in the Godere home
at the time and joined enthusiastically in the sewing. It was
an exciting task. Their fingers trembled while they worked, and
the thread, heavily coated with beeswax, squeaked as they drew
it through the cloth.
"We shall not be in time," said Madame Godere; "I
know we shall not. Everything hinders me. My thread breaks or
gets tangled and my needle's so rusty I can hardly stick it through
the cloth. O dear!"
Alice encouraged her with both words and work, and they had almost
finished when Rene came with a staff which he had brought from
the fort.
"Mon dieu, but we have had a great meeting!" he cried.
He was perspiring with excitement and fast walking; leaning on
the staff he mopped his face with a blue handkerchief.
"We heard much shouting and noise," said Madame Godere,
"M. Roussillon's voice rose loud above the rest. He roared
like a lion."
"Ah, he was speaking to us; he was very eloquent," Rene
replied. "But now they are waiting at the fort for the new
flag. I have come for it."
"It is ready," said Madame Godere.
With flying fingers Alice sewed it to the staff.
"Voici!" she cried, "vive la republique Americaine!"
She lifted the staff and let the flag droop over her from head
to foot.
"Give it to me," said Rene, holding forth a hand for
it, "and I'll run to the fort with it."
"No," said Alice, her face suddenly lighting up with
resolve. "No, I am going to take it myself," and without
a moment's delay off she went.
Rene was so caught by surprise that he stood gazing after her
until she passed behind a house, where the way turned, the shining
flag rippling around her, and her moccasins twinkling as she ran.
At the blockhouse, awaiting the moment when the symbol of freedom
should rise like a star over old Vincennes the crowd had picturesquely
broken into scattered groups. Alice entered through a rent in
the stockade, as that happened to be a shorter route than through
the gate, and appeared suddenly almost in their midst.
It was a happy surprise, a pretty and catching spectacular apparition
of a sort to be thoroughly appreciated by the lively French fancy
of the audience. The caught the girl's spirit, or it caught them,
and they made haste to be noisy.
"V'la! V'la! l'p'tite Alice et la bannlere de Zhorzh Vasinton!
(Look, look, little Alice and George Washington's flag!)"
shouted Oncle Jazon. He put his wiry little legs through a sort
of pas de zephyr and winked at himself with concentrated approval.
All the men danced around and yelled till they were hoarse.
By this time Rene had reached Alice's side; but she did not see
him; she ran into the blockhouse and climbed up a rude ladder-way;
then she appeared on the roof, still accompanied by Rene, and
planted the staff in a crack of the slabs, where it stood bravely
up, the colors floating free.
She looked down and saw M. Roussillon, Father Gibault and Father
Beret grouped in the centre of the area. They were waving their
hands aloft at her, while a bedlam of voices sent up applause
which went through her blood like strong wine. She smiled radiantly,
and a sweet flush glowed in her cheeks.
No one of all that wild crowd could ever forget the picture sketched
so boldly at that moment when, after planting the staff, Alice
stepped back a space and stood strong and beautiful against the
soft blue sky. She glanced down first, then looked up, her arms
folded across her bosom. It was a pose as unconsciously taken
as that of a bird, and the grace of it went straight to the hearts
of those below.
She turned about to descend, and for the first time saw that Rene
had followed her. His face was beaming.
"What a girl you are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of exultant
admiration. "Never was there another like you!"
Alice walked quickly past him without speaking; for down in the
space where some women were huddled aside from the crowd, looking
on, she had seen little Adrienne Bourcier. She made haste to descend.
Now that her impulsively chosen enterprise was completed her boldness
deserted her and she slipped out through a dilapidated postern
opposite the crowd. On her right was the river, while southward
before her lay a great flat plain, beyond which rose some hillocks
covered with forest. The sun blazed between masses of slowly drifting
clouds that trailed creeping fantastic shadows across the marshy
waste.
Alice walked along under cover of the slight landswell which then,
more plainly marked than it is now, formed the contour line of
hummock upon which the fort and village stood. A watery swale
grown full of tall aquatic weeds meandered parallel with the bluff,
so to call it, and there was a soft melancholy whispering of wind
among the long blades and stems. She passed the church and Father
Beret's hut and continued for some distance in the direction of
that pretty knoll upon which the cemetery is at present so tastefully
kept. She felt shy now, as if to run away and hide would be a
great relief. Indeed, so relaxed were her nerves that a slight
movement in the grass and cat-tail flags near by startled her
painfully, making her jump like a fawn.
"Little friend not be 'fraid," said a guttural voice
in broken French. "Little friend not make noise."
At a glance she recognized Long-Hair, the Indian, rising out of
the matted marsh growth. It was a hideous vision of embodied cunning,
soullessness and murderous cruelty.
"Not tell white man you see me?" he grunted interrogatively,
stepping close to her. He looked so wicked that she recoiled and
lifted her hands defensively.
She trembled from head to foot, and her voice failed her; but
she made a negative sign and smiled at him, turning as white as
her tanned face could become.
In his left hand he held his bow, while in his right he half lifted
a murderous looking tomahawk.
"What new flag mean?" he demanded, waving the bow's
end toward the fort and bending his head down close to hers. "Who
yonder?"
"The great American Father has taken us under his protection,"
she explained. "We are big-knives now." It almost choked
her to speak.
"Ugh! heap damn fools," he said with a dark scowl. "Little
friend much damn fool."
He straightened up his tall form and stood leering at her for
some seconds, then added:
"Little friend get killed, scalped, maybe."
The indescribable nobility of animal largeness, symmetry and strength
showed in his form and attitude, but the expression of his countenance
was absolutely repulsive--cold, hard, beastly.
He did not speak again, but turned quickly, and stooping low,
disappeared like a great brownish red serpent in the high grass,
which scarcely stirred as he moved through it.
Somehow that day made itself strangely memorable to Alice. She
had been accustomed to stirring scenes and sudden changes of conditions;
but this was the first time that she had ever joined actively
in a public movement of importance. Then, too, Long- Hair's picturesque
and rudely dramatic reappearance affected her imagination with
an indescribable force. Moreover, the pathetic situation in the
love affair between Rene and Adrienne had taken hold of her conscience
with a disturbing grip. But the shadowy sense of impending events,
of which she could form no idea, was behind it all. She had not
heard of Brandywine, or Bunker Hill, or Lexington, or Concord;
but something like a waft of their significance had blown through
her mind. A great change was coming into her idyllic life. She
was indistinctly aware of it, as we sometimes are of an approaching
storm, while yet the sky is sweetly blue and serene. When she
reached home the house was full of people to whom M. Roussillon,
in the gayest of moods, was dispensing wine and brandy.
"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!" shouted Oncle Jazon as soon
as he saw her.
And then they all talked at once, saying flattering things about
her. Madame Roussillon tried to scold as usual; but the lively
chattering of the guests drowned her voice.
"I suppose the American commander will send a garrison here,"
some one said to Father Gibault, "and repair the fort."
"Probably," the priest replied, "in a very few
weeks. Meantime we will garrison it ourselves."
"And we will have M. Roussillon for commander," spoke
up Rene de Ronville, who was standing by.
"A good suggestion," assented Father Gibault; "let
us organize at once."
Immediately the word was passed that there would be a meeting
at the fort that evening for the purpose of choosing a garrison
and a commander. Everybody went promptly at the hour set. M. Roussillon
was elected Captain by acclamation, with Rene de Ronville as his
Lieutenant. It was observed that Oncle Jazon had resumed his dignity,
and that he looked into his cap several times without speaking.
Meantime certain citizens, who had been in close relations with
Governor Abbott during his stay, quietly slipped out of town,
manned a batteau and went up the river, probably to Ouiatenon
first and then to Detroit. Doubtless they suspected that things
might soon grow too warm for their comfort.
It was thus that Vincennes and Fort Sackville first acknowledged
the American Government and hoisted the flag which, as long as
it floated over the blockhouse, was lightly and lovingly called
by everyone la banniere d'Alice Roussillon.
Father Gibault returned to Fort Kaskaskia and a little later Captain
Leonard Helm, a jovial man, but past the prime of life, arrived
at Vincennes with a commission from Col. Clark authorizing him
to supersede M. Roussillon as commander, and to act as Indian
agent for the American Government in the Department of the Wabash.
He was welcomed by the villagers, and at once made himself very
pleasing to them by adapting himself to their ways and entering
heartily into their social activities.
M. Roussillon was absent when Captain Helm and his party came.
Rene de Ronville, nominally in command of the fort, but actually
enjoying some excellent grouse shooting with a bell-mouthed old
fowling piece on a distant prairie, could not be present to deliver
up the post; and as there was no garrison just then visible, Helm
took possession, without any formalities.
"I think, Lieutenant, that you'd better look around through
the village and see if you can scare up this Captain what's-his-name,"
said the new commander to a stalwart young officer who had come
with him. "I can't think of these French names without getting
my brain in a twist. Do you happen to recollect the Captain's
name, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir; Gaspard Roussillon it reads in Colonel Clark's
order; but I am told that he's away on a trading tour," said
the young man.
"You may be told anything by these hair-tongued parlyvoos,"
Helm remarked. "It won't hurt, anyway, to find out where
he lives and make a formal call, just for appearance sake, and
to enquire about his health. I wish you would try it, sir, and
let me know the result."
The Lieutenant felt that this was a peremptory order and turned
about to obey promptly.
"And I say, Beverley, come back sober, if you possibly can,"
Helm added in his most genial tone, thinking it a great piece
of humor to suggest sobriety to a man whose marked difference
from men generally, of that time, was his total abstinence from
intoxicating drinks.
Lieutenant Fitzhugh Beverley was a Virginian of Virginians. His
family had long been prominent in colonial affairs and boasted
a record of great achievements both in peace and in war. He was
the only son of his parents and heir to a fine estate consisting
of lands and slaves; but, like many another of the restless young
cavaliers of the Old Dominion, he had come in search of adventure
over into Kentucky, along the path blazed by Daniel Boone; and
when Clark organized his little army, the young man's patriotic
and chivalrous nature leaped at the opportunity to serve his country
under so gallant a commander.
Beverley was not a mere youth, although yet somewhat under thirty.
Educated abroad and naturally of a thoughtful and studious turn,
he had enriched his mind far beyond the usual limit among young
Americans of the very best class in that time; and so he appeared
older than he really was: an effect helped out by his large and
powerful form and grave dignity of bearing. Clark, who found him
useful in emergencies, cool, intrepid, daring to a fault and possessed
of excellent judgement, sent him with Helm, hoping that he would
offset with his orderly attention to details the somewhat go-as-you-please
disposition of that excellent officer.
Beverley set out in search of the French commander's house, impressed
with no particular respect for him or his office. Somehow Americans
of Anglo-Saxon blood were slow to recognize any good qualities
whatever in the Latin Creoles of the West and South. It seemed
to them that the Frenchman and the Spaniard were much too apt
to equalize themselves socially and matrimonially with Indians
and negroes. The very fact that for a century, while Anglo-Americans
had been in constant bloody warfare with savages, Frenchmen had
managed to keep on easy and highly profitable trading terms with
them, tended to confirm the worst implication. "Eat frogs
and save your scalp," was a bit of contemptuous frontier
humor indicative of what sober judgement held in reserve on the
subject.
Intent upon his formal mission, Lieutenant Beverley stalked boldly
into the inclosure at Roussillon place and was met on the gallery
by Madame Roussillon in one of her worst moods. She glared at
him with her hands on her hips, her mouth set irritably aslant
upward, her eyebrows gathered into a dark knot over her nose.
It would be hard to imagine a more forbidding countenance; and
for supplementary effect out popped hunchback Jean to stand behind
her, with his big head lying back in the hollow of his shoulders
and his long chin elevated, while he gawped intently up into Beverley's
face.
"Bon jour, Madame" said the Lieutenant, lifting his
hat and speaking with a pleasant accent. "Would it be agreeable
to Captain Roussillon for me to see him a moment?"
Despite Beverley's cleverness in using the French language, he
had a decided brusqueness of manner and a curt turn of voice not
in the least Gallic. True, the soft Virginian intonation marked
every word, and his obeisance was as low as if Madame Roussillon
had been a queen; but the light French grace was wholly lacking.
"What do you want of my husband?" Madame Roussillon
demanded.
"Nothing unpleasant, I assure you, Madame," said Beverley.
"Well, he's not at home, Mo'sieu; he's up the river for a
few days."
She relaxed her stare, untied her eyebrows, and even let fall
her hands from her shelf-like hips.
"Thank you, Madame," said Beverley, bowing again, "I
am sorry not to have seen him."
As he was turning to go a shimmer of brown hair streaked with
gold struck upon his vision from just within the door. He paused,
as if in response to a military command, while a pair of gray
eyes met his with a flash. The cabin room was ill lighted; but
the crepuscular dimness did not seem to hinder his sight. Beyond
the girl's figure, a pair of slender swords hung crossed aslant
on the wall opposite the low door.
Beverley had seen, in the old world galleries, pictures in which
the shadowy and somewhat uncertain background thus forced into
strongest projection the main figure, yet without clearly defining
it. The rough frame of the doorway gave just the rustic setting
suited to Alice's costume, the most striking part of which was
a grayish short gown ending just above her fringed buckskin moccasins.
Around her head she had bound a blue kerchief, a wide corner of
which lay over her crown like a loose cap. Her bright hair hung
free upon her shoulders in tumbled half curls. As a picture, the
figure and its entourage might have been artistically effective;
but as Beverley saw it in actual life the first impression was
rather embarrassing. Somehow he felt almost irresistibly invited
to laugh, though he had never been much given to risibility. The
blending, or rather the juxtaposition, of extremes--a face, a
form immediately witching, and a costume odd to grotesquery--had
made an assault upon his comprehension at once so sudden and so
direct that his dignity came near being disastrously broken up.
A splendidly beautiful child comically clad would have made much
the same half delightful, half displeasing impression.
Beverley could not stare at the girl, and no sooner had he turned
his back upon her than the picture in his mind changed like a
scene in a kaleidoscope. He now saw a tall, finely developed figure
and a face delicately oval, with a low, wide forehead, arched
brows, a straight, slightly tip-tilted nose, a mouth sweet and
full. dimpled cheeks, and a strong chin set above a faultless
throat. His imagination, in casting off its first impression,
was inclined to exaggerate Alice's beauty and to dwell upon its
picturesqueness. He smiled as he walked back to the fort, and
even found himself whistling gayly a snatch from a rollicking
fiddle- tune that he had heard when a boy.
CHAPTER VI
A FENCING BOUT
A few days after Helm's arrival, M. Roussillon returned to Vincennes,
and if he was sorely touched in his amour propre by seeing his
suddenly acquired military rank and title drop away, he did not
let it be known to his fellow citizens. He promptly called upon
the new commander and made acquaintance with Lieutenant Fitzhugh
Beverley, who just then was superintending the work of cleaning
up an old cannon in the fort and mending some breaks in the stockade.
Helm formed a great liking for the big Frenchman, whose breezy
freedom of manner and expansive good humor struck him favorably
from the beginning. M. Roussillon's ability to speak English with
considerable ease helped the friendship along, no doubt; at all
events their first interview ended with a hearty show of good
fellowship, and as time passed they became almost inseparable
companions during M. Roussillon's periods of rest from his trading
excursions among the Indians. They played cards and brewed hot
drinks over which they told marvelous stories, the latest one
invariably surpassing all its predecessors.
Helm had an eye to business, and turned M. Roussillon's knowledge
of the Indians to valuable account, so that he soon had very pleasant
relations with most of the tribes within reach of his agents.
This gave a feeling of great security to the people of Vincennes.
They pursued their narrow agricultural activities with excellent
results and redoubled those social gayeties which, even in hut
and cabin under all the adverse conditions of extreme frontier
life, were dear to the volatile and genial French temperament.
Lieutenant Beverley found much to interest him in the quaint town;
but the piece de resistance was Oncle Jazon, who proved to be
both fascinating and unmanageable; a hard nut to crack, yet possessing
a kernel absolutely original in flavor. Beverley visited him one
evening in his hut--it might better be called den--a curiously
built thing, with walls of vertical poles set in a quadrangular
trench dug in the ground, and roofed with grass. Inside and out
it was plastered with clay, and the floor of dried mud was as
smooth and hard as concrete paving. In one end there was a wide
fireplace grimy with soot, in the other a mere peep-hole for a
window: a wooden bench, a bed of skins and two or three stools
were barely visible in the gloom. In the doorway Oncle Jazon sat
whittling a slender billet of hickory into a ramrod for his long
flint-lock American rifle.
"Maybe ye know Simon Kenton," said the old man, after
he and Beverley had conversed for a while, "seeing that you
are from Kentucky--eh?"
"Yes, I do know him well; he's a warm personal friend of
mine," said Beverley with quick interest, for it surprised
him that Oncle Jazon should know anything about Kenton. "Do
you know him, Monsieur Jazon?"
Oncle Jazon winked conceitedly and sighted along his rudimentary
ramrod to see if it was straight; then puckering his lips, as
if on the point of whistling, made an affirmative noise quite
impossible to spell.
"Well, I'm glad you are acquainted with Kenton," said
Beverley. "Where did you and he come together?"
Oncle Jazon chuckled reminiscently and scratched the skinless,
cicatrized spot where his scalp had once flourished.
"Oh, several places," he answered. "Ye see thet
hair a hangin' there on the wall?" He pointed at a dry wisp
dangling under a peg in a log barely visible by the bad light.
"Well, thet's my scalp, he! he! he!" He snickered as
if the fact were a most enjoyable joke. "Simon Kenton can
tell ye about thet little affair! The Indians thought I was dead,
and they took my hair; but I wasn't dead; I was just a givin'
'em a 'possum act. When they was gone I got up from where I was
a layin' and trotted off. My head was sore and ventrebleu! but
I was mad, he! he! he!"
All this time he spoke in French, and the English but poorly paraphrases
his odd turns of expression. His grimaces and grunts cannot even
be hinted.
It was a long story, as Beverley received it, told scrappily,
but with certain rude art. In the end Oncle Jazon said with unctuous
self-satisfaction:
"Accidents will happen. I got my chance at that damned Indian
who skinned my head, and I jes took a bead on 'im with my old
rifle. I can't shoot much, never could, but I happened to hit
'im square in the lef' eye, what I shot at, and it was a hundred
yards. Down he tumbles, and I runs to 'im and finds my same old
scalp a hangin' to his belt. Well, I lifted off his hair with
my knife, and untied mine from the belt, and then I had both scalps,
he! he! he! You ask Simon Kenton when ye see 'im. He was along
at the same time, and they made 'im run the ga'ntlet and pretty
nigh beat the life out o' 'im. Ventrebleu!"
Beverley now recollected hearing Kenton tell the same grim story
by a camp-fire in the hills of Kentucky. Somehow it had caught
a new spirit in the French rendering, which linked it with the
old tales of adventure that he had read in his boyhood, and it
suddenly endeared Oncle Jazon to him. The rough old scrap of a
man and the powerful youth chatted together until sundown, smoking
their pipes, each feeling for what was best in the other, half
aware that in the future they would be tested together in the
fire of wild adventure. Every man is more or less a prophet at
certain points in his life.
Twilight and moonlight were blending softly when Beverley, on
his way back to the fort, departing from a direct course, went
along the river's side southward to have a few moments of reflective
strolling within reach of the water's pleasant murmur and the
town's indefinite evening stir. Rich sweetness, the gift of early
autumn, was on the air blowing softly out of a lilac west and
singing in the willow fringe that hung here and there over the
bank.
On the farther side of the river's wide flow, swollen by recent
heavy rains, Beverley saw a pirogue, in one end of which a dark
figure swayed to the strokes of a paddle. The slender and shallow
little craft was bobbing on the choppy waves and taking a zig-zag
course among floating logs and masses of lighter driftwood, while
making slow but certain headway toward the hither bank.
Beverley took a bit of punk and a flint and steel from his pocket,
relit his pipe and stood watching the skilful boatman conduct
his somewhat dangerous voyage diagonally against the rolling current.
It was a shifting, hide-and-seek scene, its features appearing
and disappearing with the action of the waves and the doubtful
light reflected from fading clouds and sky. Now and again the
man stood up in his skittish pirogue, balancing himself with care,
to use a short pole in shoving driftwood out of his way; and more
than once he looked to Beverley as if he had plunged head-long
into the dark water.
The spot, as nearly as it can be fixed, was about two hundred
yards below where the public road-bridge at present spans the
Wabash. The bluff was then far different from what it is now,
steeper and higher, with less silt and sand between it and the
water's edge. Indeed, swollen as the current was, a man could
stand on the top of the bank and easily leap into the deep water.
At a point near the middle of the river a great mass of drift-logs
and sand had long ago formed a barrier which split the stream
so that one current came heavily shoreward on the side next the
town and swashed with its muddy foam, making a swirl and eddy
just below where Beverley stood.
The pirogue rounded the upper angle of this obstruction, not without
difficulty to its crew of one, and swung into the rapid shoreward
rush, as was evidently planned for by the steersman, who now paddled
against the tide with all his might to keep from being borne too
far down stream for a safe landing place.
Beverley stood at ease idly and half dreamily looking on, when
suddenly something caused a catastrophe, which for a moment he
did not comprehend. In fact the man in the pirogue came to grief,
as a man in a pirogue is very apt to do, and fairly somersaulted
overboard into the water. Nothing serious would have threatened
(for the man could swim like an otter) had not a floating, half
submerged log thrust up some short, stiff stumps of boughs, upon
the points of which the man struck heavily and was not only hurt,
but had his clothes impaled securely by one of the ugly spears,
so that he hung in a helpless position, while the water's motion
alternately lifted and submerged him, his arms beating about wildly.
When Beverley heard a strangling cry for help, he pulled himself
promptly together, flung off his coat, as if by a single motion,
and leaped down the bank into the water. He was a swimmer whose
strokes counted for all that prodigious strength and excellent
training could afford; he rushed through the water with long sweeps,
making a semicircle, rounding against the current, so as to swing
down upon the drowning man.
Less than a half-hour later a rumor by some means spread throughout
the town that Father Beret and Lieutenant Beverley were drowned
in the Wabash. But when a crowd gathered to verify the terrible
news it turned out to be untrue. Gaspard Roussillon had once more
distinguished himself by an exhibition of heroic nerve and muscle.
"Ventrebleu! Quel homme!" exclaimed Oncle Jazon, when
told that M. Roussillon had come up the bank of the Wabash with
Lieutenant Beverley under one arm and Father Beret under the other,
both men apparently dead.
"Bring them to my house immediately," M. Roussillon
ordered, as soon as they were restored to consciousness; and he
shook himself, as a big wet animal sometimes does, covering everybody
near him with muddy water. Then he led the way with melodramatic
strides.
In justice to historical accuracy there must be a trifling reform
of what appeared on the face of things to be grandly true. Gaspard
Roussillon actually dragged Father Beret and Lieutenant Beverley
one at a time out of the eddy water and up the steep river bank.
That was truly a great feat; but the hero never explained. When
men arrived he was standing between the collapsed forms, panting
and dripping. Doubtless he looked just as if he had dropped them
from under his arms, and why shouldn't he have the benefit of
a great implication?
"I've saved them both," he roared; from which, of course,
the ready creole imagination inferred the extreme of possible
heroic performance.
"Bring them to my house immediately," and it was accordingly
done.
The procession, headed by M. Roussillon, moved noisily, for the
French tongue must shake off what comes to it on the thrill of
every exciting moment. The only silent Frenchman is the dead one.
Father Beret was not only well-nigh drowned, but seriously hurt.
He lay for a week on a bed in M. Roussillon's house before he
could sit up. Alice hung over him night and day, scarcely sleeping
or eating until he was past all danger. As for Beverley, he shook
off all the effects of his struggle in a little while. Next day
he was out, as well and strong as ever, busy with the affairs
of his office. Nor was he less happy on account of what the little
adventure had cast into his experience. It is good to feel that
one has done an unselfish deed, and no young man's heart repels
the freshness of what comes to him when a beautiful girl first
enters his life. Naturally enough Alice had some thoughts of Beverley
while she was so attentively caring for Father Beret. She had
never before seen a man like him, nor had she read of one. Compared
with Rene de Ronville, the best youth of her acquaintance, he
was in every way superior; this was too evident for analysis;
but referred to the romantic standard taken out of the novels
she had read, he somehow failed; and yet he loomed bravely in
her vision, not exactly a knight of the class she had most admired,
still unquestionably a hero of large proportions.
Beverley stepped in for a few minutes every day to see Father
Beret, involuntarily lengthening his visit by a sliding ratio
as he became better acquainted. He began to enjoy the priest's
conversation, with its sly worldly wisdom cropping up through
fervid religious sentiments and quaint humor. Alice must have
interested him more than he was fully aware of; for his eyes followed
her, as she came and went, with a curious criticism of her half-savage
costume and her springy, Dryad-like suppleness, which reminded
him of the shyest and gracefulest wild birds; and yet a touch
of refinement, the subtlest and best, showed in all her ways.
He studied her, as he would have studied a strange, showy and
originally fragrant flower, or a bird of oddly attractive plumage.
While she said little to him or to anyone else in his presence,
he became aware of the willfulness and joyous lightness which
played on her nature's changeable surface. He wondered at her
influence over Father Beret, whom she controlled apparently without
effort. But in due time he began to feel a deeper character, a
broader intelligence, behind her superficial sauvagerie; and he
found that she really had no mean smattering of books in the lighter
vein.
A little thing happened which further opened his eyes and increased
the interest that her beauty and elementary charm of style aroused
in him gradually, apace with their advancing acquaintanceship.
Father Beret had got well and returned to his hut and his round
of spiritual duties; but Beverley came to Roussillon place every
day all the same. For a wonder Madame Roussillon liked him, and
at most times held the scolding side of her tongue when he was
present. Jean, too, made friendly advances whenever opportunity
afforded. Of course Alice gave him just the frank cordiality of
hospitable welcome demanded by frontier conditions. She scarcely
knew whether she liked him or not; but he had a treasury of information
from which he was enriching her with liberal carelessness day
by day. The hungriest part of her mind was being sumptuously banqueted
at his expense. Mere intellectual greediness drew her to him.
Naturally they soon threw off such troubling formalities as at
first rose between them, and began to disclose to each other their
true characteristics. Alice found in Beverley a large target for
the missiles of her clever and tantalizing perversity. He in turn
practiced a native dignity and an acquired superiority of manner
to excellent effect. It was a meeting of Greek with Greek in a
new Arcadia. To him here was Diana, strong, strange, simple, even
crude almost to naturalness, yet admirably pure in spirit and
imbued with highest womanly aspirations. To her Beverley represented
the great outside area of life. He came to her from wonderland,
beyond the wide circle of houseless woods and prairies. He represented
gorgeous cities, teeming parks of fashion, boulevards, salons,
halls of social splendor, the theater, the world of woman's dreams.
Now, there is an antagonism, vague yet powerful, generated between
natures thus cast together from the opposite poles of experience
and education: an antagonism practically equivalent to the most
vigorous attraction. What one knows the other is but half aware
of; neither knowledge nor ignorance being mutual, there is a scintillation
of exchange, from opposing vantage grounds, followed by harmless
snaps of thunder. Culture and refinement take on airs-- it is
the deepest artificial instinct of enlightenment to pose-- in
the presence of naturalness; and there is a certain style of ignorance
which attitudinizes before the gate of knowledge. The return to
nature has always been the dream of the conventionalized soul,
while the simple Arcadian is forever longing for the maddening
honey of sophistication.
Innate jealousies strike together like flint and steel dashing
off sparks by which nearly everything that life can warm its core
withal is kindled and kept burning. What I envy in my friend I
store for my best use. I thrust and parry, not to kill, but to
learn my adversary's superior feints and guards. And this hint
of sword play leads back to what so greatly surprised and puzzled
Beverley one day when he chanced to be examining the pair of colechemardes
on the wall.
He took one down, and handling it with the indescribable facility
possible to none save a practical swordsman, remarked:
"There's a world of fascination in these things; I like nothing
better than a bout at fencing. Does your father practice the art?"
"I have no father, no mother," she quickly said; "but
good Papa Roussillon does like a little exercise with the colechemarde."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it, I shall ask to teach him a trick
or two," Beverley responded in the lightest mood. "When
will he return from the woods?"
"I can't tell you; he's very irregular in such matters,"
she said. Then, with a smile half banter and half challenge, she
added; "if you are really dying for some exercise, you shall
not have to wait for him to come home, I assure you, Monsieur
Beverley."
"Oh, it's Monsieur de Ronville, perhaps, that you will offer
up as a victim to my skill and address," he slyly returned;
for he was suspecting that a love affair in some stage of progress
lay between her and Rene.
She blushed violently, but quickly overcoming a combined rush
of surprise and anger, added with an emphasis as charming as it
was unexpected.
"I myself am, perhaps, swordsman enough to satisfy the impudence
and vanity of Monsieur Beverley, Lieutenant in the American army."
"Pardon me, Mademoiselle; forgive me, I beg of you,"
he exclaimed, earnestly modulating his voice to sincerest beseechment;
"I really did not mean to be impudent, nor--"
Her vivacity cleared with a merry laugh.
"No apologies, I command you," she interposed. "We
will have them after I have taught you a fencing lesson."
From a shelf she drew down a pair of foils and presenting the
hilts, bade him take his choice.
"There isn't any difference between them that I know of,"
she said, and then added archly; "but you will feel better
at last, when all is over and the sting of defeat tingles through
you, if you are conscious of having used every sensible precaution."
He looked straight into her eyes, trying to catch what was in
her mind, but there was a bewildering glamour playing across those
gray, opal-tinted wells of mystery, from which he could draw only
a mischievous smile-glint, direct, daring, irresistible.
"Well," he said, taking one of the foils, "what
do you really mean? Is it a challenge without room for honorable
retreat?"
"The time for parley is past," she replied, "follow
me to the battle-ground."
She led the way to a pleasant little court in the rear of the
cabin's yard, a space between two wings and a vine-covered trellis,
beyond which lay a well kept vineyard and vegetable garden. Here
she turned about and faced him, poising her foil with a fine grace.
"Are you ready?" she inquired.
He tried again to force a way into the depths of her eyes with
his; but he might as well have attacked the sun; so he stood in
a confusion of not very well defined feelings, undecided, hesitating,
half expecting that there would be some laughable turn to end
the affair.
"Are you afraid, Monsieur Beverley?" she demanded after
a short waiting in silence.
He laughed now and whipped the air with his foil.
"You certainly are not in earnest?" he said interrogatively.
"Do you really mean that you want to fence with me?"
"If you think because I'm only a girl you can easily beat
me, try it," she tauntingly replied making a level thrust
toward his breast.
Quick as a flash he parried, and then a merry clinking and twinkling
of steel blades kept time to their swift movements. Instantly,
by the sure sense which is half sight, half feeling-- the sense
that guides the expert fencer's hand and wrist--Beverley knew
that he had probably more than his match, and in ten seconds his
attack was met by a time thrust in opposition which touched him
sharply.
Alice sprang far back, lowered her point and laughed.
"Je vous salue, Monsieur Beverley!" she cried, with
childlike show of delight. "Did you feel the button?"
"Yes, I felt it," he said with frank acknowledgment
in his voice, "it was cleverly done. Now give me a chance
to redeem myself."
He began more carefully and found that she, too, was on her best
mettle; but it was a short bout, as before. Alice seemed to give
him an easy opening and he accepted it with a thrust; then something
happened that he did not understand. The point of his foil was
somehow caught under his opponent's hilt-guard while her blade
seemed to twist around his; at the same time there was a wring
and a jerk, the like of which he had never before felt, and he
was disarmed, his wrist and fingers aching with the wrench they
had received.
Of course the thing was not new; he had been disarmed before;
but her trick of doing it was quite a mystery to him, altogether
different from any that he had ever seen.
"Vous me pardonnerez, Monsieur" she mockingly exclaimed,
picking up his weapon and offering the hilt to him. "Here
is your sword!"
"Keep it," he said, folding his arms and trying to look
unconcerned, "you have captured it fairly. I am at your mercy;
be kind to me."
Madame Roussillon and Jean, the hunchback, hearing the racket
of the foils had come out to see and were standing agape.
"You ought to be ashamed, Alice," said the dame in scolding
approval of what she had done; "girls do not fence with gentlemen."
"This girl does," said Alice.
"And with extreme disaster to this gentleman," said
Beverley, laughing in a tone of discomfiture and resignation.
"Ah, Mo'sieu', there's nothing but disaster where she goes,"
complained Madame Roussillon, "she is a destroyer of everything.
Only yesterday she dropped my pink bowl and broke it, the only
one I had."
"And just to think," said Beverley, "what would
have been the condition of my heart had we been using rapiers
instead of leather-buttoned foils! She would have spitted it through
the very center."
"Like enough," replied the dame indifferently. "She
wouldn't wince, either,--not she."
Alice ran into the house with the foils and Beverley followed.
"We must try it over again some day soon," he said;
"I find that you can show me a few points. Where did you
learn to fence so admirably? Is Monsieur Roussillon your master?"
"Indeed he isn't," she quickly replied, "he is
but a bungling swordsman. My master--but I am not at liberty to
tell you who has taught me the little I know."
"Well, whoever he is I should be glad to have lessons from
him."
"But you'll never get them."
"Why?"
"Because."
"A woman's ultimatum."
"As good as a man's!" she bridled prettily; "and
sometimes better-- at the foils for example. Vous--comprenez,
n'est ce pas?"
He laughed heartily.
"Yes, your point reaches me," he said, "but sperat
et in saeva victus gladiatur arena, as the old Latin poet wisely
remarks." The quotation was meant to tease her.
"Yes, Montaigne translated that or something in his book,"
she commented with prompt erudition. "I understand it."
Beverley looked amazed.
"What do you know about Montaigne?" he demanded with
a blunt brevity amounting to something like gruffness.
"Sh', Monsieur, not too loud," she softly protested,
looking around to see that neither Madame Roussillon nor Jean
had followed them into the main room. "It is not permitted
that I read that old book; but they do not hide it from me, because
they think I can't make out its dreadful spelling."
She smiled so that her cheeks drew their dimples deep into the
delicately tinted pink-and-brown, where wind and sun and wholesome
exercise had set the seal of absolute health, and took from a
niche in the logs of the wall a stained and dog-eared volume.
He looked, and it was, indeed, the old saint and sinner, Montaigne.
Involuntarily he ran his eyes over the girl from head to foot,
comparing her show of knowledge with the outward badges of abject
rusticity, and even wildness, with which she was covered.
"Well," he said, "you are a mystery."
"You think it surprising that I can read a book! Frankly
I can't understand half of this one. I read it because--well just
because they want me to read about nothing but sickly old saints
and woe- begone penitents. I like something lively. What do I
care for all that uninteresting religious stuff?"
"Montaigne IS decidedly lively in spots," Beverley remarked.
"I shouldn't think a girl--I shouldn't think you'd particularly
enjoy his humors."
"I don't care for the book at all," she said, flushing
quickly, "only I seem to learn about the world from it. Sometimes
it seems as if it lifted me up high above all this wild, lonely
and tiresome country, so that I can see far off where things are
different and beautiful. It is the same with the novels; and they
don't permit me to read them either; but all the same I do."
When Beverley, taking his leave, passed through the gate at Roussillon
place, he met Rene de Ronville going in. It was a notable coincidence
that each young man felt something troublesome rise in his throat
as he looked into the other's eyes.
A week of dreamy autumn weather came on, during which Beverley
managed to be with Alice a great deal, mostly sitting on the Roussillon
gallery, where the fading vine leaves made fairy whispering, and
where the tempered breeze blew deliciously cool from over the
distant multi-colored woods. The men of Vincennes were gathering
their Indian corn early to dry it on the cob for grating into
winter meal. Many women made wine from the native grapes and from
the sweeter and richer fruit of imported vines. Madame Roussillon
and Alice stained their hands a deep purple during the pressing
season, and Beverley found himself engaged in helping them handle
the juicy crop, while around the overflowing earthen pots the
wild bees, wasps and hornets hummed with an incessant, jarring
monotony.
Jean, the hunchback, gathered ample stores of hickory nuts, walnuts,
hazel-nuts and pin-oak acorns. Indeed, the whole population of
the village made a great spurt of industry just before the falling
of winter; and presently, when every preparation had been completed
for the dreaded cold season, M. Roussillon carried out his long-cherished
plan, and gave a great party at the river house. After the most
successful trading experience of all his life he felt irrepressibly
liberal.
"Let's have one more roaring good time," he said, "that's
what life is for."
CHAPTER VII
THE MAYOR'S PARTY
Beverley was so surprised and confused in his mind by the ease
with which he had been mastered at swordplay by a mere girl, that
he felt as if just coming out of a dream. In fact the whole affair
seemed unreal, yet so vivid and impressive in all its main features,
that he could not emerge from it and look it calmly over from
without. His experience with women had not prepared him for a
ready understanding and acceptance of a girl like Alice. While
he was fully aware of her beauty, freshness, vivacity and grace,
this Amazonian strength of hers, this boldness of spirit, this
curious mixture of frontier crudeness and a certain adumbration--so
to call it--of patrician sensibilities and aspirations, affected
him both pleasantly and unpleasantly. He did not sympathize promptly
with her semi-barbaric costume; she seemed not gently feminine,
as compared with the girls of Virginia and Maryland. He resented
her muscular development and her independent disposition. She
was far from coarseness, however, and, indeed, a trace of subtle
refinement, although not conventional, imbued her whole character.
But why was he thinking so critically about her? Had his selfishness
received an incurable shock from the button of her foil? A healthy
young man of the right sort is apt to be jealous of his physical
prowess--touch him there and he will turn the world over to right
himself in, his own admiration and yours. But to be beaten on
his highest ground of virility by a dimple-faced maiden just leaving
her teens could not offer Beverley any open way to recoupment
of damages.
He tried to shake her out of his mind, as a bit of pretty and
troublesome rubbish, what time he pursued his not very exacting
military duties. But the more he shook the tighter she clung,
and the oftener he went to see her.
Helm was a good officer in many respects, and his patriotism was
of the best; but he liked jolly company, a glass of something
strong and a large share of ease. Detroit lay many miles northeastward
across the wilderness, and the English, he thought, would scarcely
come so far to attack his little post, especially now that most
of the Indians in the intervening country had declared in favor
of the Americans. Recently, too, the weather had been favoring
him by changing from wet to dry, so that the upper Wabash and
its tributaries were falling low and would soon be very difficult
to navigate with large batteaux.
Very little was done to repair the stockade and dilapidated remnant
of a blockhouse. There were no sufficient barracks, a mere shed
in one angle serving for quarters, and the old cannon could not
have been used to any effect in case of attack. As for the garrison,
it was a nominal quantity, made up mostly of men who preferred
hunting and fishing to the merest pretense of military duty.
Gaspard Roussillon assumed to know everything about Indian affairs
and the condition of the English at Detroit. His optimistic eloquence
lulled Helm to a very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was
not so easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military
discipline and a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse
and stockade were treated with dilatory geniality by his superior
officer. The soft wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified
land, river and sky. Why not dream and bask? Why not drink exhilarating
toddies?
Meantime the entertainment to be given by Gaspard Roussillon occupied
everybody's imagination to an unusual extent. Rene de Ronville,
remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former
attempt, went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire;
but she flatly refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations
to little Adrienne Bourcier. He would not be convinced.
"You are bound to me," he said, "you promised before,
you know, and the party was but put off. I hold you to it; you
are my partenaire, and I am yours, you can't deny that."
"No you are not my partenaire," she firmly said; then
added lightly, "Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried
as my partner at that dance."
He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said:
"It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose."
She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly
into one of her tantalising smiles.
"Do you imagine that?" she demanded.
"Imagine it! I know it," he said with a hot flush. "Have
I no sense?"
"Precious little," she replied with a merry laugh.
"You think so."
"Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him
what he thinks," she said in a calm, even tone, her face
growing serious.
There was an awkward silence.
She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not
a devout Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good
Father Beret had taught him.
The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant,
has a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents.
No grip is so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions.
The still, small voice coming down from the times "When shepherds
watched their flocks by night," in old Judea, passes through
the priest, the minister, the preacher; it echoes in cathedral,
church, open-air meeting; it gently and mysteriously imparts to
human life the distinctive quality which is the exponent of Christian
civilization. Upon the receptive nature of children it makes an
impress that forever afterward exhales a fragrance and irradiates
a glory for the saving of the nations.
Father Beret was the humble, self-effacing, never-tiring agent
of good in his community. He preached in a tender sing-song voice
the sweet monotonies of his creed and the sublime truths of Christ's
code. He was indeed the spiritual father of his people. No wonder
Rene's scowling expression changed to one of abject self-concern
when the priest's name was suddenly connected with his mood. The
confessional loomed up before the eyes of his conscience, and
his knees smote together, spiritually if not physically.
"Now," said Alice, brusquely, but with sweet and gentle
firmness, "go to your fiancee, go to pretty and good Adrienne,
and ask her to be your partenaire. Refresh your conscience with
a noble draught of duty and make that dear little girl overflow
with joy. Go, Rene de Ronville."
In making over what she said into English, the translation turns
out to be but a sonorous paraphrase. Her French was of that mixed
creole sort, a blending of linguistic elegance and patois, impossible
to imitate. Like herself it was beautiful, crude, fascinating,
and something in it impressed itself as unimpeachable, despite
the broken and incongruous diction. Rene felt his soul cowering,
even slinking; but he fairly maintained a good face, and went
away without saying another word.
"Ciel, ciel, how beautiful she is!" he thought, as he
walked along the narrow street in the dreamy sunshine. "But
she is not for me, not for me."
He shook himself and tried to be cheerful. In fact he hummed a
Creole ditty, something about
"La belle Jeanette, qu' a brise mon coeur."
Days passed, and at last the time of the great event arrived.
It was a frosty night, clear, sparkling with stars, a keen breath
cutting down from the northwest. M. Roussillon, Madame Roussillon,
Alice and Lieutenant Beverley went together to the river house,
whither they had been preceded by almost the entire population
of Vincennes. Some fires had been built outside; the crowd proving
too great for the building's capacity, as there had to be ample
space for the dancers. Merry groups hovered around the flaming
logs, while within the house a fiddle sang its simple and ravishing
tunes. Everybody talked and laughed; it was a lively racket of
clashing voices and rhythmical feet.
You would have been surprised to find that Oncle Jazon was the
fiddler; but there he sat, perched on a high stool in one corner
of the large room, sawing away as if for dear life, his head wagging,
his elbow leaping back and forth, while his scalpless crown shone
like the side of a peeled onion and his puckered mouth wagged
grotesquely from side to side keeping time to his tuneful scraping.
When the Roussillon party arrived it attracted condensed attention.
Its importance, naturally of the greatest in the assembled popular
mind, was enhanced--as mathematicians would say, to the nth power--by
the gown of Alice. It was resplendent indeed in the simple, unaccustomed
eyes upon which it flashed with a buff silken glory. Matrons stared
at it; maidens gazed with fascinated and jealous vision; men young
and old let their eyes take full liberty. It was as if a queen,
arrayed in a robe of state, had entered that dingy log edifice,
an apparition of dazzling and awe-inspiring beauty. Oncle Jazon
caught sight of her, and snapped his tune short off. The dancers
swung together and stopped in confusion. But she, fortified by
a woman's strongest bulwark, the sense of resplendency, appeared
quite unconscious of herself.
Little Adrienne, hanging in blissful delight upon Rene's strong
arm, felt the stir of excitement and wondered what was the matter,
being too short to see over the heads of those around her.
"What is it? what is it?" she cried, tiptoeing and tugging
at her companion's sleeve. "Tell me, Rene, tell me, I say."
Rene was gazing in dumb admiration into which there swept a powerful
anger, like a breath of flame. He recollected how Alice had refused
to wear that dress when he had asked her, and now she had it on.
Moreover, there she stood beside Lieutenant Beverley, holding
his arm, looking up into his face, smiling, speaking to him.
"I think you might tell me what has happened," said
Adrienne, pouting and still plucking at his arm. "I can't
see a thing, and you won't tell me."
"Oh, it's nothing," he presently answered, rather fretfully.
Then he stooped, lowered his voice and added; "it's Mademoiselle
Roussillon all dressed up like a bride or something. She's got
on a buff silk dress that Mo'sieu' Roussillon's mother had in
France."
"How beautiful she must look!" cried the girl. "I
wish I could see her."
Rene put a hand on each side of her slender waist and lifted her
high, so that her pretty head rose above the crowding people.
Alice chanced to turn her face that way just then and saw the
unconventional performance. Her eyes met those of Adrienne and
she gave a nod of smiling recognition. It was a rose beaming upon
a gilliflower.
M. Roussillon naturally understood that all this stir and crowding
to see was but another demonstration of his personal popularity.
He bowed and waved a vast hand.
But the master of ceremonies called loudly for the dancers to
take their places. Oncle Jazon attacked his fiddle again with
startling energy. Those who were not to dance formed a compact
double line around the wall, the shorter ones in front, the taller
in the rear. And what a scene it was! but no person present regarded
it as in any way strange or especially picturesque, save as to
the gown of Alice, which was now floating and whirling in time
to Oncle Jazon's mad music. The people outside the house cheerfully
awaited their turn to go in while an equal number went forth to
chat and sing around the fires.
Beverley was in a young man's seventh heaven. The angels formed
a choir circling around his heart, and their song brimmed his
universe from horizon to horizon.
When he called at Roussillon place, and Alice appeared so beautifully
and becomingly robed, it was another memorable surprise. She flashed
a new and subtly stimulating light upon him. The old gown, rich
in subdued splendor of lace and brocade, was ornamented at the
throat with a heavy band of pearls, just above which could be
seen a trace of the gold chain that supported her portrait locket.
There, too, with a not unbecoming gleam of barbaric colors, shone
the string of porcupine beads to which the Indian charmstone hidden
in her bosom was attached. It all harmonized with the time, the
place, the atmosphere. Anywhere else it would have been preposterous
as a decorative presentment, but here, in this little nook where
the coureurs de bois, the half- breeds, the traders and the missionaries
had founded a centre of assembly, it was the best possible expression
in the life so formed at hap-hazard, and so controlled by the
coarsest and narrowest influences. To Fitzhugh Beverley, of Beverley
Hall, the picture conveyed immediately a sweet and pervading influence.
Alice looked superbly tall, stately and self-possessed in her
transforming costume, a woman of full stature, her countenance
gravely demure yet reserving near the surface the playful dimples
and mischievous smiles so characteristic of her more usual manner.
A sudden mood of the varium et mutabile semper femina had led
her to wear the dress, and the mood still illuminated her.
Beverley stood before her frankly looking and admiring. The underglow
in her cheeks deepened and spread over her perfect throat; her
eyes met his a second, then shyly avoided him. He hardly could
have been sure which was master, her serenity or her girlish delight
in being attractively dressed; but there could be no doubt as
to her self-possession; for, saving the pretty blush under his
almost rude gaze of admiration, she bore herself as firmly as
any fine lady he remembered.
They walked together to the river house, she daintily holding
up her skirts, under the insistent verbal direction of Madame
Roussillon, and at the same time keeping a light, strangely satisfying
touch on his arm. When they entered the room there was no way
for Beverley to escape full consciousness of the excitement they
aroused; but M. Roussillon's assumption broke the force of what
would have otherwise been extremely embarrassing.
"It is encouraging, very encouraging," murmured the
big man to Beverley in the midst of the staring and scrambling
and craning of necks, "to have my people admire and love
me so; it goes to the middle of my heart." And again he bowed
and waved his hand with an all-including gesture, while he swept
his eyes over the crowd.
Alice and Beverley were soon in the whirl of the dance, forgetful
of everything but an exhilaration stirred to its utmost by Oncle
Jazon's music.
A side remark here may be of interest to those readers who enjoy
the dream that on some fortunate day they will invade a lonely
nook, where amid dust and cobwebs, neglected because unrecognized,
reposes a masterpiece of Stradivari or some other great fiddle-
maker. Oncle Jazon knew nothing whatever about old violins. He
was a natural musician, that was all, and flung himself upon his
fiddle with the same passionate abandon that characterizes a healthy
boy's assault when a plum pudding is at his mercy. But his fiddle
was a Carlo Bergonzi; and now let the search be renewed, for the
precious instrument was certainly still in Vincennes as late as
1819, and there is a vague tradition that Governor Whitcomb played
on it not long before he died. The mark by which it may be identified
is the single word "Jazon" cut in the back of its neck
by Oncle Jazon himself.
When their dance was ended Alice and Beverley followed the others
of their set out into the open air while a fresh stream of eager
dancers poured in. Beverley insisted upon wrapping Alice in her
mantle of unlined beaver skin against the searching winter breath.
They did not go to the fire, but walked back and forth, chatting
until their turn to dance should come again, pausing frequently
to exchange pleasantries with some of the people. Curiously enough
both of them had forgotten the fact that other young men would
be sure to ask Alice for a dance, and that more than one pretty
creole lass was rightfully expecting a giddy turn with the stalwart
and handsome Lieutenant Beverley.
Rene de Ronville before long broke rudely into their selfish dream
and led Alice into the house. This reminded Beverley of his social
duty, wherefore seeing little Adrienne Bourcier he made a rush
and secured her at a swoop from the midst of a scrambling circle
of mutually hindered young men.
"Allons, ma petite!" he cried, quite in the gay tone
of the occasion, and swung her lightly along with him.
It was like an eagle dancing with a linnet, or a giant with a
fairy, when the big Lieutenant led out la petite Adrienne, as
everybody called her. The honor of Beverley's attention sat unappreciated
on Adrienne's mind, for all her thoughts went with her eyes toward
Rene and Alice. Nor was Beverley so absorbed in his partner's
behalf that he ever for a moment willingly lost sight of the floating
buff gown, the shining brown hair and the beautiful face, which
formed, indeed, the center of attraction for all eyes.
Father Beret was present, sharing heartily in the merriment of
his flock. Voices greeted him on all sides with intonations of
tender respect. The rudest man there was loyal to the kind-hearted
priest, and would as soon have thought of shooting him as of giving
him any but the most reverent attention. It is to be noted, however,
that their understanding of reverence included great freedom and
levity not especially ecclesiastical in its nature. Father Beret
understood the conditions around him and had the genius to know
what not to hear, what not to see; but he never failed when a
good word or a fatherly touch with his hand seemed worth trying
on a sheep that appeared to be straying dangerously far from the
fold. Upon an occasion like this dance at the river house, he
was no less the faithful priest because of his genial sympathy
with the happiness of the young people who looked to him for spiritual
guidance.
It was some time before Beverley could again secure Alice for
a dance, and he found it annoying him atrociously to see her smile
sweetly on some buckskin-clad lout who looked like an Indian and
danced like a Parisian. He did not greatly enjoy most of his partners;
they could not appeal to any side of his nature just then. Not
that he at all times stood too much on his aristocratic traditions,
or lacked the virile traits common to vigorous and worldly-minded
men; but the contrast between Alice and the other girls present
was somehow an absolute bar to a democratic freedom of the sort
demanded by the occasion. He met Father Beret and passed a few
pleasant words with him.
"They have honored your flag, my son, I am glad to see,"
the priest said, pointing with a smile to where, in one corner,
the banner that bore Alice's name was effectively draped.
Beverley had not noticed it before, and when he presently got
possession of Alice he asked her to tell him the story of how
she planted it on the fort, although he had heard it to the last
detail from Father Beret just a moment ago. They stood together
under its folds while she naively sketched the scene for him,
even down to her picturesquely disagreeable interview with Long-Hair,
mention of whom led up to the story of the Indian's race with
the stolen dame jeanne of brandy under his arm on that memorable
night, and the subsequent services performed for him by Father
Beret and her, after she and Jean had found him in the mud beyond
the river.
The dancing went on at a furious pace while they stood there.
Now and again a youth came to claim her, but she said she was
tired and begged to rest awhile, smiling so graciously upon each
one that his rebuff thrilled him as if it had been the most flattering
gift of tender partiality, while at the same time he suspected
that it was all for Beverley.
Helm in his most jovial mood was circulating freely among those
who formed the periphery of the dancing-area; he even ventured
a few clumsy capers in a cotillion with Madame Godere for partner.
