The Grey Cloak, Harold MacGrath [smart books to read TXT] 📗

go."

"I have seen the little Father with his thumb in the pipe, and he smiles like a brave man. No. They are fairer than the blossom of the wild plum, and their hair is like the silk of corn. They shall be slaves or wives, as they choose. Make haste," pushing the priest toward the canoe in which madame and Anne had already taken their places.

Had he been alone he would have resisted, so great was his wrath. A moment's vanity placed him and these poor women in this predicament. He had been warned by a trader that a small band of Iroquois were hanging about, and yet he had been drawn into this! Yonder was the marquis, who might die . . . !

"Take care, little Father," warned the Seneca, realizing by the Jesuit's face the passion which was mounting to his brain. "It would cause the Corn Planter great sorrow to strike."

Brother Jacques's shoulders drooped, and he sat down in the bottom of the canoe.

"They will not harm us for the present," he said to the women encouragingly. "And there is hope for us is the fact that these are Senecas. To reach their villages they will perforce travel the same route as the Onondaga expedition. And we shall probably pass close to where our friends are."

"But the boat," said madame, "Monsieur de Lauson will think that we have been drowned!"

"Jean Pauquet saw me enter the boat with you, and he knows that I am a good sailor. Monsieur de Lauson will suspect immediately that we have fallen into the hands of savages, and will instantly send us aid. So keep a good heart and show the savage that you do not fear him. If you can win his respect he will be courteous to you; and that will be something, for the journey to Seneca is long."

Neither woman replied. Madame's thought went back rebelliously to the morning. "To the ends of the world," the Chevalier had said. She shook her head wearily. It was all over. She cared not whither these savages took her. Mazarin would not find her indeed! What a life had been hers! Only twenty-two, and nothing but unhappiness, disillusion, with here and there an hour of midsummer's madness. And that note she had written! The thought of it sustained her spirits. By now he knew all. She shut her eyes and pictured in fancy his pain and astonishment and chagrin. It was exhilarating. She would have liked to cry.

The Seneca chief spoke softly, commanding silence, and the canoes glided noiselessly along the southern shores of the great river. The sun sank presently, and night became prodigal with her stars. Occasionally there was the sound of gurgling water as some brook poured into the river, or the whisper of stirring branches lightly swept by the feathered heads of the Indians. Aside from these infrequent sounds, the silence was vast and imposing. Anne, with her head in madame's lap, wept bitterly but without sound. She was a girl again; the dignity of womanhood was gone, being no longer in the shadow of the convent walls.

Brother Jacques saw nothing in the velvet glooms but the figure of Monsieur le Marquis as it lay that night after the duel.

Whenever the Senecas came to a habitation, they drew up the canoes and carried them overland, far distant into the forest, making a half-circuit of the point. During these portages the fatigue of the women was great. Several times Anne broke down, unable to proceed. Sometimes the savages waited patiently for her to recover, at other times they were cruel in their determination to go on. Once Brother Jacques took Anne's slight figure in his strong arms and carried her a quarter of a mile. She hung upon his neck with the content of a weary child, and the cool flesh of her cheek against his neck disturbed the tranquillity of his dreams for many days to come.

Madame, on her part, struggled on without complaint. If she stumbled and fell, no sound escaped her lips. She regained her feet without assistance. Madame's was a great spirit; she knew the strength of resignation.

It was after two o'clock when the Iroquois signified their intention of pitching camp till dawn. They were far away from the common track now. The last portage had carried them across several small streams. They were in the heart of the forest. All night Brother Jacques sat at the side of the women, guarding with watchful eyes. How the spirit and the flesh of this man warred! And all the while his face in the filtered moonlight was marbled and set of expression. He was made of iron, constitutionally; his resolution, tempered steel.

Anne slept, but not so madame. She listened and listened: to the stir of the leaves, to the dim murmur of running water, to the sighs of the night wind, to the crackling of a dry twig when Anne turned uneasily in her sleep. She listened and listened, but the sound she hungered for never came.


At Quebec the news of the calamity did not become known till near midnight. As the wind-drifted pleasure-boat told its grim story, desolation fell upon the hearts of four men, each being conscious in his own way that some part of the world had shifted from under his feet. The governor recommended patience; he was always recommending that attribute; he was always practising it, and fatally at times. The four men shook their heads. The Chevalier and Victor bundled together a few necessities, such as cloaks, blankets and arms. They set out at once while the moon was yet high; set out in silence and with sullen rage.