She danced well; but he, as someone remarked, stumbled all over
himself.
There was but one thing to mar the evening's pleasure: some of
the men drank too much and grew boisterous. A quarrel ended in
a noisy but harmless fight near one of the fires. M. Roussillon
rushed to the spot, seized the combatants, tousled them playfully,
as if they had been children, rubbed their heads together, laughed
stormily and so restored the equilibrium of temper.
It was late when fathers and mothers in the company began to suggest
adjournment. Oncle Jazon's elbow was tired and the enthusiasm
generated by his unrecognized Bergonzi became fitful, while the
relaxing crowd rapidly encroached upon the space set apart for
the dancers. In the open lamps suspended here and there the oil
was running low, and the rag wicks sputtered and winked with their
yellow flames.
"Well," said M. Roussillon, coming to where Alice and
Beverley stood insulated and isolated by their great delight in
each other's company, "it's time to go home."
Beverley looked at his watch; it was a quarter to three!
Alice also looked at the watch, and saw engraved and enameled
on its massive case the Beverley crest, but she did not know what
it meant. There was something of the sort in the back of her locket,
she remembered with satisfaction.
Just then there was a peculiar stir in the flagging crowd. Someone
had arrived, a coureur de bois from the north. Where was the commandant?
the coureur had something important for him.
Beverley heard a remark in a startled voice about the English
getting ready for a descent upon the Wabash valley. This broke
the charm which thralled him and sent through his nerves the bracing
shock that only a soldier can feel when a hint of coming battle
reaches him.
Alice saw the flash in his face.
"Where is Captain Helm? I must see him immediately. Excuse
me," he said, abruptly turning away and looking over the
heads of the people; "yonder he is, I must go to him."
The coureur de bois, Adolphe Dutremble by name, was just from
the head waters of the Wabash. He was speaking to Helm when Beverley
came up. M. Roussillon followed close upon the Lieutenant's heels,
as eager as he to know what the message amounted to; but Helm
took the coureur aside, motioning Beverley to join them. M. Roussillon
included himself in the conference.
After all it was but the gossip of savages that Dutremble communicated;
still the purport was startling in the extreme. Governor Hamilton,
so the story ran, had been organizing a large force; he was probably
now on his way to the portage of the Wabash with a flotilla of
batteaux, some companies of disciplined soldiers, artillery and
a strong body of Indians.
Helm listened attentively to Dutremble's lively sketch, then cross-questioned
him with laconic directness.
"Send Mr. Jazon to me," he said to M. Roussillon, as
if speaking to a servant.
The master Frenchman went promptly, recognizing Captain Helm's
right to command, and sympathizing With his unpleasant military
predicament if the news should prove true.
Oncle Jazon came in a minute, his fiddle and bow clamped under
his arm, to receive a verbal commission, which sent him with some
scouts of his own choosing forthwith to the Wabash portage, or
far enough to ascertain what the English commander was doing.
After the conference Beverley made haste to join Alice; but he
found that she had gone home.
"One hell of a fix we'll be in if Hamilton comes down here
with a good force," said Helm.
Beverley felt like retorting that a little forethought, zeal and
preparation might have lessened the prospective gloom. He had
been troubled all the time about Helm's utter lack of military
precaution. True, there was very little material out of which
that optimistic officer could have formed a body of resistance
against the army probably at Hamilton's command; but Beverley
was young, energetic, bellicose, and to him everything seemed
possible; he believed in vigilance, discipline, activity, dash;
he had a great faith in the efficacy of enthusiasm.
"We must organize these Frenchmen," he said; "they
will make good fighters if we can once get them to act as a body.
There's no time to be lost; but we have time enough in which to
do a great deal before Hamilton can arrive, if we go at it in
earnest."
"Your theory is excellent, Lieutenant, but the practice of
it won't be worth a damn," Helm replied with perfect good
nature. "I'd like to see you organize these parly-voos. There
ain't a dozen of 'em that wouldn't accept the English with open
arms. I know 'em. They're good hearted, polite and all that; they'll
hurrah for the flag; that's easy enough; but put 'em to the test
and they'll join in with the strongest side, see if they don't.
Of course there are a few exceptions. There's Jazon, he's all
right, and I have faith in Bosseron, and Legrace, and young Ronville."
"Roussillon--" Beverley began.
"Is much of a blow-hard," Helm interrupted with a laugh.
"Barks loud, but his biting disposition is probably not vicious."
"He and Father Beret control the whole population at all
events," said Beverley.
"Yes, and such a population!"
While joining in Captain Helm's laugh at the expense of Vincennes,
Beverley took leave to indulge a mental reservation in favor of
Alice. He could not bear to class her with the crowd of noisy,
thoughtless, mercurial beings whom he heard still singing gay
snatches and calling to one another from distance to distance,
as they strolled homeward in groups and pairs. Nor could the impending
danger of an enforced surrender to the English and Indians drive
from his mind her beautiful image, while he lay for the rest of
the night between sleeping and waking on his primitive bed, alternately
hearing over again her every phrase and laugh, and striving to
formulate some definite plan for defending the town and fort.
His heart was full of her. She had surprised his nature and filled
it, as with a wonderful, haunting song. His youth, his imagination,
all that was fresh and spontaneously gentle and natural in him,
was flooded with the magnetic splendor of her beauty. And yet,
in his pride (and it was not a false pride, but rather a noble
regard for his birthright) he vaguely realized how far she was
from him, how impossible.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DILEMMA OF CAPTAIN HELM
Oncle Jazon, feeling like a fish returned to the water after a
long and torturing captivity in the open air, plunged into the
forest with anticipations of lively adventure and made his way
toward the Wea plains. It was his purpose to get a boat at the
village of Ouiatenon and pull thence up the Wabash until he could
find out what the English were doing. He chose for his companions
on this dangerous expedition two expert coureurs de bois, Dutremble
and Jacques Bailoup. Fifty miles up the river they fell in with
some friendly Indians, well known to them all, who were returning
from the portage.
The savages informed them that there were no signs of an English
advance in that quarter. Some of them had been as far as the St.
Joseph river and to within a short distance of Detroit without
seeing a white man or hearing of any suspicious movements on the
part of Hamilton. So back came Oncle Jazon with his pleasing report,
much disappointed that he had not been able to stir up some sort
of trouble.
It was Helm's turn to laugh.
"What did I tell you?" he cried, in a jolly mood, slapping
Beverley on the shoulder. "I knew mighty well that it was
all a big story with nothing in it. What on earth would the English
be thinking about to march an army away off down here only to
capture a rotten stockade and a lot of gabbling parly-voos?"
Beverley, while he did not feel quite as confident as his chief,
was not sorry that things looked a little brighter than he had
feared they would turn out to be. Secretly, and without acknowledging
it to himself, he was delighted with the life he was living. The
Arcadian atmosphere of Vincennes clothed him in its mists and
dreams. No matter what way the weather blew its breath, cold or
warm, cloudy or fair, rain or snow, the peace in his soul changed
not. His nature seemed to hold all of its sterner and fiercer
traits in abeyance while he domiciled himself absolutely within
his narrow and monotonous environment. Since the dance at the
river house a new content, like a soft and diffused sweetness,
had crept through his blood with a vague, tingling sense of joy.
He began to like walking about rather aimlessly in the town's
narrow streets, with the mud-daubed cabins on either hand. This
simple life under low, thatched roofs had a charm. When a door
was opened he could see a fire of logs on the ample hearth shooting
its yellow tongues up the sooty chimney-throat. Soft creole voices
murmured and sang, or jangled their petty domestic discords. Women
in scant petticoats, leggings and moccasins swept snow from the
squat verandas, or fed the pigs in little sties behind the cabins.
Everybody cried cheerily: "Bon jour, Monsieur, comment allez-
vous?" as he went by, always accompanying the verbal salute
with a graceful wave of the hand.
When he walked early in the morning a waft of broiling game and
browning corn scones was abroad. Pots and kettles occupied the
hearths with glowing coals heaped around and under. Shaggy dogs
whined at the doors until the mensal remnants were tossed out
to them in the front yard.
But it was always a glimpse of Alice that must count for everything
in Beverley's reckonings, albeit he would have strenuously denied
it. True he went to Roussillon place almost every day, it being
a fixed part of his well ordered habit, and had a talk with her.
Sometimes, when Dame Roussillon was very busy and so quite off
her guard, they read together in a novel, or in certain parts
of the odd volume of Montaigne. This was done more for the sweetness
of disobedience than to enjoy the already familiar pages.
Now and again they repeated their fencing bout; but never with
the result which followed the first. Beverley soon mastered Alice's
tricks and showed her that, after all, masculine muscle is not
to be discounted at its own game by even the most wonderful womanly
strength and suppleness. She struggled bravely to hold her vantage
ground once gained so easily, but the inevitable was not to be
avoided. At last, one howling winter day, he disarmed her by the
very trick that she had shown him. That ended the play and they
ran shivering into the house.
"Ah," she cried, "it isn't fair. You are so much
bigger than I; you have so much longer arms; so much more weight
and power. It all counts against me! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself!" She was rosy with the exhilarating exercise and
the biting of the frosty breeze. Her beauty gave forth a new ray.
Deep in her heart she was pleased to have him master her so superbly;
but as the days passed she never said so, never gave over trying
to make him feel the touch of her foil. She did not know that
her eyes were getting through his guard, that her dimples were
stabbing his heart to its middle.
"You have other advantages," he replied, "which
far overbalance my greater stature and stronger muscles."
Then after a pause he added: "After all a girl must be a
girl."
Something in his face, something in her heart, startled her so
that she made a quick little move like that of a restless bird.
"You are beautiful and that makes my eyes and my hand uncertain,"
he went on. "Were I fencing with a man there would be no
glamour."
He spoke in English, which he did not often do in conversation
with her. It was a sign that he was somewhat wrought upon. She
followed his rapid words with difficulty; but she caught from
them a new note of feeling. He saw a little pale flare shoot across
her face and thought she was angry.
"You should not use your dimples to distract my vision,"
he quickly added, with a light laugh. "It would be no worse
for me to throw my hat in your face!"
His attempt at levity was obviously weak; she looked straight
into his eyes, with the steady gaze of a simple, earnest nature
shocked by a current quite strange to it. She did not understand
him, and she did. Her fine intuition gathered swiftly together
a hundred shreds of impression received from him during their
recent growing intimacy. He was a patrician, as she vaguely made
him out, a man of wealth, whose family was great. He belonged
among people of gentle birth and high attainments. She magnified
him so that he was diffused in her imagination, as difficult to
comprehend as a mist in the morning air--and as beautiful.
"You make fun of me," she said, very deliberately, letting
her eyes droop; then she looked up again suddenly and continued,
with a certain naive expression of disappointment gathering in
her face. "I have been too free with you. Father Beret told
me not to forget my dignity when in your company. He told me you
might misunderstand me. I don't care; I shall not fence with you
again." She laughed, but there was no joyous freedom in the
sound.
"Why, Alice--my dear Miss Roussillon, you do me a wrong;
I beg a thousand pardons if I've hurt you," he cried, stepping
nearer to her, "and I can never forgive myself. You have
somehow misunderstood me, I know you have!"
On his part it was exaggerating a mere contact of mutual feelings
into a dangerous collision. He was as much self-deceived as was
she, and he made more noise about it.
"It is you who have misunderstood me," she replied,
smiling brightly now, but with just a faint, pitiful touch of
regret, or self-blame lingering in her voice. "Father Beret
said you would. I did not believe him; but--"
"And you shall not believe him," said Beverley. "I
have not misunderstood you. There has been nothing. You have treated
me kindly and with beautiful friendliness. You have not done or
said a thing that Father Beret or anybody else could criticise.
And if I have said or done the least thing to trouble you I repudiate
it-- I did not mean it. Now you believe me, don't you, Miss Roussillon?"
He seemed to be falling into the habit of speaking to her in English.
She understood it somewhat imperfectly, especially when in an
earnest moment he rushed his words together as if they had been
soldiers he was leading at the charge-step against an enemy. His
manner convinced her, even though his diction fell short.
"Then we'll talk about something else," she said, laughing
naturally now, and retreating to a chair by the hearthside. "I
want you to tell me all about yourself and your family, your home
and everything."
She seated herself with an air of conscious aplomb and motioned
him to take a distant stool.
There was a great heap of dry logs in the fireplace, with pointed
flames shooting out of its crevices and leaping into the gloomy,
cave-like throat of the flue. Outside a wind passed heavily across
the roof and bellowed in the chimney-top.
Beverley drew the stool near Alice, who, with a charred stick,
used as a poker, was thrusting at the glowing crevices and sending
showers of sparks aloft.
"Why, there wouldn't be much to tell," he said, glad
to feel secure again. "Our home is a big old mansion named
Beverley Hall on a hill among trees, and half surrounded with
slave cabins. It overlooks the plantation in the valley where
a little river goes wandering on its way." He was speaking
French and she followed him easily now, her eyes beginning to
fling out again their natural sunny beams of interest. "I
was born there twenty-six years ago and haven't done much of anything
since. You see before you, Mademoiselle, a very undistinguished
young man, who has signally failed to accomplish the dream of
his boyhood, which was to be a great artist like Raphael or Angelo.
Instead of being famous I am but a poor Lieutenant in the forces
of Virginia."
"You have a mother, father, brothers and sisters?" she
interrogated. She did not understand his allusion to the great
artists of whom she knew nothing. She had never before heard of
them. She leaned the poker against the chimney jamb and turned
her face toward him.
"Mother, father, and one sister," he said, "no
brothers. We were a happy little group. But my sister married
and lives in Baltimore. I am here. Father and mother are alone
in the old house. Sometimes I am terribly homesick." He was
silent a moment, then added: "But you are selfish, you make
me do all the telling. Now I want you to give me a little of your
story, Mademoiselle, beginning as I did, at the first."
"But I can't," she replied with childlike frankness,
"for I don't know where I was born, nor my parents' names,
nor who I am. You see how different it is with me. I am called
Alice Roussillon, but I suppose that my name is Alice Tarleton;
it is not certain, however. There is very little to help out the
theory. Here is all the proof there is. I don't know that it is
worth anything."
She took off her locket and handed it to him.
He handled it rather indifferently, for he was just then studying
the fine lines of her face. But in a moment he was interested.
"Tarleton, Tarleton," he repeated. Then he turned the
little disc of gold over and saw the enameled drawing on the back,--a
crest clearly outlined.
He started. The crest was quite familiar.
"Where did you get this?" he demanded in English, and
with such blunt suddenness that she was startled. "Where
did it come from?"
"I have always had it."
"Always? It's the Tarleton crest. Do you belong to that family?"
"Indeed I do not know. Papa Roussillon says he thinks I do."
"Well, this is strange and interesting," said Beverley,
rather to himself than addressing her. He looked from the miniature
to the crest and back to the miniature again, then at Alice. "I
tell you this is strange," he repeated with emphasis. "It
is exceedingly strange."
Her cheeks flushed quickly under their soft brown and her eyes
flashed with excitement.
"Yes, I know." Her voice fluttered; her hands were clasped
in her lap. She leaned toward him eagerly. "It is strange.
I've thought about it a great deal."
"Alice Tarleton; that is right; Alice is a name of the family.
Lady Alice Tarleton was the mother of the first Sir Garnett Tarleton
who came over in the time of Yardley. It's a great family. One
of the oldest and best in Virginia." He looked at her now
with a gaze of concentrated interest, under which her eyes fell.
"Why, this is romantic!" he exclaimed, "absolutely
romantic. And you don't know how you came by this locket? You
don't know who was your father, your mother?"
"I do not know anything."
"And what does Monsieur Roussillon know?"
"Just as little."
"But how came he to be taking you and caring for you? He
must know how he got you, where he got you, of whom he got you?
Surely he knows--"
"Oh, I know all that. I was twelve years old when Papa Roussillon
took me, eight years ago. I had been having a hard life, and but
for him I must have died. I was a captive among the Indians. He
took me and has cared for me and taught me. He has been very,
very good to me. I love him dearly."
"And don't you remember anything at all about when, where,
how the Indians got you?"
"No." She shook her head and seemed to be trying to
recollect something. "No, I just can't remember; and yet
there has always been something like a dream in my mind, which
I could not quite get hold of. I know that I am not a Catholic.
I vaguely remember a sweet woman who taught me to pray like this:
'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.'"
And Alice went on through the beautiful and perfect prayer, which
she repeated in English with infinite sweetness and solemnity,
her eyes uplifted, her hands clasped before her. Beverley could
have sworn that she was a shining saint, and that he saw an aureole.
"I know," she continued, "that sometime, somewhere,
to a very dear person I promised that I never, never, never would
pray any prayer but that. And I remember almost nothing else about
that other life, which is far off back yonder in the past, I don't
know where,--sweet, peaceful, shadowy; a dream that I have all
but lost from my mind."
Beverley's sympathy was deeply moved. He sat for some minutes
looking at her without speaking. She, too, was pensive and silent,
while the fire sputtered and sang, the great logs slowly melting,
the flames tossing wisps of smoke into the chimney still booming
to the wind.
"I know, too, that I am not French," she presently resumed,
"but I don't know just how I know it. My first words must
have been English, for I have always dreamed of talking in that
language, and my dimmest half recollections of the old days are
of a large, white house, and a soft-voiced black woman, who sang
to me in that language the very sweetest songs in the world."
It must be borne in mind that all this was told by Alice in her
creole French, half bookish, half patois, of which no translation
can give any fair impression.
Beverley listened, as one who hears a clever reader intoning a
strange and captivating poem. He was charmed. His imagination
welcomed the story and furnished it with all that it lacked of
picturesque completeness. In those days it was no uncommon thing
for a white child to be found among the Indians with not a trace
left by which to restore it to its people. He had often heard
of such a case. But here was Alice right before him, the most
beautiful girl that he had ever seen, telling him the strangest
story of all. To his mind it was clear that she belonged to the
Tarleton family of Virginia. Youth always concludes a matter at
once. He knew some of the Tarletons; but it was a widely scattered
family, its members living in almost every colony in America.
The crest he recognized at a glance by the dragon on the helmet
with three stars. It was not for a woman to bear; but doubtless
it had been enameled on the locket merely as a family mark, as
was often done in America.
"The black woman was your nurse, your mammy," he said.
"I know by that and by your prayer in English, as well as
by your locket, that you are of a good old family."
Like most Southerners, he had strong faith in genealogy, and he
held at his tongue's tip the names of all the old families. The
Carters, the Blairs, the Fitzhughs, the Hansons, the Randolphs,
the Lees, the Ludwells, the Joneses, the Beverleys, the Tarletons--
a whole catalogue of them stretched back in his memory. He knew
the coat of arms displayed by each house. He could repeat their
legends.
"I wish you could tell me more," he went on. "Can't
you recollect anything further about your early childhood, your
first impressions--the house, the woman who taught you to pray,
the old black mammy? Any little thing might be of priceless value
as evidence."
Alice shrugged her shoulders after the creole fashion with something
of her habitual levity of manner, and laughed. His earnestness
seemed disproportioned to the subject, as she fancied he must
view it, although to her it had always been something to dream
over. It was impossible for her to realize, as he did, the importance
of details in solving a problem like that involved in her past
history. Nor could she feel the pathos and almost tragic fascination
with which her story had touched him.
"There is absolutely nothing more to tell," she said.
"All my life I have tried to remember more, but it's impossible;
I can't get any further back or call up another thing. There's
no use trying. It's all like a dream--probably it is one. I do
have such dreams. In my sleep I can lift myself into the air,
just as easy, and fly back to the same big white house that I
seem to remember. When you told me about your home it was like
something that I had often seen before. I shall be dreaming about
it next!"
Beverley cross-questioned her from every possible point of view;
he was fascinated with the mystery; but she gave him nothing out
of which the least further light could be drawn. A half-breed
woman, it seemed, had been her Indian foster-mother; a silent,
grave, watchful guardian from whom not a hint of disclosure ever
fell. She was, moreover, a Christian woman, had received her conversion
from an English-speaking Protestant missionary. She prayed with
Alice, thus keeping in the child's mind a perfect memory of the
Lord's prayer.
"Well," said Beverley at last, "you are more of
a mystery to me, the longer I know you."
"Then I must grow every day more distasteful to you."
"No, I love mystery."
He went away feeling a new web of interest binding him to this
inscrutable maiden whose life seemed to him at once so full of
idyllic happiness and so enshrouded in tantalizing doubt. At the
first opportunity he frankly questioned M. Roussillon, with no
helpful result. The big Frenchman told the same meager story.
The woman was dying in the time of a great epidemic, which killed
most of her tribe. She gave Alice to M. Roussillon, but told him
not a word about her ancestry or previous life. That was all.
A wise old man, when he finds himself in a blind alley, no sooner
touches the terminal wall than he faces about and goes back the
way he came. Under like circumstances a young man must needs try
to batter the wall down with his head. Beverley endeavored to
break through the web of mystery by sheer force. It seemed to
him that a vigorous attempt could not fail to succeed; but, like
the fly in the spider's lines, he became more hopelessly bound
at every move he made. Moreover against his will he was realizing
that he could no longer deceive himself about Alice. He loved
her, and the love was mastering him body and soul. Such a confession
carries with it into an honest masculine heart a sense of contending
responsibilities. In Beverley's case the clash was profoundly
disturbing. And now he clutched the thought that Alice was not
a mere child of the woods, but a daughter of an old family of
cavaliers!
With coat buttoned close against the driving wind, he strode toward
the fort in one of those melodramatic moods to which youth in
all climes and times is subject. It was like a slap in the face
when Captain Helm met him at the stockade gate and said:
"Well, sir, you are good at hiding."
"Hiding! what do you mean, Captain Helm?" he demanded,
not in the mildest tone.
"I mean, sir, that I've been hunting you for an hour and
more, over the whole of this damned town. The English and Indians
are upon us, and there's no time for fooling. Where are all the
men?"
Beverley comprehended the situation in a second. Helm's face was
congested with excitement. Some scouts had come in with the news
that Governor Hamilton, at the head of five or six hundred soldiers
and Indians, was only three or four miles up the river.
"Where are all the men?" Helm repeated.
"Buffalo hunting, most of them," said Beverley.
"What in hell are they off hunting buffaloes for?" raged
the excited captain.
"You might go to hell and see," Beverley suggested,
and they both laughed in sheer masculine contempt of a predicament
too grave for anything but grim mirth.
What could they do? Even Oncle Jazon and Rene de Ronville were
off with the hunters. Helm sent for M. Roussillon in the desperate
hope that he could suggest something; but he lost his head and
hustled off to hide his money and valuables. Indeed the French
people all felt that, so far as they were concerned, the chief
thing was to save what they had. They well knew that it mattered
little which of the two masters held over them--they must shift
for themselves. In their hearts they were true to France and America;
but France and America could not now protect them against Hamilton;
therefore it would be like suicide to magnify patriotism or any
other sentiment objectionable to the English. So they acted upon
M. Roussillon's advice and offered no resistance when the new
army approached.
"My poor people are not disloyal to your flag and your cause,"
said good Father Beret next morning to Captain Helm, "but
they are powerless. Winter is upon us. What would you have us
do? This rickety fort is not available for defense; the men are
nearly all far away on the plains. Isn't it the part of prudence
and common sense to make the best of a desperate situation? Should
we resist, the British and their savage allies would destroy the
town and commit outrages too horrible to think about. In this
case diplomacy promises much more than a hopeless fight against
an overwhelming force."
"I'll fight 'em," Helm ground out between his teeth,
"if I have to do it single-handed and alone! I'll fight 'em
till hell freezes over!"
Father Beret smiled grimly, as if he, too, would enjoy a lively
skirmish on the ice of Tophet, and said:
"I admire your courage, my son. Fighting is perfectly proper
upon fair occasion. But think of the poor women and children.
These old eyes of mine have seen some terrible things done by
enraged savages. Men can die fighting; but their poor wives and
daughters-- ah, I have seen, I have seen!"
Beverley felt a pang of terror shoot through his heart as Father
Beret's simple words made him think of Alice in connection with
an Indian massacre.
"Of course, of course it's horrible to think of," said
Helm; "but my duty is clear, and that flag," he pointed
to where la banniere d'Alice Roussillon was almost blowing away
in the cold wind, "that flag shall not come down save in
full honor."
His speech sounded preposterously boastful and hollow; but he
was manfully in earnest; every word came from his brave heart.
Father Beret's grim smile returned, lighting up his strongly marked
face with the strangest expression imaginable.
"We will get all the women inside the fort," Helm began
to say.
"Where the Indians will find them ready penned up and at
their mercy," quickly interpolated the priest "That
will not do."
"Well, then, what can be done?" Beverley demanded, turning
with a fierce stare upon Father Beret. "Don't stand there
objecting to everything, with not a suggestion of your own to
offer."
"I know what is best for my people," the old man replied
softly, still smiling, "I have advised them to stay inside
their houses and take no part in the military event. It is the
only hope of averting an indiscriminate massacre, and things worse."
The curt phrase, "things worse," went like a bullet-stroke
through Beverley's heart. It flashed an awful picture upon his
vision. Father Beret saw his face whiten and his lips set themselves
to resist a great emotion.
"Do not be angry with me, my son," he said, laying a
hand on the young man's arm. "I may be wrong, but I act upon
long and convincing experience."
"Experience or no experience," Helm exclaimed with an
oath, "this fort must be manned and defended. I am commanding
here!"
"Yes, I recognize your authority," responded the priest
in a firm yet deferential tone, "and I heartily wish you
had a garrison; but where is your command, Captain Helm?"
Then it was that the doughty Captain let loose the accumulated
profanity with which he had been for some time well-nigh bursting.
He tiptoed in order to curse with extremest violence. His gestures
were threatening. He shook his fists at Father Beret, without
really meaning offence.
"Where is my garrison, you ask! Yes, and I can tell you.
It's where you might expect a gang of dad blasted jabbering French
good-for-nothings to be, off high-gannicking around shooting buffaloes
instead of staying here and defending their wives, children, homes
and country, damn their everlasting souls! The few I have in the
fort will sneak off, I suppose."
"The French gave you this post on easy terms, Captain,"
blandly retorted Father Beret.
"Yes, and they'll hand it over to Hamilton, you think, on
the same basis," cried Helm, "but I'll show you! I'll
show you, Mr. Priest!"
"Pardon me, Captain, the French are loyal to you and to the
flag yonder. They have sworn it. Time will prove it. But in the
present desperate dilemma we must choose the safer horn."
Saying this Father Beret turned about and went his way. He was
chuckling heartily as he passed out of the gate.
"He is right," said Beverley after a few moments of
reflection, during which he was wholly occupied with Alice, whose
terrified face in his anticipation appealed to him from the midst
of howling savages, smoking cabins and mangled victims of lust
and massacre. His imagination painted the scene with a merciless
realism that chilled his blood. All the sweet romance fell away
from Vincennes.
"Well, sir, right or wrong, your, duty is to obey orders,"
said Helm with brutal severity.
"We had better not quarrel, Captain," Beverley replied.
"I have not signified any unwillingness to obey your commands.
Give them, and you will have no cause to grumble."
"Forgive me, old fellow," cried the impulsive commander.
"I know you are true as steel. I s'pose I'm wound up too
tight to be polite. But the time is come to do something. Here
we are with but five or six men--"
He was interrupted by the arrival of two more half-breed scouts.
Only three miles away was a large flotilla of boats and canoes
with cannon, a force of Indians on land and the British flag flying,--that
was the report.
"They are moving rapidly," said the spokesman, "and
will be here very soon. They are at least six hundred strong,
all well armed."
"Push that gun to the gate, and load it to the muzzle, Lieutenant
Beverley," Helm ordered with admirable firmness, the purple
flush in his face giving way to a grayish pallor. "We are
going to die right here, or have the honors of war."
Beverley obeyed without a word. He even loaded two guns instead
of one--charging each so heavily that the last wad looked as if
ready to leap from the grimy mouth.
Helm had already begun, on receiving the first report, a hasty
letter to Colonel Clark at Kaskaskia. He now added a few words
and at the last moment sent it out by a trusted man, who was promptly
captured by Hamilton's advance guard. The missive, evidently written
in installments during the slow approach of the British, is still
in the Canadian archives, and runs thus:
"Dear Sir--At this time there is an army within three miles
of this place; I heard of their coming several days beforehand.
I sent spies to find the certainty--the spies being taken prisoner
I never got intelligence till they got within three miles of town.
As I had called the militia and had all assurances of their integrity
I ordered at the firing of a cannon every man to appear, but I
saw but few. Captain Buseron behaved much to his honor and credit,
but I doubt the conduct of a certain gent. Excuse haste, as the
army is in sight. My determination is to defend the garrison,
(sic) though I have but twenty-one men but what has left me. I
refer you to Mr. Wmes (sic) for the rest. The army is within three
hundred yards of the village. You must think how I feel; not four
men that I really depend upon; but am determined to act brave--think
of my condition. I know it is out of my power to defend the town,
as not one of the militia will take arms, though before sight
of the army no braver men. There is a flag at a small distance,
I must conclude.
"Your humble servant,
"Leo'd Helm. Must stop."
"To Colonel Clark."
Having completed this task, the letter shows under what a nervous
strain, Helm turned to his lieutenant and said:
"Fire a swivel with a blank charge. We'll give these weak-kneed
parly-voos one more call to duty. Of course not a frog-eater of
them all will come. But I said that a gun should be the signal.
Possibly they didn't hear the first one, the damned, deaf, cowardly
hounds!"
Beverley wheeled forth the swivel and rammed a charge of powder
home. But when he fired it, the effect was far from what it should
have been. Instead of calling in a fresh body of militia, it actually
drove out the few who up to that moment had remained as a garrison;
so that Captain Helm and his Lieutenant found themselves quite
alone in the fort, while out before the gate, deployed in fine
open order, a strong line of British soldiers approached with
sturdy steps, led by a tall, erect, ruddy-faced young officer.
CHAPTER IX
THE HONORS OF WAR
Gaspard Roussillon was thoroughly acquainted with savage warfare,
and he knew all the pacific means so successfully and so long
used by French missionaries and traders to control savage character;
but the emergency now upon him was startling. It confused him.
The fact that he had taken a solemn oath of allegiance to the
American government could have been pushed aside lightly enough
upon pressing occasion, but he knew that certain confidential
agents left in Vincennes by Governor Abbott had, upon the arrival
of Helm, gone to Detroit, and of course they had carried thither
a full report of all that happened in the church of St. Xavier,
when Father Gibault called the people together, and at the fort,
when the British flag was hauled down and la banniere d'Alice
Roussillon run up in its place. His expansive imagination did
full credit to itself in exaggerating the importance of his part
in handing the post over to the rebels. And what would Hamilton
think of this? Would he consider it treason? The question certainly
bore a tragic suggestion.
M. Roussillon lacked everything of being a coward, and treachery
had no rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the
habit of fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills
that he could not at first glance see any sudden presentment with
a normal vision. He had no love for Englishmen and he did like
Americans, but he naturally thought that Helm's talk of fighting
Hamilton was, as his own would have been in a like case, talk
and nothing more. The fort could not hold out an hour, he well
knew. Then what? Ah, he but too well realized the result.
Resistance would inflame the English soldiers and madden the Indians.
There would be a massacre, and the belts of savages would sag
with bloody scalps. He shrugged his shoulders and felt a chill
creep up his back.
The first thing M. Roussillon did was to see Father Beret and
take counsel of him; then he hurried home to dig a great pit under
his kitchen floor in which he buried many bales of fur and all
his most valuable things. He worked like a giant beaver all night
long. Meantime Father Beret went about over the town quietly notifying
the inhabitants to remain in their houses until after the fort
should surrender, which he was sure would happen the next day.
"You will be perfectly safe, my children," he said to
them. "No harm can come to you if you follow my directions."
Relying implicitly upon him, they scrupulously obeyed in every
particular.
He did not think it necessary to call at Roussillon place, having
already given M. Roussillon the best advice he could command.
Just at the earliest break of day, while yet the gloom of night
scarcely felt the sun's approach, a huge figure made haste along
the narrow streets in the northern part of the town. If any person
had been looking out through the little holes, called windows,
in those silent and rayless huts, it would have been easy to recognize
M. Roussillon by his stature and his gait, dimly outlined as he
was. A thought, which seemed to him an inspiration of genius,
had taken possession of him and was leading him, as if by the
nose, straight away to Hamilton's lines. He was freighted with
eloquence for the ear of that commander, and as he strode along
facing the crisp morning air he was rehearsing under his breath,
emphasizing his periods in tragic whispers with sweeping gestures
and liberal facial contortions. So absorbed was he in his oratorical
soliloquy that he forgot due military precaution and ran plump
into the face of a savage picket guard who, without respect for
the great M. Roussillon's dignity, sprang up before him, grunted
cavernously, flourished a tomahawk and spoke in excellent and
exceedingly guttural Indian:
"Wah, surrender!"
It is probable that no man ever complied with a modest request
in a more docile spirit than did M. Roussillon upon that occasion.
In fact his promptness must have been admirable, for the savage
grunted approval and straightway conducted him to Hamilton's headquarters
on a batteau in the river.
The British commander, a hale man of sandy complexion and probably
under middle age, was in no very pleasant humor. Some of his orders
had been misunderstood by the chief of his Indian allies, so that
a premature exposure of his approach had been made to the enemy.
"Well, sir, who are you?" he gruffly demanded, when
M. Roussillon loomed before him.
"I am Gaspard Roussillon, the Mayor of Vincennes," was
the lofty reply. "I have come to announce to you officially
that my people greet you loyally and that my town is freely at
your command." He felt as important as if his statements
had been true.
"Humph, that's it, is it? Well, Mr. Mayor, you have my congratulations,
but I should prefer seeing the military commander and accepting
his surrender. What account can you give me of the American forces,
their numbers and condition?"
M. Roussillon winced, inwardly at least, under Hamilton's very
undeferential air and style of address. It piqued him cruelly
to be treated as a person without the slightest claim to respect.
He somehow forgot the rolling and rhythmical eloquence prepared
for the occasion.
"The American commander naturally would not confide in me,
Monsieur le Gouverneur, not at all; we are not very friendly;
he ousted me from office, he offended me--" he was coughing
and stammering.
"Oh, the devil! what do I care? Answer my question, sir,"
Hamilton gruffly interrupted. "Tell me the number of American
troops at the fort, sir."
"I don't know exactly. I have not had admittance to the fort.
I might be deceived as to numbers; but they're strong, I believe,
Monsieur le Gouverneur, at least they make a great show and much
noise."
Hamilton eyed the huge bulk before him for a moment, then turning
to a subaltern said:
"Place this fellow under guard and see that he doesn't get
away. Send word immediately to Captain Farnsworth that I wish
to see him at once."
The interview thereupon closed abruptly. Hamilton's emissaries
had given him a detailed account of M. Roussillon's share in submitting
Vincennes to rebel dominion, and he was not in the least inclined
toward treating him graciously.
"I would suggest to you, Monsieur le Gouverneur, that my
official position demands--" M. Roussillon began; but he
was fastened upon by two guards, who roughly hustled him aft and
bound him so rigidly that he could scarcely move finger or toe.
Hamilton smiled coldly and turned to give some orders to a stalwart,
ruddy young officer who in a canoe had just rowed alongside the
batteau.
"Captain Farnsworth," he said, acknowledging the military
salute, "you will take fifty men and make everything ready
for a reconnaissance in the direction of the fort. We will move
down the river immediately and choose a place to land. Move lively,
we have no time to lose."
In the meantime Beverley slipped away from the fort and made a
hurried call upon Alice at Roussillon place. There was not much
they could say to each other during the few moments at command.
Alice showed very little excitement; her past experience had fortified
her against the alarms of frontier life; but she understood and
perfectly appreciated the situation.
"What are you going to do?" Beverley demanded in sheer
despair. He was not able to see any gleam of hope out of the blackness
which had fallen around him and into his soul.
"What shall you do?" he repeated.
"Take the chances of war," she said, smiling gravely.
"It will all come out well, no doubt."
"I hope so, but--but I fear not."
His face was gray with trouble. "Helm is determined to fight,
and that means--"
"Good!" she interrupted with spirit. "I am so glad
of that. I wish I could go to help him! If I were a man I'd love
to fight! I think it's just delightful."
"But it is reckless bravado; it is worse than foolishness,"
said Beverley, not feeling her mood. "What can two or three
men do against an army?"
"Fight and die like men," she replied, her whole countenance
lighting up. "Be heroic!"
"We will do that, of course; we--I do not fear death; but
you-- you--" His voice choked him.
A gun shot rang out clear in the distance, and he did not finish
speaking.
"That's probably the beginning," he added in a moment,
extending both hands to her. "Good bye. I must hurry to the
fort. Good bye."
She drew a quick breath and turned so white that her look struck
him like a sudden and hard blow. He stood for a second, his arms
at full reach, then:
"My God, Alice, I cannot, cannot leave you!" he cried,
his voice again breaking huskily.
She made a little movement, as if to take hold of his hands: but
in an instant she stepped back a pace and said;
"Don't fear about me. I can take care of myself. I'm all
right. You'd better return to the fort as quickly as you can.
It is your country, your flag, not me, that you must think of
now."
She folded her arms and stood boldly erect.
Never before, in all his life, had he felt such a rebuke. He gave
her a straight, strong look in the eyes.
"You are right, Alice." he cried, and rushed from the
house to the fort.
She held her rigid attitude for a little while after she heard
him shut the front gate of the yard so forcibly that it broke
in pieces, then she flung her arms wide, as if to clasp something,
and ran to the door; but Beverley was out of sight. She turned
and dropped into a chair. Jean came to her out of the next room.
His queer little face was pale and pinched; but his jaw was set
with the expression of one who has known danger and can meet it
somehow.
"Are they going to scalp us?" he half whispered presently,
with a shuddering lift of his distorted shoulders.
Her face was buried in her hands and she did not answer. Childlike
he turned from one question to another inconsequently.
"Where did Papa Roussillon go to?" he next inquired.
"Is he going to fight?"
She shook her head.
"They'll tear down the fort, won't they?"
If she heard him she did not make any sign.
"They'll kill the Captain and Lieutenant and get the fine
flag that you set so high on the fort, won't they, Alice?"
She lifted her head and gave the cowering hunchback such a stare
that he shut his eyes and put up a hand, as if afraid of her.
Then she impulsively took his little misshapen form in her arms
and hugged it passionately. Her bright hair fell all over him,
almost hiding him. Madame Roussillon was lying on a bed in an
adjoining room moaning diligently, at intervals handling her rosary
and repeating a prayer. The whole town was silent outside.
"Why don't you go get the pretty flag down and hide it before
they come?" Jean murmured from within the silken meshes of
Alice's hair.
In his small mind the gaudy banner was the most beautiful of all
things. Every day since it was set up he had gone to gaze at it
as it fluttered against the sky. The men had frequently said in
his presence that the enemy would take it down if they captured
the fort.
Alice heard his inquisitive voice; but it seemed to come from
far off; his words were a part of the strange, wild swirl in her
bosom. Beverley's look, as he turned and left her, now shook every
chord of her being. He had gone to his death at her command. How
strong and true and brave he was! In her imagination she saw the
flag above him, saw him die like a panther at bay, saw the gay
rag snatched down and torn to shreds by savage hands. It was the
tragedy of a single moment, enacted in a flashlight of anticipation.
She released Jean so suddenly that he fell to the floor. She remembered
what she had said to Beverley on the night of the dance when they
were standing under the flag.
"You made it and set it up," he lightly remarked; "you
must see that no enemy ever gets possession of it, especially
the English."
"I'll take it down and hide it when there's danger of that,"
she said in the same spirit.
And now she stood there looking at Jean, without seeing him, and
repeated the words under her breath.
"I'll take it down and hide it. They shan't have it."
Madame Roussillon began to call from the other room in a loud,
complaining voice; but Alice gave no heed to her querulous demands.
"Stay here, Jean, and take care of Mama Roussillon,"
she presently said to the hunchback. "I am going out; I'll
be back soon; don't you dare leave the house while I'm gone; do
you hear?"
She did not wait for his answer; but snatching a hood-like fur
cap from a peg on the wall, she put it on and hastily left the
house.
Down at the fort Helm and Beverley were making ready to resist
Hamilton's attack, which they knew would not be long deferred.
The two heavily charged cannon were planted so as to cover the
space in front of the gate, and some loaded muskets were ranged
near by ready for use.
"We'll give them one hell of a blast," growled the Captain,
"before they overpower us."
Beverley made no response in words; but he was preparing a bit
of tinder on the end of a stick with which to fire the cannon.
Not far away a little heap of logs was burning in the fort's area.
The British officer, already mentioned as at the head of the line
advancing diagonally from the river's bank, halted his men at
a distance of three hundred yards from the fort, and seemed to
be taking a deliberately careful survey of what was before him.
"Let 'em come a little nearer, Lieutenant," said Helm,
his jaw setting itself like a lion's. "When we shoot we want
to hit."
He stooped and squinted along his gun.
"When they get to that weedy spot out yonder," he added,
"just opposite the little rise in the river bank, we'll turn
loose on 'em."
Beverley had arranged his primitive match to suit his fancy, and
for probably the twentieth time looked critically to the powder
in the beveled touch-hole of his old cannon. He and Helm were
facing the enemy, with their backs to the main area of the stockade,
when a well known voice attracted their attention to the rear.
"Any room for a feller o' my size in this here crowded place?"
it demanded in a cracked but cheerful tenor. "I'm kind o'
outen breath a runnin' to git here."
They turned about. It was Oncle Jazon with his long rifle on his
shoulder and wearing a very important air. He spoke in English,
using the backwoods lingo with the ease of long practice.
"As I's a comin' in f'om a huntin' I tuck notice 'at somepin'
was up. I see a lot o' boats on the river an' some fellers wi'
guns a scootin' around, so I jes' slipped by 'em all an' come
in the back way. They's plenty of 'em, I tell you what! I can't
shoot much, but I tuck one chance at a buck Indian out yander
and jes' happened to hit 'im in the lef' eye. He was one of the
gang 'at scalped me down yander in Kaintuck."
The greasy old sinner looked as if he had not been washed since
he was born. He glanced about with furtive, shifty eyes, grimaced
and winked, after the manner of an animal just waking from a lazy
nap.
"Where's the rest o' the fighters?" he demanded quizzically,
lolling out his tongue and peeping past Helm so as to get a glimpse
of the English line. "Where's yer garrison? Have they all
gone to breakfas'?"
The last question set Helm off again cursing and swearing in the
most melodramatic rage.
Oncle Jazon turned to Beverley and said in rapid French: "Surely
the man's not going to fight those fellows yonder?"
Beverley nodded rather gloomily.
"Well," added the old man, fingering his rifle's stock
and taking another glance through the gate, "I can't shoot
wo'th a cent, bein' sort o' nervous like; but I'll stan' by ye
awhile, jes' for luck. I might accidentally hit one of 'em."
When a man is truly brave himself there is nothing that touches
him like an exhibition of absolutely unselfish gameness in another.
A rush of admiration for Oncle Jazon made Beverley feel like hugging
him.
Meantime the young British officer showed a flag of truce, and,
with a file of men, separated himself from the line, now stationary,
and approached the stockade. At a hundred yards he halted the
file and came on alone, waving the white clout. He boldly advanced
to within easy speaking distance and shouted:
"I demand the surrender of this fort."
"Well, you'll not get it, young man," roared Helm, his
profanity well mixed in with the words, "not while there's
a man of us left!"
"Ye'd better use sof' soap on 'im, Cap'n," said Oncle
Jazon in English, "cussin' won't do no good." While
he spoke he rubbed the doughty Captain's arm and then patted it
gently.
Helm, who was not half as excited as he pretended to be, knew
that Oncle Jazon's remark was the very essence of wisdom; but
he was not yet ready for the diplomatic language which the old
trooper called "soft soap."
"Are you the British commander?" he demanded.
"No," said the officer, "but I speak for him."
"Not to me by a damned sight, sir. Tell your commander that
I will hear what he has to say from his own mouth. No understrapper
will be recognized by me."
That ended the conference. The young officer, evidently indignant,
strode back to his line, and an hour later Hamilton himself demanded
the unconditional surrender of the fort and garrison.
"Fight for it," Helm stormed forth. "We are soldiers."
Hamilton held a confab with his officers, while his forces, under
cover of the town's cabins, were deploying so as to form a half
circle about the stockade. Some artillery appeared and was planted
directly opposite the gate, not three hundred yards distant. One
blast of that battery would, as Helm well knew, level a large
part of the stockade.
"S'posin' I hev' a cannon, too, seein' it's the fashion,"
said Oncle Jazon. "I can't shoot much, but I might skeer
'em. This little one'll do me."
He set his rifle against the wall and with Beverley's help rolled
one of the swivels alongside the guns already in position.
In a few minutes Hamilton returned under the white flag and shouted:
"Upon what terms will you surrender?"
"All the honors of war," Helm firmly replied. "It's
that or fight, and I don't care a damn which!"
Hamilton half turned away, as if done with the parley, then facing
the fort again, said:
"Very well, sir, haul down your flag."
Helm was dumfounded at this prompt acceptance of his terms. Indeed
the incident is unique in history.
As Hamilton spoke he very naturally glanced up to where la banniere
d'Alice Roussillon waved brilliantly. Someone stood beside it
on the dilapidated roof of the old blockhouse, and was already
taking it from its place. His aid, Captain Farnsworth, saw this,
and the vision made his heart draw in a strong, hot flood It was
a girl in short skirts and moccasins, with a fur hood on her head,
her face, thrillingly beautiful, set around with fluffs of wind-blown
brown-gold hair. Farnsworth was too young to be critical and too
old to let his eyes deceive him. Every detail of the fine sketch,
with its steel-blue background of sky, flashed into his mind,
sharp-cut as a cameo. Involuntarily he took off his hat.
Alice had come in by way of the postern. She mounted to the roof
unobserved, and made her way to the flag, just at the moment when
Helm, glad at heart to accept the easiest way out of a tight place,
asked Oncle Jazon to lower it.
Beverley was thinking of Alice, and when he looked up he could
scarcely realize that he saw her; but the whole situation was
plain the instant she snatched the staff from its place; for he,
too, recollected what she had said at the river house. The memory
and the present scene blended perfectly during the fleeting instant
that she was visible. He saw that Alice was smiling somewhat as
in her most mischievous moods, and when she jerked the staff from
its fastening she lifted it high and waved it once, twice, thrice
defiantly toward the British lines, then fled down the ragged
roof-slope with it and disappeared. The vision remained in Beverley's
eyes forever afterward. The English troops, thinking that the
flag was taken down in token of surrender, broke into a wild tumult
of shouting.
Oncle Jazon intuitively understood just what Alice was doing,
for he knew her nature and could read her face. His blood effervesced
in an instant.
"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton! Vive la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!"
he screamed, waving his disreputable cap round his scalpless head.
"Hurrah for George Washington! Hurrah for Alice Roussillon's
flag!"
It was all over soon. Helm surrendered himself and Beverley with
full honors. As for Oncle Jazon, he disappeared at the critical
moment. It was not just to his mind to be a prisoner of war, especially
under existing conditions; for Hamilton's Indian allies had some
old warpath scores to settle with him dating back to the days
when he and Simon Kenton were comrades in Kentucky.
When Alice snatched the banner and descended with it to the ground,
she ran swiftly out through the postern, as she had once before
done, and sped along under cover of the low bluff or swell, which,
terrace-like, bounded the flat "bottom" lands southward
of the stockade. She kept on until she reached a point opposite
Father Beret's hut, to which she then ran, the flag streaming
bravely behind her in the wind, her heart beating time to her
steps.
It was plainly a great surprise to Father Beret, who looked up
from his prayer when she rushed in, making a startling clatter,
the loose puncheons shaking together under her reckless feet.
"Oh, Father, here it is! Hide it, hide it, quick!"
She thrust the flag toward him.
"They shall not have it! They shall never have it!"
He opened wide his shrewd, kindly eyes; but did not fairly comprehend
her meaning.
She was panting, half laughing, half crying. Her hair, wildly
disheveled, hung in glorious masses over her shoulders. Her face
beamed triumphantly,
"They are taking the fort," she breathlessly added,
again urging the flag upon him, "they're going in, but I
got this and ran away with it. Hide it, Father, hide it, quick,
quick, before they come!"
The daring light in her eyes, the witching play of her dimples,
the madcap air intensified by her attitude and the excitement
of the violent exercise just ended--something compounded of all
these and more--affected the good priest strangely. Involuntarily
he crossed himself, as if against a dangerous charm.
"Mon Dieu, Father Beret," she exclaimed with impatience,
"haven't you a grain of sense left? Take this flag and hide
it, I tell you! Don't stay there gazing and blinking. Here, quick!
They saw me take it, they may be following me. Hurry, hide it
somewhere!"
He comprehended now, rising from his knees with a queer smile
broadening on his face. She put the banner into his hands and
gave him a gentle push.
"Hide it, I tell you, hide it, you dear old goose!"
Without sneaking he turned the staff over and over in his hand,
until the flag was closely wrapped around it, then stooping he
lifted a puncheon and with it covered the gay roll from sight.
Alice caught him in her arms and kissed him vigorously on the
cheek. Her warm lips made the spot tingle.
"Don't you dare to let any person have it! It's the flag
of George Washington."
She gave him a strong squeeze.
He pushed her from him with both hands and hastily crossed himself;
but his eyes were laughing.
"You ought to have seen me; I waved the flag at them--at
the English--and one young officer took off his hat to me! Oh,
Father Beret, it was like what is in a novel. They'll get the
fort, but not the banner! Not the banner! I've saved it, I've
saved it!"
Her enthusiasm gave a splendor to her countenance, heightening
its riches of color and somehow adding to its natural girlish
expression an audacious sweetness. The triumphant success of her
undertaking lent the dignity of conscious power to her look, a
dignity which always sits well upon a young and somewhat immaturely
beautiful face.
Father Beret could not resist her fervid eloquence, and he could
not run away from her or stop up his ears while she went on. So
he had to laugh when she said:
"Oh, if you had seen it all you would have enjoyed it. There
was Oncle Jazon squatting behind the little swivel, and there
were Captain Helm and Lieutenant Beverley holding their burning
sticks over the big cannon ready to shoot--all of them so intent
that they didn't see me--and yonder came the English officer and
his army against the three. When they got close to the gate the
officer called out: 'Surrender!' and then Captain Helm yelled
back: 'Damned if I do! Come another step and I'll blow you all
to hell in a second!' I was mightily in hopes that they'd come
on; I wanted to see a cannon ball hit that English commander right
in the face; he looked so arrogant."
Father Beret shook his head and tried to look disapproving and
solemn.
Meantime down at the fort Hamilton was demanding the flag. He
had seen Alice take it down, and supposed that it was lowered
officially and would be turned over to him. Now he wanted to handle
it as the best token of his bloodless but important victory.
"I didn't order the flag down until after I had accepted
your terms," said Helm, "and when my man started to
obey, we saw a young lady snatch it and run away with it."
"Who was the girl?"
"I do not inform on women," said Helm.
Hamilton smiled grimly, with a vexed look in his eyes, then turned
to Captain Farnsworth and ordered him to bring up M. Roussillon,
who, when he appeared, still had his hands tied together.
"Tell me the name of the young woman who carried away the
flag from the fort. You saw her, you know every soul in this town.
Who was it, sir?"
It was a hard question for M. Roussillon to answer. Although his
humiliating captivity had somewhat cowed him, still his love for
Alice made it impossible for him to give the information demanded
by Hamilton. He choked and stammered, but finally managed to say:
"I assure you that I don't know--I didn't look--I didn't
see--It was too far off for me to--I was some-what excited--I--"
"Take him away. Keep him securely bound," said Hamilton.
"Confine him. We'll see how long it will take to refresh
his mind. We'll puncture the big windbag."
While this curt scene was passing, the flag of Great Britain rose
over the fort to the lusty cheering of the victorious soldiers.
Hamilton treated Helm and Beverley with extreme courtesy. He was
a soldier, gruff, unscrupulous and cruel to a degree; but he could
not help admiring the daring behavior of these two officers who
had wrung from him the best terms of surrender. He gave them full
liberty, on parole of honor not to attempt escape or to aid in
any way an enemy against him while they were prisoners.
Nor was it long before Helm's genial and sociable disposition
won the Englishman's respect and confidence to such an extent
that the two became almost inseparable companions, playing cards,
brewing toddies, telling stories, and even shooting deer in the
woods together, as if they had always been the best of friends.
Hamilton did not permit his savage allies to enter the town, and
he immediately required the French inhabitants to swear allegiance
to Great Britain, which they did with apparent heartiness, all
save M. Roussillon, who was kept in close confinement and bound
like a felon, chafing lugubriously and wearing the air of a martyr.
His prison was a little log pen in one corner of the stockade,
much open to the weather, its gaping cracks giving him a dreary
view of the frozen landscape through which the Wabash flowed in
a broad steel-gray current. Helm, who really liked him, tried
in vain to procure his release; but Hamilton was inexorable on
account of what he regarded as duplicity in M. Roussillon's conduct.
"No, I'll let him reflect," he said; "there's nothing
like a little tyranny to break up a bad case of self-importance.
He'll soon find out that he has over-rated himself!"
CHAPTER X
M. ROUSSILLON ENTERTAINS COLONEL HAMILTON
A day or two after the arrival of Hamilton the absent garrison
of buffalo hunters straggled back to Vincennes and were duly sworn
to demean themselves as lawful subjects of Great Britain. Rene
de Ronville was among the first to take the oath, and it promptly
followed that Hamilton ordered him pressed into service as a wood-
chopper and log-hauler during the erection of a new blockhouse,
large barracks and the making of some extensive repairs of the
stockade. Nothing could have been more humiliating to the proud
young Frenchman. Every day he had to report bright and early to
a burly Irish Corporal and be ordered about, as if he had been
a slave, cursed at, threatened and forced to work until his hands
were blistered and his muscles sore. The bitterest part of it
all was that he had to trudge past both Roussillon place and the
Bourcier cabin with the eyes of Alice and Adrienne upon him.
Hamilton did not forget M. Roussillon in this connection. The
giant orator soon found himself face to face with a greater trial
even than Rene's. He was calmly told by the English commander
that he could choose between death and telling who it was that
stole the flag.
"I'll have you shot, sir, to-morrow morning if you prevaricate
about this thing any longer," said Hamilton, with a right
deadly strain in his voice. "You told me that you knew every
man, woman and child in Vincennes at sight. I know that you saw
that girl take the flag--lying does not serve your turn. I give
you until this evening to tell me who she is; if you fail, you
die at sunrise to-morrow."
In fact, it may be that Hamilton did not really purpose to carry
out this blood-thirsty threat; most probably he relied upon M.
Roussillon's imagination to torture him successfully; but the
effect, as time proved, could not be accurately foreseen.
Captain Farnsworth had energy enough for a dozen ordinary men.
Before he had been in Vincennes twelve hours he had seen every
nook and corner of its surface. Nor was his activity due altogether
to military ardor, although he never let pass an opportunity to
serve the best interests of his commander; all the while his mind
was on the strikingly beautiful girl whose saucy countenance had
so dazzled him from the roof-top of the fort, what time she wrenched
away the rebel flag.
"I'll find her, high or low," he thought, "for
I never could fail to recognize that face. She's a trump."
It was not in Alice's nature to hide from the English. They had
held the town and fort before Helm came, and she had not found
them troublesome under Abbott. She did not know that M. Roussillon
was a prisoner, the family taking it for granted that he had gone
away to avoid the English. Nor was she aware that Hamilton felt
so keenly the disappearance of the flag. What she did know, and
it gladdened her greatly, was that Beverley had been well treated
by his captor. With this in her heart she went about Roussillon
place singing merry snatches of Creole songs; and when at the
gate, which still hung lop-sided on account of Beverley's force
in shutting it, she came unexpectedly face to face with Captain
Farnsworth, there was no great surprise on her part.
He lifted his hat and bowed very politely; but a bold smile broke
over his somewhat ruddy face. He spoke in French, but in a drawling
tone and with a bad accent:
"How do you do, Mademoiselle; I am right glad to see you
again."
Alice drew back a pace or two. She was quick to understand his
allusion, and she shrank from him, fearing that he was going to
inquire about the flag.
"Don't be afraid," he laughed. "I am not so dangerous.
I never did hurt a girl in all my life. In fact, I am fond of
them when they're nice."
"I am not in the least afraid," she replied, assuming
an air of absolute dismissal, "and you don't look a bit ferocious,
Monsieur. You may pass on, if you please."
He flushed and bit his lip, probably to keep back some hasty retort,
and thought rapidly for a moment. She looked straight at him with
eyes that stirred and dazzled him. He was handsome in a coarse
way, like a fine young animal, well groomed, well fed, magnetic,
forceful; but his boldness, being of a sort to which she had not
been accustomed, disturbed her vaguely and strangely.
"Suppose that I don't pass on?" he presently ventured,
with just a suspicion of insolence in his attitude, but laughing
until he showed teeth of remarkable beauty and whiteness. "Suppose
that I should wish to have a little chat with you, Mademoiselle?"
"I have been told that there are men in the world who think
themselves handsome, and clever, and brilliant, when in fact they
are but conceited simpletons," she remarked, rather indifferently,
muffling herself in her fur wrap. "You certainly would be
a fairly good hitching-post for our horses if you never moved."
Then she laughed out of the depth of her hood, a perfectly merry
laugh, but not in the least flattering to Captain Farnsworth's
vanity. He felt the scorn that it conveyed.
His face grew redder, while a flash from hers made him wish that
he had been more gracious in his deportment. Here, to his surprise,
was not a mere creole girl of the wild frontier.
Her superiority struck him with the force of a captivating revelation,
under the light of which he blinked and winced.
She laid a shapely hand on the broken gate and pushed it open.
"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle;" his manner softened
as he spoke; "I beg your pardon; but I came to speak to you
about the flag--the flag you took away from the fort."
She had been half expecting this; but she was quite unprepared,
and in spite of all she could do showed embarrassment.
"I have come to get the flag; if you will kindly bring it
to me, or tell me where it is I--"
She quickly found words to interrupt him with, and at the same
time by a great effort pulled herself together.
"You have come to the wrong place," she flung in. "I
assure you that I haven't the flag."
"You took it down, Mademoiselle."
"Oh, did I?"
"With bewitching grace you did, Mademoiselle. I saw and admired.
Will you fetch it, please?"
"Indeed I won't."
The finality in her voice belied her face, which beamed without
a ray of stubbornness or perversity. He did not know how to interpret
her; but he felt that he had begun wrong. He half regretted that
he had begun at all.
"More depends upon returning that flag than you are probably
aware of," he presently said in a more serious tone. "In
fact, the life of one of your townsmen, and a person of some importance
here I believe, will surely be saved by it. You'd better consider,
Mademoiselle. You wouldn't like to cause the death of a man."
She did not fairly grasp the purport of his words; yet the change
in his manner, and the fact that he turned from French to English
in making the statement, aroused a sudden feeling of dread or
dark apprehension in her breast. The first distinct thought was
of Beverley--that some deadly danger threatened him.
"Who is it?" she frankly demanded.
"It's the Mayor, the big man of your town, Monsieur Roussillon,
I think he calls himself. He's got himself into a tight place.
He'll be shot to-morrow morning if that flag is not produced.
Governor Hamilton has so ordered, and what he orders is done."
"You jest, Monsieur."
"I assure you that I speak the plain truth."
"You will probably catch Monsieur Roussillon before you shoot
him." She tossed her head.
"He is already a prisoner in the fort."
Alice turned pale.
"Monsieur, is this true?" Her voice had lost its happy
tone. "Are you telling me that to--"
"You can verify it, Mademoiselle, by calling upon the commander
at the fort. I am sorry that you doubt my veracity. If you will
go with me I will show you M. Roussillon a tightly bound prisoner."
Jean had crept out of the gate and was standing just behind Alice
with his feet wide apart, his long chin elevated, his head resting
far back between his upthrust shoulders, his hands in his pockets,
his uncanny eyes gazing steadily at Farnsworth. He looked like
a deformed frog ready to jump.
Alice unmistakably saw truth in the Captain's countenance and
felt it in his voice. The reality came to her with unhindered
effect. M. Roussillon's life depended upon the return of the flag.
She put her hands together and for a moment covered her eyes with
them.
"I will go now, Mademoiselle," said Farnsworth; "but
I hope you will be in great haste about returning the flag."
He stood looking at her. He was profoundly touched and felt that
to say more would be too brutal even for his coarse nature; so
he simply lifted his hat and went away.
Jean took hold of Alice's dress as she turned to go back into
the house.
"Is he going to take the flag? Can he find it? What does
he want with it? What did you do with the flag, Alice?" he
whined, in his peculiar, quavering voice. "Where is it?"
Her skirt dragged him along as she walked.
"Where did you put it, Alice?"
"Father Beret hid it under his floor," she answered,
involuntarily, and almost unconsciously. "I shall have to
take it back and give it up."
"No--no--I wouldn't," he quavered, dancing across the
veranda as she quickened her pace and fairly spun him along. "I
wouldn't let 'em have it at all."
Alice's mind was working with lightning speed. Her imagination
took strong grip on the situation so briefly and effectively sketched
by Captain Farnsworth. Her decision formed itself quickly.
"Stay here, Jean. I am going to the fort. Don't tell Mama
Roussillon a thing. Be a good boy."
She was gone before Jean could say a word. She meant to face Hamilton
at once and be sure what danger menaced M. Roussillon. Of course,
the flag must be given up if that would save her foster father
any pain; and if his life were in question there could not be
too great haste on her part.
She ran directly to the stockade gate and breathlessly informed
a sentinel that she must see Governor Hamilton, into whose presence
she was soon led. Captain Farnsworth had preceded her but a minute
or two, and was present when she entered the miserable shed room
where the commander was having another talk with M. Roussillon.
The meeting was a tableau which would have been comical but for
the pressure of its tragic possibilities. Hamilton, stern and
sententious, stood frowning upon M. Roussillon, who sat upon the
ground, his feet and hands tightly bound, a colossal statue of
injured innocence.
Alice, as soon as she saw M. Roussillon, uttered a cry of sympathetic
endearment and flung herself toward him with open arms. She could
not reach around his great shoulders; but she did her best to
include the whole bulk.
"Papa! Papa Roussillon!" she chirruped between the kisses
that she showered upon his weather-beaten face.
Hamilton and Farnsworth regarded the scene with curious and surprised
interest. M. Roussillon began speaking rapidly; but being a Frenchman
he could not get on well with his tongue while his hands were
tied. He could shrug his shoulders; that helped him some.
"I am to be shot, MA PETITE," he pathetically growled
in his deep bass voice; "shot like a dog at sunrise to-morrow."
Alice kissed M. Roussillon's rough cheek once more and sprang
to her feet facing Hamilton.
"You are not such a fiend and brute as to kill Papa Roussillon,"
she cried. "Why do you want to injure my poor, good papa?"
"I believe you are the young lady that stole the flag?"
Hamilton remarked, smiling contemptuously.
She looked at him with a swift flash of indignation as he uttered
these words.
"I am not a thief. I could not steal what was my own. I helped
to make that flag. It was named after me. I took it because it
was mine. You understand me, Monsieur."
"Tell where it is and your father's life will be spared."
She glanced at M. Roussillon.
"No, Alice," said he, with a pathetically futile effort
to make a fine gesture, "don't do it. I am brave enough to
die. You would not have me act the coward."
No onlooker would have even remotely suspected the fact that M.
Roussillon had chanced to overhear a conversation between Hamilton
and Farnsworth, in which Hamilton stated that he really did not
intend to hurt M. Roussillon in any event; he merely purposed
to humiliate the "big wind-bag!"
"Ah, no; let me die bravely for honor's sake--I fear death
far less than dishonor! They can shoot me, my little one, but
they cannot break my proud spirit." He tried to strike his
breast over his heart.
"Perhaps it would be just as well to let him be shot,"
said Hamilton gruffly, and with dry indifference. "I don't
fancy that he's of much value to the community at best. He'll
make a good target for a squad, and we need an example."
"Do you mean it?--you ugly English brute--would you murder
him?" she stamped her foot.
"Not if I get that flag between now and sundown. Otherwise
I shall certainly have him shot. It is all in your hands, Mademoiselle.
You can tell me where the flag is." Hamilton smiled again
with exquisite cruelty.
Farnsworth stood by gazing upon Alice in open admiration. Her
presence had power in it, to which he was very susceptible.
"You look like a low, dishonorable, soulless tyrant,"
she said to Hamilton, "and if you get my flag, how shall
I know that you will keep your promise and let Papa Roussillon
go free?"
"I am sorry to say that you will have to trust me, unless
you'll take Captain Farnsworth for security. The Captain is a
gentleman, I assure you. Will you stand good for my veracity and
sincerity, Captain Farnsworth?"
The young man smiled and bowed.
Alice felt the irony; and her perfectly frank nature preferred
to trust rather than distrust the sincerity of others. She looked
at Farnsworth, who smiled encouragingly.
"The flag is under Father Beret's floor," she said.
"Under the church floor?"
"No, under the floor of his house."
"Where is his house?"
She gave full directions how to reach it.
"Untie the prisoner," Hamilton ordered, and it was quickly
done. "Monsieur Roussillon, I congratulate you upon your
narrow escape. Go to the priest's house, Monsieur, and bring me
that flag. It would be well, I assure you, not to be very long
about it. Captain Farnsworth, you will send a guard with Monsieur
Roussillon, a guard of honor, fitting his official dignity, a
Corporal and two men. The honorable Mayor of this important city
should not go alone upon so important an errand. He must have
his attendants."
"Permit me to go myself and get it," said Alice, "I
can do it quickly. May I, please, Monsieur?"
Hamilton looked sharply at her.
"Why, certainly, Mademoiselle, certainly. Captain Farnsworth,
you will escort the young lady."
"It is not necessary, Monsieur."
"Oh, yes, it is necessary, my dear young lady, very necessary;
so let's not have further words. I'll try to entertain his honor,
the Mayor, while you go and get the flag. I feel sure, Mademoiselle,
that you'll return with it in a few minutes. But you must not
go alone."
Alice set forth immediately, and Farnsworth, try as hard as he
would, could never reach her side, so swift was her gait.
When they arrived at Father Beret's cabin, she turned and said
with imperious severity:
"Don't you come in; you stay out here: I'll get it in a minute."
Farnsworth obeyed her command.
The door was wide open, but Father Beret was not inside; he had
gone to see a sick child in the outskirts of the village. Alice
looked about and hesitated. She knew the very puncheon that covered
the flag; but she shrank from lifting it. There seemed nothing
else to do, however; so, after some trouble with herself, she
knelt upon the floor and turned the heavy slab over with a great
thump. The flag did not appear. She peeped under the other puncheons.
It was not there. The only thing visible was a little ball of
paper fragments not larger than an egg.
Farnsworth heard her utter a low cry of surprise or dismay, and
was on the point of going in when Father Beret, coming around
the corner of the cabin, confronted him. The meeting was so sudden
and unexpected that both men recoiled slightly, and then, with
a mutual stare, saluted.
"I came with a young lady to get the flag," said Farnsworth.
"She is inside. I hope there is no serious intrusion. She
says the flag is hidden under your floor."
Father Beret said nothing, but frowning as if much annoyed, stepped
through the doorway to Alice's side, and stooping where she knelt,
laid a hand on her shoulder as she glanced up and recognized him.
"What are you doing, my child?"
"Oh, Father, where is the flag?" It was all that she
could say. "Where is the flag?"
"Why, isn't it there?"
"No, you see it isn't there! Where is it?"
The priest stood as if dumfounded, gazing into the vacant space
uncovered by the puncheon.
"Is it gone? Has some one taken it away?"
They turned up all the floor to no avail. La banniere d'Alice
Roussillon had disappeared, and Captain Farnsworth went forthwith
to report the fact to his commander. When he reached the shed
at the angle of the fort he found Governor Hamilton sitting stupid
and dazed on the ground. One jaw was inflamed and swollen and
an eye was half closed and bloodshot. He turned his head with
a painful, irregular motion and his chin sagged.
Farnsworth sprang to him and lifted him to his feet; but he could
scarcely stand. He licked his lips clumsily.
"What is the matter? What hurt you?"
The Governor rubbed his forehead trying to recollect.
"He struck me," he presently said with difficulty. "He
hit me with his fist Where--where is he?"
"Who?"
"That big French idiot--that Roussillon--go after him, take
him, shoot him--quick! I have been stunned; I don't know how long
he's been gone. Give the alarm--do something!"
Hamilton, as he gathered his wits together, began to foam with
rage, and his passion gave his bruised and swollen face a terrible
look.
The story was short, and may be quickly told. M. Roussillon had
taken advantage of the first moment when he and Hamilton were
left alone. One herculean buffet, a swinging smash of his enormous
fist on the point of the Governors jaw, and then he walked out
of the fort unchallenged, doubtless on account of his lordly and
masterful air.
"Ziff!" he exclaimed, shaking himself and lifting his
shoulders, when he had passed beyond hearing of the sentinel at
the gate, "ziff! I can punch a good stiff stroke yet, Monsieur
le Gouverneur. Ah, ziff!" and he blew like a porpoise.
Every effort was promptly made to recapture M. Roussillon; but
his disappearance was absolute; even the reward offered for his
scalp by Hamilton only gave the Indians great trouble--they could
not find the man.
Such a beginning of his administration of affairs at Vincennes
did not put Hamilton into a good humor. He was overbearing and
irascible at best, and under the irritation of small but exceedingly
unpleasant experiences he made life well-nigh unendurable to those
upon whom his dislike chanced to fall. Beverley quickly felt that
it was going to be very difficult for him and Hamilton to get
along agreeably. With Helm it was quite different; smoking, drinking,
playing cards, telling good stories-- in a word, rude and not
unfrequently boisterous conviviality drew him and the commandant
together.
Under Captain Farnsworth's immediate supervision the fort was
soon in excellent repair and a large blockhouse and comfortable
quarters for the men were built. Every day added to the strength
of the works and to the importance of the post as a strategic
position for the advance guard of the British army.
Hamilton was ambitious to prove himself conspicuously valuable
to his country. He was dreaming vast dreams and laying large plans.
The Indians were soon anxious to gain his favor; and to bind them
securely to him he offered liberal pay in rum and firearms, blankets,
trinkets and ammunition for the scalps of rebels. He kept this
as secret as possible from his prisoners; but Beverley soon suspected
that a "traffic in hair," as the terrible business had
been named, was going on. Savages came in from far away with scalps
yet scarcely dry dangling at their belts. It made the young Virginian's
blood chill in his heart, and he regretted that he had given Hamilton
his parole of honor not to attempt to escape.
Among the Indians occasionally reporting to Hamilton with their
ghastly but valuable trophies was Long-Hair, who slipped into
the fort and out again rather warily, not having much confidence
in those Frenchmen who had once upon a time given him a memorable
run for his life.
Winter shut down, not cold, but damp, changeable, raw. The work
on the fort was nearly completed, and Rene de Ronville would have
soon been relieved of his servile and exasperating employment
under the Irish Corporal; but just at the point of time when only
a few days' work remained for him, he became furious, on account
of an insulting remark, and struck the Corporal over the head
with a handspike. This happened in a wood some miles from town,
where he was loading logs upon a sled. There chanced to be no
third person present when the deed was done, and some hours passed
before they found the officer quite cold and stiff beside the
sled. His head was crushed to a pulp.
Hamilton, now thoroughly exasperated, began to look upon the French
inhabitants of Vincennes as all like M. Roussillon and Rene, but
waiting for an opportunity to strike him unawares. He increased
his military vigilance, ordered the town patrolled day and night,
and forbade public gatherings of the citizens, while at the same
time he forced them to furnish him a large amount of provisions.
When little Adrienne Bourcier heard of Renews terrible act, followed
by his successful escape to the woods, and of the tempting reward
offered by Hamilton for his scalp, she ran to Roussillon place
well-nigh crazed with excitement. She had always depended upon
Alice for advice, encouragement and comfort in her troubles; but
in the present case there was not much that her friend could do
to cheer her. With M. Roussillon and Rene both fugitives, tracked
by wily savages, a price on their heads, while every day added
new dangers to the French inhabitants of Vincennes, no rosy view
could possibly be taken of the situation. Alice did her best,
however, to strengthen her little friend's faith in a happy outcome.
She quoted what she considered unimpeachable authority to support
her optimistic argument.
"Lieutenant Beverley says that the Americans will be sure
to drive Hamilton out of Vincennes, or capture him. Probably they
are not so very far away now, and Rene may join them and come
back to help punish these brutal Englishmen. Don't you wish he
would, Adrienne? Wouldn't it be romantic?"
"He's armed, I know that," said Adrienne, brightening
a little, "and he's brave, Alice, brave as can be. He came
right back into town the other night and got his gun and pistols.
He was at our house, too, and, oh!--"
She burst out crying again. "O Alice! It breaks my heart
to think that the Indians will kill him. Do you think they will
kill him, Alice?"
"He'll come nearer killing them," said Alice confidently,
with her strong, warm arms around the tiny lass; "he's a
good woodsman, a fine shot--he's not so easy to kill, my dear.
If he and Papa Roussillon should get together by chance they would
be a match for all the Indians in the country. Anyway, I feel
that it's much better for them to take their chances in the woods
than to be in the hands of Governor Hamilton. If I were a man
I'd do just as Papa Roussillon and Rene did; I'd break the bigoted
head of every Englishman that mistreated me, I'll do it, girl
as I am, if they annoy me, see if I don't!"
She was thinking of Captain Farnsworth, who had been from the
first untiring in his efforts to gain something more than a passing
acquaintance. As yet he had not made himself unbearable; but Alice's
fine intuition led her to the conclusion that she must guard against
him from the outset.
Adrienne's simple heart could not grasp the romantic criterion
with which Alice was wont to measure action. Her mind was single,
impulsive, narrow and direct in all its movements. She loved,
hated, desired, caressed, repulsed, not for any assignable reason
more solid or more luminous than "because." She adored
Rene and wanted him near her. He was a hero in her imagination,
no matter what he did. Little difference was it to her whether
he hauled logs for the English or smoked his pipe in idleness
by the winter fire--what could it matter which flag he served
under, so that he was true to her? Or whom he served if she could
always have him coming to see her and calling her his little pet?
He might crush an Irish Corporal's head every day, if he would
but stroke her hair and say: "My sweet little one."
"Why couldn't he be quiet and do as your man, Lieutenant
Beverley, did?" she cried in a sudden change of mood, the
tears streaming down her cheeks. "Lieutenant Beverley surrendered
and took the consequences. He didn't kill somebody and run off
to be hunted like a bear. No wonder you're happy, Alice; I'd be
happy, too, if Rene were here and came to spend half of every
day with me. I--"
"Why, what a silly girl you are!" Alice exclaimed, her
face reddening prettily. "How foolishly you prattle! I'm
sure I don't trouble myself about Lieutenant Beverley--what put
such absurd nonsense into your head, Adrienne?"
"Because, that's what, and you know it's so, too. You love
him just as much as I love Rene, and that's just all the love
in the world, and you needn't deny it, Alice Roussillon!"
Alice laughed and hugged the wee, brown-faced mite of a girl until
she almost smothered her.
It was growing dusk when Adrienne left Roussillon place to go
home. The wind cut icily across the commons and moaned as it whirled
around the cabins and cattle-sheds. She ran briskly, muffled in
a wrap, partly through fear and partly to keep warm, and had gone
two-thirds of her way when she was brought to an abrupt stop by
the arms of a man. She screamed sharply, and Father Beret, who
was coming out of a cabin not far away, heard and knew the voice.
"Ho-ho, my little lady!" cried Adrienne's captor in
a breezy, jocund tone, "you wouldn't run over a fellow, would
you?" The words were French, but the voice was that of Captain
Farnsworth, who laughed while he spoke. "You jump like a
rabbit, my darling! Why, what a lively little chick of a girl
it is!"
Adrienne screamed and struggled recklessly.
"Now don't rouse up the town," coaxed the Captain. He
was just drunk enough to be quite a fool, yet sufficiently sober
to imagine himself the most proper person in the world. "I
don't mean you any harm, Mademoiselle; I'll just see you safe
home, you know; 'scort you to your residence; come on, now--that's
a good girl."
Father Beret hurried to the spot, and when in the deepening gloom
he saw Adrienne flinging herself violently this way and that,
helplessly trying to escape from the clasp of a man, he did to
perfection what a priest is supposed to be the least fitted to
do. Indeed, considering his age and leaving his vocation out of
the reckoning, his performance was amazing. It is not certain
that the blow dealt upon Governor Hamilton's jaw by M. Roussillon
was a stiffer one than that sent straight from the priest's shoulder
right into the short ribs of Captain Farnsworth, who there-upon
released a mighty grunt and doubled himself up.
Adrienne recognized her assailant at the first and used his name
freely during the struggle. When Father Beret appeared she cried
out to him--
"Oh, Father--Father Beret! help me! help me!"
When Farnsworth recovered from the breath-expelling shock of the
jab in his side and got himself once more in a vertical position,
both girl and priest were gone. He looked this way and that, rapidly
becoming sober, and beginning to wonder how the thing could have
happened so easily. His ribs felt as if they had been hit with
a heavy hammer.
"By Jove!" he muttered all to himself, "the old
prayer-singing heathen! By Jove!" And with this very brilliant
and relevant observation he rubbed his sore side and went his
way to the fort.
CHAPTER XI
A SWORD AND A HORSE PISTOL
We hear much about the "days that tried men's souls";
but what about the souls of women in those same days? Sitting
in the liberal geniality of the nineteenth century's sunset glow,
we insist upon having our grumble at the times and the manners
of our generation; but if we had to exchange places, periods and
experiences with the people who lived in America through the last
quarter of the eighteenth century, there would be good ground
for despairing ululations. And if our men could not bear it, if
it would try their souls too poignantly, let us imagine the effect
upon our women. No, let us not imagine it; but rather let us give
full credit to the heroic souls of the mothers and the maidens
who did actually bear up in the center of that terrible struggle
and unflinchingly help win for us not only freedom, but the vast
empire which at this moment is at once the master of the world
and the model toward which all the nations of the earth are slowly
but surely tending.
If Alice was an extraordinary girl, she was not aware of it; nor
had she ever understood that her life was being shaped by extraordinary
conditions. Of course it could not but be plain to her that she
knew more and felt more than the girls of her narrow acquaintance;
that her accomplishments were greater; that she nursed splendid
dreams of which they could have no proper comprehension, but until
now she had never even dimly realized that she was probably capable
of being something more than a mere creole lass, the foster daughter
of Gaspard Roussillon, trader in pelts and furs. Even her most
romantic visions had never taken the form of personal desire,
or ambition in its most nebulous stage; they had simply pleased
her fresh and natural fancy and served to gild the hardness and
crudeness of her life,--that was all.
Her experiences had been almost too terrible for belief, viewed
at our distance from them; she had passed through scenes of incredible
horror and suffering, but her nature had not been chilled, stunted
or hardened. In body and in temper her development had been sound
and beautiful. It was even thus that our great-grandmothers triumphed
over adversity, hardship, indescribable danger. We cannot say
that the strong, lithe, happy- hearted Alice of old Vincennes
was the only one of her kind. Few of us who have inherited the
faded portraits of our revolutionary forbears can doubt that beauty,
wit and great lovableness flourished in the cabins of pioneers
all the way from the Edisto to the Licking, from the Connecticut
to the Wabash.
Beverley's advent could not fail to mean a great deal in the life
of a girl like Alice; a new era, as it were, would naturally begin
for her the moment that his personal influence touched her imagination;
but it is well not to measure her too strictly by the standard
of our present taste and the specialized forms of our social and
moral code. She was a true child of the wilderness, a girl who
grew, as the wild prairie rose grew, not on account of innumerable
exigencies, accidents and hardships, but in spite of them. She
had blushed unseen, and had wasted divine sweets upon a more than
desert air. But when Beverley came near her, at first carelessly
droning his masculine monotonies, as the wandering bee to the
lonely and lovely rose, and presently striking her soul as with
the wings of Love, there fell a change into her heart of hearts,
and lo! her haunting and elusive dreams began to condense and
take on forms that startled her with their wonderful splendor
and beauty. These she saw all the time, sleeping or waking; they
made bright summer of the frozen stream and snapping gale, the
snowdrifts and the sleet. In her brave young heart, swelled the
ineffable song--the music never yet caught by syrinx or flute
or violin, the words no tongue can speak.
Ah, here may be the secret of that vigorous, brave, sweet life
of our pioneer maids, wives, and mothers. It was love that gave
those tender hearts the iron strength and heroic persistence at
which the world must forever wonder. And do we appreciate those
women? Let the Old World boast its crowned kings, its mailed knights,
its ladies of the court and castle; but we of the New World, we
of the powerful West, let us brim our cups with the wine of undying
devotion, and drink to the memory of the Women of the Revolution,
--to the humble but good and marvelously brave and faithful women
like those of old Vincennes.
But if Alice was being radically influenced by Beverley, he in
turn found a new light suffusing his nature, and he was not unaware
that it came out of her eyes, her face, her smiles, her voice,
her soul. It was the old, well-known, inexplicable, mutual magnetism,
which from the first has been the same on the highest mountain-top
and in the lowest valley. The queen and the milkmaid, the king
and the hind may come together only to find the king walking off
with the lowly beauty and her fragrant pail, while away stalks
the lusty rustic, to be lord and master of the queen. Love is
love, and it thrives in all climes, under all conditions.
There is an inevitable and curious protest that comes up unbidden
between lovers; it takes many forms in accordance with particular
circumstances. It is the demand for equality and perfection. Love
itself is without degrees--it is perfect--but when shall it see
the perfect object? It does see it, and it does not see it, in
every beloved being. Beverley found his mind turning, as on a
pivot, round and round upon the thought that Alice might be impossible
to him. The mystery of her life seemed to force her below the
line of his aristocratic vision, so that he could not fairly consider
her, and yet with all his heart he loved her. Alice, on the other
hand, had her bookish ideal to reckon with, despite the fact that
she daily dashed it contemptuously down. She was different from
Adrienne Bourcier, who bewailed the absence of her un-tamable
lover; she wished that Beverley had not, as she somehow viewed
it, weakly surrendered to Hamilton. His apparently complacent
acceptance of idle captivity did not comport with her dream of
knighthood and heroism. She had been all the time half expecting
him to do something that would stamp him a hero.
Counter protests of this sort are never sufficiently vigorous
to take a fall out of Love; they merely serve to worry his temper
by lightly hindering his feet. And it is surprising how Love does
delight himself with being entangled.
Both Beverley and Alice day by day felt the cord tightening which
drew their hearts together--each acknowledged it secretly, but
strove not to evince it openly. Meantime both were as happy and
as restlessly dissatisfied as love and uncertainty could make
them.
Amid the activities in which Hamilton was engaged--his dealings
with the Indians and the work of reconstructing the fort--he found
time to worry his temper about the purloined flag. Like every
other man in the world, he was superstitious, and it had come
into his head that to insure himself and his plans against disaster,
he must have the banner of his captives as a badge of his victory.
It was a small matter; but it magnified itself as he dwelt upon
it. He suspected that Alice had deceived him. He sharply questioned
Father Beret, only to be half convinced that the good priest told
the truth when he said that he knew nothing whatever on the subject
beyond the fact that the banner had mysteriously disappeared from
under his floor.
Captain Farnsworth scarcely sympathized with his chief about the
flag, but he was nothing if not anxious to gain Hamilton's highest
confidence. His military zeal knew no bounds, and he never let
pass even the slightest opportunity to show it. Hence his persistent
search for a clue to the missing banner. He was no respecter of
persons. He frankly suspected both Alice and Father Beret of lying.
He would himself have lied under the existing circumstances, and
he considered himself as truthful and trustworthy as priest or
maiden.
"I'll get that flag for you," he said to Hamilton, "if
I have to put every man, woman and child in this town on the rack.
It lies, I think, between Miss Roussillon and the priest, although
both insistently deny it. I've thought it over in every way, and
I can't see how they can both be ignorant of where it is, or at
least who got it."
Hamilton, since being treated to that wonderful blow on the jaw,
was apt to fall into a spasm of anger whenever the name Roussillon
was spoken in his hearing. Involuntarily he would put his hand
to his cheek, and grimace reminiscently.
"If it's that girl, make her tell," he savagely commanded.
"Let's have no trifling about it. If it's the priest, then
make him tell, or tie him up by the thumbs. Get that flag, or
show some good reason for your failure. I'm not going to be baffled."
The Captain's adventure with Father Beret came just in time to
make it count against that courageous and bellicose missionary
in more ways than one. Farnsworth did not tell Hamilton or any
other person about what the priest had done to him, but nursed
his sore ribs and his wrath, waiting patiently for the revenge
that he meant soon to take.
Alice heard from Adrienne the story of Farnsworth's conduct and
his humiliating discomfiture at the hands of Father Beret. She
was both indignant and delighted, sympathizing with Adrienne and
glorying in the priest's vigorous pugilistic achievement.
"Well," she remarked, with one of her infectious trills
of laughter, "so far the French have the best of it, anyway!
Papa Roussillon knocked the Governor's cheek nearly off, then
Rene cracked the Irish Corporal's head, and now Father Beret has
taught Captain Farnsworth a lesson in fisticuffs that he'll not
soon forget! If the good work can only go on a little longer we
shall see every English soldier in Vincennes wearing the mark
of a Frenchman's blow." Then her mood suddenly changed from
smiling lightness to almost fierce gravity, and she added:
"Adrienne Bourcier, if Captain Farnsworth ever offers to
treat me as he did you, mark my words, I'll kill him--kill him,
indeed I will! You ought to see me!"
"But he won't dare touch you," said Adrienne, looking
at her friend with round, admiring eyes. "He knows very well
that you are not little and timid like me. He'd be afraid of you."
"I wish he would try it. How I would love to shoot him into
pieces, the hateful wretch! I wish he would."
The French inhabitants all, or nearly all, felt as Alice did;
but at present they were helpless and dared not say or do anything
against the English. Nor was this feeling confined to the Creoles
of Vincennes; it had spread to most of the points where trading
posts existed. Hamilton found this out too late to mend some of
his mistakes; but he set himself on the alert and organized scouting
bodies of Indians under white officers to keep him informed as
to the American movements in Kentucky and along the Ohio. One
of these bands brought in as captive Colonel Francis Vigo, of
St. Louis, a Spaniard by birth, an American by adoption, a patriot
to the core, who had large influence over both Indians and Creoles
in the Illinois country.
Colonel Vigo was not long held a prisoner. Hamilton dared not
exasperate the Creoles beyond their endurance, for he knew that
the savages would closely sympathize with their friends of long
standing, and this might lead to revolt and coalition against
him,--a very dangerous possibility. Indeed, at least one of the
great Indian chieftains had already frankly informed him that
he and his tribe were loyal to the Americans. Here was a dilemma
requiring consummate diplomacy. Hamilton saw it, but he was not
of a diplomatic temper or character. With the Indians he used
a demoralizing system of bribery, while toward the whites he was
too often gruff, imperious, repellant. Helm understood the whole
situation and was quick to take advantage of it. His personal
relations with Hamilton were easy and familiar, so that he did
not hesitate to give advice upon all occasions. Here his jovial
disposition helped him.
"You'd better let Vigo return to St. Louis," he said.
They had a bowl of something hot steaming between them. "I
know him. He's harmless if you don't rub him too hard the wrong
way. He'll go back, if you treat him well, and tell Clark how
strong you are here and how foolish it would be to think of attacking
you. Clark has but a handful of men, poorly supplied and tired
with long, hard marches. If you'll think a moment you cannot fail
to understand that you'd better be friends with this man Vigo.
He and Father Gibault and this old priest here, Beret, carry these
Frenchmen in their pockets. I'm not on your side, understand,
I'm an American, and I'd blow the whole of you to kingdom come
in a minute, if I could; but common sense is common sense all
the same. There's no good to you and no harm to Clark in mistreating,
or even holding this prisoner. What harm can he do you by going
back to Clark and telling him the whole truth? Clark knew everything
long before Vigo reached here. Old Jazon, my best scout, left
here the day you took possession, and you may bet he got to Kaskaskia
in short order. He never fails. But he'll tell Clark to stay where
he is, and Vigo can do no more."
What effect Helm's bold and apparently artless talk had upon Hamilton's
mind is not recorded; but the meager historical facts at command
show that Vigo was released and permitted to return under promise
that he would give no information to the enemy ON HIS WAY to Kaskaskia.
Doubtless this bit of careless diplomacy on the Governor's part
did have a somewhat soothing effect upon a large class of Frenchmen
at Vincennes; but Farnsworth quickly neutralized it to a serious
extent by a foolish act while slightly under the influence of
liquor.
He met Father Beret near Roussillon place, and feeling his ribs
squirm at sight of the priest, he accosted him insolently, demanding
information as to the whereabouts of the missing flag.
A priest may be good and true--Father Beret certainly was--and
yet have the strongest characteristics of a worldly man. This
thing of being bullied day after day, as had recently been the
rule, generated nothing to aid in removing a refractory desire
from the priest's heart--the worldly desire to repeat with great
increment of force the punch against Famsworth's lower ribs.
"I order you, sir, to produce that rebel flag," said
Farnsworth. "You will obey forthwith or take the consequences.
I am no longer in the humor to be trifled with. Do you understand?"
"I might be forced to obey you, if I could," said the
priest, drawing his robe about him; "but, as I have often
told you, my son, I do not know where the flag is or who took
it. I do not even suspect any person of taking it. All that I
know about it is the simple fact that it is gone."
Father Beret's manner and voice were very mild, but there must
have been a hint of sturdy defiance somewhere in them. At all
events Farnsworth was exasperated and fell into a white rage.
Perhaps it was the liquor he had been drinking that made him suddenly
desperate.
"You canting old fool!" he cried, "don't lie to
me any longer; I won't have it. Don't stand there grinning at
me. Get that flag, or I'll make you."
"What is impossible, my son, is possible to God alone. Apud
homines hoc impossible est, apud Deum autem omnia possibilia sunt."
"None of your Jesuit Latin or logic to me--I am not here
to argue, but to command. Get that flag. Be in a hurry about it,
sir."
He whipped out his sword, and in his half drunken eyes there gathered
the dull film of murderous passion.
"Put up your weapon, Captain; you will not attack an unarmed
priest. You are a soldier, and will not dare strike an old, defenceless
man."
"But I will strike a black-robed and black-hearted French
rebel. Get that flag, you grinning fool!"
The two men stood facing each other. Father Beret's eyes did not
stir from their direct, fearless gaze. What Farnsworth had called
a grin was a peculiar smile, not of merriment, a grayish flicker
and a slight backward wrinkling of the cheeks. The old man's arms
were loosely crossed upon his sturdy breast.
"Strike if you must," he said very gently, very firmly.
"I never yet have seen the man that could make me afraid."
His speech was slightly sing-song in tone, as it would have been
during a prayer or a blessing.
"Get the flag then!" raged Farnsworth, in whose veins
the heat of liquor was aided by an unreasoning choler.
"I cannot," said Father Beret.
"Then take the consequences!"
Farnsworth lifted his sword, not to thrust, but to strike with
its flat side, and down it flashed with a noisy whack. Father
Beret flung out an arm and deftly turned the blow aside. It was
done so easily that Farnsworth sprang back glaring and surprised.
"You old fool!" he cried, leveling his weapon for a
direct lunge. "You devilish hypocrite!"
It was then that Father Beret turned deadly pale and swiftly crossed
himself. His face looked as if he saw something startling just
beyond his adversary. Possibly this sudden change of expression
caused Farnsworth to hesitate for a mere point of time. Then there
was the swish of a woman's skirts; a light step pattered on the
frozen ground, and Alice sprang between the men, facing Farnsworth.
As she did this something small and yellow,-- the locket at her
throat,--fell and rolled under her feet. Nobody saw it.
In her hand she held an immense horse pistol, which she leveled
in the Captain's face, its flaring, bugle-shaped muzzle gaping
not a yard from his nose. The heavy tube was as steady as if in
a vise.
"Drop that sword!"
That was all she said; but her finger was pressing the trigger,
and the flint in the backward slanting hammer was ready to click
against the steel. The leaden slugs were on the point of leaping
forth.
"Drop that sword!"
The repetition seemed to close the opportunity for delay.
Farnsworth was on his guard in a twinkling. He set his jaw and
uttered an ugly oath; then quick as lightning he struck sidewise
at the pistol with his blade. It was a move which might have taken
a less alert person than Alice unawares; but her training in sword-play
was ready in her wrist and hand. An involuntary turn, the slightest
imaginable, set the heavy barrel of her weapon strongly against
the blow, partly stopping it, and then the gaping muzzle spat
its load of balls and slugs with a bellow that awoke the drowsy
old village.
Farnsworth staggered backward, letting fall his sword. There was
a rent in the clothing of his left shoulder. He reeled; the blood
spun out; but he did not fall, although he grew white.
Alice stood gazing at him with a look on her face he would never
forget. It was a look that changed by wonderful swift gradations
from terrible hate to something like sweet pity. The instant she
saw him hurt and bleeding, his countenance relaxing and pale,
her heart failed her. She took a step toward him, her hand opened,
and with a thud the heavy old pistol fell upon the ground beside
her.
Father Beret sprang nimbly to sustain Farnsworth, snatching up
the pistol as he passed around Alice.
"You are hurt, my son," he gently said, "let me
help you." He passed his arm firmly under that of Farnsworth,
seeing that the Captain was unsteady on his feet.
"Lean upon me. Come with me, Alice, my child, I will take
him into the house."
Alice picked up the Captain's sword and led the way.
It was all done so quickly that Farnsworth, in his half dazed
condition, scarcely realized what was going on until he found
himself on a couch in the Roussillon home, his wound (a jagged
furrow plowed out by slugs that the sword's blade had first intercepted)
neatly dressed and bandaged, while Alice and the priest hovered
over him busy with their careful ministrations.
Hamilton and Helm were, as usual, playing cards at the former's
quarters when a guard announced that Mademoiselle Roussillon wished
an audience with the Governor.
"Bring the girl in," said Hamilton, throwing down his
cards and scowling darkly.
"Now you'd better be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove,"
remarked Helm. "There is something up, and that gun-shot
we heard awhile ago may have a good deal to do with it. At any
rate, you'll find kindness your best card to play with Alice Roussillon
just at the present stage of the game."
Of course they knew nothing of what had happened to Farnsworth;
but they had been discussing the strained relations between the
garrison and the French inhabitants when the roar of Alice's big-
mouthed pistol startled them. Helm was slyly beating about to
try to make Hamilton lose sight of the danger from Clark's direction.
To do this he artfully magnified the insidious work that might
be done by the French and their Indian friends should they be
driven to desperation by oppressive or exasperating action on
the part of the English.
Hamilton felt the dangerous uncertainty upon which the situation
rested; but, like many another vigorously self-reliant man, he
could not subordinate his passions to the dictates of policy.
When Alice was conducted into his presence he instantly swelled
with anger. It was her father who had struck him and escaped,
it was she who had carried off the rebel flag at the moment of
victory.
"Well, Miss, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"
he demanded with a supercilious air, bending a card between his
thumb and finger on the rude table.
She stood before him tall and straight, well bundled in furs.
She was not pale; her blood was too rich and brilliant for that;
but despite a half-smile and the inextinguishable dimples, there
was a touch of something appealingly pathetic in the lines of
her mouth. She did not waver or hesitate, however, but spoke promptly
and distinctly.
"I have come, Monsieur, to tell you that I have hurt Captain
Farnsworth. He was about to kill Father Beret, and I shot him.
He is in our house and well cared for. I don't think his wound
is bad. And--" here she hesitated at last and let her gaze
fall,--"so here I am." Then she lifted her eyes again
and made an inimitable French gesture with her shoulders and arms.
"You will do as you please, Monsieur, I am at your mercy."
Hamilton was astounded. Helm sat staring phlegmatically. Meantime
Beverley entered the room and stopped hat in hand behind Alice.
He was flushed and evidently excited; in fact, he had heard of
the trouble with Farnsworth, and seeing Alice enter the floor
of Hamilton's quarters he followed her in, his heart stirred by
no slight emotion. He met the Governor's glare and parried it
with one of equal haughtiness. The veins on his forehead swelled
and turned dark. He was in a mood to do whatever desperate act
should suggest itself.
When Hamilton fairly comprehended the message so graphically presented
by Alice, he rose from his seat by the fire.
"What's this you tell me?" he blurted. "You say
you've shot Captain Farnsworth?"
"Oui, Monsieur"
He stared a moment, then his features beamed with hate.
"And I'll have you shot for it, Miss, as sure as you stand
there in your silly impudence ogling me so brazenly!"
He leaned toward her as he spoke and sent with the words a shock
of coarse, passionate energy from which she recoiled as if expecting
a blow to follow it.
An irresistible impulse swept Beverley to Alice's side, and his
attitude was that of a protector. Helm sprang up.
A Lieutenant came in and respectfully, but with evident over-
haste, reported that Captain Farnsworth had been shot and was
at Roussillon place in care of the surgeon.
"Take this girl into custody. Confine her and put a strong
guard over her."
In giving the order Hamilton jerked his thumb contemptuously toward
Alice, and at the same time gave Beverley a look of supreme defiance
and hatred. When Helm began to speak he turned fiercely upon him
and stopped him with:
"None of your advice, sir. I have had all I want of it. Keep
your place or I'll make you."
Then to Beverley:
"Retire, sir. When I wish to see you I'll send for you. At
present you are not needed here."
The English Lieutenant saluted his commander, bowed respectfully
to Alice and said:
"Come with me, Miss, please."
Helm and Beverley exchanged a look of helpless and enquiring rage.
It was as if they had said: "What can we do? Must we bear
it?" Certainly they could do nothing. Any interference on
their part would be sure to increase Alice's danger, and at the
same time add to the weight of their own humiliation.
Alice silently followed the officer out of the room. She did not
even glance toward Beverley, who moved as if to interfere and
was promptly motioned back by the guard. His better judgement
returning held him from a rash and futile act, until Hamilton
spoke again, saying loudly as Alice passed through the door:
"I'll see who's master of this town if I have to shoot every
French hoyden in it!"
"Women and children may well fear you, Colonel Hamilton,"
said Beverley. "That young lady is your superior."
"You say that to me, sir!"
"It is the best I could possibly say of you."
"I will send you along with the wench if you do not guard
your language. A prisoner on parole has no license to be a blackguard."
"I return you my parole, sir, I shall no longer regard it
as binding," said Beverley, by a great effort, holding back
a blow; "I will not keep faith with a scoundrel who does
not know how to be decent in the presence of a young girl. You
had better have me arrested and confined. I will escape at the
first opportunity and bring a force here to reckon with you for
your villainy. And if you dare hurt Alice Roussillon I will have
you hanged like a dog!"
Hamilton looked at him scornfully, smiling as one who feels safe
in his authority and means to have his own way with his victim.
Naturally he regarded Beverley's words as the merest vaporings
of a helpless and exasperated young man. He saw very clearly that
love was having a hand in the affair, and he chuckled inwardly,
thinking what a fool Beverley was.
"I thought I ordered you to leave this room," he said
with an air and tone of lofty superiority, "and I certainly
mean to be obeyed. Go, sir, and if you attempt to escape, or in
any way break your parole, I'll have you shot."
"I have already broken it. From this moment I shall not regard
it. You have heard my statement. I shall not repeat it. Govern
yourself accordingly."
With these words Beverley turned and strode out of the house,
quite beside himself, his whole frame quivering.
Hamilton laughed derisively, then looked at Helm and said:
"Helm, I like you; I don't wish to be unkind to you; but
positively you must quit breaking in upon my affairs with your
ready-made advice. I've given you and Lieutenant Beverley too
much latitude, perhaps. If that young fool don't look sharp he'll
get himself into a beastly lot of trouble. You'd better give him
a talk. He's in a way to need it just now."
"I think so myself," said Helm, glad to get back upon
fair footing with the irascible Governor. "I'll wait until
he cools off somewhat, and then I can manage him. Leave him to
me."
"Well, come walk with me to see what has really happened
to Farnsworth. He's probably not much hurt, and deserves what
he's got. That girl has turned his head. I think I understand
the whole affair. A little love, a little wine, some foolishness,
and the wench shot him."
Helm genially assented; but they were delayed for some time by
an officer who came in to consult with Hamilton on some pressing
Indian affairs. When they reached Roussillon place they met Beverley
coming out; but he did not look at them. He was scarcely aware
of them. A little way outside the gate, on going in, he had picked
up Alice's locket and broken chain, which he mechanically put
into his pocket. It was all like a dream to him, and yet he had
a clear purpose. He was going away from Vincennes, or at least
he would try, and woe be to Hamilton on his coming back. It was
so easy for an excited young mind to plan great things and to
expect success under apparently impossible conditions. Beverley
gave Jean a note for Alice; it was this that took him to Roussillon
place; and no sooner fell the night than he shouldered a gun furnished
him by Madame Godere, and guided by the woodsman's fine craft,
stole away southward, thinking to swim the icy Wabash some miles
below, and then strike across the plains of Illinois to Kaskaskia.
It was a desperate undertaking; but in those days desperate undertakings
were rather the rule than the exception. Moreover, love was the
leader and Beverley the blind follower. Nothing could daunt him
or turn him back, until he found an army to lead against Hamilton.
It seems but a romantic burst of indignation, as we look back
at it, hopelessly foolish, with no possible end but death in the
wilderness. Still there was a method in love's madness, and Beverley,
with his superb physique, his knowledge of the wilderness and
his indomitable self-reliance, was by no means without his fighting
chance for success.
CHAPTER XII
MANON LESCAUT. AND A RAPIER-THRUST
Beverley's absence was not noticed by Hamilton until late on the
following day, and even then he scouted Helm's suggestion that
the young man was possibly carrying out his threat to disregard
his parole.
"He would be quite justified in doing it; you know that very
well," said Helm with a laugh, "and he's just the man
to undertake what is impossible. Of course, however, he'll get
scalped for his trouble, and that will cost you something, I'm
happy to say."
"It's a matter of small importance," Hamilton replied;
"but I'll wager you the next toddy that he's not at the present
moment a half-mile from this spot. He may be a fool, I readily
grant that he is, but even a fool is not going to set out alone
in this kind of weather to go to where your rebel friends are
probably toasting their shins by a fire of green logs and half
starving over yonder on the Mississippi."
"Joking aside, you are doubtless right. Beverley is hot-headed,
and if he could he'd get even with you devilish quick; but he
hasn't left Vincennes, I think. Miss Roussillon would keep him
here if the place were on fire!"
Hamilton laughed dryly. He had thought just what Helm was saying.
Beverley's attentions to Alice had not escaped his notice.
"Speaking of that girl," he remarked after a moment's
silence, "what am I do to do with her? There's no place to
keep her, and Farnsworth insists that she wasn't to blame."
He chuckled again and added:
"It's true as gospel. He's in love with her, too. Seems to
be glad she shot him. Says he's ashamed of himself for ever suspecting
her of anything but being a genuine angel. Why, he's got as flabby
as a rabbit and mumbles like a fool!"
"Same as you or I at his age," said Helm, taking a chew
of tobacco. "She IS a pretty thing. Beverley don't know his
foot from his shoulder-blade when she's anywhere near him. Boys
are boys. I'm a sort of a boy myself."
"If she'd give up that flag he'd let her go," said Hamilton.
"I hate like the devil to confine her; it looks brutal, and
makes me feel like a tyrant."
"Have you ever happened to notice the obvious fact, Governor
Hamilton, that Alice Roussillon and Father Beret are not all the
French in Vincennes?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I don't for a moment believe that either the
girl or the priest knows a thing about where that flag is. They
are both as truthful and honorable as people ever get to be. I
know them. Somebody else got that flag from under the priest's
floor. You may depend upon that. If Miss Roussillon knew where
it is she'd say so, and then dare you to make her tell where it's
hidden." "Oh, the whole devilish town is rotten with
treason; that's very clear. There's not a loyal soul in it outside
of my forces."
"Thank you for not including me among the loyalists."