Jean Pauquet and the vicomte were in the act of following, when D'Hérouville, disheveled and breathing heavily from his run down from the upper town, arrested them.

"Vicomte," he cried, "you must take me with you. I can find no one to go with me."

"Stay here then. Out of the way, Monsieur." The vicomte was not patient to-night, and he had not time for banter.

"I say that you shall!"

"Not to-night. Now, Pauquet."

"One of us dies, then!" D'Hérouville's sword was out.

"Are you mad?" exclaimed the vicomte, recoiling.

"Perhaps. Quick!" The sword took an ominous angle, and the point touched the vicomte.

"Get in!" said the vicomte, controlling his wild rage. "I will kill you the first opportunity. To-night there is not time." He seized his paddle, which he handled with no small skill considering how recently he had applied himself to this peculiar art of navigation.

Pauquet took his position in the stern, while D'Hérouville crouched amidships, his bare sword across his knees. The vicomte's broad back was toward him, proving his contempt of fear. They were both brave men.

"Follow the ripple, Monsieur," said Pauquet; "that is the way Monsieur le Chevalier has gone."

It was all very foolhardy, this expedition of untried men against Indian cunning; but it was also very gallant: the woman they loved was in peril.

So the two canoes stole away upon the broad bosom of the river and presently disappeared in the pearly moon-mists, the one always hugging the wake of the other. The weird call of the loon sometimes sounded close by. The air was heavy with the smell of water, of earth, and of resin.

Three of these men had taken the way from which no man returns.


CHAPTER XXVII

ONONDAGA

The Oneida village lay under the grey haze of a chill September night. Once or twice a meteor flashed across the vault of heaven; and the sharp, clear stars lighted with magic fires the pure crystals of the first frost. The hoot of an owl rang out mournfully in answer to the plaintive whine of the skulking panther. A large hut stood in the center of the clearing. The panther whined again and the owl hooted. The bear-skin door of the hut was pushed aside and a hideous face peered forth. There was a gutteral call, and a prowling cur slunk in.

Within the hut, which was about twenty feet square, men, women and children had packed themselves. The air was foul, and the smoke from the blazing pine knots, having no direct outlet, rolled and curled and sank. The savages sprawled around the fire, bragging and boasting and lying as was their wont of an evening. Near-by the medicine man, sorcerer so-called, beat upon a drum in the interest of science and rattled bears' claws in a tortoise-shell. A sick man lay huddled in skins at the farthest end of the hut. His friends and relatives gave him scant attention. Indians were taught to scorn pity. Drawings on the walls signified that this was the house of the Tortoise.

Four white men sat among them; sat doggedly in defeat. Gallantry is a noble quality when joined to wisdom and foresight; alone, it leads into pits and blind alleys. And these four men recognized with no small bitterness the truth of this aphorism. They had been ambushed scarce four hours from Quebec by a baud of marauding Oneidas. Only Jean Pauquet had escaped. They had been captives now for several weeks. Rage had begun to die out, fury to subside; apathy seized them in its listless embrace. Heavy, unkempt beards adorned their faces, and their hair lay tangled and matted upon their shoulders. They were all pictures of destitution, and especially the whilom debonair poet. His condition was almost pitiable. Some knavish rascal had thrust burdocks into his hair and another had smeared his face with balsam sap. He had thrashed one of these tormentors, and had been belabored in return. He had by now grown to accept each new indignity with the same patient philosophy which made the Chevalier and the vicomte objects of admiration among the older redskin stoics. As for D'Hérouville, he had lost but little of his fire, and flew into insane passions at times; but he always paid heavily for the injuries which he inflicted upon his tormentors. His wound, however, had entirely healed, and the color on his cheeks was healthful. He would become a formidable antagonist shortly. And there were intervals when the vicomte eyed him morosely.

The Chevalier completely ignored the count, either in converse or in looks. D'Hérouville was not at all embarrassed. Rather it added to the zest of this strange predicament in which they were placed. It was a tonic to his superb courage to think that one day or another he must fight and kill these three men or be killed himself.

Occasionally the vicomte would stare at the Chevalier, long and profoundly. Only Victor was aware of this peculiar scrutiny. It often recalled to him that wild night at the Hôtel de Périgny in Rochelle. But the scrutiny was untranslatable.

No one spoke of madame; there was no need, as each knew instinctively that she was always in the others' thoughts. The Chevalier no more questioned the poet as to her identity. Was she living or dead, in captivity or safe again in