"Humph, I spoke of these French people; they pretend to be
true; but I believe they are all traitors,"
"You can manage them if you try. A little jolly kindness
goes a long way with 'em. _I_ had no trouble while _I_ held the
town."
Hamilton bit his lip and was silent. Helm was exasperatingly good
tempered, and his jocularity was irresistible. While he was yet
speaking a guard came up followed by Jean, the hunchback, and
saluting said to Hamilton:
"The lad wants to see the young lady, sir."
Hamilton gazed quizzically at Jean, who planted himself in his
habitual attitude before him and stared up into his face with
the grotesque expression which seems to be characteristic of hunchbacks
and unfledged birds--the look of an embodied and hideous joke.
"Well, sir, what will you have?" the Governor demanded.
"I want to see Alice, if you please."
"What for?"
"I want to give her a book to read."
"Ah, indeed. Where is it? Let me see it"
Jean took from the breast of his loose jerkin a small volume,
dog- eared and mildewed, and handed it to Hamilton. Meantime he
stood first on one foot, then the other, gnawing his thumb-nail
and blinking rapidly.
"Well, Helm, just look here!"
"What?"
"Manon Lescaut."
"And what's that?"
"Haven't you ever read it?"
"Read what?"
"This novel--Manon Lescaut."
"Never read a novel in my life. Never expect to."
Hamilton laughed freely at Helm's expense, then turned to Jean
and gave him back the book.
It would have been quite military, had he taken the precaution
to examine between the pages for something hidden there, but he
did not.
"Go, give it to her," he said, "and tell her I
send my compliments, with great admiration of her taste in literature."
He motioned the soldier to show Jean to Alice. "It's a beastly
French story," he added, addressing Helm; "immoral enough
to make a pirate blush. That's the sort of girl Mademoiselle Roussillon
is!"
"I don't care what kind of a book she reads," blurted
Helm, "she's a fine, pure, good girl. Everybody likes her.
She's the good angel of this miserable frog-hole of a town. You'd
like her yourself, if you'd straighten up and quit burning tow
in your brain all the time. You're always so furious about something
that you never have a chance to be just to yourself, or pleasant
to anybody else."
Hamilton turned fiercely on Helm, but a glimpse of the Captain's
broad good-humored face heartily smiling, dispelled his anger.
There was no ground upon which to maintain a quarrel with a person
so persistently genial and so absurdly frank. And in fact Hamilton
was not half so bad as his choleric manifestations seemed to make
him out. Besides, Helm knew just how far to go, just when to stop.
"If I had got furious at you every time there was overwhelming
provocation for it," Hamilton said, "you'd have been
long since hanged or shot. I fancy that I have shown angelic forbearance.
I've given you somewhat more than a prisoner's freedom."
"So you have, so you have," assented Helm. "I've
often been surprised at your generous partiality in my case. Let's
have some hot water with something else in it, what do you say?
I won't give you any more advice for five minutes by your watch."
"But I want some advice at once."
"What about?"
"That girl."
"Turn her loose. That's easy and reputable."
"I'll have to, I presume; but she ought to be punished."
"If you'll think less about punishment, revenge and getting
even with everybody and everything, you'll soon begin to prosper."
Hamilton winced, but smiled as one quite sure of himself.
Jean followed the soldier to a rickety log pen on the farther
side of the stockade, where he found the prisoner restlessly moving
about like a bird in a rustic cage. It had no comforts, that gloomy
little room. There was no fireplace, the roof leaked, and the
only furniture consisted of a bench to sit on and a pile of skins
for bed. Alice looked charmingly forlorn peeping out of the wraps
in which she was bundled against the cold, her hair fluffed and
rimpled in shining disorder around her face.
The guard let Jean in and closed the door, himself staying outside.
Alice was as glad to see the poor lad as if they had been parted
for a year. She hugged him and kissed his drawn little face.
"You dear, good Jean!" she murmured, "you did not
forget me."
"I brought you something," he whispered, producing the
book.
Alice snatched it, looked at it, and then at Jean.
"Why, what did you bring this for? you silly Jean! I didn't
want this. I don't like this book at all. It's hateful. I despise
it. Take it back."
"There's something in it for you, a paper with writing on
it; Lieutenant Beverley wrote it on there. It's shut up between
the leaves about the middle."
"Sh-s-sh! not so loud, the guard'll hear you," Alice
breathlessly whispered, her whole manner changing instantly. She
was trembling, and the color had been whisked from her face, as
the flame from a candle in a sudden draught.
She found the note and read it a dozen times without a pause,
her eyes leaping along the lines back and forth with pathetic
eagerness and concentration. Presently she sat down on the bench
and covered her face with her hands. A tremor first, then a convulsive
sobbing, shook her collapsed form. Jean regarded her with a drolly
sympathetic grimace, elevating his long chin and letting his head
settle back between his shoulders.
"Oh, Jean, Jean!" she cried at last, looking up and
reaching out her arms; "O Jean, he is gone, gone, gone!"
Jean stepped closer to her while she sobbed again like a little
child.
She pulled him to her and held him tightly against her breast
while she once more read the note through blinding tears. The
words were few, but to her they bore the message of desolation
and despair. A great, haunting, hollow voice in her heart repeated
them until they echoed from vague distance to distance.
It was written with a bit of lead on the half of a mildewed fly-
leaf torn from the book:
"Dear Alice:
"I am going away. When you read this, think of me as hurrying
through the wilderness to reach our army and bring it here. Be
brave, as you always have been; be good, as you cannot help being;
wait and watch for me; love me, as I love you. I will come. Do
not doubt it, I will come, and I will crush Hamilton and his command.
Courage, Alice dear; courage, and wait for me. "Faithfully
ever, "Beverley."
She kissed the paper with passionate fervor, pouring her tears
upon it in April showers between which the light of her eyes played
almost fiercely, so poignant was her sense of a despair which
bordered upon desperation. "Gone, gone!" It was all
she could think or say. "Gone, gone."
Jean took the offending novel back home with him, hidden under
his jerkin; but Beverley's note lay upon Alice's heart, a sweet
comfort and a crushing weight, when an hour later Hamilton sent
for her and she was taken before him. Her face was stained with
tears and she looked pitifully distressed and disheveled; yet
despite all this her beauty asserted itself with subtle force.
Hamilton felt ashamed looking at her, but put on sternness and
spoke without apparent sympathy:
"Miss Roussillon, you came near committing a great crime.
As it is, you have done badly enough; but I wish not to be unreasonably
severe. I hope you are sorry for your act, and feel like doing
better hereafter."
She was trembling, but her eyes looked steadily straight into
his. They were eyes of baby innocence, yet they irradiated a strong
womanly spirit just touched with the old perverse, mischievous
light which she could neither banish nor control. When she did
not make reply, Hamilton continued:
"You may go home now, and I shall expect to have no more
trouble on your account." He made a gesture indicative of
dismissal; then, as she turned from him, he added, somewhat raising
his voice:
"And further, Miss Roussillon, that flag you took from here
must positively be returned. See that it is done."
She lifted her head high and walked away, not deigning to give
him a word.
"Humph! what do you think now of your fine young lady?"
he demanded, turning to Helm with a sneering curl of his mouth.
"She gives thanks copiously for a kindness, don't you think?"
"Poor girl, she was scared nearly out of her life,"
said Helm. "She got away from you, like a wounded bird from
a snare. I never saw a face more pitiful than hers."
"Much pity she needs, and greatly like a wounded bird she
acts, I must say; but good riddance if she'll keep her place hereafter.
I despise myself when I have to be hard with a woman, especially
a pretty one. That girl's a saucy and fascinating minx, and as
dangerous as twenty men. I'll keep a watch on her movements from
this on, and if she gets into mischief again I'll transport her
to Detroit, or give her away to the Indians, She must stop her
high- handed foolishness."
Helm saw that Hamilton was talking mere wind, VOX ET PRAETEREA
NIHIL, and he furthermore felt that his babbling signified no
harm to Alice; but Hamilton surprised him presently by saying:
"I have just learned that Lieutenant Beverley is actually
gone. Did you know of his departure?" "What are you
saying, sir?"
Helm jumped to his feet, not angry, but excited.
"Keep cool, you need not answer if you prefer silence or
evasion. You may want to go yourself soon."
Helm burst out laughing, but quickly growing serious said:
"Has Beverley been such a driveling fool as that? Are you
in earnest?"
"He killed two of my scouts, wounded another, and crossed
the Wabash in their canoe. He is going straight towards Kaskaskia."
"The idiot! Hurrah for him! If you catch your hare you may
roast him, but catch him first, Governor!"
"You'll joke out of the other corner of your mouth, Captain
Helm, if I find out that you gave him aid or countenance in breaking
his parole."
"Aid or countenance! I never saw him after he walked out
of this room. You gave him a devil of a sight more aid and countenance
than I did. What are you talking about! Broke his parole! He did
no such thing. He returned it to you fairly, as you well know.
He told you he was going."
"Well, I've sent twenty of my swiftest Indians after him
to bring him back. I'll let you see him shot. That ought to please
you."
"They'll never get him, Governor. I'll bet high on him against
your twenty scalp-lifters any day. Fitzhugh Beverley is the best
Indian fighter, Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton excepted, in the
American colonies."
On her way home Alice met Father Beret, who turned and walked
beside her. He was so overjoyed at her release that he could scarcely
speak; but held her hand and stroked it gently while she told
him her story. It was beginning to rain, a steady, cold shower,
when they reached the house, and for many days and nights thereafter
the downfall continued almost incessantly.
"Dear child," said Father Beret, stopping at the gate
and looking beseechingly into Alice's face, "you must stay
at home now--stay in the house--it will be horribly dangerous
for you to pass about in the village after your--after what has
happened."
"Do not fear, Father, I will be careful. Aren't you coming
in? I'll find you a cake and a glass of wine."
"No, child, not now."
"Then good-bye, good-bye," she said, turning from him
to run into the house. "Come soon, I shall be so lonesome."
On the veranda she suddenly stopped, running her fingers about
her neck and into her bosom.
"Oh, Father, Father Beret, I've lost my locket!" she
cried. "See if I dropped it there."
She went back to the gate, searching the ground with her eyes.
Of course she did not find the locket. It was miles and miles
away close to the heart of her lover. If she could but have known
this, it would have comforted her. Beverley had intended to leave
it with Jean, but in his haste and excitement he forgot; writing
the note distracted his attention; and so he bore Alice's picture
on his breast and in his heart while pursuing his long and perilous
journey.
Four of Hamilton's scouts came upon Beverley twenty miles south
of Vincennes, but having the advantage of them, he killed two
almost immediately, and after a running fight, the other two attempted
escape in a canoe on the Wabash. Here, firing from a bluff, he
wounded a third. Both then plunged head-foremost into the water,
and by keeping below the surface, got away. The adventure gave
Beverley new spirit and self-reliance; he felt that he could accomplish
anything necessary to his undertaking. In the captured pirogue
he crossed the river, and, to make his trail hard to find, sent
the little craft adrift down the current.
Then alone, in the dead of winter, he took his bearings and struck
across the dreary, houseless plain toward St. Louis.
As soon as Hamilton's discomfited scouts reported to him, he sent
Long-Hair with twenty picked savages, armed and supplied for continuous
and rapid marching, in pursuit of Beverley. There was a large
reward for bringing him in alive, a smaller one for his scalp.
When Alice heard of all this, her buoyant and happy nature seemed
entirely to desert her for a time. She was proud to find out that
Beverley had shown himself brave and capable; it touched her love
of heroism; but she knew too much about Indian warfare to hope
that he could hold his own against Long-Hair, the wiliest and
boldest of scalp-hunters, and twenty of the most experienced braves
in Hamilton's forces. He would almost certainly be killed and
scalped, or captured and brought back to be shot or hanged in
Vincennes. The thought chilled and curdled her blood.
Both Helm and Father Beret tried to encourage and comfort her
by representing the probabilities in the fairest light.
"It's like hunting for a needle in a haystack, going out
to find a man in that wilderness," said Helm with optimistic
cheerfulness; "and besides Beverley is no easy dose for twenty
red niggers to take. I've seen him tried at worse odds than that,
and he got out with a whole skin, too. Don't you fret about him,
Miss Roussillon."
Little help came to her from attempts of this sort. She might
brighten up for a while, but the dark dread, and the terrible
gnawing at her heart, the sinking and despairing in her soul,
could not be cured.
What added immeasurably to her distress was the attention of Farnsworth,
whose wound troubled him but a short time. He seemed to have had
a revelation and a change of spirit since the unfortunate rencounter
and the subsequent nursing at Alice's hands. He was grave, earnest,
kindly, evidently striving to play a gentle and honorable part.
She could feel that he carried a load of regret, that he wanted
to pay a full price in good for the evil that he had done; his
sturdy English heart was righting itself nobly, yet she but half
understood him, until his actions and words began to betray his
love; and then she hated him unreasonably. Realizing this, Farnsworth
bore himself more like a faithful dog than in the manner hitherto
habitual to him. He simply shadowed Alice and would not be rebuffed.
There can be nothing more painful to a finely sympathetic nature
than regret for having done a kindness. Alice experienced this
to the fullest degree. She had nursed Farnsworth but a little
while, yet it was a while of sweet influence. Her tender woman
nature felt the blessedness of doing good to her enemy lying helpless
in her house and hurt by her own hand. But now she hated the man,
and with all her soul she was sorry that she had been kind to
him; for out of her kindness he had drawn the spell of a love
under which he lived a new life, and all for her. Yet deep down
in her consciousness the pity and the pathos of the thing hovered
gloomily and would not be driven out.
The rain in mid-winter gave every prospect a sad, cold, sodden
gray appearance. The ground was soaked, little rills ran in the
narrow streets, the small streams became great rivers, the Wabash
overflowed its banks and made a sea of all the lowlands on either
side. It was hard on the poor dwellers in the thatched and mostly
floorless cabins, for the grass roofs gradually let the water
through and puddles formed on the ground inside. Fuel was distant
and had to be hauled in the pouring rain; provisions were scarce
and hunting almost impossible. Many people, especially children,
were taken ill with colds and fever. Alice found some relief from
her trouble in going from cabin to cabin and waiting upon the
sufferers; but even here Farnsworth could not be got rid of; he
followed her night and day. Never was a good soldier, for he was
that from head to foot, more lovelorn and love-docile. The maiden
had completely subdued the man.
About this time, deep in a rainy and pitch-black night, Gaspard
Roussillon came home. He tapped on the door again and again. Alice
heard, but she hesitated to speak or move. Was she growing cowardly?
Her heart beat like a drum. There was but one person in all the
world that she could think of--it was not M. Roussillon. Ah, no,
she had well-nigh forgotten her gigantic foster father.
"It is I, ma cherie, it is Gaspard, my love, open the door,"
came in a booming half-whisper from without. "Alice, Jean,
it is your Papa Roussillon, my dears. Let me in."
Alice was at the door in a minute, unbarring it. M. Roussillon
entered, armed to the teeth, the water dribbling from his buckskin
clothes.
"Pouf!" he exclaimed, "my throat is like dust."
His thoughts were diving into the stores under the floor. "I
am famished. Dear children, dear little ones! They are glad to
see papa! Where is your mama?"
He had Alice in his arms and Jean clung to his legs. Madame Roussillon,
to be sure of no mistake, lighted a lamp with a brand that smoldered
on the hearth and held it up, then, satisfied as to her husband's
identity, set it on a shelf and flung herself into the affectionate
group with clumsy abandon, making a great noise.
"Oh, my dear Gaspard!" she cried as she lunged forward.
"Gaspard, Gaspard!" Her voice fairly lifted the roof;
her great weight, hurled with such force, overturned everybody,
and all of them tumbled in a heap, the rotund and solid dame sitting
on top.
"Ouf! not so impetuous, my dear, "puffed M. Roussillon,
freeing himself from her unpleasant pressure and scrambling to
his feet. "Really you must have fared well in my absence,
Madame, you are much heavier." He laughed and lifted her
up as if she had been a child, kissing her resonantly.
His gun had fallen with a great clatter. He took it from the floor
and examined it to see if it had been injured, then set it in
a corner.
"I am afraid we have been making too much noise," said
Alice, speaking very low. "There is a patrol guard every
night now. If they should hear you--"
"Shh!" whispered M. Roussillon, "we will be very
still. Alice, is there something to eat and a drop of wine handy?
I have come many miles; I am tired, hungry, thirsty,--ziff!"
Alice brought some cold roast venison, a loaf, and a bottle of
claret. These she set before him on a little table.
"Ah, this is comfort," he said after he had gulped a
full cup. "Have you all been well?"
Then he began to tell where he had been, what he had seen, and
the many things he had done. A Frenchman must babble while he
eats and drinks. A little wine makes him eloquent. He talks with
his hands, shoulders, eyes. Madame Roussillon, Alice and Jean,
wrapped in furs, huddled around him to hear. He was very entertaining,
and they forgot the patrol until a noise startled them. It was
the low of a cow. They laughed and the master of the house softened
his voice.
M. Roussillon had been the guest of a great Indian chieftain,
who was called the "Gate of the Wabash," because he
controlled the river. The chief was an old acquaintance and treated
him well.
"But I wanted to see you all," Gaspard said. "I
was afraid something might have happened to you. So I came back
just to peep in. I can't stay, of course; Hamilton would kill
me as if I were a wolf. I can remain but an hour and then slip
out of town again before daylight conies. The rain and darkness
are my friends."
He had seen Simon Kenton, who said he had been in the neighborhood
of Vincennes acting as a scout and spy for Clark. Presently and
quite casually he added:
"And I saw Lieutenant Beverley, too. I suppose you know that
he has escaped from Hamilton, and--" Here a big mouthful
of venison interfered.
Alice leaned toward him white and breathless, her heart standing
still.
Then the door, which had been left unbarred, was flung open and,
along with a great rush of wind and rain, the patrol guard, five
in number, sprang in.
M. Roussillon reached his gun with one hand, with the other swung
a tremendous blow as he leaped against the intruders. Madame Roussillon
blew out the light. No cave in the depth of earth was ever darker
than that room. The patrolmen could not see one another or know
what to do; but M. Roussillon laid about him with the strength
of a giant. His blows sounded as if they smashed bones. Men fell
heavily thumping on the floor where he rushed along. Some one
fired a pistol and by its flash they all saw him; but instantly
the darkness closed again, and before they could get their bearings
he was out and gone, his great hulking form making its way easily
over familiar ground where his would-be captors could have proceeded
but slowly, even with a light to guide them. There was furious
cursing among the patrolmen as they tumbled about in the room,
the unhurt ones trampling their prostrate companions and striking
wildly at each other in their blindness and confusion. At last
one of them bethought him to open a dark lantern with which the
night guards were furnished. Its flame was fluttering and gave
forth a pale red light that danced weirdly on the floors and walls.
Alice had snatched down one of her rapiers when the guards first
entered. They now saw her facing them with her slender blade leveled,
her back to the wall, her eyes shining dangerously. Madame Roussillon
had fled into the adjoining room. Jean had also disappeared. The
officer, a subaltern, in charge of the guard, seeing Alice, and
not quickly able to make out that it was a woman thus defying
him, crossed swords with her. There was small space for action;
moreover the officer being not in the least a swordsman, played
awkwardly, and quick as a flash his point was down. The rapier
entered just below his thread with a dull chucking stab. He leaped
backward, feeling at the same time a pair of arms clasp his legs.
It was Jean, and the Lieutenant, thus unexpectedly tangled, fell
to the floor, breaking but not extinguishing the guard's lantern
as he went down. The little remaining oil spread and flamed up
brilliantly, as if eager for conflagration, sputtering along the
uneven boards.
"Kill that devil!" cried the Lieutenant, in a strangling
voice, while trying to regain his feet. "Shoot! Bayonet!"
In his pain, rage and haste, he inadvertently set his hand in
the midst of the blazing oil, which clung to the flesh with a
seething grip.
"Hell!" he screamed, "fire, fire!"
Two or three bayonets were leveled upon Alice. Some one kicked
Jean clean across the room, and he lay there curled up in his
hairy night-wrap looking like an enormous porcupine.
At this point a new performer came upon the stage, a dark-robed
thing, so active that its outlines changed elusively, giving it
no recognizable features. It might have been the devil himself,
or some terrible unknown wild animal clad somewhat to resemble
a man, so far as the startled guards could make out. It clawed
right and left, hurled one of them against the wall, dashed another
through the door into Madame Roussillon's room, where the good
woman was wailing at the top of her voice, and felled a third
with a stroke like that of a bear's paw.
Consternation was at high tide when Farnsworth, who always slept
with an ear open, reached Roussillon place and quickly quieted
things. He was troubled beyond expression when he found out the
true state of the affair, for there was nothing that he could
do but arrest Alice and take her to Hamilton. It made his heart
sink. He would have thought little of ordering a file of soldiers
to shoot a man under the same conditions; but to subject her again
to the Governor's stern cruelty--how could he do it? This time
there would be no hope for her.
Alice stood before him flushed, disheveled, defiant, sword in
hand, beautiful and terrible as an angel. The black figure, man
or devil, had disappeared as strangely as it had come. The sub-
Lieutenant was having his slight wound bandaged. Men were raging
and cursing under their breath, rubbing their bruised heads and
limbs.
"Alice--Mademoiselle Roussillon, I am so sorry for this,"
said Captain Farnsworth. "It is painful, terrible--"
He could not go on, but stood before her unmanned. In the feeble
light his face was wan and his hurt shoulder, still in bandages,
drooped perceptibly.
"I surrender to you," she presently said in French,
extending the hilt of her rapier to him. "I had to defend
myself when attacked by your Lieutenant there. If an officer finds
it necessary to set upon a girl with his sword, may not the girl
guard her life if she can?"
She was short of breath, so that her voice palpitated with a touching
plangency that shook the man's heart.
Farnsworth accepted the sword; he could do nothing less. His duty
admitted of no doubtful consideration; yet he hesitated, feeling
around in his mind for a phrase with which to evade the inevitable.
"It will be safer for you at the fort, Mademoiselle; let
me take you there."
CHAPTER XIII
A MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS
Beverley set out on his mid-winter journey to Kaskaskia with a
tempest in his heart, and it was, perhaps, the storm's energy
that gave him the courage to face undaunted and undoubting what
his experience must have told him lay in his path. He was young
and strong; that meant a great deal; he had taken the desperate
chances of Indian warfare many times before this, and the danger
counted as nothing, save that it offered the possibility of preventing
him from doing the one thing in life he now cared to do. What
meant suffering to him, if he could but rescue Alice? And what
were life should he fail to rescue her? The old, old song hummed
in his heart, every phrase of it distinct above the tumult of
the storm. Could cold and hunger, swollen streams, ravenous wild
beasts and scalp-hunting savages baffle him? No, there is no barrier
that can hinder love. He said this over and over to himself after
his rencounter with the four Indian scouts on the Wabash. He repeated
it with every heart-beat until he fell in with some friendly red
men, who took him to their camp, where to his great surprise he
met M. Roussillon. It was his song when again he strode off toward
the west on his lonely way.
We need not follow him step by step; the monotony of the woods
and prairies, the cold rains, alternating with northerly winds
and blinding snow, the constant watchfulness necessary to guard
against a meeting with hostile savages, the tiresome tramping,
wading and swimming, the hunger, the broken and wretched sleep
in frozen and scant wraps,--why detail it all?
There was but one beautiful thing about it--the beauty of Alice
as she seemed to walk beside him and hover near him in his dreams.
He did not know that Long-Hair and his band were fast on his track;
but the knowledge could not have urged him to greater haste. He
strained every muscle to its utmost, kept every nerve to the highest
tension. Yonder towards the west was help for Alice; that was
all he cared for.
But if Long-Hair was pursuing him with relentless greed for the
reward offered by Hamilton, there were friendly footsteps still
nearer behind him; and one day at high noon, while he was bending
over a little fire, broiling some liberal cuts of venison, a finger
tapped him on the shoulder. He sprang up and grappled Oncle Jazon;
at the same time, standing near by, he saw Simon Kenton, his old-time
Kentucky friend. The pungled features of one and the fine, rugged
face of the other swam as in a mist before Beverley's eyes. Kenton
was laughing quietly, his strong, upright form shaking to the
force of his pleasure. He was in the early prime of a vigorous
life, not handsome, but strikingly attractive by reason of a certain
glow in his face and a kindly flash in his deep-set eyes.
"Well, well, my boy!" he exclaimed, laying his left
hand on Beverley's shoulder, while in the other he held a long,
heavy rifle. "I'm glad to see ye, glad to see
"Thought we was Injuns, eh?" said Oncle Jazon. "An'
ef we had 'a' been we'd 'a' been shore o' your scalp!" The
wizzened old creole cackled gleefully.
"And where are ye goin'?" demanded Kenton. "Ye're
making what lacks a heap o' bein' a bee-line for some place or
other."
Beverley was dazed and vacant-minded; things seemed wavering and
dim. He pushed the two men from him and gazed at them without
speaking. Their presence and voices did not convince him.
"Yer meat's a burnin'," said Oncle Jazon, stooping to
turn it on the smouldering coals. "Ye must be hungry. Cookin'
enough for a regiment."
Kenton shook Beverley with rough familiarity, as if to rouse his
faculties.
"What's the matter? Fitz, my lad, don't ye know Si Kenton?
It's not so long since we were like brothers, and now ye don't
speak to me! Ye've not forgot me, Fitz!"
"Mebby he don't like ye as well as ye thought he did,"
drawled Oncle Jazon. "I HEV known o' fellers a bein' mistaken
jes' thet way."
Beverley got his wits together as best he could, taking in the
situation by such degrees as seemed at the time unduly slow, but
which were really mere momentary falterings.
"Why, Kenton! Jazon!" he presently exclaimed, a cordial
gladness blending with his surprise. "How did you get here?
Where did you come from?"
He looked from one to the other back and forth with a wondering
smile breaking over his bronzed and determined face.
"We've been hot on yer trail for thirty hours," said
Kenton. "Roussillon put us on it back yonder. But what are
ye up to? Where are ye goin'?"
"I'm going to Clark at Kaskaskia to bring him yonder."
He waved his hand eastward. "I am going to take Vincennes
and kill Hamilton."
'Well, ye're taking a mighty queer course, my boy, if ye ever
expect to find Kaskaskia. Ye're already twenty miles too far south."
"Carryin' his gun on the same shoulder all the time,"
said Oncle Jazon, "has made 'im kind o' swing in a curve
like. 'Tain't good luck no how to carry yer gun on yer lef' shoulder.
When you do it meks yer take a longer step with yer right foot
than ye do with yer lef' an' ye can't walk a straight line to
save yer liver. Ventreblue! La venaison brule encore! Look at
that dasted meat burnin' agin!"
He jumped back to the fire to turn the scorching cuts.
Beverley wrung Kenton's hand and looked into his eyes, as a man
does when an old friend comes suddenly out of the past, so to
say, and brings the freshness and comfort of a strong, true soul
to brace him in his hour of greatest need.
"Of all men in the world, Simon Kenton, you were the least
expected; but how glad I am! How thankful! Now I know I shall
succeed. We are going to capture Vincennes, Kenton, are we not?
We shall, sha'n't we, Jazon? Nothing, nothing can prevent us,
can it?"
Kenton heartily returned the pressure of the young man's hand,
while Oncle Jazon looked up quizzically and said:
"We're a tol'ble 'spectable lot to prevent; but then we might
git pervented. I've seed better men an' us purty consid'ble pervented
lots o' times in my life."
In speaking the colloquial dialect of the American backwoodsmen,
Oncle Jazon, despite years of practice among them, gave to it
a creole lisp and some turns of pronunciation not to be indicated
by any form of spelling. It added to his talk a peculiar soft
drollery. When he spoke French it was mostly that of the COUREURS
DE BOIS, a PATOIS which still lingers in out-of-the-way nooks
of Louisiana.
"For my part," said Kenton, "I am with ye, old
boy, in anything ye want to do. But now ye've got to tell me everything.
I see that ye're keeping something back. What is it?" He
glanced sidewise slyly at Oncle Jazon.
Beverley was frank to a fault; but somehow his heart tried to
keep Alice all to itself. He hesitated; then--
"I broke my parole with Governor Hamilton," he said.
"He forced me to do it. I feel altogether justified. I told
him beforehand that I should certainly leave Vincennes and go
get a force to capture and kill him; and I'll do it, Simon Kenton,
I'll do it!"
"I see, I see," Kenton assented, "but what was
the row about? What did he do to excite ye--to make ye feel justified
in breakin' over yer parole in that high-handed way? Fitz, I know
ye too well to be fooled by ye--you've got somethin' in mind that
ye don't want to tell. Well, then don't tell it. Oncle Jazon and
I will go it blind, won't we, Jazon?"
"Blind as two moles," said the old man; "but as
for thet secret," he added, winking both eyes at once, "I
don't know as it's so mighty hard to guess. It's always safe to
'magine a woman in the case. It's mostly women 'at sends men a
trottin' off 'bout nothin', sort o' crazy like."
Beverley looked guilty and Oncle Jazon continued: "They's
a poo'ty gal at Vincennes, an' I see the young man a steppin'
into her house about fifteen times a day 'fore I lef' the place.
Mebbe she's tuck up wi' one o' them English officers. Gals is
slippery an' onsartin'."
"Jazon!" cried Beverley, "stop that instantly,
or I'll wring your old neck." His anger was real and he meant
what he said. He clenched his hands and glowered.
Oncle Jazon, who was still squatting by the little fire, tumbled
over backwards, as if Beverley had kicked him; and there he lay
on the ground with his slender legs quivering akimbo in the air,
while he laughed in a strained treble that sounded like the whining
of a screech-owl.
The old scamp did not know all the facts in Beverley's case, nor
did he even suspect what had happened; but he was aware of the
young man's tender feeling for Alice, and he did shrewdly conjecture
that she was a factor in the problem.
The rude jest at her expense did not seem to his withered and
toughened taste in the least out of the way. Indeed it was a delectable
bit of humor from Oncle Jazon's point of view.
"Don't get mad at the old man," said Kenton, plucking
Beverley aside. "He's yer friend from his heels to his old
scalped crown. Let him have his fun." Then lowering his voice
almost to a whisper he continued:
"I was in Vincennes for two days and nights spyin' around.
Madame Godere hid me in her house when there was need of it. I
know how it is with ye; I got all the gossip about ye and the
young lady, as well as all the information about Hamilton and
his forces that Colonel Clark wants. I'm goin' to Kaskaskia; but
I think it quite possible that Clark will be on his march to Vincennes
before we get there; for Vigo has taken him full particulars as
to the fort and its garrison, and I know that he's determined
to capture the whole thing or die tryin'."
Beverley felt his heart swell and his blood leap strong in his
veins at these words.
"I saw ye while I was in Vincennes," Kenton added, "but
I never let ye see me. Ye were a prisoner, and I had no business
with ye while your parole held. I felt that it was best not to
tempt ye to give me aid, or to let ye have knowledge of me while
I was a spy. I left two days before ye did, and should have been
at Kaskaskia by this time if I hadn't run across Jazon, who detained
me. He wanted to go with me, and I waited for him to repair the
stock of his old gun. He tinkered at it 'tween meals and showers
for half a week at the Indian village back yonder before he got
it just to suit him. But I tell ye he's wo'th waiting for any
length of time, and I was glad to let him have his way."
Kenton, who was still a young man in his early thirties, respected
Beverley's reticence on the subject uppermost in his mind. Madame
Godere had told the whole story with flamboyant embellishments;
Kenton tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surreptitious
glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's
condition. He was himself a victim of the tender passion to the
extent of being an exile from his Virginia home, which he had
left on account of dangerously wounding a rival. But he was well
touched with the backwoodsman's taste for joke and banter. He
and Oncle Jazon, therefore, knowing the main feature of Beverley's
predicament, enjoyed making the most of their opportunity in their
rude but perfectly generous and kindly way.
By indirection and impersonal details, as regarded his feelings
toward Alice, Beverley in due time made his friends understand
that his whole ambition was centered in rescuing her. Nor did
the motive fail to enlist their sympathy to the utmost. If all
the world loves a lover, all men having the best virile instinct
will fight for a lover's cause. Both Kenton and Oncle Jazon were
enthusiastic; they wanted nothing better than an opportunity to
aid in rescuing any girl who had shown so much patriotism and
pluck. But Oncle Jazon was fond of Alice, and Beverley's story
affected him peculiarly on her account.
"They's one question I'm a goin' to put to ye, young man,"
he said, after he had heard everything and they had talked it
all over, "an' I want ye to answer it straight as a bullet
f'om yer gun."
"Of course, Jazon, go ahead," said Beverley. "I
shall be glad to answer." But his mind was far away with
the gold-haired maiden in Hamilton's prison. He scarcely knew
what he was saying.
"Air ye expectin' to marry Alice Roussillon?"
The three men were at the moment eating the well broiled venison.
Oncle Jazon's puckered lips and chin were dripping with the fragrant
grease and juice, which also flowed down his sinewy, claw-like
fingers. Overhead in the bare tops of the scrub oaks that covered
the prairie oasis, the February wind sang a shrill and doleful
song.
Beverley started as if a blow had been aimed at him. Oncle Jazon's
question, indeed, was a blow as unexpected as it was direct and
powerful.
"I know it's poo'ty p'inted," the old man added after
a short pause, "an' ye may think 'at I ain't got no business
askin' it; but I have. That leetle gal's a pet o' mine, an' I'm
a lookin' after her, an' expectin' to see 'at she's not bothered
by nobody who's not goin' to do right by her. Marryin' is a mighty
good thing, but--"
"What do ye know about matrimony, ye old raw-headed bachelor?"
demanded Kenton, who felt impelled to relieve Beverley of the
embarrassment of an answer. "Ye wouldn't know a wife from
a sack o' meal!"
"Now don't git too peart an' fast, Si Kenton," cried
Oncle Jazon, glaring truculently at his friend, but at the same
time showing a dry smile that seemed to be hopelessly entangled
in criss-cross wrinkles. "Who told ye I was a bach'lor? Not
by a big jump. I've been married mighty nigh on to twenty times
in my day. Mos'ly Injuns, o' course; but a squaw's a wife w'en
ye marries her, an' I know how it hurts a gal to be dis'p'inted
in sich a matter. That's w'y I put the question I did. I'm not
goin' to let no man give sorry to that little Roussillon gal;
an' so ye've got my say. Ye seed her raise thet flag on the fort,
Lieutenant Beverley, an' ye seed her take it down an' git away
wi' it. You know 'at she deserves nothin' but the best; an' by
the Holy Virgin, she's got to have it, or I'm a goin' to know
several reasons why. Thet's what made me put the question straight
to ye, young man, an' I expects a straight answer."
Beverley's face paled; but not with anger. He grasped one of Oncle
Jazon's greasy hands and gave it such a squeeze that the old fellow
grimaced painfully.
"Thank you, Oncle Jazon, thank you!" he said, with a
peculiar husky burr in his voice. "Alice will never suffer
if I can help it. Let the subject drop now, my friend, until we
have saved her from the hands of Hamilton." In the power
of his emotion he continued to grip the old man's hand with increasing
severity of pressure.
"Ventrebleu! let go! Needn't smash a feller's fingers 'bout
it!" screeched Oncle Jazon. "I can't shoot wo'th a cent,
nohow, an' ef ye cripple up my trigger-finger--"
Kenton had been peeping under the low-hanging scrub-oak boughs
while Oncle Jazon was speaking these last words; and now he suddenly
interrupted:
"The devil! look yonder!" he growled out in startling
tone. "Injuns!"
It was a sharp snap of the conversation's thread, and at the same
time our three friends realized that they had been careless in
not keeping a better look-out. They let fall the meat they had
not yet finished eating and seized their guns.
Five or six dark forms were moving toward them across a little
point of the prairie that cut into the wood a quarter of a mile
distant.
"Yander's more of 'em," said Oncle Jazon, as if not
in the least concerned, wagging his head in an opposite direction,
from which another squad was approaching.
That he duly appreciated the situation appeared only in the celerity
with which he acted.
Kenton at once assumed command, and his companions felt his perfect
fitness. There was no doubt from the first as to what the Indians
meant; but even if there had been it would have soon vanished;
for in less than three minutes twenty-one savages were swiftly
and silently forming a circle inclosing the spot where the three
white men, who had covered themselves as best they could with
trees, waited in grim steadiness for the worst.
Quite beyond gunshot range, but near enough for Oncle Jazon to
recognize Long-Hair as their leader, the Indians halted and began
making signs to one another all round the line. Evidently they
dreaded to test the marksmanship of such riflemen as they knew
most border men to be. Indeed, Long-Hair had personal knowledge
of what might certainly be expected from both Kenton and Oncle
Jazon; they were terrible when out for fight; the red warriors
from Georgia to the great lakes had heard of them; their names
smacked of tragedy. Nor was Beverley without fame among Long-Hair's
followers, who had listened to the story of his fighting qualities,
brought to Vincennes by the two survivors of the scouting party
so cleverly defeated by him.
"The liver-colored cowards," said Kenton, "are
afeared of us in a shootin'-match; they know that a lot of 'em
would have to die if they should undertake an open fight with
us. It's some sort of a sneakin' game they are studyin' about
just now."
"I'm a gittin' mos' too ole to shoot wo'th a cent,"
said Oncle Jazon, "but I'd give half o' my scalp ef thet
Long-Hair would come clost enough fo' me to git a bead onto his
lef' eye. It's tol'ble plain 'at we're gone goslins this time,
I'm thinkin'; still it'd be mighty satisfyin' if I could plug
out a lef' eye or two 'fore I go."
Beverley was silent; the words of his companions were heard by
him, but not noticed. Nothing interested him save the thought
of escaping and making his way to Clark. To fail meant infinitely
more than death, of which he had as small fear as most brave men,
and to succeed meant everything that life could offer. So, in
the unlimited selfishness of love, he did not take his companions
into account.
The three stood in a close-set clump of four or five scrub oaks
at the highest point of a thinly wooded knoll that sloped down
in all directions to the prairie. Their view was wide, but in
places obstructed by the trees.
"Men," said Kenton, after a thoughtful and watchful
silence, "the thing looks kind o' squally for us. I don't
see much of a chance to get out of this alive; but we've got to
try."
He showed by the density of his voice and a certain gray film
in his face that he felt the awful gravity of the situation; but
he was calm and not a muscle quivered.
"They's jes' two chances for us," said Oncle Jazon,
"an' them's as slim as a broom straw. We've got to stan'
here an' fight it out, or wait till night an' sneak through atween
'em an' run for it."
"I don't see any hope o' sneakin' through the line,"
observed Kenton. "It's not goin' to be dark tonight."
"Wa-a-l," Oncle Jazon drawled nonchalantly while he
took in a quid of tobacco, "I've been into tighter squeezes
'an this, many a time, an' I got out, too."
"Likely enough," said Kenton, still reflecting while
his eyes roamed around the circle of savages.
"I fit the skunks in Ferginny 'fore you's thought of, Si
Kenton, an' down in Car'lina in them hills. If ye think I'm a
goin' to be scalped where they ain't no scalp, 'ithout tryin'
a few dodges, yer a dad dasteder fool an' I used to think ye was,
an' that's makin' a big compliment to ye."
"Well, we don't have to argy this question, Oncle Jazon;
they're a gittin' ready to run in upon us, and we've got to fight.
I say, Beverley, are ye ready for fast shootin'? Have ye got a
plenty of bullets?"
"Yes, Roussillon gave me a hundred. Do you think--"
He was interrupted by a yell that leaped from savage mouth to
mouth all round the circle, and then the charge began.
"Steady, now," growled Kenton, "let's not be in
a hurry. Wait till they come nigh enough to hit 'em before we
shoot."
The time was short; for the Indians came on at almost race-horse
speed.
Oncle Jazon fired first, the long, keen crack of his small-bore
rifle splitting the air with a suggestion of vicious energy, and
a lithe young warrior, who was outstripping all his fellows, leaped
high and fell paralyzed.
"Can't shoot wo'th a cent," muttered the old man, deftly
beginning to reload his gun the while; "but I jes' happened
to hit that buck. He'll never git my scalp, thet's sartin an'
sure."
Beverley and Kenton each likewise dropped an Indian; but the shots
did not even check the rush. Long-Hair had planned to capture
his prey, not kill it. Every savage had his orders to take the
white men alive; Hamilton's larger reward depended on this.
Right on they came, as fast as their nimble legs could carry them,
yelling like demons; and they reached the grove before the three
white men could reload their guns. Then every warrior took cover
behind a tree and began scrambling forward from bole to bole,
thus approaching rapidly without much exposure.
"Our 'taters is roasted brown," muttered Oncle Jazon.
He crossed himself. Possibly he prayed; but he was priming his
old gun the next instant.
Kenton fired again, making a hurried and ineffectual attempt to
stop the nearest warrior, who saved himself by quickly skipping
behind a tree. Beverley's gun snapped, the flint failing to make
fire; but Oncle Jazon bored a little hole through the head of
the Indian nearest him; and then the final rush was made from
every direction.
A struggle ensued, which for desperate energy has probably never
been surpassed. Like three lions at bay, the white men met the
shock, and lion-like they fought in the midst of seventeen stalwart
and determined savages.
"Don't kill them, take them alive; throw them down and hold
them!" was Long-Hair's order loudly shouted in the tongue
of his tribe.
Both Kenton and Jazon understood every word and knew the significance
of such a command from the leader. It naturally came into Kenton's
mind that Hamilton had been informed of his visit to Vincennes
and had offered a reward for his capture. This being true, death
as a spy would be the certain result if he were taken back. He
might as well die now. As for Beverley, he thought only of Alice,
yonder as he had left her, a prisoner in Hamilton's hands, Oncle
Jazon, if he thought at all, probably considered nothing but present
escape, though he prayed audibly to the Blessed Virgin, even while
he lay helpless upon the ground, pinned down by the weight of
an enormous Indian. He could not move any part of himself, save
his lips, and these mechanically put forth the wheezing supplication.
Beverley and Kenton, being young and powerful, were not so easily
mastered. For a while, indeed, they appeared to be more than holding
their own. They time and time again scattered the entire crowd
by the violence of their muscular efforts; and after it had finally
closed in upon them in a solid body they swayed and swung it back
and forth and round and round until the writhing, savage mass
looked as if caught in the vortex of a whirlwind. But such tremendous
exertion could not last long. Eight to one made too great a difference
between the contending parties, and the only possible conclusion
of the struggle soon came. Seized upon by desperate, clinging,
wolf-like assailants, the white men felt their arms, legs and
bodies weighted down and their strength fast going.
Kenton fell next after Oncle Jazon, and was soon tightly bound
with rawhide thongs. He lay on his back panting and utterly exhausted,
while Beverley still kept up the unequal fight.
Long-Hair sprang in at the last moment to make doubly certain
the securing of his most important captive. He flung his long
and powerful arms around Beverley from behind and made a great
effort to throw him upon the ground. The young man, feeling this
fresh and vigorous clasp, turned himself about to put forth one
more mighty spurt of power. He lifted the stalwart Indian bodily
and dashed him headlong against the buttressed root of a tree
half a rod distant, breaking the smaller bone of his left fore-arm
and well-nigh knocking him senseless.
It was a fine exhibition of manly strength; but there could be
nothing gained by it. A blow on the back of his head the next
instant stretched Beverley face downward and unconscious on the
ground. The savages turned him over and looked satisfied when
they found that he was not dead. They bound him with even greater
care than they had shown in securing the others, while Long-Hair
stood by stolidly looking on, meantime supporting his broken fore-arm
in his hand.
"Ugh! dog!" he grunted, and gave Beverley a kick in
the side. Then turning a fiendish stare upon Oncle Jazon he proceeded
to deliver against his old, dry ribs three or four like contributions
with resounding effect. "Polecat! Little old greasy woman!"
he snarled, "make good fire for warrior to dance by!"
Kenton also received his full share of the kicks and verbal abuse,
after which Long-Hair gave orders for fires to be built. Then
he looked to his hurt arm and had the bone set and bandaged, never
so much as wincing the while.
It was soon apparent that the Indians purposed to celebrate their
successful enterprise with a feast. They cooked a large amount
of buffalo steak; then, each with his hands full of the savory
meat, they began to dance around the fires, droning meantime an
atrociously repellant chant.
"They're a 'spectin' to hev a leetle bit o' fun outen us,"
muttered Oncle Jazon to Beverley, who lay near him. "I onderstan'
what they're up to, dad dast 'em! More'n forty years ago, in Ca'lina,
they put me an' Jim Hipes through the ga'ntlet, an' arter thet,
in Kaintuck, me an' Si Kenton tuck the run. Hi, there, Si! where
air ye?"
"Shut yer fool mouth," Kenton growled under his breath.
"Ye'll have that Injun a kickin' our lights out of us again."
Oncle Jazon winked at the gray sky and puckered his mouth so that
it looked like a nutgall on an old, dry leaf.
"What's the diff'ence?" he demanded. "I'd jest
as soon be kicked now as arter while; it's got to come anyhow."
Kenton made no response. The thongs were torturing his arms and
legs. Beverley was silent, but consciousness had returned, and
with it a sense of despair. All three of the prisoners lay face
upward quite unable to move, knowing full well that a terrible
ordeal awaited them. Oncle Jazon's grim humor could not be quenched,
even by the galling agony of the thongs that buried themselves
in the flesh, and the anticipation of torture beside which death
would seem a luxury.
"Yap! Long-Hair, how's yer arm?" he called jeeringly.
"Feels pooty good, hay?"
Long-Hair, who was not joining in the dance and song, turned when
he heard these taunting words, and mistaking whence they came,
went to Beverley's side and kicked him again and again.
Oncle Jazon heard the loud blows, and considered the incident
a remarkably good joke.
"He, he, he!" he snickered, as soon as Long-Hair walked
away again. "I does the talkin' an' somebody else gits the
thumpin'! He, he, he! I always was devilish lucky. Them kicks
was good solid jolts, wasn't they, Lieutenant? Sounded like they
was. He, he, he!"
Beverley gave no heed to Oncle Jazon's exasperating pleasantry;
but Kenton, sorely chafing under the pressure of his bonds, could
not refrain from making retort in kind.
"I'd give ye one poundin' that ye'd remember, Emile Jazon,
if I could get to ye, ye old twisted-face, peeled-headed, crooked-
mouthed, aggravatin' scamp!" he exclaimed, not thinking how
high his naturally strong voice was lifted. "I can stand
any fool but a damn fool!"
Long-Hair heard the concluding epithet and understood its meaning.
Moreover, he thought himself the target at which it was so energetically
launched. Wherefore he promptly turned back and gave Kenton a
kicking that made his body resound not unlike a drum.
And here it was that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so
delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby
drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's
pedal applications.
"Ventrebleu!" whined the old man, when the Indian had
gone away again. "Holy Mary! Jee-ru-sa-lem! They's nary bone
o' me left 'at's not splintered as fine as toothpickers! S'pose
yer satisfied now, ain't ye, Si Kenton? Ef ye ain't I'm shore
to satisfy ye the fust time I git a chance at ye, ye blab-mouthed
eejit!"
Before this conversation was ended a rain began to fall, and it
rapidly thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour
that effectually quenched not only the fires around which the
savages were dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well.
During the rest of the afternoon and all night long the fall was
incessant, accompanied by a cold, panting, wailing southwest wind.
Beverley lay on the ground, face upward, the rawhide strings torturing
his limbs, the chill of cold water searching his bones. He could
see nothing but the dim, strange canopy of flying rain, against
which the bare boughs of the scrub oaks were vaguely outlined;
he could hear nothing but the cry of the wind and the swash of
the water which fell upon him and ran under him, bubbling and
gurgling as if fiendishly exultant.
The night dragged on through its terrible length, dealing out
its indescribable horrors, and at last morning arrived, with a
stingy and uncertain gift of light slowly increasing until the
dripping trees appeared forlornly gray and brown against clouds
now breaking into masses that gave but little rain.
Beverley lived through the awful trial and even had the hardihood
to brighten inwardly with the first flash of sunlight that shot
through a cloud-crack on the eastern horizon. He thought of Alice,
as he had done all night; but now the thought partook somehow
of the glow yonder above old Vincennes, although he could only
see its reflection.
There was great stir among the Indians. Long-Hair stalked about
scrutinizing the ground. Beverley saw him come near time and again
with a hideous, inquiring scowl on his face. Grunts and laconic
exclamations passed from mouth to mouth, and presently the import
of it all could not be mistaken. Kenton and Jazon were gone--had
escaped during the night--and the rain had completely obliterated
their tracks.
The Indians were furious. Long-Hair sent out picked parties of
his best scouts with orders to scour the country in all directions,
keeping with himself a few of the older warriors. Beverley was
fed what he would eat of venison, and Long-Hair made him understand
that he would have to suffer some terrible punishment on account
of the action of his companions.
Late in the day the scouts straggled back with the report that
no track or sign of the fugitives had been discovered, and immediately
a consultation was held. Most of the warriors, including all of
the young bucks, demanded a torture entertainment as compensation
for their exertions and the unexpected loss of their own prisoners;
for it had been agreed that Beverley belonged exclusively to Long-Hair,
who objected to anything which might deprive him of the great
reward offered by Hamilton for the prisoner if brought to him
alive.
In the end it was agreed that Beverley should be made to run the
gauntlet, provided that no deadly weapons were used upon him during
the ordeal.
CHAPTER XIV
A PRISONER OF LOVE
Alice put on her warmest clothes and followed Captain Farnsworth
to the fort, realizing that no pleasant experience awaited her.
The wind and rain still prevailed when they were ready to set
forth, and, although it was not extremely cold, a searching chill
went with every throb that marked the storm's waves. No lights
shone in the village houses. Overhead a gray gloom covered stars
and sky, making the darkness in the watery streets seem densely
black. Farnsworth offered Alice his arm, but she did not accept
it.
"I know the way better than you do," she said. "Come
on, and don't be afraid that I am going to run. I shall not play
any trick on you."
"Very well, Mademoiselle, as you like. I trust you."
He followed her from the house. He was so filled with the bitterness
of what he was doing that he carried her sword in his hand all
the way to the fort, quite unaware that its point often touched
her dress so that she plainly felt it. Indeed, she thought he
was using that ruffianly and dangerous means of keeping pace with
her. He had sent the patrol on its rounds, taking upon himself
the responsibility of delivering her to Hamilton. She almost ran,
urged by the strange excitement that burned in her heart, and
he followed somewhat awkwardly, stumbling over the unfamiliar
way in the rain and darkness.
At every step he was wishing that she would escape from him. Coarse
as his nature was and distorted by hardening experiences, it was
rooted in good English honesty and imbued with a chivalric spirit.
When, as happened too often, he fell under the influence of liquor,
the bad in him promptly came uppermost; but at all other times
his better traits made him a good fellow to meet, genial, polite,
generous, and inclined to recognize the finer sentiments of manliness.
To march into his commander's presence with Alice as his prisoner
lacked everything of agreeing with his taste; yet he had not been
willing to give her over into the hands of the patrol. If his
regard for military obligation had not been exceptionally strong,
even for an English soldier, he would have given way to the temptation
of taking her to some place of hiding and safety, instead of brutally
subjecting her to Hamilton's harsh judgment. He anticipated a
trying experience for her on account of this new transgression.
They hastened along until a lantern in the fort shot a hazy gleam
upon them.
"Stop a moment, Mademoiselle," Farnsworth called. "I
say, Miss Roussillon, stop a moment, please."
Alice halted and turned facing him so short and so suddenly that
the rapier in his hand pricked through her wraps and slightly
scratched her arm.
"What do you mean, sir?" she demanded, thinking that
he had thrust purposely. "Do I deserve this brutality?"
"You mistake me, Miss Roussillon. I cannot be brutal to you
now. Do not fear me; I only had a word to say."
"Oh, you deem it very polite and gentle to jab me with your
sword, do you? If I had one in my hand you would not dare try
such a thing, and you know it very well."
He was amazed, not knowing that the sword-point had touched her.
He could not see her face, but there was a flash in her voice
that startled him with its indignant contempt and resentment.
"What are you saying, Miss Roussillon? I don't understand
you. When did I ever--when did I jab you with my sword? I never
thought of such a thing."
"This moment, sir, you did, and you know you did. My arm
is bleeding now."
She spoke rapidly in French; but he caught her meaning, and for
the first became aware of the rapier in his hand. Even then its
point was toward her and very near her breast. He lowered it instantly
while the truth rushed into his mind.
"Forgive me," he murmured, his words barely audible
in the tumult of wind and rain, but charged with the intensest
feeling.
"Forgive me; I did not know--it was an accident--I could
not do such a thing purposely. Believe me, believe me, Miss Roussillon.
I did not mean it."
She stood facing him, trying to look right into his eyes. A quality
in his voice had checked her hot anger. She could only see his
dim outlines in the dull gleam from the fort's lantern. He seemed
to be forlornly wretched.
"I should like to believe you," she presently said,
"but I cannot. You English are all, all despicable, mean,
vile!"
She was remembering the young officer who had assaulted her with
his sword in the house a while ago. And (what a strange thing
the human brain is!) she at the same time comforted herself with
the further thought that Beverley would never, never, be guilty
of rudeness to a woman.
"Some time you shall not say that," Farnsworth responded.
"I asked you to stop a moment that I might beg you to believe
how wretchedly sorry I am for what I am doing. But you cannot
understand me now. Are you really hurt, Miss Roussillon? I assure
you that it was purely accidental."
"My hurt is nothing," she said.
"I am very glad."
"Well, then, shall we go on to the fort?"
"You may go where you please, Mademoiselle."
She turned her back upon him and without an answering word walked
straight to the lantern that hung by the gate of the stockade,
where a sentinel tramped to and fro. A few moments later Captain
Farnsworth presented her to Hamilton, who had been called from
his bed when the news of the trouble at Roussillon place reached
the fort.
"So you've been raising hell again, have you, Miss?"
he growled, with an ugly frown darkening his face.
"I beg your pardon," said Farnsworth, "Miss Roussillon
was not to blame for--"
"In your eyes she'd not be to blame, sir, if she burned up
the fort and all of us in it," Hamilton gruffly interrupted.
"Miss, what have you been doing? What are you here for? Captain
Farnsworth, you will please state the particulars of the trouble
that I have just heard about. And I may as well notify you that
I wish to hear no special lover's pleading in this girl's behalf."
Farnsworth's face whitened with anger; he bit his lip and a shiver
ran through his frame; but he had to conquer the passion. In a
few words, blunt and direct as musket-balls, he told all the circumstances
of what had taken place, making no concealments to favor Alice,
but boldly blaming the officer of the patrol, Lieutenant Barlow,
for losing his head and attacking a young girl in her own home.
"I will hear from Barlow," said Hamilton, after listening
attentively to the story. "But take this girl and confine
her. Show her no favors. I hold you responsible for her until
to-morrow morning. You can retire."
There was no room for discussion. Farnsworth saluted and turned
to Alice.
"Come with me," he gently said.
Hamilton looked after them as they went out of his room, a curious
smile playing around his firmly set lips.
"She's the most beautiful vixen that I ever saw," he
thought. "She doesn't look to be a French girl, either--decidedly
English." He shrugged his shoulders, then laughed dryly.
"Farnsworth's as crazy as can be, the beggar; in love with
her so deep that he can't see out. By Jove, she IS a beauty! Never
saw such eyes. And plucky to beat the devil. I'll bet my head
Barlow'll be daft about her next!"
Still, notwithstanding the lightness of his inward comments, Hamilton
regarded the incident as rather serious. He knew that the French
inhabitants were secretly his bitter enemies, yet probably willing,
if he would humor their peculiar social, domestic and commercial
prejudices, to refrain from active hostilities, and even to aid
him in furnishing his garrison with a large amount of needed supplies.
The danger just now was twofold; his Indian allies were deserting
him, and a flotilla loaded with provisions and ammunition from
Detroit had failed to arrive. He might, if the French rose against
him and were joined by the Indians, have great difficulty defending
the fort. It was clear that M. Roussillon had more influence with
both creoles and savages than any other person save Father Beret.
Urgent policy dictated that these two men should somehow be won
over. But to do this it would be necessary to treat Alice in such
a way that her arrest would aid, instead of operating against
the desired result,--a thing not easy to manage.
Hamilton was not a man of fine scruples, but he may have been,
probably was, better than our American historians have made him
appear. His besetting weakness, which, as a matter of course,
he regarded as the highest flower of efficiency, was an uncontrollable
temper, a lack of fine human sympathy and an inability to forgive.
In his calmest moments, when prudence appealed to him, he would
resolve to use diplomatic means; but no sooner was his opinion
questioned or his purpose opposed than anger and the thirst for
revenge overpowered every gentler consideration. He returned to
his bed that night fully resolved upon a pleasant and successful
interview with Alice next morning.
Captain Farnsworth took his fair prisoner straight-way from Hamilton's
presence to a small room connected with a considerable structure
in a distant angle of the stockade. Neither he nor Alice spoke
on the way. With a huge wooden key he unlocked the door and stepped
aside for her to enter. A dim lamp was burning within, its yellowish
light flickering over the scant furniture, which consisted of
a comfortable bed, a table with some books on it, three chairs,
a small looking-glass on the wall, a guitar and some articles
of men's clothing hanging here and there. A heap of dull embers
smouldered in the fireplace. Alice did not falter at the threshold,
but promptly entered her prison.
"I hope you can be comfortable," said Farnsworth in
a low tone. "It's the best I can give you."
"Thank you," was the answer spoken quite as if he had
handed her a glass of water or picked up her handkerchief.
He held the door a moment, while she stopped, with her back toward
him, in the middle of the room; then she heard him close and lock
it. The air was almost too warm after her exposure to the biting
wind and cold dashes of rain. She cast off her outer wraps and
stood by the fireplace. At a glance she comprehended that the
place was not the one she had formerly occupied as a prisoner,
and that it belonged to a man. A long rifle stood in a corner,
a bullet-pouch and powder-horn hanging on a projecting hickory
ramrod; a heavy fur top-coat lay across one of the chairs.
Alice felt her situation bitterly enough; but she was not of the
stuff that turns to water at the touch of misfortune. Pioneer
women took hardships as a matter of course, and met calamity with
admirable fortitude. There was no wringing of hands, no frantic
wailing, no hollow, despairing groan. While life lasted hope flourished,
even in most tragic surroundings; and not unfrequently succor
came, at the last verge of destruction, as the fitting reward
of unconquerable courage. A girl like Alice must be accepted in
the spirit of her time and surroundings. She was born amid experiences
scarcely credible now, and bred in an area and an atmosphere of
incomparable dangers. Naturally she accepted conditions of terrible
import with a sang froid scarcely possible to a girl of our day.
She did not cry, she did not sink down helpless when she found
herself once more imprisoned with some uncertain trial before
her; but simply knelt and repeated the Lord's prayer, then went
to bed and slept; even dreamed the dream of a maid's first love.
Meantime Farnsworth, who had given Alice his own apartment, took
what rest he could on the cold ground under a leaky shed hard
by. His wound, not yet altogether healed, was not benefited by
the exposure.
In due time next morning Hamilton ordered Alice brought to his
office, and when she appeared he was smiling with as near an approach
to affability as his disposition would permit. He rose and bowed
like a courtier.
"I hope you rested well, Mademoiselle," he said in his
best French. He imagined that the use of her language would be
agreeable to begin with.
The moment that Alice saw him wearing that shallow veneering of
pleasantness on his never prepossessing visage, she felt a mood
of perversity come over her. She, too. smiled, and he mistook
her expression for one of reciprocal amenity. She noticed that
her sword was on his table.
"I am sorry, Monsieur, that I cannot say as much to you,"
she glibly responded. "If you lay upon a bed of needles the
whole night through, your rest was better than you deserved. My
own sleep was quite refreshing, thank you."
Instantly Hamilton's choler rose. He tried to suppress it at first;
but when he saw Alice actually laughing, and Farnsworth (who had
brought her in) biting his lip furiously to keep from adding an
uproarious guffaw, he lost all hold of himself. He unconsciously
picked up the rapier and shook it till its blade swished.
"I might have known better than to expect decency from a
wench of your character," he said. "I hoped to do you
a favor; but I see that you are not capable of accepting kindness
politely."
"I am sure, Monsieur, that I have but spoken the truth plainly
to you. You would not have me do otherwise, I hope."
Her voice, absolutely witching in its softness, freshness and
suavity, helped the assault of her eyes, while her dimples twinkled
and her hair shone. Hamilton felt his heart move strangely; but
he could not forbear saying in English:
"If you are so devilish truthful, Miss, you will probably
tell me where the flag is that you stole and hid."
It was always the missing banner that came to mind when he saw
her.
"Indeed I will do nothing of the sort," she promptly
replied. "When you see that flag again you will be a prisoner
and I will wave it high over your head."
She lifted a hand as she spoke and made the motion of shaking
a banner above him. It was exasperation sweetened almost to delight
that took hold of the sturdy Briton. He liked pluck, especially
in a woman; all the more if she was beautiful. Yet the very fact
that he felt her charm falling upon him set him hard against her,
not as Hamilton the man, but as Hamilton the commander at Vincennes.
"You think to fling yourself upon me as you have upon Captain
Farnsworth," he said, with an insulting leer and in a tone
of prurient innuendo. "I am not susceptible, my dear."
This more for Farnsworth's benefit than to insult her, albeit
he was not in a mood to care.
"You are a coward and a liar!" she exclaimed, her face
flushing with hot shame. "You stand here," she quickly
added, turning fiercely upon Farnsworth, "and quietly listen
to such words! You, too, are a coward if you do not make him retract!
Oh, you English are low brutes!"
Hamilton laughed; but Farnsworth looked dark and troubled, his
glance going back and forth from Alice to his commander, as if
another word would cause him to do something terrible.
"I rather think I've heard all that I care to hear from you,
Miss," Hamilton presently said. "Captain Farnsworth,
you will see that the prisoner is confined in the proper place,
which, I suggest to you, is not your sleeping quarters, sir."
"Colonel Hamilton," said Farnsworth in a husky voice,
"I slept on the ground under a shed last night in order that
Miss Roussillon might be somewhat comfortable."
"Humph! Well, see that you do not do it again. This girl
is guilty of harboring a spy and resisting a lawful attempt of
my guards to capture him. Confine her in the place prepared for
prisoners and see that she stays there until I am ready to fix
her punishment."
"There is no place fit for a young girl to stay in,"
Farnsworth ventured. "She can have no comfort or--"
"Take her along, sir; any place is good enough for her so
long as she behaves like a--"
"Very well," Farnsworth bluntly interrupted, thus saving
Alice the stroke of a vile comparison. "Come with me, please,
Miss Roussillon."
He pulled her toward the door, then dropped the arm he had grasped
and murmured an apology.
She followed him out, holding her head high. No one looking on
would have suspected that a sinking sensation in her heart made
it difficult for her to walk, or that her eyes, shining like stars,
were so inwardly clouded with distress that she saw her way but
dimly.
It was a relief to Hamilton when Helm a few minutes later entered
the room with something breezy to say.
"What's up now, if I may ask?" the jolly American demanded.
"What's this I hear about trouble with the French women?
Have they begun a revolution?"
"That elephant, Gaspard Roussillon, came back into town last
night," said Hamilton sulkily.
"Well, he went out again, didn't he?"
"Yes, but--"
"Stepped on somebody's toe first, eh?"
"The guard tried to capture him, and that girl of his wounded
Lieutenant Barlow in the neck with a sword. Roussillon fought
like a tiger and the men swear that the devil himself appeared
on the scene to help the Frenchman out."
"Moral: Be generous in your dealings with Frenchmen and Frenchwomen
and so get the devil on your side."
"I've got the girl a prisoner, and I swear to you that I'll
have her shot this time if--"
"Why not shoot her yourself? You oughtn't to shirk a dirty
job like that and force it upon your men."
Hamilton laughed and elevated his shoulders as if to shake off
an annoying load. Just then a young officer with a white bandage
around his neck entered and saluted. He was a small, soft-haired,
blue-eyed man of reckless bearing, with marks of dissipation sharply
cut into his face. He saluted, smiling self-consciously.
"Well, Barlow," said Hamilton, "the kitten scratched
you, did she?"
"Yes, slightly, and I don't think I've been treated fairly
in the matter, sir."
"How so?"
"I stood the brunt and now Captain Farnsworth gets the prize."
He twisted his mouth in mock expression of maudlin disappointment.
"I'm always cheated out of the sweets. I never get anything
for gallant conduct on the field."
"Poor boy! It is a shame. But I say, Lieutenant, has Roussillon
really escaped, or is he hidden somewhere in town? Have you been
careful?"
"Oh, it's the Indians. They all swear by these Frenchmen.
You can't get any help from them against a fellow like Roussillon.
In fact they aid him; he's among them now."
"Moral again," Helm interposed; "keep on the good
side of the French!"
"That's sensible talk, sir," assented Barlow.
"Bah!" exclaimed Hamilton. "You might as well talk
of keeping on the good side of the American traitors--a bloody
murrain seize the whole race!"
"That's what I say," chimed in the Lieutenant, with
a sly look at Helm.
"They have been telling me a cock-and-bull story concerning
the affair at the Roussillon cabin," Hamilton said, changing
his manner. "What is this about a disguised and wonderful
man who rushed in and upset the whole of you. I want no romancing;
give me the facts."
Barlow's dissolute countenance became troubled.
"The facts," he said, speaking with serious deliberation,
"are not clear. It was like a clap of thunder, the way that
man performed. As you say, he did fling the whole squad all of
a heap, and it was done that quickly," he snapped his thumb
and finger demonstratively with a sharp report; "nobody could
understand it."
Hamilton looked at his subaltern with a smile of unlimited contempt
and said:
"A pretty officer of His Majesty's army, you are, Lieutenant
Barlow! First a slip of a girl shows herself your superior with
the sword and wounds you, then a single man wipes up the floor
of a house with you and your guard, depriving you at the same
time of both vision and memory, so that you cannot even describe
your assailant!"
"He was dressed like a priest," muttered Barlow, evidently
frightened at his commander's scathing comment. "That was
all there was to see."
"A priest! Some of the men say the devil. I wonder--"
Hamilton hesitated and looked at the floor.
"This Father Beret, he is too old for such a thing, isn't
he?"
"I have thought of him--it was like him--but he is, as you
say, very old to be so tremendously strong and active. Why, I
tell you that men went from his hands against the walls and floor
as if shot out of a mortar. It was the strangest and most astounding
thing I ever heard of."
A little later Barlow seized a favorable opportunity and withdrew.
The conversation was not to his liking.
Hamilton sent for Father Beret and had a long talk with him, but
the old man looked so childishly inoffensive in spirit and so
collapsed physically that it seemed worse than foolishness to
accuse him of the exploit over which the entire garrison was wondering.
Farnsworth sat by during the interview. He looked the good priest
curiously and critically over from head to foot, remembering,
but not mentioning, the most unclerical punch in the side received
from that energetic right arm now lying so flabbily across the
old man's lap.
When the talk ended and Father Beret humbly took his leave, Hamilton
turned to Farnsworth and said:
"What do you think of this affair? I have cross-questioned
all the men who took part in it, and every one of them says simply
priest or devil. I think old Beret is both; but plainly he couldn't
hurt a chicken, you can see that at a glance."
Farnsworth smiled, rubbing his side reminiscently; but he shook
his head.
"I'm sure it's puzzling, indeed."
Hamilton sat in thoughtful silence for a while, then abruptly
changed the subject.
"I think, Captain, that you had better send out Lieutenant
Barlow and some of the best woodsmen to kill some game. We need
fresh venison, and, by George! I'm not going to depend upon these
French traitors any longer. I have set my foot down; they've got
to do better or take the consequences." He paused for a breath,
then added: "That girl has done too much to escape severest
punishment. The garrison will be demoralized if this thing goes
on without an example of authority rigidly enforced. I am resolved
that there shall be a startling and effective public display of
my power to punish. She shot you; you seem to be glad of it, but
it was a grave offence. She has stabbed Barlow; that is another
serious crime; but worst of all she aided a spy and resisted arrest.
She must be punished."
Farnsworth knew Hamilton's nature, and he now saw that Alice was
in dreadful danger of death or something even worse. Whenever
his chief talked of discipline and the need of maintaining his
authority, there was little hope of softening his decisions. Moreover,
the provocation to apply extreme measures really seemed sufficient,
regarded from a military point of view, and Captain Farnsworth
was himself, under ordinary circumstances, a disciplinarian of
the strictest class. The fascination, however, by which Alice
held him overbore every other influence, and his devotion to her
loosened every other tie and obligation to a most dangerous extent.
No sooner had he left headquarters and given Barlow his instructions
touching the hunting expedition, than his mind began to wander
amid visions and schemes by no means consistent with his military
obligations. In order to reflect undisturbed he went forth into
the dreary, lane-like streets of Vincennes and walked aimlessly
here and there until he met Father Beret.
Farnsworth saluted the old man, and was passing him by, when seeing
a sword in his hand, half hidden in the folds of his worn and
faded cassock, he turned and addressed him.
"Why are you armed this morning, Father?" he demanded
very pleasantly. "Who is to suffer now?"
"I am not on the war-path, my son," replied the priest.
"It is but a rapier that I am going to clean of rust spots
that are gathering on its blade."
"Is it yours, Father? Let me see it." He held out his
hand.
"No, not mine."
Father Beret seemed not to notice Farnsworth's desire to handle
the weapon, and the young man, instead of repeating his words,
reached farther, nearly grasping the scabbard.
"I cannot let you take it, my son," said Father Beret
"You have its mate, that should satisfy you."
"No, Colonel Hamilton took it," Farnsworth quickly replied.
"If I could I would gladly return it to its owner. I am not
a thief, Father, and I am ashamed of--of--what I did when I was
drunk."
The priest looked sharply into Farnsworth's eyes and read there
something that reassured him. His long experience had rendered
him adept at taking a man's value at a glance. He slightly lifted
his face and said: "Ah, but the poor little girl! why do
you persecute her? She really does not deserve it. She is a noble
child. Give her back to her home and her people. Do not soil and
spoil her sweet life."
It was the sing-song voice used by Father Beret in his sermons
and prayers; but something went with it indescribably touching.
Farnsworth felt a lump rise in his throat and his eyes were ready
to show tears. "Father," he said, with difficulty making
his words distinct, "I would not harm Miss Roussillon to
save my own life, and I would do anything--" he paused slightly,
then added with passionate force; "I would do anything, no
matter what, to save her from the terrible thing that now threatens
her."
Father Beret's countenance changed curiously as he gazed at the
young man and said:
"If you really mean what you say, you can easily save her,
my son."
"Father, by all that is holy, I mean just what I say."
"Swear not at all, my son, but give me your hand."
The two men stood with a tight grip between them and exchanged
a long, steady, searching gaze.
A drizzling rain had begun to fall again, with a raw wind creeping
from the west.
"Come with me to my house, my son," Father Beret presently
added; and together they went, the priest covering Alice's sword
from the rain with the folds of his cassock.
CHAPTER XV
VIRTUE IN A LOCKET
Long-Hair stood not upon ceremony in conveying to Beverley the
information that he was to run the gauntlet, which, otherwise
stated, meant that the Indians would form themselves in two parallel
lines facing each other about six feet apart, and that the prisoner
would be expected to run down the length of the space between,
thus affording the warriors an opportunity, greatly coveted and
relished by their fiendish natures, to beat him cruelly during
his flight. This sort of thing was to the Indians, indeed, an
exquisite amusement, as fascinating to them as the theater is
to more enlightened people. No sooner was it agreed upon that
the entertainment should again be undertaken than all the younger
men began to scurry around getting everything ready for it. Their
faces glowed with a droll cruelty strange to see, and they further
expressed their lively expectations by playful yet curiously solemn
antics.
The preparations were simple and quickly made. Each man armed
himself with a stick three feet long and about three-quarters
of an inch in diameter. Rough weapons they were, cut from boughs
of scrub-oak, knotty and tough as horn. Long-Hair unbound Beverley
and stripped his clothes from his body down to the waist. Then
the lines formed, the Indians in each row standing about as far
apart as the width of the space in which the prisoner was to run.
This arrangement gave them free use of their sticks and plenty
of room for full swing of their lithe bodies.
In removing Beverley's clothes Long-Hair found Alice's locket
hanging over the young man's heart. He tore it rudely off and
grunted, glaring viciously, first at it, then at Beverley. He
seemed to be mightily wrought upon.
"White man damn thief," he growled deep in his throat;
"stole from little girl!"
He put the locket in his pouch and resumed his stupidly indifferent
expression.
When everything was ready for the delightful entertainment to
begin, Long-Hair waved his tomahawk three times over Beverley's
head, and pointing down between the waiting lines said:
"Ugh, run!"
But Beverley did not budge. He was standing erect, with his arms,
deeply creased where the thongs had sunk, folded across his breast.
A rush of thoughts and feelings had taken tumultuous possession
of him and he could not move or decide what to do. A mad desire
to escape arose in his heart the moment that he saw Long-Hair
take the locket. It was as if Alice had cried to him and bidden
him make a dash for liberty.
"Ugh, run!"
The order was accompanied with a push of such violence from Long-
Hair's left elbow that Beverley plunged and fell, for his limbs,
after their long and painful confinement in the raw-hide bonds,
were stiff and almost useless. Long-Hair in no gentle voice bade
him get up. The shock of falling seemed to awaken his dormant
forces; a sudden resolve leaped into his brain. He saw that the
Indians had put aside their bows and guns, most of which were
leaning against the boles of trees here and yonder. What if he
could knock Long-Hair down and run away? This might possibly be
easy, considering the Indian's broken arm. His heart jumped at
the possibility. But the shrewd savage was alert and saw the thought
come into his face.
"You try git 'way, kill dead!" he snarled, lifting his
tomahawk ready for a stroke. "Brains out, damn!"
Beverley glanced down the waiting and eager lines. Swiftly he
speculated, wondering what would be his chance for escape were
he to break through. But he did not take his own condition into
account.
"Ugh, run!"
Again the elbow of Long-Hair's hurt arm pushed him toward the
expectant rows of Indians, who flourished their clubs and uttered
impatient grunts.
This time he did not fall; but in trying to run he limped stiffly
at first, his legs but slowly and imperfectly regaining their
strength and suppleness from the action. Just before reaching
the lines, however, he stopped short. Long-Hair, who was close
behind him, took hold of his shoulder and led him back to the
starting place. The big Indian's arm must have given him pain
when he thus used it, but he did not wince. "Fool--kill dead!"
he repeated two or three times, holding his tomahawk on high with
threatening motions and frequent repetitions of his one echo from
the profanity of civilization. He was beginning to draw his mouth
down at the corners, and his eyes were narrowed to mere slits.
Beverley understood now that he could not longer put off the trial.
He must choose between certain death and the torture of the gauntlet,
as frontiersmen named this savage ordeal. An old man might have
preferred the stroke of the hatchet to such an infliction as the
clubs must afford, considering that, even after all the agony,
his captivity and suffering would be only a little nearer its
end. Youth, however, has faith in the turn of fortune's wheel,
and faith in itself, no matter how dark the prospect. Hope blows
her horn just over the horizon, and the strain bids the young
heart take courage and beat strong. Moreover, men were men, who
led the van in those days on the outmost lines of our march to
the summit of the world. Beverley was not more a hero than any
other young, brave, unconquerable patriot of the frontier army.
His situation simply tried him a trifle harder than was common.
But it must be remembered that he had Love with him, and where
Love is there can be no cowardice, no surrender.
Long-Hair once again pushed him and said
"Ugh, run!"
Beverley made a direct dash for the narrow lane between the braced
and watchful lines. Every warrior lifted his club; every copper
face gleamed stolidly, a mask behind which burned a strangely
atrocious spirit. The two savages standing at the end nearest
Beverley struck at him the instant he reached than, but they taken
quite by surprise when he checked himself between them and, leaping
this way and that, swung out two powerful blows, left and right,
stretching one of them flat and sending the other reeling and
staggering half a dozen paces backward with the blood streaming
from his nose.
This done, Beverley turned to run away, but his breath was already
short and his strength rapidly going.
Long-Hair, who was at his heels, leaped before him when he had
gone but a few steps and once more flourished the tomahawk. To
struggle was useless, save to insist upon being brained outright,
which just then had no part in Beverley's considerations. Long-
Hair kicked his victim heavily, uttering laconic curses meanwhile,
and led him back again to the starting-point.
A genuine sense of humor seems almost entirely lacking in the
mind of the American Indian. He smiles at things not in the least
amusing to us and when he laughs, which is very seldom, the cause
of his merriment usually lies in something repellantly cruel and
inhuman. When Beverley struck his two assailants, hurting them
so that one lay half stunned, while the other spun away from his
fist with a smashed nose, all the rest of the Indians grunted
and laughed raucously in high delight. They shook their clubs,
danced, pointed at their discomfited fellows and twisted their
painted faces into knotted wrinkles, their eyes twinkling with
devilish expression of glee quite indescribable.
"Ugh, damn, run!" said Long-Half, this time adding a
hard kick to the elbow-shove he gave Beverley.
The young man, who had borne all he could, now turned upon him
furiously and struck straight from the shoulder, setting the whole
weight of his body into the blow. Long-Hair stepped out of the
way and quick as a flash brought the flat side of his tomahawk
with great force against Beverley's head. This gave the amusement
a sudden and disappointing end, for the prisoner fell limp and
senseless to the ground. No more running the gauntlet for him
that day. Indeed it required protracted application of the best
Indian skill to revive him so that he could fairly be called a
living man. There had been no dangerous concussion, however, and
on the following morning camp was broken.
Beverley, sore, haggard, forlornly disheveled, had his arms bound
again and was made to march apace with his nimble enemies, who
set out swiftly eastward, their disappointment at having their
sport cut short, although bitter enough, not in the least indicated
by any facial expression or spiteful act.
Was it really a strange thing, or was it not, that Beverley's
mind now busied itself unceasingly with the thought that Long-Hair
had Alice's picture in his pouch? One might find room for discussion
of a cerebral problem like this; but our history cannot be delayed
with analyses and speculations; it must run its direct course
unhindered to the end. Suffice it to record that, while tramping
at Long-Hair's side and growing more and more desirous of seeing
the picture again, Beverley began trying to converse with his
taciturn captor. He had a considerable smattering of several Indian
dialects, which he turned upon Long-Hair to the best of his ability,
but apparently without effect. Nevertheless he babbled at intervals,
always upon the same subject and always endeavoring to influence
that huge, stolid, heartless savage in the direction of letting
him see again the child face of the miniature.
A stone, one of our travel-scarred and mysterious western granite
bowlders brought from the far north by the ancient ice, would
show as much sympathy as did the face of Long-Hair. Once in a
while he gave Beverley a soulless glance and said "damn"
with utter indifference. Nothing, however, could quench or even
in the slightest sense allay the lover's desire. He talked of
Alice and the locket with constantly increasing volubility, saying
over and over phrases of endearment in a half-delirious way, not
aware that fever was fermenting his blood and heating his brain.
Probably he would have been very ill but for the tremendous physical
exercise forced upon him. The exertion kept him in a profuse perspiration
and his robust constitution cast off the malarial poison. Meantime
he used every word and phrase, every grunt and gesture of Indian
dialect that he could recall, in the iterated and reiterated attempt
to make Long-Hair understand what he wanted.
When night came on again the band camped under some trees beside
a swollen stream. There was no rain falling, but almost the entire
country lay under a flood of water. Fires of logs were soon burning
brightly on the comparatively dry bluff chosen by the Indians.
The weather was chill, but not cold. Long-Hair took great pains,
however, to dry Beverley's clothes and see that he had warm wraps
and plenty to eat. Hamilton's large reward would not be forthcoming
should the prisoner die, Beverley was good property, well worth
careful attention. To be sure his scalp, in the worst event, would
command a sufficient honorarium, but not the greatest. Beverley
thought of all this while the big Indian was wrapping him snugly
in skins and blankets for the night, and there was no comfort
in it, save that possibly if he were returned to Hamilton he might
see Alice again before he died.
A fitful wind cried dolefully in the leafless treetops, the stream
hard by gave forth a rushing sound, and far away some wolves howled
like lost souls. Worn out, sore from head to foot, Beverley, deep
buried in the blankets and skins, soon fell into a profound sleep.
The fires slowly crumbled and faded; no sentinel was posted, for
the Indians did not fear an attack, there being no enemies that
they knew of nearer than Kaskaskia. The camp slumbered as one
man.
At about the mid-hour of the night Long-Hair gently awoke his
prisoner by drawing a hand across his face, then whispered in
his ear:
"Damn, still!"
Beverley tried to rise, uttering a sleepy ejaculation under his
breath. "No talk," hissed Long-Hair. "Still!"
There was something in his voice that not only swept the last
film of sleep out of Beverley's brain, but made it perfectly clear
to him that a very important bit of craftiness was being performed;
just what its nature was, however, he could not surmise. One thing
was obvious, Long-Hair did not wish the other Indians to know
of the move he was making. Deftly he slipped the blankets from
around Beverley, and cut the thongs at his ankles.
"Still!" he whispered. "Come 'long."
Under such circumstances a competent mind acts with lightning
celerity. Beverley now understood that Long-Hair was stealing
him away from the other savages and that the big villain meant
to cheat them out of their part of the reward. Along with this
discovery came a fresh gleam of hope. It would be far easier to
escape from one Indian than from nearly a score. Ah, he would
follow Long-Hair, indeed he would! The needed courage came with
the thought, and so with immense labor he crept at the heels of
that crawling monster. It was a painful process, for his arms
were still fast bound at the wrists with the raw-hide strings;
but what was pain to him? He shivered with joy, thinking of what
might happen. The voice of the wind overhead and the noisy bubbling
of the stream near by were cheerful and cheering sounds to him
now. So much can a mere shadow of hope do for a human soul on
the verge of despair! Already he was planning or trying to plan
some way by which he could kill Long-Hair when they should reach
a safe distance from the sleeping camp.
But how could the thing be done? A man with his hands tied, though
they are in front of him, is in no excellent condition to cope
with a free and stalwart savage armed to the teeth. Still Beverley's
spirits rose with every rod of distance that was added to their
slow progress.
Their course was nearly parallel with that of the stream, but
slightly converging toward it, and after they had gone about a
furlong they reached the bank. Here Long-Hair stopped and, without
a word, cut the thongs from Beverley's wrists. This was astounding;
the young man could scarcely realize it, nor was he ready to act.
"Swim water," Long-Hair said in a guttural murmur barely
audible. "Swim, damn!"
Again it was necessary for Beverley's mind to act swiftly and
with prudence. The camp was yet within hailing distance. A false
move now would bring the whole pack howling to the rescue. Something
told him to do as Long-Hair ordered, so with scarcely a perceptible
hesitation he scrambled down the bushy bank and slipped into the
water, followed by Long-Hair, who seized him by one arm when he
began to swim, and struck out with him into the boiling and tumbling
current.
Beverley had always thought himself a master swimmer, but Long-
Hair showed him his mistake. The giant Indian, with but one hand
free to use, fairly rushed through that deadly cold and turbulent
water, bearing his prisoner with him despite the wounded arm,
as easily as if towing him at the stern of a pirogue. True, his
course was down stream for a considerable distance, but even when
presently he struck out boldly for the other bank, breasting a
current in which few swimmers could have lived, much less made
headway, he still swung forward rapidly, splitting the waves and
scarcely giving Beverley freedom enough so that he could help
in the progress. It was a long, cold struggle, and when at last
they touched the sloping low bank on the other side, Long-Hair
had fairly to lift his chilled and exhausted prisoner to the top.
"Ugh, cold," he grunted, beginning to pound and rub
Beverley's arms, legs and body. "Make warm, damn heap!"
All this he did with his right hand, holding the tomahawk in his
left.
It was a strange, bewildering experience out of which the young
man could not see in any direction far enough to give him a hint
upon which to act. In a few minutes Long-Hair jerked him to his
feet and said:
"Go."
It was just light enough to see that the order had a tomahawk
to enforce it withal. Long-Hair indicated the direction and drove
Beverley onward as fast as he could.
"Try run 'way, kill, damn!" he kept repeating, while
with his left hand on the young man's shoulder he guided him from
behind dexterously through the wood for some distance. Then he
stopped and grunted, adding his favorite expletive, which he used
with not the least knowledge of its meaning. To him the syllable
"damn" was but a mouthful of forcible wind.
They had just emerged from a thicket into an open space, where
the ground was comparatively dry. Overhead the stars were shining
in great clusters of silver and gold against a dark, cavernous
looking sky, here and there overrun with careering black clouds.
Beverley shivered, not so much with cold as on account of the
stress of excitement which amounted to nervous rigor. Long-Hair
faced him and leaned toward him, until his breathing was audible
and his massive features were dimly outlined. A dragon of the
darkest age could not have been more repulsive.
"Ugh, friend, damn!"
Beverley started when these words were followed by a sentence
in an Indian dialect somewhat familiar to him, a dialect in which
he had tried to talk with Long-Hair during the day's march. The
sentence, literally translated, was:
"Long-Hair is friendly now."
A blow in the face could not have been so surprising. Beverley
not only started, but recoiled as if from a sudden and deadly
apparition. The step between supreme exhilaration and utter collapse
is now and then infinitesimal. There are times, moreover, when
an expression on the face of Hope makes her look like the twin
sister of Despair. The moment falling just after Long-Hair spoke
was a century condensed in a breath.
"Long-Hair is friendly now; will white man be friendly?"
Beverley heard, but the speech seemed to come out of vastness
and hollow distance; he could not realize it fairly. He felt as
if in a dream, far off somewhere in loneliness, with a big, shadowy
form looming before him. He heard the chill wind in the thickets
round about, and beyond Long-Hair rose a wall of giant trees.
"Ugh, not understand?" the savage presently demanded
in his broken English.
"Yes, yes," said Beverley, "I understand."
"Is the white man friendly now?" Long-Hair then repeated
in his own tongue, with a certain insistence of manner and voice.
"Yes, friendly."
Beverley said this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness.
His throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning
to comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his
own, was desirous of making a friendship between them. The thought
was bewildering.
Long-Hair fumbled in his pouch and took out Alice's locket, which
he handed to Beverley. "White man love little girl?"
he inquired in a tone that bordered upon tenderness, again speaking
in Indian.
Beverley clutched the disk as soon as he saw it gleam in the star-
light.
"White man going to have little girl for his squaw--eh?"
"Yes, yes," cried Beverley without hearing his own voice.
He was trying to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling.
When at last he did open it he could not see the child face within,
for now even the star-light was shut off by a scudding black cloud.
"Little girl saved Long-Hair's life. Long-Hair save white
warrior for little girl."
A dignity which was almost noble accompanied these simple sentences.
Long-Hair stood proudly erect, like a colossal dark statue in
the dimness.
The great truth dawned upon Beverley that here was a characteristic
act. He knew that an Indian rarely failed to repay a kindness
or an injury, stroke for stroke, when opportunity offered. Long-Hair
was a typical Indian. That is to say, a type of inhumanity raised
to the last power; but under his hideous atrocity of nature lay
the indestructible sense of gratitude so fixed and perfect that
it did its work almost automatically.
It must be said, and it may or may not be to the white man's shame,
that Beverley did not respond with absolute promptness and sincerity
to Long-Hair's generosity. He had suffered terribly at the hands
of this savage. His arms and legs were raw from the biting of
the thongs; his body ached from the effect of blows and kicks
laid upon him while bound and helpless. Perhaps he was not a very
emotional man. At all events there was no sudden recognition of
the favor he was receiving. And this pleased Long-Hair, for the
taste of the American Indian delights in immobility of countenance
and reserve of feeling under great strain.
"Wait here a little while," Long-Hair presently said,
and without lingering for reply, turned away and disappeared in
the wood. Beverley was free to run if he wished to, and the thought
did surge across his mind; but a restraining something, like a
hand laid upon him, would not let his limbs move. Down deep in
his heart a calm voice seemed to be repeating Long-Hair's Indian
sentence--"Wait here a little while."
A few minutes later Long-Hair returned bearing two guns, Beverley's
and his own, the latter, a superb weapon given him by Hamilton.
He afterward explained that he had brought these, with their bullet-pouches
and powder-horns, to a place of concealment near by before he
awoke Beverley. This meant that he had swum the cold river three
times since night-fall; once over with the guns and accouterments;
once back to camp, then over again with Beverley! All this with
a broken arm, and to repay Alice for her kindness to him.
Beverley may have been slow, but at last his appreciation was,
perhaps, all the more profound. As best he could he expressed
it to Long-Hair, who showed no interest whatever in the statement.
Instead of responding in Indian, he said "damn" without
emphasis. It was rather as if he had yawned absently, being bored.
Delay could not be thought of. Long-Hair explained briefly that
he thought. Beverley must go to Kaskaskia. He had come across
the stream in the direction of Vincennes in order to set his warriors
at fault. The stream must be recrossed, he said, farther down,
and he would help Beverley a certain distance on his way, then
leave him to shift for himself. He had a meager amount of parched
corn and buffalo meat in his pouch, which would stay hunger until
they could kill some game. Now they must go.
The resilience of a youthful and powerful physique offers many
a problem to the biologist. Vital force seems to find some mysterious
reservoir of nourishment hidden away in the nerve- centers. Beverley
set out upon that seemingly impossible undertaking with renewed
energy. It could not have been the ounce of parched corn and bit
of jerked venison from which he drew so much strength; but on
the other hand, could it have been the miniature of Alice, which
he felt pressing over his heart once more, that afforded a subtle
stimulus to both mind and body? They flung miles behind them before
day-dawn, Long-Hair leading, Beverley pressing close at his heels.
Most of the way led over flat prairies covered with water, and
they therefore left no track by which they could be followed.
Late in the forenoon Long-Hair killed a deer at the edge of a
wood. Here they made a fire and cooked a supply which would last
them for a day or two, and then on they went again. But we cannot
follow them step by step. When Long-Hair at last took leave of
Beverley, the occasion had no ceremony. It was an abrupt, unemotional
parting. The stalwart Indian simply said in his own dialect, pointing
westward:
"Go that way two days. You will find your friends."
Then, without another look or word, he turned about and stalked
eastward at a marvelously rapid gait. In his mind he had a good
tale to tell his warrior companions when he should find them again:
how Beverley escaped that night and how he followed him a long,
long chase, only to lose him at last under the very guns of the
fort at Kaskaskia. But before he reached his band an incident
of some importance changed his story to a considerable degree.
It chanced that he came upon Lieutenant Barlow, who, in pursuit
of game, had lost his bearings and, far from his companions, was
beating around quite bewildered in a watery solitude. Long-Hair
promptly murdered the poor fellow and scalped him with as little
compunction as he would have skinned a rabbit; for he had a clever
scheme in his head, a very audacious and outrageous scheme, by
which he purposed to recoup, to some extent, the damages sustained
by letting Beverley go.
Therefore, when he rejoined his somewhat disheartened and demoralized
band he showed them the scalp and gave them an eloquent account
of how he tore it from Beverley's head after a long chase and
a bloody hand to hand fight. They listened, believed, and were
satisfied.
CHAPTER XVI
FATHER BERET'S OLD BATTLE
The room in which Alice was now imprisoned formed part of the
upper story of a building erected by Hamilton in one of the four
angles of the stockade. It had no windows and but two oblong port-
holes made to accommodate a small swivel, which stood darkly scowling
near the middle of the floor. From one of these apertures Alice
could see the straggling roofs and fences of the dreary little
town, while from the other a long reach of watery prairie, almost
a lake, lay under view with the rolling, muddy Wabash gleaming
beyond. There seemed to be no activity of garrison or townspeople.
Few sounds broke the silence of which the cheerless prison room
seemed to be the center.
Alice felt all her courage and cheerfulness leaving her. She was
alone in the midst of enemies. No father or mother, no friend--a
young girl at the mercy of soldiers, who could not be expected
to regard her with any sympathy beyond that which is accompanied
with repulsive leers and hints. Day after day her loneliness and
helplessness became more agonizing. Farnsworth, it is true, did
all he could to relieve the strain of her situation; but Hamilton
had an eye upon what passed and soon interfered. He administered
a bitter reprimand, under which his subordinate writhed in speechless
anger and resentment.
"Finally, Captain Farnsworth," he said in conclusion,
"you will distinctly understand that this girl is my prisoner,
not yours; that I, not you, will direct how she is to be held
and treated, and that hereafter I will suffer no interference
on your part. I hope you fully understand me, sir, and will govern
yourself accordingly."
Smarting, or rather smothering, under the outrageous insult of
these remarks, Farnsworth at first determined to fling his resignation
at the Governor's feet and then do whatever desperate thing seemed
most to his mood. But a soldier's training is apt to call a halt
before the worst befalls in such a case. Moreover, in the present
temptation, Farnsworth had a special check and hindrance. He had
had a conference with Father Beret, in which the good priest had
played the part of wisdom in slippers, and of gentleness more
dove-like than the dove's. A very subtle impression, illuminated
with the "hope that withers hope," had come of that
interview; and now Farnsworth felt its restraint. He therefore
saluted Hamilton formally and walked away.
Father Beret's paternal love for Alice,--we cannot characterize
it more nicely than to call it paternal,--was his justification
for a certain mild sort of corruption insinuated by him into the
heart of Farnsworth. He was a crafty priest, but his craft was
always used for a good end. Unquestionably Jesuitic was his mode
of circumventing the young man's military scruples by offering
him a puff of fair weather with which to sail toward what appeared
to be the shore of delight. He saw at a glance that Farnsworth's
love for Alice was a consuming passion in a very ardent yet decidedly
weak heart. Here was the worldly lever with which Father Beret
hoped to raze Alice's prison and free her from the terrible doom
with which she was threatened.
The first interview was at Father Beret's cabin, to which, as
will be remembered, the priest and Farnsworth went after their
meeting in the street. It actually came to nothing, save an indirect
understanding but half suggested by Father Beret and never openly
sanctioned by Captain Farnsworth. The talk was insinuating on
the part of the former, while the latter slipped evasively from
every proposition, as if not able to consider it on account of
a curious obtuseness of perception. Still, when they separated
they shook hands and exchanged a searching look perfectly satisfactory
to both.
The memory of that interview with the priest was in Farnsworth's
mind when, boiling with rage, he left Hamilton's presence and
went forth into the chill February air. He passed out through
the postern and along the sodden and queachy aedge of the prairie,
involuntarily making his way to Father Beret's cabin. His indignation
was so great that he trembled from head to foot at every step.
The door of the place was open and Father Beret was eating a frugal
meal of scones and sour wine (of his own make, he said), which
he hospitably begged to share with his visitor. A fire smouldered
on the hearth, and a flat stone showed, by the grease smoking
over its hot surface, where the cakes had been baked.
"Come in, my son," said the priest, "and try the
fare of a poor old man. It is plain, very plain, but good."
He smacked his lips sincerely and fingered another scone. "Take
some, take some."
Farnsworth was not tempted. The acid bouquet of the wine filled
the room with a smack of vinegar, and the smoke from rank scorching
fat and wheat meal did not suggest an agreeable feast.
"Well, well, if you are not hungry, my son, sit down on the
stool there and tell me the news."
Farnsworth took the low seat without a word, letting his eyes
wander over the walls. Alice's rapier, the mate to that now worn
by Hamilton, hung in its curiously engraved scabbard near one
corner. The sight of it inflamed Farnsworth.
"It's an outrage," he broke forth. "Governor Hamilton
sent a man to Roussillon place with orders to bring him the scabbard
of Miss Roussillon's sword, and he now wears the beautiful weapon
as if he had come by it honestly. Damn him!"
"My dear, dear son, you must not soil your lips with such
language!" Father Beret let fall the half of a well bitten
cake and held up both hands.
"I beg your pardon, Father; I know I ought to be more careful
in your presence; but--but--the beastly, hellish scoundrel--"
"Bah! doucement, mon fils, doucement." The old man shook
his head and his finger while speaking. "Easy, my son, easy.
You would be a fine target for bullets were your words to reach
Hamilton's ears. You are not permitted to revile your commander."
"Yes, I know; but how can a man restrain himself under such
abominable conditions?"
Father Beret shrewdly guessed that Hamilton had been giving the
Captain fresh reason for bitter resentment. Moreover, he was sure
that the moving cause had been Alice. So, in order to draw out
what he wished to hear, he said very gently:
"How is the little prisoner getting along?"
Farnsworth ground his teeth and swore; but Father Beret appeared
not to hear; he bit deep into a scone, took a liberal sip of the
muddy red wine and added:
"Has she a comfortable place? Do you think Governor Hamilton
would let me visit her?"
"It is horrible!" Farnsworth blurted. "She's penned
up as if she were a dangerous beast, the poor girl. And that damned
scoundrel-- "
"Son, son!"
"Oh, it's no use to try, I can't help it, Father. The whelp--"
"We can converse more safely and intelligently if we avoid
profanity, and undue emotion, my son. Now, if you will quit swearing,
I will, and if you will be calm, so will I."
Farnsworth felt the sly irony of this absurdly vicarious proposition.
Father Beret smiled with a kindly twinkle in his deep-set eyes.
"Well, if you don't use profane language, Father, there's
no telling how much you think in expletives. What is your opinion
of a man who tumbles a poor, defenseless girl into prison and
then refuses to let her be decently cared for? How do you express
yourself about him?"
"My son, men often do things of which they ought to be ashamed.
I heard of a young officer once who maltreated a little girl that
he met at night in the street. What evil he would have done, had
not a passing kind-hearted man reminded him of his honor by a
friendly punch in the ribs, I dare not surmise."
"True, and your sarcasm goes home as hard as your fist did,
Father. I know that I've been a sad dog all my life. Miss Roussillon
saved you by shooting me, and I love her for it. Lay on, Father,
I deserve more than you can give me."
"Surely you do, my son, surely you do; but my love for you
will not let me give you pain. Ah, we priests have to carry all
men's loads. Our backs are broad, however, very broad, my son."
"And your fists devilish heavy, Father, devilish heavy."
The gentle smile again flickered over the priest's weather-beaten
face as he glanced sidewise at Farnsworth and said:
"Sometimes, sometimes, my son, a carnal weapon must break
the way for a spiritual one. But we priests rarely have much physical
strength; our dependence is upon--"
"To be sure; certainly," Farnsworth interrupted, rubbing
his side, "your dependence is upon the first thing that offers.
I've had many a blow; but yours was the solidest that ever jarred
tny mortal frame, Father Beret."
The twain began to laugh. There is nothing like a reminiscence
to stir up fresh mutual sympathy.
"If your intercostals were somewhat sore for a time, on account
of a contact with priestly knuckles, doubtless there soon set
in a corresponding uneasiness in the region of your conscience.
Such shocks are often vigorously alterative and tonic--eh, my
son?"
"You jolted me sober, Father, and then I was ashamed of myself.
But where does all your tremendous strength lie? You don't look
strong."
While speaking Farnsworth leaned near Father Beret and grasped
his arm. The young man started, for his fingers, instead of closing
around a flabby, shrunken old man's limb, spread themselves upon
a huge, knotted mass of iron muscles. With a quick movement Father
Beret shook off Farnsworth's hand, and said:
"I am no Samson, my son. Non sum qualis eram." Then,
as if dismissing a light subject for a graver one, he sighed and
added; "I suppose there is nothing that can be done for little
Alice."
He called the tall, strong girl "little Alice," and
so she seemed to him. He could not, without direct effort, think
of her as a magnificently maturing woman. She had always been
his spoiled pet child, perversely set against the Holy Church,
but dear to him nevertheless.
"I came to you to ask that very question, Father," said
Farnsworth.
"And what do I know? Surely, my son, you see how utterly
helpless an old priest is against all you British. And besides--"
"Father Beret," Farnsworth huskily interrupted, "is
there a place that you know of anywhere in which Miss Roussillon
could be hidden, if--"
"My dear son."
"But, Father, I mean it."
"Mean what? Pardon an old man's slow understanding. What
are you talking about, my son?"
Father Beret glanced furtively about, then quickly stepped through
the doorway, walked entirely around the house and came in again
before Farnsworth could respond. Once more seated on his stool
he added interrogatively:
"Did you think you heard something moving outside?"
"No."
"You were saying something when I went out. Pardon my interruption."
Farnsworth gave the priest a searching and not wholly confiding
look.
"You did not interrupt me, Father Beret. I was not speaking.
Why are you so watchful? Are you afraid of eavesdroppers?"
"You were speaking recklessly. Your words were incendiary:
ardentia verba. My son, you were suggesting a dangerous thing.
Your life would scarcely satisfy the law were you convicted of
insinuating such treason. What if one of your prowling guards
had overheard you? Your neck and mine might feel the halter. Quod
avertat dominus." He crossed himself and in a solemn voice
added in English:
"May the Lord forbid! Ah, my son, we priests protect those
we love."
"And I, who am not fit to tie a priest's shoe, do likewise.
Father, I love Alice Roussillon."
"Love is a holy thing, my son. Amare divinum est et humanum."
"Father Beret, can you help me?"
"Spiritually speaking, my son?"
"I mean, can you hide Mademoiselle Roussillon in some safe
place, if I take her out of the prison yonder? That's just what
I mean. Can you do it?"
"Your question is a remarkable one. Have you thought upon
it from all directions, my son? Think of your position, your duty
as an officer."
A shrewd polemical expression beamed from Father Beret's eyes,
and a very expert physiogomist might have suspected duplicity
from certain lines about the old man's mouth.
"I simply know that I cannot stand by and see Alice--Mademoiselle
Roussillon, forced to suffer treatment too beastly for an Indian
thief. That's the only direction there is for me to look at it
from, and you can understand my feelings if you will; you know
that very well, Father Beret. When a man loves a girl, he loves
her; that's the whole thing.".
The quiet, inscrutable half-smile flickered once more on Father
Beret's face; but he sat silent some time with a sinewy forefinger
lying alongside his nose. When at last he spoke it was in a tone
of voice indicative of small interest in what he was saying. His
words rambled to their goal with the effect of happy accident.
"There are places in this neighborhood in which a human being
would be as hard to find as the flag that you and Governor Hamilton
have so diligently and unsuccessfully been in quest of for the
past month or two. Really, my son, this is a mysterious little
town."
Farnsworth's eyes widened and a flush rose in his swarthy cheeks.
"Damn the flag!" he exclaimed. "Let it lie hidden
forever; what do I care? I tell you, Father Beret, that Alice
Roussillon is in extreme danger. Governor Hamilton means to put
some terrible punishment on her. He has a devil's vindictiveness.
He showed it to me clearly awhile ago."
"You showed something of the same sort to me, once upon a
time, my son."
"Yes, I did, Father Beret, and I got a load of slugs in my
shoulder for it from that brave girl's pistol. She saved your
life. Now I ask you to help me save hers; or, if not her life,
what is infinitely more, her honor."
"Her honor!" cried Father Beret, leaping to his feet
so suddenly and with such energy that the cabin shook from base
to roof. "What do you say, Captain Farnsworth? What do you
mean?"
The old man was transformed. His face was terrible to see, with
its narrow, burning eyes deep under the shaggy brows, its dark
veins writhing snakelike on the temples and forehead, the projected
mouth and chin, the hard lines of the jaws, the iron- gray gleam
from all the features--he looked like an aged tiger stiffened
for a spring.
Farnsworth was made of right soldierly stuff; but he felt a distinct
shiver flit along his back. His past life had not lacked thrilling
adventures and strangely varied experiences with desperate men.
Usually he met sudden emergencies rather calmly, sometimes with
phlegmatic indifference. This passionate outburst on the priest's
part, however, surprised him and awed him, while it stirred his
heart with a profound sympathy unlike anything he had ever felt
before.
Father Beret mastered himself in a moment, and passing his hand
over his face, as if to brush away the excitement, sat down again
on his stool. He appeared to collapse inwardly.
"You must excuse the weakness of an old man, my son,"
he said, in a voice hoarse and shaking. "But tell me what
is going to be done with Alice. Your words--what you said--I did
not understand."
He rubbed his forehead slowly, as one who has difficulty in trying
to collect his thoughts.
"I do not know what Governor Hamilton means to do, Father
Beret. It will be something devilish, however,--something that
must not happen," said Farnsworth.
Then he recounted all that Hamilton had done and said. He described
the dreary and comfortless room in which Alice was confined, the
miserable fare given her, and how she would be exposed to the
leers and low remarks of the soldiers. She had already suffered
these things, and now that she could no longer have any protection,
what was to become of her? He did not attempt to overstate the
case; but presented it with a blunt sincerity which made a powerfully
realistic impression.
Father Beret, like most men of strong feeling who have been subjected
to long years of trial, hardship, multitudinous dangers and all
sorts of temptation, and who have learned the lessons of self-control,
had an iron will, and also an abiding distrust of weak men. He
saw Farnsworth's sincerity; but he had no faith in his constancy,
although satisfied that while resentment of Hamilton's imperiousness
lasted, he would doubtless remain firm in his purpose to aid Alice.
Let that wear off, as in a short time it would, and then what?
The old man studied his companion with eyes that slowly resumed
their expression of smouldering and almost timid geniality. His
priestly experience with desperate men was demanding of him a
proper regard for that subtlety of procedure which had so often
compassed most difficult ends.
He listened in silence to Farnsworth's story. When it came to
an end he began to offer some but half relevant suggestions in
the form of indirect cross-questions, by means of which he gradually
drew out a minute description of Alice's prison, the best way
to reach it, the nature of its door-fastenings, where the key
was kept, and everything, indeed, likely to be helpful to one
contemplating a jail delivery. Farnsworth was inwardly delighted.
He felt Father Beret's cunning approach to the central object
and his crafty method of gathering details.
The shades of evening thickened in the stuffy cabin room while
the conversation went on. Father Beret presently lifted a puncheon
in one corner of the floor and got out a large bottle, which bore
a mildewed and faded French label, and with it a small iron cup.
There was just light enough left to show a brownish sparkle when,
after popping out the cork, he poured a draught in the fresh cup
and in his own.
"We may think more clearly, my son, if we taste this old
liquor. I have kept it a long while to offer upon a proper occasion.
The occasion is here."
A ravishing bouquet quickly imbued the air. It was itself an intoxication.
"The Brothers of St. Martin distilled this liquor,"
Father Beret added, handing the cup to Farnsworth, "not for
common social drinking, my son, but for times when a man needs
extraordinary stimulation. It is said to be surpassingly good,
because St. Martin blessed the vine."
The doughty Captain felt a sudden and imperious thirst seize his
throat. The liquor flooded his veins before his lips touched the
cup. He had been abstaining lately; now his besetting appetite
rushed upon him. At one gulp he took in the fiery yet smooth and
captivating draught. Nor did he notice that Father Beret, instead
of joining him in the potation, merely lifted his cup and set
it down again, smacking his lips gusto.
There followed a silence, during which the aromatic breath of
the bottle increased its dangerous fascination. Then Father Beret
again filled Farnsworth's cup and said:
"Ah, the blessed monks, little thought they that their matchless
brew would ever be sipped in a poor missionary's hut on the Wabash!
But, after all, my son, why not here as well as in sunny France?
Our object justifies any impropriety of time and place."
"You are right, Father. I drink to our object. Yes, I say,
to our object."
In fact, the drinking preceded his speech, and his tongue already
had a loop in it The liquor stole through him, a mist of bewildering
and enchanting influence. The third cup broke his sentences into
unintelligible fragments; the fourth made his underjaw sag loosely,
the fifth and sixth, taken in close succession, tumbled him limp
on the floor, where he slept blissfully all night long, snugly
covered with some of Father Beret's bed clothes.
"Per casum obliquum, et per indirectum," muttered the
priest, when he had returned the bottle and cup to their hiding-place."
The end justifies the means. Sleep well, my son. Ah, little Alice,
little Alice, your old Father will try--will try!"
He fumbled along the wall in the dark until he found the rapier,
which he took down; then he went out and sat for some time motionless
beside the door, while the clouds thickened overhead. It was late
when he arose and glided away shadow-like toward the fort, over
which the night hung black, chill and drearily silent. The moon
was still some hours high, smothered by the clouds; a fog slowly
drifted from the river.
Meantime Hamilton and Helm had spent a part of the afternoon and
evening, as usual, at cards. Helm broke off the game and went
to his quarters rather early for him, leaving the Governor alone
and in a bad temper, because Farnsworth, when he had sent for
him, could not be found. Three times his orderly returned in as
many hours with the same report; the Captain had not been seen
or heard of. Naturally this sudden and complete disappearance,
immediately after the reprimand, suggested to Hamilton an unpleasant
possibility. What if Farnsworth had deserted him? Down deep in
his heart he was conscious that the young man had good cause for
almost any desperate action. To lose Captain Farnsworth, however,
would be just now a calamity. The Indians were drifting over rapidly
to the side of the Americans, and every day showed that the French
could not long be kept quiet.
Hamilton sat for some time after Helm's departure, thinking over
what he now feared was a foolish mistake. Presently he buckled
on Alice's rapier, which he had lately been wearing as his own,
and went out into the main area of the stockade. A sentinel was
tramping to and fro at the gate, where a hazy lantern shone. The
night was breathless and silent. Hamilton approached the soldier
on duty and asked him if he had seen Captain Farnsworth, and receiving
a negative reply, turned about puzzled and thoughtful to walk
back and forth in the chill, foggy air.
Presently a faint yellow light attracted his attention. It shone
through a porthole in an upper room of the block-house at the
farther angle of the stockade. In fact, Alice was reading by a
sputtering lamp a book Farnsworth had sent her, a volume of Ronsard
that he had picked up in Canada. Hamilton made his way in that
direction, at first merely curious to know who was burning oil
so late; but after a few paces he recognized where the light came
from, and instantly suspected that Captain Farnsworth was there.
Indeed he felt sure of it. Somehow he could not regard Alice as
other than a saucy hoyden, incapable of womanly virtue. His experience
with the worst element of Canadian French life and his peculiar
cast of mind and character colored his impression of her. He measured
her by the women with whom the coureurs de bois and half-breed
trappers consorted in Detroit and at the posts eastward to Quebec.
Alice, unable to sleep, had sought forgetfulness of her bitter
captivity in the old poet's charming lyrics. She sat on the floor,
some blankets and furs drawn around her, the book on her lap,
the stupidly dull lamp hanging beside her on a part of the swivel.
Her hair lay loose over her neck and shoulders and shimmered around
her face with a cloud-like effect, giving to the features in their
repose a setting that intensified their sweetness and sadness.
In a very low but distinct voice was reading, with a slightly
quavering emotion:
"Mignonne, allons voir si la rose, Que ce matin avoit desclose
Sa robe de pourpe au soleil."
When Hamilton, after stealthily mounting the rough stairway which
led to her door, peeped in through a space between the slabs and
felt a stroke of disappointment, seeing at a glance that Farnsworth
was not there. He gazed for some time, not without a sense of
villainy, while she continued her sweetly monotonous reading.
If his heart had been as hard as the iron swivel-balls that lay
beside Alice, he must still have felt a thrill of something like
tender sympathy. She now showed no trace of the vivacious sauciness
which had heretofore always marked her features when she was in
his presence. A dainty gentleness, touched with melancholy, gave
to her face an appealing look all the more powerful on account
of its unconscious simplicity of expression.
The man felt an impulse pure and noble, which would have borne
him back down the ladder and away from the building, had not a
stronger one set boldly in the opposite direction. There was a
short struggle with the seared remnant of his better nature, and
then he tried to open the door; but it was locked.
Alice heard the slight noise and breaking off her reading turned
to look. Hamilton made another effort to enter before he recollected
that the wooden key, or notched lever, that controlled the cumbrous
wooden lock, hung on a peg beside the door. He felt for it along
the wall, and soon laid his hand on it. Then again he peeped through
to see Alice, who was now standing upright near the swivel. She
had thrown her hair back from her face and neck; the lamp's flickering
light seemed suddenly to have magnified her stature and enhanced
her beauty. Her book lay on the tumbled wraps at her feet, and
in either hand she grasped a swivel-shot.
Hamilton's combative disposition came to the aid of his baser
passion when he saw once more a defiant flash from his prisoner's
face. It was easy for him to be fascinated by opposition. Helm
had profited by this trait as much as others had suffered by it;
but, in the case of Alice, Hamilton's mingled resentment and admiration
were but a powerful irritant to the coarsest and most dangerous
side of his nature.
After some fumbling and delay he fitted the key with a steady
hand and moved the wooden bolt creaking and jolting from its slot.
Then flinging the clumsy door wide open, he stepped in.
Alice started when she recognized the midnight intruder, and a
second deeper look into his countenance made her brave heart recoil,
while with a sinking sensation her breath almost stopped. It was
but a momentary weakness, however, followed by vigorous reaction.
"What are you here for, sir?" she demanded. "What
do you want?"
"I am neither a burglar nor a murderer, Mademoiselle,"
he responded, lifting his hat and bowing, with a smile not in
the least reassuring.
"You look like both. Stop where you are!"
"Not so loud, my dear Miss Roussillon; I am not deaf. And
besides the garrison needs to sleep." "Stop, sir; not
another step."
She poised herself, leaning slightly backward, and held the iron
ball in her right hand ready to throw it at him.
He halted, still smiling villainously.
"Mademoiselle, I assure you that your excitement is quite
unnecessary. I am not here to harm you."
"You cannot harm me, you cowardly wretch!"
"Humph! Pride goes before a fall, wench," he retorted,
taking a half-step backward. Then a thought arose in his mind
which added a new shade to the repellent darkness of his countenance.
"Miss Roussillon," he said in English and with a changed
voice, which seemed to grow harder, each word deliberately emphasized,
"I have come to break some bad news to you."
"You would scarcely bring me good news, sir, and I am not
curious to hear the bad."
He was silent for a little while, gazing at her with the sort
of admiration from which a true woman draws away appalled. He
saw how she loathed him, saw how impossible it was for him to
get a line nearer to her by any turn of force or fortune. Brave,
high- headed, strong as a young leopard, pure and sweet as a rose,
she stood before him fearless, even aggressive, showing him by
every line of her face and form that she felt her infinite superiority
and meant to maintain it. Her whole personal expression told him
he was defeated; therefore he quickly seized upon a suggestion
caught from a transaction with Long-Hair, who had returned a few
hours before from his pursuit of Beverley.
"It pains me, I assure you, Miss Roussillon, to tell you
what will probably grieve you deeply," he presently added;
"but I have not been unaware of your tender interest in Lieutenant
Beverley, and when I had bad news from him, I thought it my duty
to inform you."
He paused, feeling with a devil's satisfaction the point of his
statement go home to the girl's heart.
The wind was beginning to blow outside, shaking open the dark
clouds and letting gleams of moonlight flicker on the thinning
fog. A ghostly ray came through a crack between the logs and lit
Alice's face with a pathetic wanness. She moved her lips as if
speaking, but Hamilton heard no sound.
"The Indian, Long-Hair, whom I sent upon Lieutenant Beverley's
trail, reported to me this afternoon that his pursuit had been
quite successful. He caught his game."
Alice's voice came to her now. She drew in a quivering breath
of relief.
"Then he is here--he is--you have him a prisoner again?"
"A part of him, Miss Roussillon. Enough to be quite sure
that there is one traitor who will trouble his king no more. Mr.
Long- Hair brought in the Lieutenant's scalp."
Alice received this horrible statement in silence; but her face
blanched and she stood as if frozen by the shock. The shifty moon-
glimmer and the yellow glow of the lamp showed Hamilton to what
an extent his devilish cruelty hurt her, and somehow it chilled
him as if by reflection; but he could not forego another thrust.
"He deserved hanging, and would have got it had he been brought
to me alive. So after all, you should be satisfied. He escaped
my vengeance and Long-Hair got his pay. You see I am the chief
sufferer."
These words, however, fell without effect upon the girl's ears,
in which was booming the awful, storm-like roar of her excitement.
She did not see her persecutor standing there; her vision, unhindered
by walls and distance, went straight away to a place in the wilderness,
where all mangled and disfigured Beverley lay dead. A low cry
broke from her lips; she dropped the heavy swivel- balls; and
then, like a bird, swiftly, with a rustling swoop, she went past
Hamilton and down the stair.
For perhaps a full minute the man stood there motionless, stupefied,
amazed; and when at length he recovered himself, it was with difficulty
that he followed her. Everything seemed to hinder him. When he
reached the open air, however, he quickly regained his activity
of both mind and body, and looked in all directions. The clouds
were breaking into parallel masses with streaks of sky between.
The moon hanging aslant against the blue peeped forth just in
time to show him a flying figure which, even while he looked,
reached the postern, opened it and slipped through.
With but a breath of hesitation between giving the alarm and following
Alice silently and alone, he chose the latter. He was a swift
runner and light footed. With a few bounds he reached the little
gate, which was still oscillating on its hinges, darted through
and away, straining every muscle in desperate pursuit, gaining
rapidly in the race, which bore eastward along the course twice
before chosen by Alice in leaving the stockade.
CHAPTER XVII.
A MARCH THROUGH COLD WATER
On the fifth day of February, 1779, Colonel George Rogers Clark
led an army across the Kaskaskia River and camped. This was the
first step in his march towards the Wabash. An army! Do not smile.
Fewer than two hundred men, it is true, answered the roll-call,
when Father Gibault lifted the Cross and blessed them; but every
name told off by the company sergeants belonged to a hero, and
every voice making response struck a full note in the chorus of
freedom's morning song.
It was an army, small indeed, but yet an army; even though so
rudely equipped that, could we now see it before us, we might
wonder of what use it could possibly be in a military way.
We should nevertheless hardly expect that a hundred and seventy
of our best men, even if furnished with the latest and most deadly
engines of destruction, could do what those pioneers cheerfully
undertook and gloriously accomplished in the savage wilderness
which was to be the great central area of the United States of
America.
We look back with a shiver of awe at the three hundred Spartans
for whom Simonides composed his matchless epitaph. They wrought
and died gloriously; that was Greek. The one hundred and seventy
men, who, led by the backwoodsman, Clark, made conquest of an
empire's area for freedom in the west, wrought and lived gloriously;
that was American. It is well to bear in mind this distinction
by which our civilization separates itself from that of old times.
Our heroism has always been of life--our heroes have conquered
and lived to see the effect of conquest. We have fought all sorts
of wars and have never yet felt defeat. Washington, Jackson, Taylor,
Grant, all lived to enjoy, after successful war, a triumphant
peace. "These Americans," said a witty Frenchman, "are
either enormously lucky, or possessed of miraculous vitality.
You rarely kill them in battle, and if you wound them their wounds
are never mortal. Their history is but a chain of impossibilities
easily accomplished. Their undertakings have been without preparation,
their successes in the nature of stupendous accidents." Such
a statement may appear critically sound from a Gallic point of
view; but it leaves out the dominant element of American character,
namely, heroic efficiency. From the first we have had the courage
to undertake, the practical common sense which overcomes the lack
of technical training, and the vital force which never flags under
the stress of adversity.
Clark knew, when he set out on his march to Vincennes, that he
was not indulging a visionary impulse. The enterprise was one
that called for all that manhood could endure, but not more. With
the genius of a born leader he measured his task by his means.
He knew his own courage and fortitude, and understood the best
capacity of his men. He had genius; that is, he possessed the
secret of extracting from himself and from his followers the last
refinement of devotion to purpose. There was a certainty, from
first to last, that effort would not flag at any point short of
the top-most possible strain.
The great star of America was no more than a nebulous splendor
on the horizon in 1779. It was a new world forming by the law
of youth. The men who bore the burdens of its exacting life were
mostly stalwart striplings who, before the down of adolescence
fairly sprouted on their chins, could swing the ax, drive a plow,
close with a bear or kill an Indian. Clark was not yet twenty-
seven when he made his famous campaign. A tall, brawny youth,
whose frontier experience had enriched a native character of the
best quality, he marched on foot at the head of his little column,
and was first to test every opposing danger. Was there a stream
to wade or swim? Clark enthusiastically shouted, "Come on!"
and in he plunged. Was there a lack of food? "I'm not hungry,"
he cried. "Help yourselves, men!" Had some poor soldier
lost his blanket? "Mine is in my way," said Clark. "Take
it, I'm glad to get rid of it!" His men loved him, and would
die rather than fall short of his expectations.
The march before them lay over a magnificent plain, mostly prairie,
rich as the delta of the Nile, but extremely difficult to traverse.
The distance, as the route led, was about a hundred and seventy
miles. On account of an open and rainy winter all the basins and
flat lands were inundated, often presenting leagues of water ranging
in depth from a few inches to three of four feet. Cold winds blew,
sometimes with spits of snow and dashes of sleet, while thin ice
formed on the ponds and sluggish streams. By day progress meant
wading ankle-deep, knee-deep, breast-deep, with an occasional
spurt of swimming. By night the brave fellows had to sleep, if
sleep they could, on the cold ground in soaked clothing under
water-heavy blankets. They flung the leagues behind them, however,
cheerfully stimulating one another by joke and challenge, defying
all the bitterness of weather, all the bitings of hunger, all
the toil, danger and deprivation of a trackless and houseless
wilderness, looking only eastward, following their youthful and
intrepid commander to one of the most valuable victories gained
by American soldiers during the War of the Revolution.
Colonel Clark understood perfectly the strategic importance of
Vincennes as a post commanding the Wabash, and as a base of communication
with the many Indian tribes north of the Ohio and east of the
Mississippi. Francis Vigo (may his name never fade!) had brought
him a comprehensive and accurate report of Hamilton's strength
and the condition of the fort and garrison. This information confirmed
his belief that it would be possible not only to capture Vincennes,
but Detroit as well.
Just seven days after the march began, the little army encamped
for a night's rest at the edge of a wood; and here, just after
nightfall, when the fires were burning merrily and the smell of
broiling buffalo steaks burdened the damp air, a wizzened old
man suddenly appeared, how or from where nobody had observed He
was dirty and in every way disreputable in appearance, looking
like an animated mummy, bearing a long rifle on his shoulder,
and walking with the somewhat halting activity of a very old,
yet vivacious and energetic simian. Of course it was Oncle Jason,
"Oncle Jazon sui generis," as Father Beret had dubbed
him.
"Well, here I am!" he cried, approaching the fire by
which Colonel Clark and some of his officers were cooking supper,
"but ye can't guess in a mile o' who I am to save yer livers
and lights."
He danced a few stiff steps, which made the water gush out of
his tattered moccasins, then doffed his nondescript cap and nodded
his scalpless head in salutation to the commander.
Clark looked inquiringly at him, while the old fellow grimaced
and rubbed his shrunken chin.
"I smelt yer fat a fryin' somepin like a mile away, an' it
set my in'ards to grumblin' for a snack; so I jes thought I'd
drap in on ye an' chaw wittles wi' ye."
"Your looks are decidedly against you," remarked the
Colonel with a dry smile. He had recognized Oncle Jazon after
a little sharp scrutiny. "I suppose, however, that we can
let you gnaw the bones after we've got off the meat."
"Thank 'ee, thank 'ee, plenty good. A feller 'at's as hongry
as I am kin go through a bone like a feesh through water."
Clark laughed and said:
"I don't see any teeth that you have worth mentioning, but
your gums may be unusually sharp."
"Ya-a-s, 'bout as sharp as yer wit, Colonel Clark, an' sharper'n
yer eyes, a long shot. Ye don't know me, do ye? Take ernother
squint at me, an' see'f ye kin 'member a good lookin' man!"
"You have somewhat the appearance of an old scamp by the
name of Jazon that formerly loafed around with a worthless gun
on his shoulder, and used to run from every Indian he saw down
yonder in Kentucky." Clark held out his hand and added cordially:
"How are you, Jazon, my old friend, and where upon earth
have you come from?"
Oncle Jazon pounced upon the hand and gripped it in his own knotted
fingers, gazing delightedly up into Clark's bronzed and laughing
face.
"Where'd I come frum? I come frum ever'wheres. Fust time
I ever got lost in all my born days. Fve been a trompin' 'round
in the water seems like a week, crazy as a pizened rat, not a
knowin' north f'om south, ner my big toe f'om a turnip! Who's
got some tobacker?"
Oncle Jazon's story, when presently he told it, interested Clark
deeply. In the first place he was glad to hear that Simon Kenton
had once more escaped from the Indians; and the news from Beverley,
although bad enough, left room for hope. Frontiersmen always regarded
the chances better than even, so long as there was life. Oncle
Jazon, furthermore, had much to tell about the situation at Vincennes,
the true feeling of the French inhabitants, the lukewarm friendship
of the larger part of the Indians for Hamilton, and, indeed, everything
that Clark wished to know regarding the possibilities of success
in his arduous undertaking. The old man's advent cheered the whole
camp. He soon found acquaintances and friends among the French
volunteers from Kaskaskia, with whom he exchanged creole gestures
and chatter with a vivacity apparently inexhaustible. He and Kenton
had, with wise judgement, separated on escaping from the Indian
camp, Kenton striking out for Kentucky, while Oncle Jazon went
towards Kaskaskia.
The information that Beverley would be shot as soon as he was
returned to Hamilton, caused Colonel Clark serious worry of mind.
Not only the fact that Beverley, who had been a charming friend
and a most gallant officer, was now in such imminent danger, but
the impression (given by Oncle Jazon's account) that he had broken
his parole, was deeply painful to the brave and scrupulously honorable
commander. Still, friendship rose above regret, and Clark resolved
to push his little column forward all the more rapidly, hoping
to arrive in time to prevent the impending execution.
Next morning the march was resumed at the break of dawn; but a
swollen stream caused some hours of delay, during which Beverley
himself arrived from the rear, a haggard and weirdly unkempt apparition.
He had been for three days following hard on the army's track,
which he came to far westward. Oncle Jazon saw him first in the
distance, and his old but educated eyes made no mistake.
"Yander's that youngster Beverley," he exclaimed. "Ef
it ain't I'm a squaw!"
Nor did he parley further on the subject; but set off at a rickety
trot to meet and assist the fagged and excited young man.
Clark had given Oncle Jazon his flask, which contained a few gills
of whisky. This was the first thing offered to Beverley; who wisely
took but a swallow. Oncle Jazon was so elated that he waved his
cap on high, and unconsciously falling into French, yelled in
a piercing voice:
"VIVE ZHORSH VASINTON! VIVE LA BANNIERE D'ALICE ROUSSILLON!"
Seeing Beverley reminded him of Alice and the flag. As for Beverley,
the sentiment braced him, and the beloved name brimmed his heart
with sweetness.
Clark went to meet them as they came in. He hugged the gaunt Lieutenant
with genuine fervor of joy, while Oncle Jazon ran around them
making a series of grotesque capers. The whole command, hearing
Oncle Jazon's patriotic words, set up a wild shouting on the spur
of a general impression that Beverley came as a messenger bearing
glorious news from Washington's army in the east.
It was a great relief to Clark when he found out that his favorite
Lieutenant had not broken his parole; but had instead boldly resurrendered
himself, declaring the obligation no longer binding, and notifying
Hamilton of his intention to go away with the purpose of returning
and destroying him and his command. Clark laughed heartily when
this explanation brought out Beverley's tender interest in Alice;
but he sympathized cordially; for he himself knew what love is.
Although Beverley was half starved and still suffering from the
kicks and blows given him by Long-Hair and his warriors, his exhausting
run on the trail of Clark aad his band had not worked him serious
harm. All of the officers and men did their utmost to serve him.
He was feasted without stint and furnished with everything that
the scant supply of clothing on the pack horses could afford for
his comfort. He promptly asked for an assignment to duty in his
company and took his place with such high enthusiasm that his
companions regarded him with admiring wonder. None of them save
Clark and Oncle Jazon suspected that love for a fair-haired girl
yonder in Vincennes was the secret of his amazing zeal and intrepidity.
In one respect Clark's expedition was sadly lacking in its equipment
for the march. It had absolutely no means of transporting adequate
supplies. The pack-horses were not able to carry more than a little
extra ammunition, a few articles of clothing, some simple cooking
utensils and such tools as were needed in improvising rafts and
canoes. Consequently, although buffalo and deer were sometimes
plentiful, they furnished no lasting supply of meat, because it
could not be transported; and as the army neared Vincennes wild
animals became scarce, so that the men began to suffer from hunger
when within but a few days of their journey's end.
Clark made almost superhuman efforts in urging forward his chilled,
water-soaked, foot-sore command; and when hunger added its torture
to the already disheartening conditions, his courage and energy
seemed to burn stronger and brighter. Beverley was always at his
side ready to undertake any task, accept any risk; his ardor made
his face glow, and he seemed to thrive upon hardships. The two
men were a source of inspiration--their followers could not flag
and hesitate while under the influence of their example.
Toward the end of the long march a decided fall of temperature
added ice to the water through which our dauntless patriots waded
and swam for miles. The wind shifted northwesterly, taking on
a searching chill. Each gust, indeed, seemed to shoot wintry splinters
into the very marrow of the men's bones. The weaker ones began
to show the approach of utter exhaustion just at the time when
a final spurt of unflinching power was needed. True, they struggled
heroically; but nature was nearing the inexorable limit of endurance.
Without food, which there was no prospect of getting, collapse
was sure to come.
Standing nearly waist-deep in freezing water and looking out upon
the muddy, sea-like flood that stretched far away to the channel
of the Wabash and beyond, Clark turned to Beverley and said, speaking
low, so as not to be overheard by any other of his officers or
men:
"Is it possible, Lieutenant Beverley, that we are to fail,
with Vincennes almost in sight of us?"
"No, sir, it is not possible," was the firm reply. "Nothing
must, nothing can stop us. Look at that brave child! He sets the
heroic example."
Beverley pointed, as he spoke, at a boy but fourteen years old,
who was using his drum as a float to bear him up while he courageously
swam beside the men.
Clark's clouded face cleared once more. "You are right,"
he said, "come on! we must win or die."
"Sergeant Dewit," he added, turning to an enormously
tall and athletic man near by, "take that little drummer
and his drum on your shoulder and lead the way. And, sergeant,
make him pound that drum like the devil beating tan-bark!"
The huge man caught the spirit of his commander's order. In a
twinkling he had the boy astride of his neck with the kettle-drum
resting on his head, and then the rattling music began. Clark
followed, pointing onward with his sword. The half frozen and
tottering soldiers sent up a shout that went back to where Captain
Bowman was bringing up the rear under orders to shoot every man
that straggled or shrank from duty.
Now came a time when not a mouthful of food was left. A whole
day they floundered on, starving, growing fainter at every step,
the temperature falling, the ice thickening. They camped on high
land; and next morning they heard Hamilton's distant sunrise gun
boom over the water.
"One half-ration for the men," said Clark, looking disconsolately
in the direction whence the sound had come. "Just five mouthfuls
apiece, even, and I'll have Hamilton and his fort within forty-
eight hours."
"We will have the provisions, Colonel, or I will die trying
to get them," Beverley responded "Depend upon me."
They had constructed some canoes in which to transport the weakest
of the men.
"I will take a dugout and some picked fellows. We will pull
to the wood yonder, and there we shall find some kind of game
which has been forced to shelter from the high water."
It was a cheerful view of a forlorn hope. Clark grasped the hand
extended by Beverley and they looked encouragement into each other's
eyes.
Oncle Jazon volunteered to go in the pirogue. He was ready for
anything, everything.
"I can't shoot wo'th a cent," he whined, as they took
their places in the cranky pirogue; "but I might jes' happen
to kill a squir'l or a elephant or somepin 'nother."
"Very well," shouted Clark in a loud, cheerful voice,
when they had paddled away to a considerable distance, "bring
the meat to the woods on the hill yonder," pointing to a
distant island-like ridge far beyond the creeping flood. "We'll
be there ready to eat it!"
He said this for the ears of his men. They heard and answered
with a straggling but determined chorus of approval. They crossed
the rolling current of the Wabash by a tedious process of ferrying,
and at last found themselves once more wading in back-water up
to their armpits, breaking ice an inch thick as they went. It
was the closing struggle to reach the high wooded lands. Many
of them fell exhausted; but their stronger comrades lifted them,
holding their heads above water, and dragged them on.
Clark, always leading, always inspiring, was first to set foot
on dry land. He shouted triumphantly, waved his sword, and then
fell to helping the men out of the freezing flood. This accomplished,
he ordered fires built; but there was not a soldier of them all
whose hands could clasp an ax-handle, so weak and numbed with
cold were they. He was not to be baffled, however. If fire could
not be had, exercise must serve its purpose. Hastily pouring some
powder into his hand he dampened it and blacked his face. "Victory,
men, victory!" he shouted, taking off his hat and beginning
to leap and dance. "Come on! We'll have a war dance and then
a feast, as soon as the meat arrives that I have sent for. Dance!
you brave lads, dance! Victory! victory!"
The strong men, understanding their Colonel's purpose, took hold
of the delicate ones; and the leaping, the capering, the tumult
of voices and the stamping of slushy moccasins with which they
assaulted that stately forest must have frightened every wild
thing thereabout into a deadly rigor, dark's irrepressible energy
and optimism worked a veritable charm upon his faithful but almost
dying companions in arms. Their trust in him made them feel sure
that food would soon be forthcoming. The thought afforded a stimulus
more potent than wine; it drove them into an ecstasy of frantic
motion and shouting which soon warmed them thoroughly.
It is said that fortune favors the brave. The larger meaning of
the sentence may be given thus: God guards those who deserve His
protection. History tells us that just when Clark halted his command
almost in sight of Vincennes--just when hunger was about to prevent
the victory so close to his grasp--a party of his scouts brought
in the haunch of a buffalo captured from some Indians. The scouts
were Lieutenant Beverley and Oncle Jazon. And with the meat they
brought Indian kettles in which to cook it.
With consummate forethought Clark arranged to prevent his men
doing themselves injury by bolting their food or eating it half-
cooked. Broth was first made and served hot; then small bits of
well broiled steak were doled out, until by degrees the fine effect
of nourishment set in, and all the command felt the fresh courage
of healthy reaction.
"I ain't no gin'ral, nor corp'ral, nor nothin'," remarked
Oncle Jazon to Colonel Clark, "but 'f I's you I'd h'ist up
every dad dinged ole flag in the rig'ment, w'en I got ready to
show myself to 'em, an' I'd make 'em think, over yander at the
fort, 'at I had 'bout ninety thousan' men. Hit'd skeer that sandy
faced Gov'nor over there till he'd think his back-bone was a comin'
out'n 'im by the roots."
Clark laughed, but his face showed that the old man's suggestion
struck him forcibly and seriously.
"We'll see about that presently, Oncle Jazon. Wait till we
reach the hill yonder, from which the whole town can observe our
manoeuvres, then we'll try it, maybe."
Once more the men were lined up, the roll-call gone through with
satisfactorily, and the question put: "Are we ready for another
plunge through the mud and water?"
The answer came in the affirmative, with a unanimity not to be
mistaken. The weakest heart of them all beat to the time of the
charge step. Again Clark and Beverley clasped hands and took the
lead.
When they reached the next high ground they gazed in silence across
a slushy prairie plot to where, on a slight elevation, old Vincennes
and Fort Sackville lay in full view.
Beverley stood apart. A rush of sensations affected him so that
he shook like one whose strength is gone. His vision was blurred.
Fort and town swimming in a mist were silent and still. Save the
British flag twinkling above Hamilton's headquarters, nothing
indicated that the place was not deserted. And Alice? With the
sweet name's echo Beverley's heart bounded high, then sank fluttering
at the recollection that she was either yonder at the mercy of
Hamilton, or already the victim of an unspeakable cruelty. Was
it weakness for him to lift his clasped hands heavenward and send
up a voiceless prayer?
While he stood thus Oncle Jazon came softly to his side and touched
his arm. Beverley started.
"The nex' thing'll be to shoot the everlastin' gizzards outen
'em, won't it?" the old man inquired. "I'm jes' a eetchin'
to git a grip onto that Gov'nor. Ef I don't scelp 'em I'm a squaw."
Beverley drew a deep breath and came promptly. back from his dream.
It was now Oncle Jazon's turn to assume a reflective, reminiscent
mood. He looked about him with an expression of vague half tenderness
on his shriveled features.
"I's jes' a thinkin' how time do run past a feller,"
he presently remarked. "Twenty-seven years ago I camped right
here wi' my wife-- ninth one, ef I 'member correct--jes' fresh
married to 'r; sort o' honey-moon. 'Twus warm an' sunshiny an'
nice. She wus a poorty squaw, mighty poorty, an' I wus as happy
as a tomtit on a sugar- trough. We b'iled sap yander on them nobs
under the maples. It wus glor'us. Had some several wives 'fore
an' lots of 'm sence; but she wus sweetes' of 'm all. Strange
how a feller 'members sich things an' feels sort o' lonesome like!"
The old man's mouth drooped at the corners and he hitched up his
buckskin trousers with a ludicrous suggestion of pathos in every
line of his attitude. Unconsciously he sidled closer to Beverley,
remotely feeling that he was giving the young man very effective
sympathy, well knowing that Alice was the sweet burden of his
thoughts. It was thus Oncle Jazon honestly tried to fortify his
friend against what probably lay in store for him.
But Beverley failed to catch the old man's crude comfort thus
flung at him. The analogy was not apparent. Oncle Jazon probably
felt that his kindness had been ineffectual, for he changed his
tone and added:
"But I s'pose a young feller like ye can't onderstan' w'at
it is to love a 'oman an' 'en hev 'er quit ye for 'nother feller,
an' him a buck Injin. Wall, wall, wall, that's the way it do go!
Of all the livin' things upon top o' this yere globe, the mos'
onsartin', crinkety-crankety an' slippery thing is a young 'oman
'at knows she's poorty an' 'at every other man in the known world
is blind stavin' crazy in love wi' 'er, same as you are. She'll
drop ye like a hot tater 'fore ye know it, an' 'en look at ye
jes' pine blank like she never knowed ye afore in her life. It's
so, Lieutenant, shore's ye'r born. I know, for I've tried the
odd number of 'em, an' they're all jes' the same."
By this time Beverley's ears were deaf to Oncle Jazon's querulous,
whining voice, and his thoughts once more followed his wistful
gaze across the watery plain to where the low roofs of the creole
town appeared dimly wavering in the twilight of eventide, which
was fast fading into night. The scene seemed unsubstantial; he
felt a strange lethargy possessing his soul; he could not realize
the situation. In trying to imagine Alice, she eluded him, so
that a sort of cloudy void fell across his vision with the effect
of baffling and benumbing it. He made vain efforts to recall her
voice, things that she had said to him, her face, her smiles;
all he could do was to evoke an elusive, tantalizing, ghostly
something which made him shiver inwardly with a haunting fear
that it meant the worst, whatever the worst might be. Where was
she? Could she be dead, and this the shadowy message of her fate?
Darkness fell, and a thin fog began to drift in wan streaks above
the water. Not a sound, save the suppressed stir of the camp,
broke the wide, dreary silence. Oncle Jazon babbled until satisfied
that Beverley was unappreciative, or at least unresponsive.
"Got to hev some terbacker," he remarked, and shambled
away in search of it among his friends.
A little later Clark approached hastily and said:
"I have been looking for you. The march has begun. Bowman
and Charleville are moving; come, there's no time to lose."
CHAPTER XVIII
A DUEL BY MOONLIGHT
When Hamilton, after running some distance, saw that he was gaining
upon Alice and would soon overtake her, it added fresh energy
to his limbs. He had quickly realized the foolishness of what
he had done in visiting the room of his prisoner at so late an
hour in the night. What would his officers and men think? To let
Alice escape would be extremely embarrassing, and to be seen chasing
her would give good ground for ridicule on the part of his entire
command. Therefore his first thought, after passing through the
postern and realizing fully what sort of predicament threatened
him, was to recapture her and return her to the prison room in
the block-house without attracting attention. This now promised
to be an easier task than he had at first feared; for in the moonlight,
which on account of the dispersing clouds, was fast growing stronger,
he saw her seem to falter and weaken. Certainly her flight was
checked and took an eccentric turn, as if some obstruction had
barred her way. He rushed on, not seeing that, as Alice swerved,
a man intervened. Indeed he was within a few strides of laying
his hand on her when he saw her make the strange movement. It
was as if, springing suddenly aside, she had become two persons
instead of one. But instantly the figures coincided again, and
in becoming taller faced about and confronted him.
Hamilton stopped short in his tracks. The dark figure was about
five paces from him. It was not Alice, and a sword flashed dimly
but unmistakably in a ray of the moon. The motion visible was
that of an expert swordsman placing himself firmly on his legs,
with his weapon at guard.
Alice saw the man in her path just in time to avoid running against
him. Lightly as a flying bird, when it whisks itself in a short
semicircle past a tree or a bough, she sprang aside and swung
around to the rear of him, where she could continue her course
toward the town. But in passing she recognized him. It was Father
Beret, and how grim he looked! The discovery was made in the twinkling
of an eye, and its effect was instantaneous, not only checking
the force of her flight, but stopping her and turning her about
to gaze before she had gone five paces farther.
Hamilton's nerve held, startled as he was, when he realized that
an armed man stood before him. Naturally he fell into the error
of thinking that he had been running after this fellow all the
way from the little gate, where, he supposed, Alice had somehow
given him the slip. It was a mere flash of brain-light, so to
call it, struck out by the surprise of this curious discovery.
He felt his bellicose temper leap up furiously at being balked
in a way so unexpected and withal so inexplicable. Of course he
did not stand there reasoning it all out. The rush of impressions
came, and at the same time he acted with promptness. Changing
the rapier, which he held in his right hand, over into his left,
he drew a small pistol from the breast of his coat and fired.
The report was sharp and loud; but it caused no uneasiness or
inquiry in the fort, owing to the fact that Indians invariably
emptied their guns when coming into the town.
Hamilton's aim, although hasty, was not bad. The bullet from his
weapon cut through Father Beret's clothes between his left arm
and his body, slightly creasing the flesh on a rib. Beyond him
it struck heavily and audibly. Alice fell limp and motionless
to the soft wet ground, where cold puddles of water were splintered
over with ice. She lay pitifully crumpled, one arm outstretched
in the moonlight. Father Beret heard the bullet hit her, and turned
in time to see her stagger backward with a hand convulsively pressed
over her heart. Her face, slightly upturned as she reeled, gave
the moon a pallid target for its strengthening rays. Sweet, beautiful,
its rigid features flashed for a second and then half turned away
from the light and went down.
Father Beret uttered a short, thin cry and moved as if to go to
the fallen girl, but just then he saw Hamilton's sword pass over
again into his right hand, and knew that there was no time for
anything but death or fight. The good priest did not shirk what
might have made the readiest of soldiers nervous. Hamilton was
known to be a great swordsman and proud of the distinction. Father
Beret had seen him fence with Farnsworth in remarkable form, touching
him at will, and in ministering to the men in the fort he had
heard them talk of the Governor's incomparable skill.
A priest is, in perhaps all cases but the last out of a thousand,
a man of peace, not to be forced into a fight; but the exceptional
one out of the ten hundred it is well not to stir up if you are
looking for an easy victim. Hamilton was in the habit of considering
every antagonist immediately conquerable. His domineering spirit
could not, when opposed, reckon with any possibility of disaster.
As he sprang toward Father Beret there was a mutual recognition
and, we speak guardedly, something that sounded exactly like an
exchange of furious execrations. As for Father Beret's words,
they may have been a mere priestly formula of objurgation.
The moon was accommodating. With a beautiful white splendor it
entered a space of cloudless sky, where it seemed to slip along
the dusky blue surface among the stars, far over in the west.
"It's you, is it?" Hamilton exclaimed between teeth
that almost crushed one another. "You prowling hypocrite
of hell!"
Father Beret said something. It was not complimentary, and it
sounded sulphurous, if not profane. Remember, however, that a
priest can scarcely hope to be better than Peter, and Peter did
actually make the Simon pure remark when hard pressed. At all
events Father Beret said something with vigorous emphasis, and
met Hamilton half way.
Both men, stimulated to the finger-tips by a draught of imperious
passion, fairly plunged to the inevitable conflict. Ah, if Alice
could have seen her beautiful weapons cross, if she could have
heard the fine, far-reaching clink, clink, clink, while sparks
leaped forth, dazzling even in the moonlight; if she could have
noted the admirable, nay, the amazing, play, as the men, regaining
coolness to some extent, gathered their forces and fell cautiously
to the deadly work, it would have been enough to change the cold
shimmer of her face to a flash of warm delight. For she would
have understood every feint, longe, parry, and seen at a glance
how Father Beret set the pace and led the race at the beginning.
She would have understood; for Father Beret had taught her all
she knew about the art of fencing.
Hamilton quickly felt, and with a sense of its strangeness, the
priest's masterly command of his weapon. The surprise called up
all his caution and cleverness. Before he could adjust himself
to such an unexpected condition he came near being spitted outright
by a pretty pass under his guard. The narrow escape, while it
put him on his best mettle, sent a wave of superstition through
his brain. He recalled what Barlow had jocularly said about the
doings of the devil-priest or priest-devil at Roussillon place
on that night when the patrol guard attempted to take Gaspard
Roussillon. Was this, indeed, Father Beret, that gentle old man,
now before him, or was it an avenging demon from the shades?
The thought flitted electrically across his mind, while he deftly
parried, feinted, longed, giving his dark antagonist all he could
do to meet the play. Priest or devil, he thought, he cared not
which, he would reach its vitals presently. Yet there lingered
with him a haunting half-fear, or tenuous awe, which may have
aided, rather than hindered his excellent swordsmanship.
Under foot it was slushy with mud, water and ice, the consistency
varying from a somewhat solid crust to puddles that half inundated
Hamilton's boots and quite overflowed Father Beret's moccasins.
An execrable field for the little matter in hand. They gradually
shifted position. Now it was the Governor, then the priest, who
had advantage as to the light. For some time Father Beret seemed
quite the shiftier and surer fighter, but (was it his age telling
on him?) he lost perceptibly in suppleness. Still Hamilton failed
to touch him. There was a baffling something in the old man's
escape now and again from what ought to have been an inevitable
stroke. Was it luck? It seemed to Hamilton more than that--a sort
of uncanny evasion. Or was it supreme mastery, the last and subtlest
reach of the fencer's craft?
Youth forced age slowly backward in the struggle, which at times
took on spurts so furious that the slender blades, becoming mere
glints of acicular steel, split the moonlight back and forth,
up and down, so that their meetings, following one another in
a well- nigh continuous stroke, sent a jarring noise through the
air. Father Beret lost inch by inch, until the fighting was almost
over the body of Alice; and now for the first time Hamilton became
aware of that motionless something with the white, luminous face
in profile against the ground; but he did not let even that unsettle
his fencing gaze, which followed the sunken and dusky eyes of
his adversary. A perspiration suddenly flooded his body, however,
and began to drip across his face. His arm was tiring. A doubt
crept like a chill into his heart. Then the priest appeared to
add a cubit to his stature and waver strangely in the soft light.
Behind him, low against the sky, a wide winged owl shot noiselessly
across just above the prairie.
The soul of a true priest is double: it is the soul of a saint
and the soul of a worldly man. What is most beautiful in this
duality is the supreme courage with which the saintly spirit attacks
the worldly and so often heroically masters it. In the beginning
of the fight Father Beret let a passion of the earthly body take
him by storm. It was well for Governor Henry Hamilton that the
priest was so wrought upon as to unsettle his nerves, otherwise
there would have been an evil heart impaled midway of Father Beret's
rapier. A little later the saintly spirit began to assert itself,
feebly indeed, but surely. Then it was that Father Beret seemed
to be losing agility for a while as he backstepped away from Hamilton's
increasing energy of assault. In his heart the priest was saying:
"I will not murder him. I must not do that. He deserves death,
but vengeance is not mine. I will disarm him." Step by step
he retreated, playing erratically to make an opening for a trick
he meant to use.
It was singularly loose play, a sort of wavering, shifty, incomprehensible
show of carelessness, that caused Hamilton to entertain a doubt,
which was really a fear, as to what was going to happen; for,
notwithstanding all this neglect of due precaution on the priest's
part, to touch him seemed impossible, miraculously so, and every
plan of attack dissolved into futility in the most maddening way.
"Priest, devil or ghost!" raged Hamilton, with a froth
gathering around his mouth; "I'll kill you, or--"
He made a longe, when his adversary left an opening which appeared
absolutely beyond defence. It was a quick, dextrous, vicious thrust.
The blade leaped toward Father Beret's heart with a twinkle like
lightning.
At that moment, although warily alert and hopeful that his opportunity
was at hand, Father Beret came near losing his life; for as he
side-stepped and easily parried Hamilton's thrust, which he had
invited, thinking to entangle his blade and disarm him, he caught
his foot in Alice's skirt and stumbled, nearly falling across
her. It would have been easy for Hamilton to run him through,
had he instantly followed up the advantage. But the moonlight
on Alice's face struck his eyes, and by that indirect ray of vision
which is often strangely effective, he recognized her lying there.
It was a disconcerting thing for him, but he rallied instantly
and sprang aside, taking a new position just in time to face Father
Beret again. A chill crept up his back. The horror which he could
not shake off enraged him beyond measure. Gathering fresh energy,
he renewed the assault with desperate steadiness the highest product
of absolutely molten fury.
Father Beret felt the dangerous access of power in his antagonist's
arm, and knew that a crisis had arrived. He could not be careless
now. Here was a swordsman of the best school calling upon him
for all the skill and strength and cunning that he could command.
Again the saintly element was near being thrown aside by the worldly
in the old man's breast. Alice lying there seemed mutely demanding
that he avenge her. A riotous something in his blood clamored
for a quick and certain act in this drama by moonlight--a tragic
close by a stroke of terrible yet perfectly fitting justice.
There was but the space of a breath for the conflict in the priest's
heart, yet during that little time he reasoned the case and quoted
scripture to himself.
"Domine, percutimus in gladio?" rang through his mind.
"Lord, shall we smite with the sword?"
Hamilton seemed to make answer to this with a dazzling display
of skill. The rapiers sang a strange song above the sleeping girl,
a lullaby with coruscations of death in every keen note.
Father Beret was thinking of Alice. His brain, playing double,
calculated with lightning swiftness the chances and movements
of that whirlwind rush of fight, while at the same time it swept
through a retrospect of all the years since Alice came into his
life. How he had watched her grow and bloom; how he had taught
her, trained her mind and soul and body to high things, loved
her with a fatherly passion unbounded, guarded her from the coarse
and lawless influences of her surroundings. Like the tolling of
an infinitely melancholy bell, all this went through his breast
and brain, and, blending with a furious current of whatever passions
were deadly dangerous in his nature, swept as a storm bearing
its awful force into his sword-arm.
The Englishman was a lion, the priest a gladiator. The stars aloft
in the vague, dark, yet splendid, amphitheater were the audience.
It was a question. Would the thumbs go down or up? Life and death
held the chances even; but it was at the will of Heaven, not of
the stars. "Hoc habet" must follow the stroke ordered
from beyond the astral clusters and the dusky blue.
Hamilton pressed, nay rushed, the fight with a weight and at a
pace which could not last. But Father Beret withstood him so firmly
that he made no farther headway; he even lost some ground a moment
later.
"You damned Jesuit hypocrite!" he snarled; "you
lowest of a vile brotherhood of liars!"
Then he rushed again, making a magnificent show of strength, quickness
and accuracy. The sparks hissed and crackled from the rasping
and ringing blades.
Father Beret was, in truth, a Jesuit, and as such a zealot; but
he was not a liar or a hypocrite. Being human, he resented an
insult. The saintly spirit in him was strong, yet not strong enough
to breast the indignation which now dashed against it. For a moment
it went down.
"Liar and scoundrel yourself!" he retorted, hoarsely
forcing the words out of his throat. "Spawn of a beastly
breed!"
Hamilton saw and felt a change pass over the spirit of the old
priest's movements. Instantly the sword leaping against his own
seemed endowed with subtle cunning and malignant treachery. Before
this it had been difficult enough to meet the fine play and hold
fairly even; now he was startled and confused; but he rose to
the emergency with admirable will power and cleverness.
"Murderer of a poor orphan girl!" Father Beret added
with a hot concentrated accent; "death is too good for you."
Hamilton felt nearer his grave than ever before in all his wild
experience, for somehow doom, shadowy and formless, like the atmosphere
of an awful dream, enmisted those words; but he was no weakling
to quit at the height of desperate conflict. He was strong, expert,
and game to the middle of his heart.
"I'll add a traitor Jesuit to my list of dead," he panted
forth, rising yet again to the extremest tension of his power.
As he did this Father Beret settled himself as you have seen a
mighty horse do in the home stretch of a race. Both men knew that
the moment had arrived for the final act in their impromptu play.
It was short, a duel condensed and crowded into fifteen seconds
of time, and it was rapid beyond the power of words to describe.
A bystander, had there been one, could not have seen what was
finally done or how it was done. Father Beret's sword seemed to
be revolving--it was a halo in front of Hamilton for a mere point
of time. The old priest seemed to crouch and then make a quick
motion as if about to leap backward. A wrench and a snip, as of
something violently jerked from a fastening, were followed by
a semicircular flight of Hamilton's rapier over Father Beret's
head to stick in the ground ten feet behind him. The duel was
over, and the whole terrible struggle had occupied less than three
minutes.
With his wrist strained and his fingers almost broken, Hamilton
stumbled forward and would have impaled himself had not Father
Beret turned the point of his weapon aside as he lowered it.
"Surrender, or die!"
That was a strange order for a priest to make, but there could
be no mistaking its authority or the power behind it. Hamilton
regained his footing and looked dazed, wheezing and puffing like
a porpoise, but he clearly understood what was demanded of him.
"If you call out I'll run you through," Father Beret
added, seeing him move his lips as if to shout for help.
The level rapier now reinforced the words. Hamilton let the breath
go noiselessly from his mouth and waved his hand in token of enforced
submission.
"Well, what do you want me to do?" he demanded after
a short pause. "You seem to have me at your mercy. What are
your terms?"
Father Beret hesitated. It was a question difficult to answer.
"Give me your word as a British officer that you will never
again try to harm any person, not an open, armed enemy, in this
town."
Hamilton's gorge rose perversely. He erected himself with lofty
reserve and folded his arms. The dignity of a Lieutenant Governor
leaped into him and took control. Father Beret correctly interpreted
what he saw.
"My people have borne much," he said, "and the
killing of that poor child there will be awfully avenged if I
but say the word. Besides, I can turn every Indian in this wilderness
against you in a single day. You are indeed at my mercy, and I
will be merciful if you will satisfy my demand."
He was trembling with emotion while he spoke and the desire to
kill the man before him was making a frightful struggle with his
priestly conscience; but conscience had the upper hand. Hamilton
stood gazing fixedly, pale as a ghost, his thoughts becoming more
and more clear and logical. He was in a bad situation. Every word
that Father Beret had spoken was true and went home with force.
There was no time for parley or subterfuge; the sword looked as
if, eager to find his heart, it could not be held back another
moment. But the wan, cold face of the girl had more power than
the rapier's hungry point. It made an abject coward of him.
"I am willing to give you my word," he presently said.
"And let me tell you," he went on more rapidly, "I
did not shoot at her. She was behind you,"
"Your word as a British officer?"
Hamilton again stiffened and hesitated, but only for the briefest
space, then said:
"Yes, my word as a British officer."
Father Beret waved his hand with impatience.
"Go, then, back to your place in the fort and disturb, my
people no more. The soul of this poor little girl will haunt you
forever. Go!"
Hamilton stood a little while gazing at the face of Alice with
the horrible wistfulness of remorse. What would he not have given
to rub his eyes and find it all a dream?
He turned away; a cloud scudded across the moon; here and yonder
in the dim town cocks crowed with a lonesome, desultory effect.
Father Beret plucked up the rapier that he had wrenched from Hamilton's
hand. It suggested something.
"Hold!" he called out, "give me the scabbard of
this sword." Hamilton, who was striding vigorously in the
direction of the fort, turned about as the priest hastened to
him.
"Give me the scabbard of this rapier; I want it. Take it
off."
The command was not gently voiced. A hoarse, half-whisper winged
every word with an imperious threat.
Hamilton obeyed. His hands were not firm; his fingers fumbled
nervously; but he hurried, and Father Beret soon had the rapier
sheathed and secured at his belt beside its mate.
A good and true priest is a burden-bearer. His motto is: Alter
alterius onera portate; bear ye one another's burdens. His soul
is enriched with the cast-off sorrows of those whom he relieves.
Father Beret scarcely felt the weight of Alice's body when he
lifted it from the ground, so heavy was the pressure of his grief.
All that her death meant, not only to him, but to every person
who knew her, came into his heart as the place of refuge consecrated
for the indwelling of pain. He lifted her and bore her as far
toward Roussillon place as he could; but his strength fell short
just in front of the little Bourcier cottage, and half dead he
staggered across the veranda to the door, where he sank exhausted.
After a breathing spell he knocked. The household, fast asleep,
did not hear; but he persisted until the door was opened to him
and his burden.
Captain Farnsworth unclosed his bloodshot eyes, at about eight
o'clock in the morning, quite confused as to his place and surroundings.
He looked about drowsily with a sheepish half- knowledge of having
been very drunk. A purring in his head and a dull ache reminded
him of an abused stomach. He yawned and stretched himself, then
sat up, running a hand through his tousled hair. Father Beret
was on his knees before the cross, still as a statue, his clasped
hands extended upward.
Farnsworth's face lighted with recognition, and he smiled rather
bitterly. He recalled everything and felt ashamed, humiliated,
self-debased. He had outraged even a priest's hospitality with
his brutish appetite, and he hated himself for it. Disgust nauseated
his soul apace with the physical sinking and squirming that grew
upon him.
"I'm a shabby, worthless dog!" he muttered, with petulant
accent; "why don't you kick me out, Father?"
The priest turned a collapsed and bloodless gray face upon him,
smiled in a tired, perfunctory way, crossed himself absently and
said:
"You have rested well, my son. Hard as the bed is, you have
done it a compliment in the way of sleeping. You young soldiers
understand how to get the most out of things."
"You are too generous, Father, and I can't appreciate it.
I know what I deserve, and you know it, too. Tell me what a brute
and fool I am; it will do me good. Punch me a solid jolt in the
ribs, like the one you gave me not long ago."
"Qui sine peccato est, primus lapidem mittat" said the
priest. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
He had gone to the hearth and was taking from the embers an earthen
saucer, or shallow bowl, in which some fragrant broth simmered
and steamed.
"A man who has slept as long as you have, my son, usually
has a somewhat delicate appetite. Now, here is a soup, not especially
satisfying to the taste of a gourmet like yourself, but possessing
the soothing quality that is good for one just aroused from an
unusual nap. I offer it, my son, propter stomachum tuum, et frequentes
tuas infirmitates (on account of thy stomach, and thine often
infirmities). This soup will go to the right spot."
While speaking he brought the hot bowl to Farnsworth and set it
on the bedcover before him, then fetched a big horn spoon.
The fragrance of pungent roots and herbs, blent with a savory
waft of buffalo meat, greeted the Captain's sense, and the anticipation
itself cheered his aching throat. It made him feel greedy and
in a hurry. The first spoonful, a trifle bitter, was not so pleasant
at the beginning, but a moment after he swallowed it a hot prickling
set in and seemed to dart through him from extremity to extremity.
Slowly, as he ate, the taste grew more agreeable, and all the
effects of his debauch disappeared. It was like magic; his blood
warmed and glowed, as if touched with mysterious fire.
"What is this in this soup, Father Beret, that makes it so
searching and refreshing?" he demanded, when the bowl was
empty.
Father Beret shook his head and smiled drolly.
"That I cannot divulge, my son, owing to a promise I had
to make to the aged Indian who gave me the secret. It is the elixir
of the Miamis. Only their consecrated medicine men hold the recipe.
The stimulation is but temporary."
Just then someone knocked on the door. Father Beret opened it
to one of Hamilton's aides,
"Your pardon, Father, but hearing Captain Farnsworth's voice
I made bold to knock."
"What is it, Bobby?" Farnsworth called out.
"Nothing, only the Governor has been having you looked for
in every nook and corner of the fort and town. You'd better report
at once, or hell be having us drag the river for your body."
"All right, Lieutenant, go back and keep mum, that's a dear
boy, and I'll shuffle into Colonel Hamilton's august presence
before many minutes."
The aide laughed and went his way whistling a merry tune.
"Now I am sure to get what I deserve, with usury at forty
per cent in advance," said Farnsworth dryly, shrugging his
shoulders with undissembled dread of Hamilton's wrath. But the
anticipation was not realized. The Governor received Farnsworth
stiffly enough, yet in a way that suggested a suppressed desire
to avoid explanations on the Captain's part and a reprimand on
his own. In fact, Hamilton was hoping that something would turn
up to shield him from the effect of his terrible midnight adventure,
which seemed the darker the more he thought of it. He had a slow,
numb conscience, lying deep where it was hard to reach, and when
a qualm somehow entered it he endured in secret what most men
would have cast off or confessed. He was haunted, if not with
remorse, at least by a dread of something most disagreeable in
connection with what he had done. Alice's white face had impressed
itself indelibly on his memory, so that it met his inner vision
at every turn. He was afraid to converse with Farnsworth lest
she should come up for discussion; consequently their interview
was curt and formal.
It was soon discovered that Alice had escaped from the stockade,
and some show of search was made for her by Hamilton's order,
but Farnsworth looked to it that the order was not carried out.
He thought he saw at once that his chief knew where she was. The
mystery perplexed and pained the young man, and caused him to
fear all sorts of evil; but there was a chance that Alice had
found a safe retreat and he knew that nothing but ill could befall
her if she were discovered and brought back to the fort. Therefore
his search for her became his own secret and for his own heart's
ease. And doubtless he would have found her; for even handicapped
and distorted love like his is lynx-eyed and sure on the track
of its object; but a great event intervened and swept away his
opportunity.
Hamilton's uneasiness, which was that of a strong, misguided nature
trying to justify itself amid a confusion of unmanageable doubts
and misgivings, now vented itself in a resumption of the repairs
he had been making at certain points in the fort. These he completed
just in time for the coming of Clark.
CHAPTER XIX
THE ATTACK
It has already been mentioned that Indians, arriving singly or
in squads, to report at Hamilton's headquarters, were in the habit
of firing their guns before entering the town or the fort, not
only as a signal of their approach, but in order to rid their
weapons of their charges preliminary to cleaning them before setting
out upon another scalp-hunting expedition. A shot, therefore,
or even a volley, heard on the outskirts of the village, was not
a noticeable incident in the daily and nightly experience of the
garrison. Still, for some reason, Governor Hamilton started violently
when, just after nightfall, five or six rifles cracked sharply
a short distance from the stockade.
He and Helm with two other officers were in the midst of a game
of cards, while a kettle, swinging on a crane in the ample fire-
place, sang a shrill promise of hot apple-jack toddy.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Farnsworth, who, although not in
the game, was amusing himself with looking on; "you jump
like a fine lady! I almost fancied I heard a bullet hit you."
"You may all jump while you can," remarked Helm. "That's
Clark, and your time's short--He'll have this fort tumbling on
your heads before daylight of to-morrow morning comes."
As he spoke he arose from his seat at the card table and went
to look after the toddy, which, as an expert, he had under supervision.
Hamilton frowned. The mention of Clark was disturbing. Ever since
the strange disappearance of Lieutenant Barlow he had nursed the
fear that possibly Clark's scouts had captured him and that the
American forces might be much nearer than Kaskaskia. Besides,
his nerves were unruly, as they had been ever since the encounter
with Father Beret; and his vision persisted in turning back upon
the accusing cold face of Alice, lying in the moonlight. One little
detail of that scene almost maddened him at times; it was a sheeny,
crinkled wisp of warm looking hair looped across the cheek in
which he had often seen a saucy dimple dance when Alice spoke
or smiled. He was bad enough, but not wholly bad, and the thought
of having darkened those merry eyes and stilled those sweet dimples
tore through him with a cold, rasping pang.
"Just as soon as this toddy is properly mixed and tempered,"
said Helm, with a magnetic jocosity beaming from his genial face,
"I'm going to propose a toast to the banner of Alice Roussillon,
which a whole garrison of British braves has been unable to take!"
"If you do I'll blow a hole through you as big as the south
door of hell," said Hamilton, in a voice fairly shaken to
a husky quaver with rage. "You may do a great many insulting
things; but not that."
Helm was in a half stooping attitude with a ladle in one hand,
a cup in the other. He had met Hamilton's glowering look with
a peculiarly innocent smile, as if to say: "What in the world
is the matter now? I never felt in a better humor in all my life.
Can't you take a joke, I wonder?" He did not speak, however,
for a rattling volley of musket and rifle shots hit the top of
the clay- daubed chimney, sending down into the toddy a shower
of soot and dirt.
In a wink every man was on his feet and staring.
"Gentlemen," said Helm, with an impressive oath, "that
is Clark's soldiers, and they will take your fort; but they ought
not to have spoiled this apple toddy!" "Oh, the devil!"
said Hamilton, forcibly resuming a calm countenance, "it
is only a squad of drunken Indians coming in. We'll forego excitement;
there's no battle on hand, gentlemen."
"I'm glad you think so, Governor Hamilton," Helm responded,
"but I should imagine that I ought to know the crack of a
Kentucky rifle. I've heard one occasionally in my life. Besides,
I got a whiff of freedom just now."
"Captain Helm is right," observed Farnsworth. "That
is an attack."
Another volley, this time nearer and more concentrated, convinced
Hamilton that he was, indeed, at the opening of a fight. Even
while he was giving some hurried orders to his officers, a man
was wounded at one of the port-holes. Then came a series of yells,
answered by a ripple of sympathetic French shouting that ran throughout
the town. The patrol guards came straggling in, breathless with
excitement. They swore to having seen a thousand men marching
across the water-covered meadows. Hamilton was brave. The approach
of danger stirred him like a trumpet-strain. His fighting blood
rose to full tide, and he gave his orders with the steadiness
and commanding force of a born soldier. The officers hastened
to their respective positions. On all sides sounds indicative
of rapid preparations for the fight mingled into a confused strain
of military energy. Men marched to their places; cannon were wheeled
into position, and soon enough the firing began in good earnest.
Late in the afternoon a rumor of Clark's approach had gone abroad
through the village; but not a French lip breathed it to a friend
of the British. The creoles were loyal to the cause of freedom;
moreover, they cordially hated Hamilton, and their hearts beat
high at the prospect of a change in masters at the fort. Every
cabin had its hidden gun and supply of ammunition, despite the
order to disarm issued by Hamilton. There was a hustling to bring
these forth, which was accompanied with a guarded yet irrepressible
chattering, delightfully French and infinitely volatile.
"Tiens! je vais frotter mon fusil. J'ai vu un singe!"
said Jaques Bourcier to his daughter, the pretty Adrienne, who
was coming out of the room in which Alice lay.
"I saw a monkey just now; I must rub up my gun!" He
could not be solemn; not he. The thought of an opportunity to
get even with Hamilton was like wine in his blood.
If you had seen those hardy and sinewy Frenchmen gliding in the
dusk of evening from cottage to cottage, passing the word that
the Americans had arrived, saying airy things and pinching one
another as they met and hurried on, you would have thought something
very amusing and wholly jocund was in preparation for the people
of Vincennes.
There was a current belief in the town that Gaspard Roussillon
never missed a good thing and always somehow got the lion's share.
He went out with the ebb to return on the flood. Nobody was surprised,
therefore, when he suddenly appeared in the midst of his friends,
armed to the teeth and emotionally warlike to suit the occasion.
Of course he took charge of everybody and everything. You could
have heard him whisper a bowshot away.
"Taisons!" he hissed, whenever he met an acquaintance.
"We will surprise the fort and scalp the whole garrison.
Aux armes! les Americains viennent d'arriver!"
At his own house he knocked and called in vain. He shook the door
violently; for he was thinking of the stores under the floor,
of the grimy bottles, of the fragrant Bordeaux--ah, his throat,
how it throbbed! But where was Madame Roussillon? Where was Alice?
"Jean! Jean!" he cried, forgetting all precaution, "come
here, you scamp, and let me in this minute!"
A profoundly impressive silence gave him to understand that his
home was deserted.
"Chiff! frightened and gone to stay with Madame Godere, I
suppose-- and I so thirsty! Bah! hum, hum, apres le vin la bataille,
ziff!"
He kicked in the door and groped his way to the liquors. While
he hastily swigged and smacked he heard the firing begin with
a crackling, desultory volley. He laughed jovially, there in the
dark, between draughts and deep sighs of enjoyment.
"Et moi aussi," he murmured, like the vast murmur of
the sea, "I want to be in that dance! Pardonnez, messieurs.
Moi, je veux danser, s'il vous plait."
And when he had filled himself he plunged out and rushed away,
wrought up to the extreme fighting pitch of temper. Diable! if
he could but come across that Lieutenant Barlow, how he would
smash him and mangle him! In magnifying his prowess with the lens
of imagination he swelled and puffed as he lumbered along.
The firing sounded as if it were between the fort and the river;
but presently when one of Hamilton's cannon spoke, M. Roussillon
saw the yellow spike of flame from its muzzle leap directly toward
the church, and he thought it best to make a wide detour to avoid
going between the firing lines. Once or twice he heard the whine
of a stray bullet high overhead. Before he had gone very far he
met a man hurrying toward the fort. It was Captain Francis Maisonville,
one of Hamilton's chief scouts, who had been out on a reconnoissance
and, cut off from his party by some of Clark's forces, was trying
to make his way to the main gate of the stockade.
M. Roussillon knew Maisonville as a somewhat desperate character,
a leader of Indian forays and a trader in human scalps. Surely
the fellow was legitimate prey.
"Ziff! diable de gredin!" he snarled, and leaping upon
him choked him to the ground, "Je vais vous scalper immediatement!"
Clark's plan of approach showed masterly strategy. Lieutenant
Bailey, with fourteen regulars, made a show of attack on the east,
while Major Bowman led a company through the town, on a line near
where Main street in Vincennes is now located, to a point north
of the stockade. Charleville, a brave creole, who was at the head
of some daring fellows, by a brilliant dash got position under
cover of a natural terrace at the edge of the prairie, opposite
the fort's southwestern angle. Lieutenant Beverley, in whom the
commander placed highest confidence, was sent to look for a supply
of ammunition, and to gather up all the Frenchmen in the town
who wished to join in the attack. Oncle Jazon and ten other available
men went with him.
They all made a great noise when they felt that the place was
completely invested. Nor can we deny, much as we would like to,
the strong desire for vengeance which raised those shouting voices
and nerved those steady hearts to do or die in an undertaking
which certainly had a desperate look. Patriotism of the purest
strain those men had, and that alone would have borne them up;
but the recollection of smouldering cabin homes in Kentucky, of
women and children murdered and scalped, of men brave and true
burned at the stake, and of all the indescribable outrages of
Indian warfare incited and rewarded by the commander of the fort
yonder, added to patriotism the terrible urge of that dark passion
which clamors for blood to quench the fire of wrath. Not a few
of those wet, half-frozen, emaciated soldiers of freedom had experienced
the soul rending shock of returning from a day's hunting in the
forest to find home in ashes and loved ones brutally murdered
and scalped, or dragged away to unspeakable outrage under circumstances
too harrowing for description, the bare thought of which turns
our blood cold, even at this distance. Now the opportunity had
arrived for a stroke of retaliation. The thought was tremendously
stimulating.
Beverley, with the aid of Oncle Jazon, was able to lead his little
company as far as the church before the enemy saw him. Here a
volley from the nearest angle of the stockade had to be answered,
and pretty soon a cannon began to play upon the position.
"We kin do better some'rs else," was Oncle Jazon's laconic
remark flung back over his shoulder, as he moved briskly away
from the spot just swept by a six-pounder. "Come this yer
way, Lieutenant. I hyer some o' the fellers a talkin' loud jes'
beyant Legrace's place. They ain't no sort o' sense a tryin' to
hit anything a shootin' in the dark nohow."
When they reached the thick of the town there was a strange stir
in the dusky streets. Men were slipping from house to house, arming
themselves and joining their neighbors. Clark had sent an order
earlier in the evening forbidding any street demonstration by
the inhabitants; but he might as well have ordered the wind not
to blow or the river to stand still. Oncle Jazon knew every man
whose outlines he could see or whose voice he heard. He called
each one by name:
"Here, Roger, fall in!--Come Louis, Alphonse, Victor, Octave--
venez ici, here's the American army, come with me!" His rapid
French phrases leaped forth as if shot from a pistol, and his
shrill voice, familiar to every ear in Vincennes, drew the creole
militiamen to him, and soon Beverley's company had doubled its
numbers, while at the same time its enthusiasm and ability to
make a noise had increased in a far greater proportion. In accordance
with an order from Clark they now took position near the northeast
corner of the stockade and began firing, although in the darkness
there was but little opportunity for marksmanship.
Oncle Jazon had found citizens Legrace and Bosseron, and through
them Clark's men were supplied with ammunition, of which they
stood greatly in need, their powder having got wet during their
long, watery march. By nine o'clock the fort was completely surrounded,
and from every direction the riflemen and musketeers were pouring
in volley after volley. Beverley with his men took the cover of
a fence and some houses sixty yards from the stockade. Here to
their surprise they found themselves below the line of Hamilton's
cannon, which, being planted on the second floor of the fort,
could not be sufficiently depressed to bear upon them. A well
directed musket fire, however, fell from the loopholes of the
blockhouses, the bullets rattling merrily against the cover behind
which the attacking forces lay.
Beverley was thinking of Alice during every moment of all this
stir and tumult He feared that she might still be a prisoner in
the fort exposed to the very bullets that his men were discharging
at every crack and cranny of those loosely constructed buildings.
Should he ever see her again? Would she care for him? What would
be the end of all this terrible suspense? Those remote forebodings
of evils, formless, shadowy, ineffable, which have harried the
lover's heart since time began, crowded all pleasant anticipations
out of his mind.
Clark, in passing hurriedly from company to company around the
line, stopped for a little while when he found Beverley.
"Have you plenty of ammunition?" was his first inquiry.
"A mighty sight more'n we kin see to shoot with," spoke
up Oncle Jazon. "It's a right smart o' dad burn foolishness
to be wastin' it on nothin'; seems like to me 'at we'd better
set the dasted fort afire an' smoke the skunks out!"
"Speak when you are spoken to, my man," said the Colonel
a trifle hotly, and trying by a sharp scrutiny to make him out
in the gloom where he crouched.
"Ventrebleu! I'm not askin' YOU, Colonel Clark, nor no other
man, when I shill speak. I talks whenever I gits ready, an' I
shoots jes' the same way. So ye'd better go on 'bout yer business
like a white man! Close up yer own whopper jawed mouth, ef ye
want anything shet up!"
"Oho! is that you, Jazon? You're so little I didn't know
you! Certainly, talk your whole damned under jaw off, for all
I care," Clark replied, assuming a jocose tone. Then turning
again to Beverley: "Keep up the firing and the noise; the
fort will be ours in the morning."
"What's the use of waiting till morning?" Beverley demanded
with impatience. "We can tear that stockade to pieces with
our hands in half an hour."
"I don't think so, Lieutenant. It is better to play for the
sure thing. Keep up the racket, and be ready for 'em if they rush
out. We must not fail to capture the hair-buyer General."
He passed on, with something cheerful to say whenever he found
a squad of his devoted men. He knew how to humor and manage those
independent and undisciplined yet heroically brave fellows. What
to see and hear, what to turn aside as a joke, what to insist
upon with inflexible mastery, he knew by the fine instantaneous
sense of genius. There were many men of Oncle Jazon's cast, true
as steel, but refractory as flint, who could not be dominated
by any person, no matter of what stamp or office. To them an order
was an insult; but a suggestion pleased and captured them. Strange
as it may seem, theirs was the conquering spirit of America--the
spirit which has survived every turn of progress and built up
the great body of our independence.
Beverley submitted to Clark's plan with what patience he could,
and all night long fired shot for shot with the best riflemen
in his squad. It was a fatiguing performance, with apparently
little result beyond forcing the garrison now and again to close
the embrasures. thus periodically silencing the cannon. Toward
the close of the night a relaxation showed itself in the shouting
and firing all round the line. Beverley's men, especially the
creoles, held out bravely in the matter of noise; but even they
flagged at length, their volatility simmering down to desultory
bubbling and half sleepy chattering and chaffing.
Beverley leaned upon a rude fence, and for a time neglected to
reload his hot rifle. Of course he was thinking of Alice,--he
really could not think in any other direction; but it gave him
a shock and a start when he presently heard her name mentioned
by a little Frenchman near him on the left.
"There'll never be another such a girl in Post Vincennes
as Alice Roussillon," the fellow said in the soft creole
patois, "and to think of her being shot like a dog!"
"And by a man who calls himself a Governor, too!" said
another. "Ah, as for myself, I'm in favor of burning him
alive when we capture him. That's me!"
"Et moi aussi," chimed in a third voice. "That
poor girl must be avenged. The man who shot her must die. Holy
Virgin, but if Gaspard Roussillon were only here!"
"But he is here; I saw him just after dark. He was in great
fighting temper, that terrible man. Ouf! but I should not like
to be Colonel Hamilton and fall in the way of that Gaspard Roussillon!"
"Morbleu! I should say not. You may leave me out of a chance
like that! I shouldn't mind seeing Gaspard handle the Governor,
though. Ah, that would be too good! He'd pay him up for shooting
Mademoiselle Alice."
Beverley could scarcely hold himself erect by the fence; the smoky,
foggy landscape swam round him heavy and strange. He uttered a
groan, which brought Oncle Jazon to his side in a hurry.
"Qu' avez-vous? What's the matter?" the old man demanded
with quick sympathy. "Hev they hit ye? Lieutenant, air ye
hurt much?"
Beverley did not hear the old man's words, did not feel his kindly
touch.
"Alice! Alice!" he murmured, "dead, dead!"
"Ya-as," drawled Oncle Jazon, "I hearn about it
soon as I got inter town. It's a sorry thing, a mighty sorry thing.
But mebby I won't do a little somepin' to that--"
Beverley straightened himself and lifted his gun, forgetting that
he had not reloaded it since firing last. He leveled it at the
fort and touched the trigger. Simultaneously with his movement
an embrasure opened and a cannon flashed, its roar flanked on
either side by a crackling of British muskets. Some bullets struck
the fence and flung splinters into Oncle Jazon's face. A cannon
ball knocked a ridge pole from the roof of a house hard by, and
sent it whirling through the air.
"Ventrebleu!--et apres? What the devil next? Better knock
a feller's eyes out!" the old man cried. "I ain't a
doin' nothin' to ye!"
He capered around rubbing his leathery face after the manner of
a scalded monkey. Beverley was struck in the breast by a flattened
and spent ball that glanced from a fence-picket. The shock caused
him to stagger and drop his gun; but he quickly picked it up and
turned to his companion.
"Are you hurt, Oncle Jazon?" he inquired. "Are
you hurt?"
"Not a bit--jes' skeert mos' into a duck fit. Thought a cannon
ball had knocked my whole dang face down my throat! Nothin' but
a handful o' splinters in my poorty count'nance, makin' my head
feel like a porc'-pine. But I sort o' thought I heard somepin'
give you a diff."
"Something did hit me," said Beverley, laying a hand
on his breast, "but I don't think it was a bullet. They seem
to be getting our range at last. Tell the men to keep well under
cover. They must not expose themselves until we are ready to charge."
The shock had brought him back to his duty as a leader of his
little company, and with the funeral bell of all his life's happiness
tolling in his agonized heart he turned afresh to directing the
fire upon the block-house.
About this time a runner came from Clark with an order to cease
firing and let a returning party of British scouts under Captain
Lamothe re-enter the fort unharmed. A strange order it seemed
to both officers and men; but it was implicitly obeyed. Clark's
genius here made another fine strategic flash. He knew that unless
he let the scouts go back into the stockade they would escape
by running away, and might possibly organize an army of Indians
with which to succor Hamilton. But if they were permitted to go
inside they could be captured with the rest of the garrison; hence
his order.
A few minutes passed in dead silence; then Captain Lamothe and
his party marched close by where Beverley's squad was lying concealed.
It was a difficult task to restrain the creoles, for some of them
hated Lamothe. Oncle Jazon squirmed like a snake while they filed
past all unaware that an enemy lurked so near. When they reached
the fort, ladders were put down for them and they began to clamber
over the wall, crowding and pushing one another in wild haste.
Oncle Jazon could hold in no longer.
"Ya! ya! ya I" he yelled. "Look out! the ladder
is a fallin' wi' ye!"
Then all the lurking crowd shouted as one man, and, sure enough,
down came a ladder--men and all in a crashing heap.
"Silence! silence!" Beverley commanded; but he could
not check the wild jeering and laughing, while the bruised and
frightened scouts hastily erected their ladder again, fairly tumbling
over one another in their haste to ascend, and so cleared the
wall, falling into the stockade to join the garrison.
"Ventrebleu!" shrieked Oncle Jazon. "They've gone
to bed; but we'll wake 'em up at the crack o' day an' give 'em
a breakfas' o' hot lead!"
Now the fighting was resumed with redoubled spirit and noise,
and when morning came, affording sufficient light to bring out
the "bead sights" on the Kentucky rifles, the matchless
marksmen in Clark's band forced the British to close the embrasures
and entirely cease trying to use their cannon; but the fight with
small arms went merrily on until the middle of the forenoon.
Meantime Gaspard Roussillon had tied Francis Maisonville's hands
fast and hard with the strap of his bullet-pouch.
"Now, I'll scalp you," he said in a rumbling tone, terrible
to hear. And with his words out came his hunting knife from its
sheath.
"O have mercy, my dear Monsieur Roussillon!" cried the
panting captive; "have mercy!"
"Mercy! yes, like your Colonel's, that's what you'll get.
You stand by that forban, that scelerat, that bandit, and help
him. Oh, yes, you'll get mercy! Yes, the same mercy that he showed
to my poor little Alice! Your scalp, Monsieur, if you please!
A small matter; it won't hurt much!"
"But, for the sake of old friendship, Gaspard, for the sake--"
"Ziff! poor little Alice!"
"But I swear to you that I--"
"Tout de meme, Monsieur, je vais vous scalper maintenant."
In fact he had taken off a part of Maisonville's scalp, when a
party of soldiers, among whom was Maisonville's brother, a brave
fellow and loyal to the American cause, were attracted by his
cries and came to his rescue.
M. Roussillon struggled savagely, insisting upon completing his
cruel performance; but he was at last overpowered, partly by brute
force and partly by the pleading of Maisonville's brother, and
made to desist. The big man wept with rage when he saw the bleeding
prisoner protected. "Eh bien! I'll keep what I've got,"
he roared, "and I'll take the rest of it next time."
He shook the tuft of hair at Maisonville and glared like a mad
bull.
Two or three other members of Lamothe's band were captured about
the same time by some of the French militiamen; and Clark, when
on his round cheering and directing his forces, discovered that
these prisoners were being used as shields. Some young creoles,
gay with drink and the stimulating effect of fight, had bound
the poor fellows and were firing from behind them! Of course the
commander promptly put an end to this cruelty; but they considered
it exquisite fun while it lasted. It was in broad daylight, and
they knew that the English in the fort could see what they were
doing.
"It's shameful to treat prisoners in this way," said
Clark. "I will not permit it. Shoot the next man that offers
to do such a thing!"
One of the creole youths, a handsome, swarthy Adonis in buckskin,
tossed his shapely head with a debonair smile and said:
"To be sure, mon Colonel! but what have they been doing to
us? We have amused them all winter; it's but fair that they should
give us a little fun now."
Clark shrugged his broad shoulders and passed on. He understood
perfectly what the people of Vincennes had suffered under Hamilton's
brutal administration.
At nine o'clock an order was passed to cease firing, and a flag
of truce was seen going from Clark's headquarters to the fort.
It was a peremptory demand for unconditional surrender. Hamilton
refused, and fighting was fiercely resumed from behind rude breastworks
meantime erected. Every loop-hole and opening of whatever sort
was the focus into which the unerring backwoods rifles sent their
deadly bullets. Men began to fall in the fort, and every moment
Hamilton expected an assault in force on all sides of the stockade.
This, if successful, would mean inevitable massacre. Clark had
warned him of the terrible consequences of holding out until the
worst should come. "For," said he in his note to the
Governor, "if I am obliged to storm, you may depend upon
such treatment as is justly due to a murderer."
Historians have wondered why Hamilton became so excited and acted
so strangely after receiving the note. The phrase, "justly
due to a murderer," is the key to the mystery. When he read
it his heart sank and a terrible fear seized him. "Justly
due to a murderer!" ah, that calm, white, beautiful girlish
face, dead in the moonlight, with the wisp of shining hair across
it! "Such treatment as is justly due to a murderer!"
Cold drops of sweat broke out on his forehead and a shiver went
through his body.
During the truce Clark's weary yet still enthusiastic besiegers
enjoyed a good breakfast prepared for them by the loyal dames
of Vincennes. Little Adrienne Bourcier was one of the handmaidens
of the occasion. She brought to Beverley's squad a basket, almost
as large as herself, heaped high with roasted duck and warm wheaten
bread, while another girl bore two huge jugs of coffee, fragrant
and steaming hot. The men cheered them lustily and complimented
them without reserve, so that before their service was over their
faces were glowing with delight
And yet Adrienne's heart was uneasy, and full of longing to hear
something of Rene de Ronville. Surely some one of her friends
must know something about him. Ah, there was Oncle Jazon! Doubtless
he could tell her all that she wanted to know. She lingered, after
the food was distributed, and shyly inquired.
"Hain't seed the scamp," said Oncle Jazon, only he used
the patois most familiar to the girl's ear. "Killed an' scelped
long ago, I reckon."
His mouth was so full that he spoke mumblingly and with utmost
difficulty. Nor did he glance at Adrienne, whose face took on
as great pallor as her brown complexion could show.
Beverley ate but little of the food. He sat apart on a piece of
timber that projected from the rough breastwork and gave himself
over to infinite misery of spirit, which was trebled when he took
Alice's locket from his bosom, only to discover that the bullet
which struck him had almost entirely destroyed the face of the
miniature.
He gripped the dinted and twisted case and gazed at it with the
stare of a blind man. His heart almost ceased to beat and his
breath had the rustling sound we hear when a strong man dies of
a sudden wound. Somehow the defacement of the portrait was taken
by his soul as the final touch of fate, signifying that Alice
was forever and completely obliterated from his life. He felt
a blur pass over his mind. He tried in vain to recall the face
and form so dear to him; he tried to imagine her voice; but the
whole universe was a vast hollow silence. For a long while he
was cold, staring, rigid; then the inevitable collapse came, and
he wept as only a strong man can who is hurt to death, yet cannot
die.
Adrienne approached him, thinking to speak to him about Rene;
but he did not notice her, and she went her way, leaving beside
him a liberal supply of food.
CHAPTER XX
ALICE'S FLAG
Governor Hamilton received the note sent him by Colonel Clark
and replied to it with curt dignity; but his heart was quaking.
As a soldier he was true to the military tradition, and nothing
could have induced him to surrender his command with dishonor.
"Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton," he wrote to Clark, "begs
leave to acquaint Colonel Clark that he and his garrison are not
disposed to be awed into any action unworthy of British subjects."
"Very brave words," said Helm, when Hamilton read the
note to him, "but you'll sing a milder tune before many minutes,
or you and your whole garrison will perish in a bloody heap. Listen
to those wild yells! Clark has enough men to eat you all up for
breakfast. You'd better be reasonable and prudent. It's not bravery
to court massacre."
Hamilton turned away without a word and sent the message; but
Helm saw that he was excited, and could be still further wrought
up.
"You are playing into the hands of your bitterest enemies,
the frog-eaters," he went on. "These creoles, over whom
you've held a hot poker all winter, are crazy to be turned loose
upon you; and you know that they've got good cause to feel like
giving you the extreme penalty. They'll give it to you without
a flinch if they get the chance. You've done enough."
Hamilton whirled about and glared ferociously.
"Helm, what do you mean?" he demanded in a voice as
hollow as it was full of desperate passion.
The genial Captain laughed, as if he had heard a good joke.
"You won't catch any fish if you swear, and you look blasphemous,"
he said with the lightness of humor characteristic of him at all
times. "You'd better say a prayer or two. Just reflect a
moment upon the awful sins you have committed and--"
A crash of coalescing volleys from every direction broke off his
levity. Clark was sending his response to Hamilton's lofty note.
The guns of freedom rang out a prophecy of triumph, and the hissing
bullets clucked sharply as they entered the solid logs of the
walls or whisked through an aperture and bowled over a man. The
British musketeers returned the fire as best they could, with
a courage and a stubborn coolness which Helm openly admired, although
he could not hide his satisfaction whenever one of them was disabled.
"Lamothe and his men are refusing to obey orders," said
Farnsworth a little later, hastily approaching Hamilton, his face
flushed and a gleam of hot anger in his eyes. "They're in
a nasty mood; I can do nothing with them; they have not fired
a shot."
"Mutiny?" Hamilton demanded.
"Not just that. They say they do not wish to fire on their
kinsmen and friends. They are all French, you know, and they see
their cousins, brothers, uncles and old acquaintances out there
in Clark's rabble. I can do nothing with them."
"Shoot the scoundrels, then!"
"It will be a toss up which of us will come out on top if
we try that. Besides, if we begin a fight inside, the Americans
will make short work of us."
"Well, what in hell are we to do, then?"
"Oh, fight, that's all," said Farnsworth apathetically
turning to a small loop-hole and leveling a field glass through
it. "We might make a rush from the gates and stampede them,"
he presently added. Then he uttered an exclamation of great surprise.
"There's Lieutenant Beverley out there," he exclaimed.
"You're mistaken, you're excited," Hamilton half sneeringly
remarked, yet not without a shade of uneasiness in his expression.
"You forget, sir."
"Look for yourself, it's easily settled," and Farnsworth
proffered the glass. "He's there, to a certainty, sir."
"I saw Beverley an hour ago," said Helm. "I knew
all the time that he'd be on hand."
It was a white lie. Captain Helm was as much surprised as his
captors at what he heard; but he could not resist the temptation
to be annoying.
Hamilton looked as Farnsworth directed, and sure enough, there
was the young Virginian Lieutenant, standing on a barricade, his
hat off, cheering his men with a superb show of zeal. Not a hair
of his head was missing, so far as the glass could be relied upon
to show.
Oncle Jazon's quick old eyes saw the gleam of the telescope tube
in the loop-hole.
"I never could shoot much," he muttered, and then a
little bullet sped with absolute accuracy from his disreputable
looking rifle and shattered the object-lens, just as Hamilton
moved to withdraw the glass, uttering an ejaculation of intense
excitement.
"Such devils of marksmen!" said he, and his face was
haggard. "That infernal Indian lied."
"I could have told you all the time that the scalp Long-Hair
brought to you was not Beverley's," said Helm indifferently.
"I recognized Lieutenant Barlow's hair as soon as I saw it."
This was another piece of off-hand romance. Helm did not dream
that he was accidentally sketching a horrible truth.
"Barlow's!" exclaimed Farnsworth.
"Yes, Barlow's, no mistake--"
Two more men reeled from a port-hole, the blood spinning far out
of their wounds. Indeed, through every aperture in the walls the
bullets were now humming like mad hornets.
"Close that port-hole!" stormed Hamilton; then turning
to Farnsworth he added: "We cannot endure this long. Shut
up every place large enough for a bullet to get through. Go all
around, give strict orders to all. See that the men do not foolishly
expose themselves. Those ruffians out there have located every
crack."
His glimpse of Beverley and the sinister remark of Helm had completely
unmanned him before his men fell. Now it rushed upon him that
if he would escape the wrath of the maddened creoles and the vengeance
of Alice's lover, he must quickly throw himself upon the mercy
of Clark. It was his only hope. He chafed inwardly, but bore himself
with stern coolness. He presently sought Farnsworth, pulled him
aside and suggested that something must be done to prevent an
assault and a massacre. The sounds outside seemed to forebode
a gathering for a desperate rush, and in his heart he felt all
the terrors of awful anticipation.
"We are completely at their mercy, that is plain," he
said, shrugging his shoulders and gazing at the wounded men writhing
in their agony. "What do you suggest?"
Captain Farnsworth was a shrewd officer. He recollected that Philip
Dejean, justice of Detroit, was on his way down the Wabash from
that post, and probably near at hand, with a flotilla of men and
supplies. Why not ask for a few days of truce? It could do no
harm, and if agreed to, might be their salvation. Hamilton jumped
at the thought, and forthwith drew up a note which he sent out
with a white flag. Never before in all his military career had
he been so comforted by a sudden cessation of fighting. His soul
would grovel in spite of him. Alice's cold face now had Beverley's
beside it in his field of inner vision--a double assurance of
impending doom, it seemed to him.
There was short delay in the arrival of Colonel Clark's reply,
hastily scrawled on a bit of soiled paper. The request for a truce
was flatly refused; but the note closed thus:
"If Mr. Hamilton is Desirous of a Conferance with Col. Clark
he will meet him at the Church with Captn. Helms."
The spelling was not very good, and there was a redundancy of
capital letters; yet Hamilton understood it all; and it was very
difficult for him to conceal his haste to attend the proposed
conference. But he was afraid to go to the church--the thought
chilled him. He could not face Father Beret, who would probably
be there. And what if there should be evidences of the funeral?--what
if?--he shuddered and tried to break away from the vision in his
tortured brain.
He sent a proposition to Clark to meet him on the esplanade before
the main gate of the fort; but Clark declined, insisting upon
the church. And thither he at last consented to go. It was an
immense brace to his spirit to have Helm beside him during that
walk, which, although but eighty yards in extent, seemed to him
a matter of leagues. On the way he had to pass near the new position
taken up by Beverley and his men. It was a fine test of nerve,
when the Lieutenant's eyes met those of the Governor. Neither
man permitted the slightest change of countenance to betray his
feelings. In fact, Beverley's face was as rigid as marble; he
could not have changed it.
But with Oncle Jazon it was a different affair. He had no dignity
to preserve, no fine military bearing to sustain, no terrible
tug of conscience, no paralyzing grip of despair on his heart.
When he saw Hamilton going by, bearing himself so superbly, it
affected the French volatility in his nature to such an extent
that his tongue could not be controlled.
"Va t'en, bete, forban, meurtrier! Skin out f'om here! beast,
robber, murderer!" he cried, in his keen screech-owl voice.
"I'll git thet scelp o' your'n afore sundown, see 'f I don't!
Ye onery gal-killer an' ha'r buyer!"
The blood in Hamilton's veins caught no warmth from these remarks;
but he held his head high and passed stolidly on, as if he did
not hear a word. Helm turned the tail of an eye upon Oncle Jazon
and gave him a droll, quizzical wink of approval. In response
the old man with grotesque solemnity drew his buckhorn handled
knife, licked its blade and returned it to its sheath,--a bit
of pantomime well understood and keenly enjoyed by the onlooking
creoles.
"Putois! coquin!" they jeered, "goujat! poltron!"
Beverley heard the taunting racket, but did not realize it, which
was well enough, for he could not have restrained the bitter effervescence.
He stood like a statue, gazing fixedly at the now receding figure,
the lofty, cold-faced man in whom centered his hate of hates.
Clark had requested him to be present at the conference in the
church; but he declined, feeling that he could not meet Hamilton
and restrain himself. Now he regretted his refusal, half wishing
that--no, he could not assassinate an enemy under a white flag.
In his heart he prayed that there would be no surrender, that
Hamilton would reject every offer. To storm the fort and revel
in butchering its garrison seemed the only desirable thing left
for him in life.
Father Beret was, indeed, present at the church, as Hamilton had
dreaded; and the two duelists gave each other a rapier-like eye-
thrust. Neither spoke, however, and Clark immediately demanded
a settlement of the matter in hand. He was brusque and imperious
to a degree, apparently rather anxious to repel every peaceful
advance.
It was a laconic interview, crisp as autumn ice and bitter as
gallberries. Colonel Clark had no respect whatever for Hamilton,
to whom he had applied the imperishable adjective "hair-buyer
General." On the other hand Governor Hamilton, who felt keenly
the disgrace of having to equalize himself officially and discuss
terms of surrender with a rough backwoodsman, could not conceal
his contempt of Clark.
The five men of history, Hamilton, Helm, Hay, Clark and Bowman,
were not distinguished diplomats. They went at their work rather
after the hammer-and-tongs fashion. Clark bluntly demanded unconditional
surrender. Hamilton refused. They argued the matter. Helm put
in his oar, trying to soften the situation, as was his custom
on all occasions, and received from Clark a stinging reprimand,
with the reminder that he was nothing but a prisoner on parole,
and had no voice at all in settling the terms of surrender.
"I release him, sir," said Hamilton. "He is no
longer a prisoner. I am quite willing to have Captain Helm join
freely in our conference."
"And I refuse to permit his acceptance of your favor,"
responded Clark. "Captain Helm, you will return with Mr.
Hamilton to the fort and remain his captive until I free you by
force. Meantime hold your tongue."
Father Beret, suave looking and quiet, occupied himself at the
little altar, apparently altogether indifferent to what was being
said; but he lost not a word of the talk.
"Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat," he inwardly repeated,
smiling blandly. "Gaudete in illa die, et exultate!"
Hamilton rose to go; deep lines of worry creased his face; but
when the party had passed outside, he suddenly turned upon Clark
and said:
"Why do you demand impossible terms of me?"
"I will tell you, sir," was the stern answer, in a tone
in which there was no mercy or compromise. "I would rather
have you refuse. I desire nothing so much as an excuse to wreak
full and bloody vengeance on every man in that fort who has engaged
in the business of employing savages to scalp brave, patriotic
men and defenseless women and children. The cries of the widows
and the fatherless on our frontiers require the blood of the Indian
partisans at my hands. If you choose to risk the massacre of your
garrison to save those despicable red-handed partisans, have your
pleasure. What you have done you know better than I do. I have
a duty to perform. You may be able to soften its nature. I may
take it into my head to send for some of our bereaved women to
witness my terrible work and see that it is well done, if you
insist upon the worst."
Major Hay, who was Hamilton's Indian agent, now, with some difficulty
clearing his throat, spoke up.
"Pray, sir," said he, "who is it that you call
Indian partisans?" "Sir," replied Clark, seeing
that his words had gone solidly home, "I take Major Hay to
be one of the principals."
This seemed to strike Hay with deadly force, dark's report says
that he was "pale and trembling, scarcely able to stand,"
and that "Hamilton blushed, and, I observed, was much affected
at his behavior. "Doubtless, if the doughty American commander
had known more about the Governor's feelings just then, he would
have added that an awful fear, even greater than the Indian agent's,
did more than anything else to congest the veins in his face.
The parties separated without reaching an agreement; but the end
had come. The terror in Hamilton's soul was doubled by a wild
scene enacted under the walls of his fort; a scene which, having
no proper place in this story, strong as its historical interest
unquestionably is, must be but outlined. A party of Indians returning
from a scalping expedition in Kentucky and along the Ohio, was
captured on the outskirts of the town by some of Clark's men,
who proceeded to kill and scalp them within full view of the beleaguered
garrison, after which their mangled bodies were flung into the
river.
If the British commander needed further wine of dread to fill
his cup withal, it was furnished by ostentatious marshaling of
the American forces for a general assault. His spirit broke completely,
so that it looked like a godsend to him when Clark finally offered
terms of honorable surrender, the consummation of which was to
be postponed until the following morning. He accepted promptly,
appending to the articles of capitulation the following reasons
for his action: "The remoteness from succor; the state and
quantity of provisions, etc.; unanimity of officers and men in
its expediency; the honorable terms allowed; and, lastly, the
confidence in a generous enemy."
Confidence in a generous enemy! Abject fear of the vengeance just
wreaked upon his savage emissaries would have been the true statement.
Beverley read the paper when Clark sent for him; but he could
not join in the extravagant delight of his fellow officers and
their brave men. What did all this victory mean to him? Hamilton
to be treated as an honorable prisoner of war, permitted to strut
forth from the feat with his sword at his side, his head up--the
scalp-buyer, the murderer of Alice! What was patriotism to the
crushed heart of a lover? Even if his vision had been able to
pierce the future and realize the splendor of Anglo-Saxon civilization
which was to follow that little triumph at Vincennes, what pleasure
could it have afforded him? Alice, Alice, only Alice; no other
thought had influence, save the recurring surge of desire for
vengeance upon her murderer.
And yet that night Beverley slept, and so forgot his despair for
many hours, even dreamed a pleasant dream of home, where his childhood
was spent, of the stately old house on the breezy hill- top overlooking
a sunny plantation, with a little river lapsing and shimmering
through it. His mother's dear arms were around him, her loving
breath stirred his hair; and his stalwart, gray-headed father
sat on the veranda comfortably smoking his pipe, while away in
the wide fields the negroes sang at the plow and the hoe. Sweeter
and sweeter grew the scene, softer the air, tenderer the blending
sounds of the water-murmur, leaf-rustle, bird-song, and slave-song,
until hand in hand he wandered with Alice in greening groves,
where the air was trembling with the ecstacy of spring.
A young officer awoke him with an order from Clark to go on duty
at once with Captains Worthington and Williams, who, under Colonel
Clark himself, were to take possession of the fort. Mechanically
he obeyed. The sun was far up, shining between clouds of a leaden,
watery hue, by the time everything was ready for the important
ceremony. Beside the main gate of the stockade two companies of
patriots under Bowman and McCarty were drawn up as guards, while
the British garrison filed out and was taken in charge. This bit
of formality ended, Governor Hamilton, attended by some of his
officers, went back into the fort and the gate was closed.
Clark now gave orders that preparations be made for hauling down
the British flag and hoisting the young banner of liberty in its
place, when everything should be ready for a salute of thirteen
guns from the captured battery.
Helm's round face was beaming. Plainly it showed that his happiness
was supreme. He dared not say anything, however; for Clark was
now all sternness and formality; it would be dangerous to take
any liberties; but he could smile and roll his quid of tobacco
from cheek to cheek.
Hamilton and Farnsworth, the latter slightly wounded in the left
arm, which was bandaged, stood together somewhat apart from their
fellow officers, while preliminary steps for celebrating their
defeat and capture were in progress. They looked forlorn enough
to have excited deep sympathy under fairer conditions.
Outside the fort the creoles were beginning a noise of jubilation.
The rumor of what was going to be done had passed from mouth to
mouth, until every soul in the town knew and thrilled with expectancy.
Men, women and children came swarming to see the sight, and to
hear at close range the crash of the cannon. They shouted, in
a scattering way at first, then the tumult grew swiftly to a solid
rolling tide that seemed beyond all comparison with the population
of Vincennes. Hamilton heard it, and trembled inwardly, afraid
lest the mob should prove too strong for the guard.
One leonine voice roared distinctly, high above the noise. It
was a sound familiar to all the creoles,--that bellowing shout
of Gaspard Roussillon's. He was roaming around the stockade, having
been turned back by the guard when he tried to pass through the
main gate.
"They shut me out!" he bellowed furiously. "I am
Gaspard Roussillon, and they shut me out, me! Ziff! me voici!
je vais entrer immediatement, moi!"
He attracted but little attention, however; the people and the
soldiery were all too excited by the special interest of the occasion,
and too busy with making a racket of their own, for any individual,
even the great Roussillon, to gain their eyes or ears. He in turn
scarcely heard the tumult they made, so self-centered were his
burning thoughts and feelings. A great occasion in Vincennes and
he, Gaspard Roussillon, not recognized as one of the large factors
in it! Ah, no, never! And he strode along the wall of the stockade,
turning the corners and heavily shambling over the inequalities
till he reached the postern. It was not fastened, some one having
passed through just before him.
"Ziff!" he ejaculated, stepping into the area and shaking
himself after the manner of a dusty mastiff. "C'est moi!
Gaspard Roussillon!" His massive under jaw was set like that
of a vise, yet it quivered with rage, a rage which was more fiery
condensation of self-approval than anger.
Outside the shouting, singing and huzzahs gathered strength and
volume, until the sound became a hoarse roar. Clark was uneasy;
he had overheard much of a threatening character during the siege.
The creoles were, he knew, justly exasperated, and even his own
men had been showing a spirit which might easily be fanned into
a dangerous flame of vengeance. He was very anxious to have the
formalities of taking possession of the fort over with, so that
he could the better control his forces. Sending for Beverley he
assigned him to the duty of hauling down the British flag and
running up that of Virginia. It was an honor of no doubtful sort,
which under different circumstances would have made the Lieutenant's
heart glow. As it was, he proceeded without any sense of pride
or pleasure, moving as a mere machine in performing an act significant
beyond any other done west of the mountains, in the great struggle
for American independence and the control of American territory.
Hamilton stood a little way from the foot of the tall flag-pole,
his arms folded on his breast, his chin slightly drawn in, his
brows contracted, gazing steadily at Beverley while he was untying
the halyard, which had been wound around the pole's base about
three feet above the ground. The American troops in the fort were
disposed so as to form three sides of a hollow square, facing
inward. Oncle Jazon, serving as the ornamental extreme of one
line, was conspicuous for his outlandish garb and unmilitary bearing.
The silence inside the stockade offered a strong contrast to the
tremendous roar of voices outside. Clark made a signal, and at
the tap of a drum, Beverley shook the ropes loose and began to
lower the British colors. Slowly the bright emblem of earth's
mightiest nation crept down in token of the fact that a handful
of back-woodsmen had won an empire by a splendid stroke of pure
heroism. Beverley detached the flag, and saluting, handed it to
Colonel Clark. Hamilton's breast heaved and his iron jaws tightened
their pressure until the lines of his cheeks were deep furrows
of pain.
Father Beret, who had just been admitted, quietly took a place
at one side near the wall. There was a fine, warm, benignant smile
on his old face, yet his powerful shoulders drooped as if weighted
down with a heavy load. Hamilton was aware when he entered, and
instantly the scene of their conflict came into his memory with
awful vividness, and he saw Alice lying outstretched, stark and,
cold, the shining strand of hair fluttering across her pallid
cheek. Her ghost overshadowed him.
Just then there was a bird-like movement, a wing-like rustle,
and a light figure flitted swiftly across the area. All eyes were
turned upon it. Hamilton recoiled, as pale as death, half lifting
his hands, as if to ward off a deadly blow, and then a gay flag
was flung out over his head. He saw before him the girl he had
shot; but her beautiful face was not waxen now, nor was it cold
or lifeless. The rich red blood was strong under the browned,
yet delicate skin, the eyes were bright and brave, the cherry
lips, slightly apart, gave a glimpse of pearl white teeth, and
the dimples,--those roguish dimples,--twinkled sweetly.
Colonel Clark looked on in amazement, and in spite of himself,
in admiration. He did not understand; the sudden incident bewildered
him; but his virile nature was instantly and wholly charmed. Something
like a breath of violets shook the tenderest chords of his heart.
Alice stood firmly, a statue of triumph, her right arm outstretched,
holding the flag high above Hamilton's head; and close by her
side the little hunchback Jean was posed in his most characteristic
attitude, gazing at the banner which he himself had stolen and
kept hidden for Alice's sake, and because he loved it.
There was a dead silence for some moments, during which Hamilton's
face showed that he was ready to collapse; then the keen voice
of Oncle Jazon broke forth:
"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton! Vim la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!"
He sprang to the middle of the area and flung his old cap high
in air, with a shrill war-whoop.
"H'ist it! h'ist it! hissez la banniere de Mademoiselle Alice
Roussillon! Voila, que c'est glorieuse, cette banniere la! H'ist
it! h'ist it!"
He was dancing with a rickety liveliness, his goatish legs and
shriveled body giving him the look of an emaciated satyr.
Clark had been told by some of his creole officers the story of
how Alice raised the flag when Helm took the fort, and how she
snatched it from Hamilton's hand, as it were, and would not give
it up when he demanded it. The whole situation pretty soon began
to explain itself, as he saw what Alice was doing. Then he heard
her say to Hamilton, while she slowly swayed the rippling flag
back and forth:
"I said, as you will remember, Monsieur le Gouverneur, that
when you next should see this flag, I should wave it over your
head. Well, look, I am waving it! Vive la republique! Vive George
Washington! What do you think of it, Monsieur le Gouverneur?"
The poor little hunchback Jean took off his cap and tossed it
in rhythmical emphasis, keeping time to her words.
And now from behind the hollow square came a mighty voice:
"C'est moi, Gaspard Roussillon; me voici, messieurs!"
There was a spirit in the air which caught from Alice a thrill
of romantic energy. The men in the ranks and the officers in front
of them felt a wave of irresistible sympathy sweep through their
hearts. Her picturesque beauty, her fine temper, the fitness of
the incident to the occasion, had an instantaneous power which
moved all men alike.
"Raise her flag! Run up the young lady's flag!" some
one shouted, and then every voice seemed to echo the words. Clark
was a young man of noble type, in whose veins throbbed the warm
chivalrous blood of the cavaliers. A waft of the suddenly prevailing
influence bore him also quite off his feet. He turned to Beverley
and said:
"Do it! It will have a great effect. It is a good idea; get
the young lady's flag and her permission to run it up."
Before he finished speaking, indeed at the first glance, he saw
that Beverley, like Hamilton, was white as a dead man; and at
the same time it came to his memory that his young friend had
confided to him during the awful march through the prairie wilderness,
a love-story about this very Alice Roussillon. In the worry and
stress of the subsequent struggle, he had forgotten the tender
basis upon which Beverley had rested his excuse for leaving Vincennes.
Now, it all reappeared in justification of what was going on.
It touched the romantic core of his southern nature.
"I say, Lieutenant Beverley," he repeated, "beg
the young lady's permission to use her flag upon this glorious
occasion; or shall I do it for you?"
There were no miracles in those brave days, and the strain of
life with its terrible realities braced all men and women to meet
sudden explosions of surprise, whether of good or bad effect,
with admirable equipoise; but Beverley's trial, it must be admitted,
was extraordinary; still he braced himself quickly and his whole
expression changed when Clark moved to go to Alice. For he realized
now that it was, indeed, Alice in flesh and blood, standing there,
the center of admiration, filling the air with her fine magnetism
and crowning a great triumph with her beauty. He gave her a glad,
flashing smile, as if he had just discovered her, and walked straight
to her, his hands extended. She was not looking toward him; but
she saw him and turned to face him. Hers was the advantage; for
she had known, for some hours, of his presence in Vincennes, and
had prepared herself to meet him courageously and with maidenly
reserve.
There is no safety, however, where Love lurks. Neither Beverley
nor Alice was as much agitated at Hamilton, yet they both forgot,
what he remembered, that a hundred grim frontier soldiers were
looking on. Hamilton had his personal and official dignity to
sustain, and he fairly did it, under what a pressure of humiliating
and surprising circumstances we can fully comprehend. Not so with
the two young people, standing as it were in a suddenly bestowed
and incomparable happiness, on the verge of a new life, each to
the other an unexpected, unhoped-for resurrection from the dead.
To them there was no universe save the illimitable expanse of
their love. In that moment of meeting, all that they had suffered
on account of love was transfused and poured forth,--a glowing
libation for love's sake,--a flood before which all barriers broke.
Father Beret was looking on with a strange fire in his eyes, and
what he feared would happen, did happen. Alice let the flag fall
at Hamilton's feet, when Beverley came near her smiling that great,
glad smile, and with a joyous cry leaped into his outstretched
arms.
Jean snatched up the fallen banner and ran to Colonel Clark with
it. Two minutes later it was made fast and the halyard began to
squeak through the rude pulley at the top of the pole. Up, up,
climbed the gay little emblem of glory, while the cannon crashed
from the embrasures of the blockhouse hard by, and outside the
roar of voices redoubled. Thirteen guns boomed the salute, though
it should have been fourteen,--the additional one for the great
Northwestern Territory, that day annexed to the domain of the
young American Republic. The flag went up at old Vincennes never
to come down again, and when it reached its place at the top of
the staff, Beverley and Alice stood side by side looking at it,
while the sun broke through the clouds and flashed on its shining
folds, and love unabashed glorified the two strong young faces.
CHAPTER XXI
SOME TRANSACTIONS IN SCALPS
History would be a very orderly affair, could the dry-as-dust
historians have their way, and doubtless it would be thrillingly
romantic at every turn if the novelists were able to control its
current. Fortunately neither one nor the other has much influence,
and the result, in the long run, is that most novels are shockingly
tame, while the large body of history is loaded down with picturesque
incidents, which if used in fiction, would be thought absurdly
romantic and improbable.
Were our simple story of old Vincennes a mere fiction, we should
hesitate to bring in the explosion of a magazine at the fort with
a view to sudden confusion and, by that means, distracting attention
from our heroine while she betakes herself out of a situation
which, although delightful enough for a blessed minute, has quickly
become an embarrassment quite unendurable. But we simply adhere
to the established facts in history. Owing to some carelessness
there was, indeed, an explosion of twenty-six six- pound cartridges,
which made a mighty roar and struck the newly installed garrison
into a heap, so to say, scattering things terribly and wounding
six men, among them Captains Bowman and Worthington.
After the thunderous crash came a momentary silence, which embraced
both the people within the fort and the wild crowd outside. Then
the rush and noise were indescribable. Even Clark gave way to
excitement, losing command of himself and, of course, of his men.
There was a stampede toward the main gate by one wing of the troops
in the hollow square. They literally ran over Beverley and Alice,
flinging them apart and jostling them hither and yonder without
mercy. Of course the turmoil quickly subsided. Clark and Beverley
got hold of themselves and sang out their peremptory orders with
excellent effect. It was like oil on raging water; the men obeyed
in a straggling way, getting back into ranks as best they could.
"Ventrebleu!" squeaked Oncle Jazon, "ef I didn't
think the ole world had busted into a million pieces!"
He was jumping up and down not three feet from Beverley's toes,
waving his cap excitedly.
"But wasn't I skeert! Ya, ya, ya! Vive la banniere d'Alice
Roussillon! Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!"
Hearing Alice's name caused Beverley to look around. Where was
she? In the distance he saw Father Beret hurrying to the spot
where some of the men burnt and wounded by the explosion were
being stripped and cared for. Hamilton still stood like a statue.
He appeared to be the only cool person in the fort.
"Where is Alice?--Miss Roussillon--where did Miss Roussillon
go?" Beverley exclaimed, staring around like a lost man.
"Where is she?"
"D'know," said Oncle Jazon, resuming his habitual expression
of droll dignity, "she shot apast me jes' as thet thing busted
loose, an' she went like er hummin' bird, skitch!--jes' thet way--an'
I didn't see 'r no more. 'Cause I was skeert mighty nigh inter
seven fits; 'spect that 'splosion blowed her clean away! Ventrebleu!
never was so plum outen breath an' dead crazy weak o' bein' afeard!"
"Lieutenant Beverley," roared Clark in his most commanding
tone, "go to the gate and settle things there. That mob outside
is trying to break in!"
The order was instantly obeyed, but Beverley had relapsed. Once
more his soul groped in darkness, while the whole of his life
seemed unreal, a wavering, misty, hollow dream. And yet his military
duty was all real enough. He knew just what to do when he reached
the gate.
"Back there at once!" he commanded, not loudly, but
with intense force, "back there!" This to the inward
surging wedge of excited outsiders. Then to the guard.
"Shoot the first man who crosses the line!"
"Ziff! me voici! moi! Gaspard Roussillon. Laissez-moi passer,
messieurs."
A great body hurled itself frantically past Beverley and the guard,
going out through the gateway against the wall of the crowd, bearing
everything before it and shouting:
"Back, fools! you'll all be killed--the powder is on fire!
Ziff! run!"
Wild as a March hare, he bristled with terror and foamed at the
mouth. He stampeded the entire mass. There was a wild howl; a
rush in the other direction followed, and soon enough the esplanade
and all the space back to the barricades and beyond were quite
deserted.
Alice was not aware that a serious accident had happened. Naturally
she thought the great, rattling, crashing noise of the explosion
a mere part of the spectacular show. When the rush followed, separating
her and Beverley, it was a great relief to her in some way; for
a sudden recognition of the boldness of her action in the little
scene just ended, came over her and bewildered her. An impulse
sent her running away from the spot where, it seemed to her, she
had invited public derision. The terrible noises all around her
were, she now fancied, but the jeering and hooting of rude men
who had seen her unmaidenly forwardness.
With a burning face she flew to the postern and slipped out, once
more taking the course which had become so familiar to her feet.
She did not slacken her speed until she reached the Bourcier cabin,
where she had made her home since the night when Hamilton's pistol
ball struck her. The little domicile was quite empty of its household,
but Alice entered and flung herself into a chair, where she sat
quivering and breathless when Adrienne, also much excited, came
in, preceded by a stream of patois that sparkled continuously.
"The fort is blown up!" she cried, gesticulating in
every direction at once, her petite figure comically dilated with
the importance of her statement. "A hundred men are killed,
and the powder is on fire!"
She pounced into Alice's arms, still talking as fast as her tongue
could vibrate, changing from subject to subject without rhyme
or reason, her prattle making its way by skips and shies until
what was really upper-most in her sweet little heart disclosed
itself.
"And, O Alice! Rene has not come yet!"
She plunged her dusky face between Alice's cheek and shoulder;
Alice hugged her sympathetically and said:
"But Rene will come, I know he will, dear."
"Oh, but do you know it? is it true? who told you? when will
he come? where is he? tell me about him!"
Her head popped up from her friend's neck and she smiled brilliantly
through the tears that were still sparkling on her long black
lashes.
"I didn't mean that I had heard from him, and I don't know
where he is; but--but they always come back."
"You say that because your man--because Lieutenant Beverley
has returned. It is always so. You have everything to make you
happy, while I--I--"
Again her eyes spilled their shower, and she hid her face in her
hands which Alice tried in vain to remove.
"Don't cry, Adrienne. You didn't see me crying--"
"No, of course not; you didn't have a thing to cry about.
Lieutenant Beverley told you just where he was going and just
what--"
"But think, Adrienne, only think of the awful story they
told-- that he was killed, that Governor Hamilton had paid Long-Hair
for killing him and bringing back his scalp--oh dear, just think!
And I thought it was true."
"Well, I'd be willing to think and believe anything in the
world, if Rene would come back," said Adrienne, her face,
now uncovered, showing pitiful lines of suffering. "O Alice,
Alice, and he never, never will come!"
Alice exhausted every device to cheer, encourage and comfort her.
Adrienne had been so good to her when she lay recovering from
the shock of Hamilton's pistol bullet, which, although it came
near killing her, made no serious wound--only a bruise, in fact.
It was one of those fortunate accidents, or providentially ordered
interferences, which once in a while save a life. The stone disc
worn by Alice chanced to lie exactly in the missile's way, and
while it was not broken, the ball, already somewhat checked by
passing through several folds of Father Beret's garments, flattened
itself upon it with a shock which somehow struck Alice senseless.
Here again, history in the form of an ancient family document
(a letter written in 1821 by Alice herself), gives us the curious
brace of incidents, to wit, the breaking of the miniature on Beverley's
breast by a British musket-ball, and the stopping of Hamilton's
bullet over Alice's heart by the Indian charm-stone.
"Which shows the goodness of God," the letter goes on,
"and also seems to sustain the Indian legend concerning the
stone, that whoever might wear it could not be killed. Unquestionable
(sic) Mr. Hamilton's shot, which was aimed at poor, dear old Father
Beret, would have pierced my heart, but for that charm-stone.
As for my locket, it did not, as some have reported, save Fitzhugh's
life when the musket-ball was stopped. The ball was so spent that
the blow was only hard enough to spoil temporary (sic) the face
of the miniature, which was afterwards restored fairly well by
an artist in Paris. When it did actually save Fitzhugh's life
was out on the Illinois plain. The savage, Long-Hair, peace to
his memory, worked the miracle of restoring to me--" Here
a fold in the paper has destroyed a line of the writing.
The letter is a sacred family paper, and there is not justification
for going farther into its faded and, in some parts, almost obliterated
writing. But so much may pass into these pages as a pleasant authentication
of what otherwise might be altogether too sweet a double nut for
the critic's teeth to crack.
While Adrienne and Alice were still discussing the probability
of Rene de Ronville's return, M. Roussillon came to the door.
He was in search of Madame, his wife, whom he had not yet seen.
He gathered the two girls in his mighty arms, tousling them with
rough tenderness. Alice returned his affectionate embrace and
told him where to find Madame Roussillon, who was with Dame Godere,
probably at her house.
"Nobody killed," he said, in answer to Alice's inquiry
about the catastrophe at the fort. "Some of 'em hurt and
burnt a little. Great big scare about nearly nothing. Ziff! my
children, you should have seen me quiet things. I put out my hands,
this way-- omme ca--pouf! It was all over. The people went home."
His gestures indicated that he had borne back an army with open
hands. Then he chucked Adrienne under the chin with his finger
and added in his softest voice:
"I saw somebody's lover the other day, over yonder in the
Indian village. He spoke to me about somebody--eh, ma petite,
que voulez-vous dire?"
"Oh, Papa Roussillon! we were just talking about Rene!"
cried Alice. "Have you seen him?"
"I saw you, you little minx, jumping into a man's arms right
under the eyes of a whole garrison! Bah! I could not believe it
was my little Alice!"
He let go a grand guffaw, which seemed to shake the cabin's walls.
Alice blushed cherry red. Adrienne, too bashful to inquire about
Rene, was trembling with anxiety. The truth was not in Gaspard
Roussillon, just then; or if it was it stayed in him, for he had
not seen Rene de Ronville. It was his generous desire to please
and to appear opulent of knowledge and sympathy that made him
speak. He knew what would please Adrienne, so why not give her
at least a delicious foretaste? Surely, when a thing was so cheap,
one need not be so parsimonious as to withhold a mere anticipation.
He was off before the girls could press him into details, for
indeed he had none.
"There now, what did I tell you?" cried Alice, when
the big man was gone. "I told you Rene would come. They always
come back!"
Father Beret came in a little later. As soon as he saw Alice he
frowned and began to shake his head; but she only laughed, and
imitating his hypocritical scowl, yet fringing it with a twinkle
of merry lines and dimples, pointed a taper finger at him and
exclaimed:
"You bad, bad, man! why did you pretend to me that Lieutenant
Beverley was dead? What sinister ecclesiastical motive prompted
you to describe how Long-Hair scalped him? Ah, Father--"
The priest laid a broad hand over her saucy mouth. "Something
or other seems to have excited you mightily, ma fille, you are
a trifle impulsively inclined to-day."
"Yes, Father Beret; yes I know, and I am ashamed. My heart
shrinks when I think of what I did; but I was so glad, such a
grand joy came all over me when I saw him, so strong and brave
and beautiful, coming toward me, smiling that warm, glad smile
and holding out his arms--ah, when I saw all that--when I knew
for sure that he was not dead--I, why, Father--I just had to,
I couldn't help it!"
Father Beret laughed in spite of himself, but quickly managed
to resume his severe countenance.
"Ta! ta!" he exclaimed, "it was a bold thing for
a little girl to do."
"So it was, so it was. But it was also a bold thing for him
to do-- to come back after he was dead and scalped and look so
handsome and grand! I'm ashamed and sorry, Father; but--but, I'm
afraid I might do it again if--well, I don't care if I did--so
there, now!"
"But what in the world are you talking about?" interposed
Adrienne. Evidently they were discussing a most interesting matter
of which she knew nothing, and that did not suit her feminine
curiosity. "Tell me." She pulled Father Beret's sleeve.
"Tell me, I say!"
It is probable that Father Beret would have pretended to betray
Alice's source of mingled delight and embarrassment, had not the
rest of the Bourcier household returned in time to break up the
conversation. A little later Alice gave Adrienne a vividly dramatic
account of the whole scene.
"Ah, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the petite brunette, after
she had heard the exciting story. "That was just like you,
Alice. You always do superb things. You were born to do them.
You shoot Captain Farnsworth, you wound Lieutenant Barlow, you
climb onto the fort and set up your flag--you take it down again
and run away with it-- you get shot and you do not die--you kiss
your lover right before a whole garrison! Bon Dieu! if I could
but do all those things! "She clasped her tiny hands before
her and added rather dejectedly: "But I couldn't, I couldn't.
I couldn't kiss a man in that way!"
Late in the evening news came to Roussillon place, where Gaspard
Roussillon was once more happy in the midst of his little family,
that the Indian Long-Hair had just been brought to the fort, and
would be shot on the following day. A scouting party captured
him as he approached the town, bearing at his belt the fresh scalp
of a white man. He would have been killed forthwith, but Clark,
who wished to avoid a repetition of the savage vengeance meted
out to the Indians on the previous day, had given strict orders
that all prisoners should be brought into the fort, where they
were to have a fair trial by court martial.
Both Helm and Beverley were at Roussillon place, the former sipping
wine and chatting with Gaspard, the latter, of course, hovering
around Alice, after the manner of a hungry bee around a particularly
sweet and deliciously refractory flower. It was raining slowly,
the fine drops coming straight down through the cold, still February
air; but the two young people found it pleasant enough for them
on the veranda, where they walked back and forth, making fair
exchange of the exciting experiences which had befallen them during
their long separation. Between the lines of these mutual recitals
sweet, fresh echoes of the old, old story went from heart to heart,
an amoebaean love-bout like that of spring birds calling tenderly
back and forth in the blooming Maytime woods.
Both Captain Helm and M. Roussillon were delighted to hear of
Long-Hair's capture and certain fate, but neither of them regarded
the news as of sufficient importance to need much comment. They
did not think of telling Beverley and Alice. Jean, however, lying
awake in his little bed, overheard the conversation, which he
repeated to Alice next morning with great circumstantiality.
Having the quick insight bred of frontier experience, Alice instantly
caught the terrible significance of the dilemma in which she and
Beverley would be placed by Long-Hair's situation. Moreover, something
in her heart arose with irresistible power demanding the final,
the absolute human sympathy and gratitude. No matter what deeds
Long-Hair had committed that were evil beyond forgiveness, he
had done for her the all-atoning thing. He had saved Beverley
and sent him back to her.
With a start and a chill of dread, she thought: "What if
it is already too late!"
But her nature could not hesitate. To feel the demand of an exigency
was to act. She snatched a wrap from its peg on the wall and ran
as fast as she could to the fort. People who met her flying along
wondered, staring after her, what could be urging her so that
she saw nobody, checked herself for nothing, ran splashing through
the puddles in the street, gazing ahead of her, as if pursuing
some flying object from which she dared not turn her eyes.
And there was, indeed, a call for her utmost power of flight,
if she would be of any assistance to Long-Hair, who even then
stood bound to a stake in the fort's area, while a platoon of
riflemen, those unerring shots from Kentucky and Virginia, were
ready to make a target of him at a range of but twenty yards.
Beverley, greatly handicapped by the fact that the fresh scalp
of a white man hung at Long-Hair's belt, had exhausted every possible
argument to avert or mitigate the sentence promptly spoken by
the court martial of which Colonel Clark was the ruling spirit.
He had succeeded barely to the extent of turning the mode of execution
from tomahawking to shooting. All the officers in the fort approved
killing the prisoner, and it was difficult for Colonel Clark to
prevent the men from making outrageous assaults upon him, so exasperated
were they at sight of the scalp.
Oncle Jazon proved to be one of the most refractory among those
who demanded tomahawking and scalping as the only treatment due
Long-Hair. The repulsive savage stood up before them stolid, resolute,
defiant, proudly flaunting the badge which testified to his horrible
efficiency as an emissary of Hamilton's. It had been left in his
belt by Clark's order, as the best justification of his doom.
"L' me hack 'is damned head," Oncle Jazon pleaded. "I
jes' hankers to chop a hole inter it. An' besides I want 'is scelp
to hang up wi' mine an' that'n o' the Injun what scelped me. He
kicked me in the ribs, the stinkin' varmint"
Beverley pleaded eloquently and well, but even the genial Major
Helm laughed at his sentiment of gratitude to a savage who at
best but relented at the last moment, for Alice's sake, and concluded
not to sell him to Hamilton. It is due to the British commander
to record here that he most positively and with what appeared
to be high sincerity, denied the charge of having offered rewards
for the taking of human scalps. He declared that his purposes
and practices were humane, and that while he did use the Indians
as military allies, his orders to them were that they must forego
cruel modes of warfare and refrain from savage outrage upon prisoners.
Certainly the weight of contemporary testimony seems overwhelmingly
against him, but we enter his denial. Long-Hair himself, however,
taunted him with accusations of unfaithfulness in carrying out
some very inhuman contracts, and to add a terrible sting, volunteered
the statement that poor Barlow's scalp had served his turn in
the place of Beverley's.
With conditions so hideous to contend against, Beverley, of course,
had no possible means of succoring the condemned savage.
"Him a kickin' yer ribs clean inter ye, an' a makin' ye run
the ga'ntlet, an' here ye air a tryin' to save 'is life!"
whined Oncle Jazon, "W'y man, I thought ye hed some senterments!
Dast 'is Injin liver, I kin feel them kicks what he guv me till
yit. Ventrebleu! que diable voulez-vous?"
Clark simply pushed Beverley's pleadings aside as not worth a
moment's consideration. He easily felt the fine bit of gratitude
at the bottom of it all; but there was too much in the other side
of the balance; justice, the discipline and confidence of his
little army, and the claim of the women and children on the frontier
demanded firmness in dealing with a case like Long- Hair's.
"No, no," he said to Beverley, "I would do anything
in the world for you, Fitz, except to swerve an inch from duty
to my country and the defenceless people down yonder in Kentucky,
I can't do it. There's no use to press the matter further. The
die is cast. That brute's got to be killed, and killed dead. Look
at him--look at that scalp! I'd have him killed if I dropped dead
for it the next instant."
Beverley shuddered. The argument was horribly convincing, and
yet, somehow, the desire to save Long-Hair overbore everything
else in his mind. He could not cease his efforts; it seemed to
him as if he were pleading for Alice herself. Captain Farnsworth,
strange to say, was the only man in the fort who leaned to Beverley's
side; but he was reticent, doubtless feeling that his position
as a British prisoner gave him no right to speak, especially when
every lip around him was muttering something about "infamous
scalp- buyers and Indian partisans," with whom he was prominently
counted by the speakers.
As Clark had said, the die was cast. Long-Hair, bound to a stake,
the scalp still dangling at his side, grimly faced his executioners,
who were eager to fire. He appeared to be proud of the fact that
he was going to be killed.
"One thing I can say of him," Helm remarked to Beverley;
"he's the grandest specimen of the animal--I might say the
brute--man that I ever saw, red, white or black. Just look at
his body and limbs! Those muscles are perfectly marvelous."
"He saved my life, and I must stand here and see him murdered,"
the young man replied with intense bitterness. It was all that
he could think, all that he could say. He felt inefficient and
dejected, almost desperate.
Clark himself, not willing to cast responsibility upon a subordinate,
made ready to give the fatal order. Turning to Long- Hair first,
he demanded of him as well as he could in the Indian dialect of
which he had a smattering, what he had to say at his last moment.
The Indian straightened his already upright form, and, by a strong
bulging of his muscles, snapped the thongs that bound him. Evidently
he had not tried thus to free himself; it was rather a spasmodic
expression of savage dignity and pride. One arm and both his legs
still were partially confined by the bonds, but his right hand
he lifted, with a gesture of immense self-satisfaction, and pointed
at Hamilton.
"Indian brave; white man coward," he said, scowling
scornfully. "Long-Hair tell truth; white man lie, damn!"
Hamilton's countenance did not change its calm, cold expression.
Long-Hair gazed at him fixedly for a long moment, his eyes flashing
most concentrated hate and contempt. Then he tore the scalp from
his belt and flung it with great force straight toward the captive
Governor's face. It fell short, but the look that went with it
did not, and Hamilton recoiled.
At that moment Alice arrived. Her coming was just in time to interrupt
Clark, who had turned to the waiting platoon with the order of
death on his lips. She made no noise, save the fluttering of her
skirts, and her loud and rapid panting on account of her long,
hard run. She sprang before Long-Hair and faced the platoon.
"You cannot, you shall not kill this man!" she cried
in a voice loaded with excitement. "Put away those guns!"
Woman never looked more thrillingly beautiful to man than she
did just then to all those rough, stern backwoodsmen. During her
flight her hair had fallen down, and it glimmered like soft sunlight
around her face. Something compelling flashed out of her eyes,
an expression between a triumphant smile and a ray of irresistible
beseechment. It took Colonel Clark's breath when he turned and
saw her standing there, and heard her words.
"This man saved Lieutenant Beverley's life," she presently
added, getting better control of her voice, and sending into it
a thrilling timbre; "you shall not harm him--you must not
do it!"
Beverley was astounded when he saw her, the thing was so unexpected,
so daring, and done with such high, imperious force; still it
was but a realization of what he had imagined she would be upon
occasion. He stood gazing at her, as did all the rest, while she
faced Clark and the platoon of riflemen. To hear his own name
pass her quivering lips, in that tone and in that connection,
seemed to him a consecration.
"Would you be more savage than your Indian prisoner?"
she went on, "less grateful than he for a life saved? I did
him a small, a very small, service once, and in memory of that
he saved Lieutenant Beverley's life, because--because--"
she faltered for a single breath, then added clearly and with
magnetic sweetness--"because Lieutenant Beverley loved me,
and because I loved him. This Indian Long-Hair showed a gratitude
that could overcome his strongest passion. You white men should
be ashamed to fall below his standard."
Her words went home. It was as if the beauty of her face, the
magnetism of her lissome and symmetrical form, the sweet fire
of her eyes and the passionate appeal of her voice gave what she
said a new and irresistible force of truth. When she spoke of
Beverley's love for her, and declared her love for him, there
was not a manly heart in all the garrison that did not suddenly
beat quicker and feel a strange, sweet waft of tenderness. A mother,
somewhere, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a sweetheart, called
through that voice of absolute womanhood.
"Beverley, what can I do?" muttered Clark, his bronze
face as pale as it could possibly become.
"Do!" thundered Beverley, "do! you cannot murder
that man. Hamilton is the man you should shoot! He offered large
rewards, he inflamed the passions and fed the love of rum and
the cupidity of poor wild men like the one standing yonder. Yet
you take him prisoner and treat him with distinguished consideration.
Hamilton offered a large sum for me taken alive, a smaller one
for my scalp. Long-Hair saved me. You let Hamilton stand yonder
in perfect safety while you shoot the Indian. Shame on you, Colonel
Clark! shame on you, if you do it."
Alice stood looking at the stalwart commander while Beverley was
pouring forth his torrent of scathing reference to Hamilton, and
she quickly saw that Clark was moved. The moment was ripe for
the finishing stroke. They say it is genius that avails itself
of opportunity. Beverley knew the fight was won when he saw what
followed. Alice suddenly left Long-Hair and ran to Colonel Clark,
who felt her warm, strong arms loop round him for a single point
of time never to be effaced from his memory; then he saw her kneeling
at his feet, her hands upstretched, her face a glorious prayer,
while she pleaded the Indian's cause and won it.
Doubtless, while we all rather feel that Clark was weak to be
thus swayed by a girl, we cannot quite blame him. Alice's flag
was over him; he had heard her history from Beverley's cunning
lips; he actually believed that Hamilton was the real culprit,
and besides he felt not a little nauseated with executing Indians.
A good excuse to have an end of it all did not go begging.
But Long-Hair was barely gone over the horizon from the fort,
as free and as villainous a savage as ever trod the earth, when
a discovery made by Oncle Jazon caused Clark to hate himself for
what he had done.
The old scout picked up the scalp, which Long-Hair had flung at
Hamilton, and examined it with odious curiosity. He had lingered
on the spot with no other purpose than to get possession of that
ghastly relic. Since losing his own scalp the subject of crownlocks
had grown upon his mind until its fascination was irresistible.
He studied the hair of every person he saw, as a physiognomist
studies faces. He held the gruesome thing up before him, scrutinizing
it with the expression of a connoisseur who has discovered, on
a grimy canvas, the signature of an old master.
"Sac' bleu!" he presently broke forth. "Well I'll
be--Look'ee yer, George Clark! Come yer an' look. Ye've been sold
ag'in. Take a squint, ef ye please!"
Colonel Clark, with his hands crossed behind him, his face thoughtfully
contracted, was walking slowly to and fro a little way off. He
turned about when Oncle Jazon spoke.
"What now, Jazon?"
"A mighty heap right now, that's what; come yer an' let me
show ye. Yer a fine sort o' eejit, now ain't ye!"
The two men walked toward each other and met. Oncle Jazon held
up the scalp with one hand, pointing at it with the index finger
of the other.
"This here scalp come off'n Rene de Ronville's head."
"And who is he?"
"Who's he? Ye may well ax thet. He wuz a Frenchman. He wuz
a fine young feller o' this town. He killed a Corp'ral o' Hamilton's
an' tuck ter the woods a month or two ago. Hamilton offered a
lot o' money for 'im or 'is scalp, an' Long-Hair went in fer gittin'
it. Now ye knows the whole racket. An' ye lets that Injun go.
An' thet same Injun he mighty nigh kicked my ribs inter my stomach!"
Oncle Jazon's feelings were visible and audible; but Clark could
not resent the contempt of the old man's looks and words. He felt
that he deserved far more than he was receiving. Nor was Oncle
Jazon wrong. Rene de Ronville never came back to little Adrienne
Bourcier, although, being kept entirely ignorant of her lover's
fate, she waited and dreamed and hoped throughout more than two
years, after which there is no further record of her life.
Clark, Beverley and Oncle Jazon consulted together and agreed
among themselves that they would hold profoundly secret the story
of the scalp. To have made it public would have exasperated the
creoles and set them violently against Clark, a thing heavy with
disaster for all his future plans. As it was, the release of Long-
Hair caused a great deal of dissatisfaction and mutinous talk.
Even Beverley now felt that the execution ordered by the commander
ought to have been sternly carried out.
A day or two later, however, the whole dark affair was closed
forever by a bit of confidence on the part of Oncle Jazon when
Beverley dropped into his hut one evening to have a smoke with
him.
The rain was over, the sky shone like one vast luminary, with
a nearly full moon and a thousand stars reinforcing it. Up from
the south poured one of those balmy, accidental wind floods, sometimes
due in February on the Wabash, full of tropical dream-hints, yet
edged with a winter chill that smacks of treachery. Oncle Jazon
was unusually talkative; he may have had a deep draught of liquor;
at all events Beverley had little room for a word.
"Well, bein' as it's twixt us, as is bosom frien's,"
the old fellow presently said, "I'll jes' show ye somepin
poorty."
He pricked the wick of a lamp and took down his bunch of scalps.
"I hev been a addin' one more to keep company o' mine an'
the tothers."
He separated the latest acquisition from the rest of the wisp
and added, with a heinous chuckle:
"This'n's Long-Hair's!"
And so it was. Beverley knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose
to go.
"Wen they kicks yer Oncle Jazon's ribs," the old man
added, "they'd jes' as well lay down an' give up, for he's
goin' to salervate 'em."
Then, after Beverley had passed out of the cabin, Oncle Jazon
chirruped after him:
"Mebbe ye'd better not tell leetle Alice. The pore leetle
gal hev hed worry 'nough."
CHAPTER XXII
CLARK ADVISES ALICE
A few days after the surrender of Hamilton, a large boat, the
Willing, arrived from Kaskaskia. It was well manned and heavily
armed. Clark fitted it out before beginning his march and expected
it to be of great assistance to him in the reduction of the fort,
but the high waters and the floating driftwood delayed its progress,
so that its disappointed crew saw Alice's flag floating bright
and high when their eyes first looked upon the dull little town
from far down the swollen river. There was much rejoicing, however,
when they came ashore and were enthusiastically greeted by the
garrison and populace. A courier whom they picked up on the Ohio
came with them. He bore dispatches from Governor Henry of Virginia
to Clark and a letter for Beverley from his father. With them
appeared also Simon Kenton, greatly to the delight of Oncle Jazon,
who had worried much about his friend since their latest fredaine--as
he called it--with the Indians. Meantime an expedition under Captain
Helm had been sent up the river with the purpose of capturing
a British flotilla from Detroit.
Gaspard Roussillon, immediately after Clark's victory, thought
he saw a good opening favorable to festivity at the river house,
for which he soon began to make some of his most ostentatious
preparations. Fate, however, as usual in his case, interfered.
Fate seemed to like pulling the big Frenchman's ear now and again,
as if to remind him of the fact--which he was apt to forget--that
he lacked somewhat of omnipotence.
"Ziff! Je vais donner un banquet a tout le moonde, moi!"
he cried, hustling and bustling hither and thither.
A scout from up the river announced the approach of Philip Dejean
with his flotilla richly laden, and what little interest may have
been gathering in the direction of M. Roussillon's festal proposition
vanished like the flame of a lamp in a puff of wind when this
news reached Colonel Clark and became known in the town.
Beverley and Alice sat together in the main room of the Roussillon
cabin--you could scarcely find them separated during those happy
days--and Alice was singing to the soft tinkle of a guitar, a
Creole ditty with a merry smack in its scarcely intelligible nonsense.
She knew nothing about music beyond what M. Roussillon, a jack
of all trades, had been able to teach her,--a few simple chords
to accompany her songs, picked up at hap-hazard. But her voice,
like her face and form, irradiated witchery. It was sweet, firm,
deep, with something haunting in it--the tone of a hermit thrush,
marvelously pure and clear, carried through a gay strain like
the mocking-bird's. Of course Beverley thought it divine; and
when a message came from Colonel Clark bidding him report for
duty at once, he felt an impulse toward mutiny of the rankest
sort. He did not dream that a military expedition could be on
hand; but upon reaching headquarters, the first thing he heard
was:
"Report to Captain Helm. You are to go with him up the river
and intercept a British force. Move lively, Helm is waiting for
you, probably."
There was no time for explanations. Evidently Clark expected neither
questions nor delay. Beverley's love of adventure and his patriotic
desire to serve his country came to his aid vigorously enough;
still, with Alice's love-song ringing in his heart, there was
a cord pulling him back from duty to the sweetest of all life's
joys.
Helm was already at the landing, where a little fleet of boats
was being prepared. A thousand things had to be done in short
order. All hands were stimulated to highest exertion with the
thought of another fight. Swivels were mounted in boats, ammunition
and provisions stored abundantly, flags hoisted and oars dipped.
Never was an expedition of so great importance more swiftly organized
and set in motion, nor did one ever have a more prosperous voyage
or completer triumph. Philip Dejean, Justice of Detroit, with
his men, boats and rich cargo, was captured easily, with not a
shot fired, nor a drop of blood spilled in doing it.
If Alice could have known all this before it happened, she would
probably have saved herself from the mortification of a rebuke
administered very kindly, but not the less thoroughly, by Colonel
Clark.
The rumor came to her--a brilliant creole rumor, duly inflated--
that an overwhelming British force was descending the river, and
that Beverley with a few men, not sufficient to base the expedition
on a respectable forlorn hope, would be sent to meet them. Her
nature, as was its wont, flared into high indignation. What right
had Colonel Clark to send her lover away to be killed just at
the time when he was all the whole world to her? Nothing could
be more outrageous. She would not suffer it to be done; not she!
Colonel Clark greeted her pleasantly, when she came somewhat abruptly
to him, where he was directing a squad of men at work making some
repairs in the picketing of the fort. He did not observe her excitement
until she began to speak, and then it was noticeable only, and
not very strongly, in her tone. She forgot to speak English, and
her French was Greek to him.
"I am glad to see you, Mademoiselle," he said, rather
inconsequently, lifting his hat and bowing with rough grace, while
he extended his right hand cordially. "You have something
to say to me? Come with me to my office."
She barely touched his fingers.
"Yes, I have something to say to you. I can tell it here,"
she said, speaking English now with softest Creole accent. "I
wanted-- I came to--" It was not so easy as she had imagined
it would be to utter what she had in mind. Clark's steadfast,
inscrutable eyes, kindly yet not altogether sympathetic, met her
own and beat them down. Her voice failed.
He offered her his arm and gravely said:
"We will go to my office. I see that you have some important
communication to make. There are too many ears here."
Of a sudden she felt like running home. Somehow the situation
broke upon her with a most embarrassing effect. She did not take
Clark's arm, and she began to tremble. He appeared unconscious
of this, and probably was, for his mind had a fine tangle of great
schemes in it just then; but he turned toward his office, and
bidding her follow him, walked away in that direction.
She was helpless. Not the slightest trace of her usual brilliant
self-assertion was at her command. Saving the squad of men sawing
and hacking, digging and hammering, the fort appeared as deserted
as her mind. She stood gazing after Clark. He did not look back,
but strode right on. If she would speak with him, she must follow.
It was a surprise to her, for heretofore she had always had her
own way, even if she found it necessary to use force. And where
was Beverley? Where was the garrison? Colonel Clark did not seem
to be at all concerned about the approach of the British--and
yet those repairs--perhaps he was making ready for a desperate
resistance! She did not move until he reached the door of his
office where he stopped and stepped aside, as if to let her pass
in first; he even lifted his hat, then looked a trifle surprised
when he saw that she was not near him, frowned slightly, changed
the frown to a smile and said, lifting his voice so that she felt
a certain imperative meaning in it:
"Did I walk too fast for you? I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle."
He stood waiting for her, as a father waits for a lagging, wilful
child.
"Come, please," he added, "if you have something
to say to me; my time just now is precious--I have a great deal
to do."
She was not of a nature to retreat under fire, and yet the panic
in her breast came very near mastering her will. Clark saw a look
in her face which made him speak again:
"I assure you, Mademoiselle, that you need not feel embarrassed.
You can rely upon me to--"
She made a gesture that interrupted him; at the same time she
almost ran toward him, gathering in breath, as one does who is
about to force out a desperately resisting and riotous thought.
The strong, grave man looked at her with a full sense of her fascination,
and at the same time he felt a vague wish to get away from her,
as if she were about to cast unwelcome responsibility upon him.
"Where is Lieutenant Beverley?" she demanded, now close
to Clark, face to face, and gazing straight into his eyes. "I
want to see him." Her tone suggested intensest excitement.
She was trembling visibly.
Clark's face changed its expression. He suddenly recalled to mind
Alice's rapturous public greeting of Beverley on the day of the
surrender. He was a cavalier, and it did not agree with his sense
of high propriety for girls to kiss their lovers out in the open
air before a gazing army. True enough, he himself had been hoodwinked
by Alice's beauty and boldness in the matter of Long- Hair. He
confessed this to himself mentally, which may have strengthened
his present disapproval of her personal inquiry about Beverley.
At all events he thought she ought not to be coming into the stockade
on such an errand.
"Lieutenant Beverley is absent acting under my orders he
said, with perfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military
finality. He meant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke in
his words.
"Absent?" she echoed. "Gone? You sent him away
to be killed! You had no right--you--"
"Miss Roussillon," said Clark, becoming almost stern,
"you had better go home and stay there; young girls oughtn't
to run around hunting men in places like this."
His blunt severity of speech was accompanied by a slight frown
and a gesture of impatience.
Alice's face blazed red to the roots of her sunny hair; the color
ebbed, giving place to a pallor like death. She began to tremble,
and her lips quivered pitifully, but she braced herself and tried
to force back the choking sensation in her throat.
"You must not misconstrue my words," Clark quickly added;
"I simply mean that men will not rightly understand you.
They will form impressions very harmful to you. Even Lieutenant
Beverley might not see you in the right light."
"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, shrinking from
him, a burning spot reappearing under the dimpled skin of each
cheek.
"Pray, Miss, do not get excited. There is nothing to make
you cry." He saw tears shining in her eyes. "Beverley
is not in the slightest danger. All will be well, and he'll come
back in a few days. The expedition will be but a pleasure trip.
Now you go home. Lieutenant Beverley is amply able to take care
of himself. And let me tell you, if you expect a good man to have
great confidence in you, stay home and let him hunt you up instead
of you hunting him. A man likes that better."
It would be impossible to describe Alice's feelings, as they just
then rose like a whirling storm in her heart. She was humiliated,
she was indignant, she was abashed; she wanted to break forth
with a tempest of denial, self-vindication, resentment; she wanted
to cry with her face hidden in her hands. What she did was to
stand helplessly gazing at Clark, with two or three bright tears
on either cheek, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing. She was
going to say some wild thing; but she did not; her voice lodged
fast in her throat. She moved her lips, unable to make a sound.
Two of Clark's officers relieved the situation by coming up to
get orders about some matter of town government, and Alice scarcely
knew how she made her way home. Every vein in her body was humming
like a bee when she entered the house and flung herself into a
chair.
She heard Madame Roussillon and Father Beret chatting in the kitchen,
whence came a fragrance of broiling buffalo steak besprinkled
with garlic. It was Father Beret's favorite dish, wherefore his
tongue ran freely--almost as freely as that of his hostess, and
when he heard Alice come in, he called gayly to her through the
kitchen door:
"Come here, ma fille, and lend us old folks your appetite;
nous avons une tranche a la Bordelaise!"
"I am not hungry," she managed to say, "you can
eat it without me."
The old man's quick ears caught the quaver of trouble in her voice,
much as she tried to hide it. A moment later he was standing beside
her with his hand on her head.
"What is the matter now, little one?" he tenderly demanded.
"Tell your old Father."
She began to cry, laying her face in her crossed arms, the tears
gushing, her whole frame aquiver, and heaving great sobs. She
seemed to shrink like a trodden flower. It touched Father Beret
deeply.
He suspected that Beverley's departure might be the cause of her
trouble; but when presently she told him what had taken place
in the fort, he shook his head gravely and frowned.
"Colonel Clark was right, my daughter," he said after
a short silence, "and it is time for you to ponder well upon
the significance of his words. You can't always be a wilful, headstrong
little girl, running everywhere and doing just as you please.
You have grown to be a woman in stature--you must be one in fact.
You know I told you at first to be careful how you acted with--"
"Father, dear old Father!" she cried, springing from
her seat and throwing her arms around his neck. "Have I appeared
forward and unwomanly? Tell me, Father, tell me! I did not mean
to do anything--"
"Quietly, my child, don't give way to excitement." He
gently put her from him and crossed himself--a habit of his when
suddenly perplexed--then added:
"You have done no evil; but there are proprieties which a
young woman must not overstep. You are impulsive, too impulsive;
and it will not do to let a young man see that you--that you--"
"Father, I understand," she interrupted, and her face
grew very pale.
Madame Roussillon came to the door, flushed with stooping over
the fire, and announced that the steak was ready.
"Bring the wine, Alice," she added, "a bottle of
Bordeaux."
She stood for a breath of two, her red hands on her hips, looking
first at Father Beret, then at Alice.
"Quarreling again about the romances?" she inquired.
"She's been at it again?--she's found 'em again?"
"Yes," said Father Beret, with a queer, dry smile, "more
romance. Yes, she's been at it again! Now fetch the Bordeaux,
little one."
The following days were cycles of torture to Alice. She groveled
in the shadow of a great dread. It seemed to her that Beverley
could not love her, could not help looking upon her as a poor,
wild, foolish girl, unworthy of consideration. She magnified her
faults and crudities, she paraded before her inner vision her
fecent improprieties, as they had been disclosed to her, until
she saw herself a sort of monstrosity at which all mankind was
gazing with disgust. Life seemed dry and shriveled, a mere jaundiced
shadow, while her love for Beverley took on a new growth, luxuriant,
all-embracing, uncontrollable. The ferment of spirit going on
in her breast was the inevitable process of self- recognition
which follows the terrible unfolding of the passion- flower, in
a nature almost absolutely simple and unsophisticated.
Vincennes held its breath while waiting for news from Helm's expedition.
Every day had its nimble, yet wholly imaginary account of what
had happened, skipping from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to
cabin. The French folk ran hither and thither in the persistent
rain, industriously improving the dramatic interest of each groundless
report. Alice's disturbed imagination reveled in the kaleidoscopic
terrors conjured up by these swift changes of the form and color
of the stories "from the front," all of them more or
less tragic. To-day the party is reported as having been surprised
and massacred to a man--to-morrow there has been a great fight,
many killed, the result in doubt--next day the British are defeated,
and so on. The volatile spirit of the Creoles fairly surpassed
itself in ringing the changes on stirring rumors.
Alice scarcely left the house during the whole period of excitement
and suspense. Like a wounded bird, she withdrew herself from the
light and noisy chatter of her friends, seeking only solitude
and crepuscular nooks in which to suffer silently. Jean brought
her every picturesque bit of the ghastly gossip, thus heaping
coals on the fire of her torture. But she did not grow pale and
thin. Not a dimple fled from cheek or chin, not a ray of saucy
sweetness vanished from her eyes. Her riant health was unalterable.
Indeed, the only change in her was a sudden ripening and mellowing
of her beauty, by which its colors, its lines, its subtle undercurrents
of expression were spiritualized, as if by some powerful clarifying
process.
Tremendous is the effect of a soul surprised by passion and brought
hard up against an opposing force which dashes it back upon itself
with a flare and explosion of self-revealment. Nor shall we ever
be able to foretell just how small a circumstance, just how slight
an exigency, will suffice to bring on the great change. The shifting
of a smile to the gloom of a frown, the snap of a string on the
lute of our imagination, just at the point when a rich melody
is culminating; the waving of a hand, a vanishing face--any eclipse
of tender, joyous expectation--dashes a nameless sense of despair
into the soul. And a young girl's soul--who shall uncover its
sacred depths of sensitiveness, or analyze its capacity for suffering
under such a stroke?
On the fifth day of March, back came the victorious Helm, having
surrounded and captured seven boats, richly loaded with provisions
and goods, and Dejean's whole force. Then again the little Creole
town went wild with rejoicing. Alice heard the news and the noise;
but somehow there was no response in her heart. She dreaded to
meet Beverley; indeed, she did not expect him to come to her.
Why should he?
M. Roussillon, who had volunteered to accompany Helm, arrived
in a mood of unlimited proportions, so far as expressing self-
admiration and abounding delight was concerned. You would have
been sure that he had done the whole deed single-handed, and brought
the flotilla and captives to town on his back. But Oncle Jazon
for once held his tongue, being too disgusted for words at not
having been permitted to fire a single shot. What was the use
of going to fight and simply meeting and escorting down the river
a lot of non-combatants?
There is something inscrutably delightful about a girl's way of
thinking one thing and doing another. Perversity, thy name is
maidenhood; and maidenhood, thy name is delicious inconsequence!
When Alice heard that Beverley had come back, safe, victorious,
to be greeted as one of the heroes of an important adventure,
she immediately ran to her room frightened and full of vague,
shadowy dread, to hide from him, yet feeling sure that he would
not come! Moreover, she busied herself with the preposterous task
of putting on her most attractive gown--the buff brocade which
she wore that evening at the river house--how long ago it seemed!--when
Beverley thought her the queenliest beauty in the world. And she
was putting it on so as to look her prettiest while hiding from
him!
It is a toss-up where happiness will make its nest. The palace,
the hut, the great lady's garden, the wild lass's bower,--skip
here, alight there,--the secret of it may never be told. And love
and beauty find lodgment, by the same inexplicable route, in the
same extremes of circumstances. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
finding many a matchless flower and many a ravishing fragrance
in the wildest nooks of the world.
No sooner did Beverley land at the little wharf than, rushing
to his quarters, he made a hasty exchange of water-soaked apparel
for something more comfortable, and then bolted in the direction
of Roussillon place.
Now Alice knew by the beating of her heart that he was coming.
In spite of all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast
to her doubt and gloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course
through her heart and break in splendid expectation from her eyes,
as they looked through the little unglazed window toward the fort.
Nor had she long to wait. He came up the narrow wet street, striding
like a tall actor in the height of a melodrama, his powerful figure
erect as an Indian's, and his face glowing with the joy of a genuine,
impatient lover, who is proud of himself because of the image
he bears in his heart.
When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could
cross the veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned
and bedecked herself; and so, without a trace of self-consciousness,
she flashed upon him a full-blown flower--to his eyes the loveliest
that ever opened under heaven.
Gaspard Roussillon, still overflowing with the importance of his
part in the capture of Dejean, came puffing homeward just in time
to see a man at the door holding Alice a-tiptoe in his arms.
"Ziff!" he cried, as he pushed open the little front
gate of the yard, "en voila assez, vogue la galere!"
The two forms disappeared within the house, as if moved by his
roaring voice.
The letter to Beverley from his father was somewhat disturbing.
It bore the tidings of his mother's failing health. This made
it easier for the young Lieutenant to accept from Clark the assignment
to duty with a party detailed for the purpose of escorting Hamilton,
Farnsworth and several other British officers to Williamsburg,
Virginia. It also gave him a most powerful assistance in persuading
Alice to marry him at once, so as to go with him on what proved
to be a delightful wedding journey through the great wilderness
to the Old Dominion. Spring's verdure burst abroad on the sunny
hills as they slowly went their way; the mating birds sang in
every blooming brake and grove by which they passed, and in their
joyous hearts they heard the bubbling of love's eternal fountain.
CHAPTER XXIII
AND SO IT ENDED
Our story must end here, because at this point its current flows
away forever from old Vincennes; and it was only of the post on
the Wabash that we set out to make a record. What befell Alice
and Beverley after they went to Virginia we could go on to tell;
but that would be another story. Suffice it to say, they lived
happily ever after, or at least somewhat beyond three score and
ten, and left behind them a good name and numerous descendants.
How Alice found out her family in Virginia, we are not informed;
but after a lapse of some years from the date of her marriage,
there appears in one of her letters a reference to an estate inherited
from her Tarleton ancestors, and her name appears in old records
signed in full, Alice Tarleton Beverley. A descendant of hers
still treasures the locket, with its broken miniature and battered
crest, which won Beverley's life from Long-Hair, the savage. Beside
it, as carefully guarded, is the Indian charm-stone that stopped
Hamilton's bullet over Alice's heart The rapiers have somehow
disappeared, and there is a tradition in the Tarleton family that
they were given by Alice to Gaspard Roussillon, who, after Madame
Roussillon's death in 1790, went to New Orleans, where he stayed
a year or two before embarking for France, whither he took with
him the beautiful pair of colechemardes and Jean the hunchback.
Oncle Jazon lived in Vincennes many years after the war was over;
but he died at Natchez, Mississippi, when ninety-three years old.
He said, with almost his last breath, that he couldn't shoot very
well, even in his best days; but that he had, upon various occasions,
"jes' kind o' happened to hit a Injun in the lef' eye."
They used to tell a story, as late as General Harrison's stay
in Vincennes, about how Oncle Jazon buried his collection of scalps,
with great funeral solemnity, as his part of the celebration of
peace and independence about the year 1784.
Good old Father Beret died suddenly soon after Alice's marriage
and departure for Virginia. He was found lying face downward on
the floor of his cabin. Near him, on a smooth part of a puncheon,
were the mildewed fragments of a letter, which he had been arranging,
as if to read its contents. Doubtless it was the same letter brought
to him by Rene de Ronville, as recorded in an early chapter of
our story. The fragments were gathered up and buried with him.
His dust lies under the present Church of St. Xavier,-- the dust
of as noble a man and as true a priest as ever sacrificed himself
for the good of humanity.
In after years Simon Kenton visited Beverley and Alice in their
Virginia home. To his dying day he was fond of describing their
happy and hospitable welcome and the luxuries to which they introduced
him. They lived in a stately white mansion on a hill overlooking
a vast tobacco plantation, where hundreds of negro slaves worked
and sang by day and frolicked by night. Their oldest child was
named Fitzhugh Gaspard. Kenton died in 1836.
There remains but one little fact worth recording before we close
the book. In the year 1800, on the fourth of July, a certain leading
French family of Vincennes held a patriotic reunion, during which
a little old flag was produced and its story told. Some one happily
proposed that it be sent to Mrs. Alice Tarleton Beverley with
a letter of explanation, and in profound recognition of the glorious
circumstances which made it the true flag of the great Northwest,
And so it happened that Alice's little banner went to Virginia
and is still preserved in an old mansion not very far from Monticello;
but it seems likely that the Wabash Valley will soon again possess
the precious relic. The marriage engagement of Miss Alice Beverley
to a young Indiana officer, distinguished for his patriotism and
military ardor, has been announced at the old Beverley homestead
on the hill, and the high contracting parties have planned that
the wedding ceremony shall take place under the famous little
flag, on the anniversary of dark's capture of Post Vincennes.
When the bride shall be brought to her new home on the banks of
the Wabash, the flag will come with her; but Oncle Jazon will
not be on hand with his falsetto shout: "VIVE LA BANNIERE
D'ALICE ROUSSILLON! VIVE ZHORZZH VASINTON!"