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

citadel, fortress, and town,
Fearing nor desert, the sea, nor the grave:
Courage finds her a niche in the knave,
Fame is not niggard with laurel or pain;
Pathways with blood and bones do they pave:
These are the hazards that kings disdain!

" Bright are the jewels they add to the crown,
Levied on savage and pilfered from slave:
Under the winds and the suns that brown,
Fearing nor desert, the sea, nor the grave!
High shall the Future their names engrave,
For these are lives that are not spent in vain,
Though their reward be a tomb 'neath the wave.
These are the hazards that kings disdain!

"I will try to remember the last stanza and the envoi as we go along," added Victor.

And together they passed down the ravine, two brave hearts assuming a gaiety which deceived only the Chevalier, who still reclined against the boulder and was proceeding silently to inspect the golden plush of an empty bur. Two or three minutes passed; Victor's voice became indistinct and finally was heard no longer, Madame surveyed the Chevalier with a lurking scornful smile. This man was going to force her to love him!

"Monsieur, you seem determined to annoy me. I shall not ask you to speak again."

"Is it possible that I can still annoy you, Madame?"

Madame crushed a bur with her foot . . . and gasped. She had forgotten the loose seam in her moccasin. The delicate needles had penetrated the flesh. This little comedy, however, passed over his head.

"I did not ask you to accompany me to-day."

"So I observed. Nor did I ask to come. That is why I believed in silence. Besides, I have said all I have to say," quietly. He cast aside the bur.

"Then your vocabulary consists of a dozen words, such as, 'It is a far cry from the Louvre to this spot'?"

"I believe I used the word 'galleries.'" Their past was indissolubly linked to this word.

"On a certain day you vowed that you should force me to love you. What progress have you made, Monsieur? I am curious."

"No man escapes being an ass sometimes, Madame. That was my particular morning."

Decidedly, this lack of interest on his part annoyed her. He had held her in his arms one night, and had not kissed her; he had vowed to force her to love him, and now he sat still and unruffled under her contempt. What manner of man was it?

"When are we to be returned to Quebec? I am weary, very weary, of all this. There are no wits; men have no tongues, but purposes."

"Whenever Father Chaumonot thinks it safe and men can be spared, he will make preparations. It will be before the winter sets in."

Madame sat down upon an adjacent boulder, and reflected.

"Shall I gather you some chestnuts, Madame? They are not so ripe as they might be, but I daresay the novelty of eating them here in the wilderness will appeal to your appetite."

"If you will be so kind," grudgingly.

So he set to work gathering the nuts while she secretly took off her moccasin in a vain attempt to discover the disquieting bur-needles. He returned presently and deposited a hatful of nuts in her lap. Then he went back to his seat from where he watched her calmly as she munched the starchy meat. It gradually dawned on him that the situation was absurd; and he permitted a furtive smile to soften his firm lips. But furtive as it was, she saw it, and colored, her quick intuition translating the smile.

"It is absurd; truthfully, it is." She swept the nuts to the ground.

"But supposing I change all this into something more than absurd? Supposing I should suddenly take you in my arms? There is no one in sight. I am strong. Supposing, then, I kissed you, taking a tithe of your promises?"

She looked at him uneasily. Starting a fire was all very well, but the touch of it!

"Supposing that I took you away somewhere, alone, with me, to a place where no one would find us? I do not speak, you say; but I am thinking, thinking, and every thought means danger to you, to myself, to the past and the future. How do these suppositions appeal to you, Madame?"

Had he moved, madame would have been frightened; but as he remained in the same easy attitude, her fear had no depths.

"But I shall do none of these things because . . . because it would be hardly worth while. I tried to win your love honestly; but as I failed, let us say no more about it. I shall make no inquiries into your peculiar purpose; since you have accomplished it, there is nothing more to be said, save that you are not honest."

"Let us be going," she said, standing. "It will be twilight ere we reach the settlement."

"Very well;" and he halloed for Victor.

The way back to the fort was one of unbroken silence. Neither madame nor the Chevalier spoke again.

The Chevalier had some tasks to perform that evening which employed his time far beyond the meal hour. When he entered the mess-room it was deserted save for the presence of Corporal Frémin, one of the dissatisfied colonists. Several times he had been found unduly under the influence of apricot brandy. Du Puys had placed him in the guardhouse at three different periods for this misdemeanor. Where he got the brandy none could tell, and the corporal would not confess to the Jesuit Fathers, nor to his brother, who was a priest. Unfortunately, he had been drinking again to-day. He sat opposite the Chevalier, smoking moodily, his little eyes blinking, blinking.

"Corporal," said the Chevalier, "will you pass me the corn?"

"Reach for it yourself," replied the corporal, insolently. He went on smoking.

The Chevalier sat back in his chair, dumfounded. "Pass me that corn!" peremptorily.

The intoxicated soldier saw nothing in the flashing eyes; so he shrugged. "I am not your lackey."

The Chevalier was up in an instant. Passing quickly around the table he inserted his fingers between the corporal's collar and his neck, twisting him out of his chair and literally lifting him to his feet.

"What do you mean by this insolence? Pah!" scenting the brandy; "you have been drinking."

"What's that to you? You are not my superior officer. Let go of my collar."

"I am an officer in the king's army, and there is an unwritten law that all non-commissioned officers are my inferiors, here or elsewhere, and must obey me. You shall go to the guardhouse. I asked nothing of you but a common courtesy, and you became insolent. To the guardhouse you shall go."

"My superior, eh?" tugging uselessly at the hand of iron gripping his collar. "I know one thing, and it is something you, fine gentleman that you are, do not know. I know who my mother was . . ."

The corporal lay upon his back, his eyes bulging, his face purple, his breaths coming in agonizing gasps.

"Who told you to say that? Quick, or you shall this instant stand in judgment before the God who made you! Quick!"

There was death in the Chevalier's eyes, and the corporal saw it. He struggled.

"Quick!"

"Monsieur d'Hérouville! . . . You are killing me!"

The Chevalier released the man's throat.

"Get up," contemptuously.

The corporal crawled to his knees and staggered to his feet. "By God, Monsieur! . . ." adjusting his collar.

"Not a word. How much did he pay you to act thus basely?"

"Pay me?"

"Answer!" taking a step forward.

"Ten livres," sullenly.

The Chevalier's hands opened and closed, convulsively. "Give me those livres," he commanded.

"To you?" The corporal's jaw fell. "What do you . . . ?"

"Be quick about it, man, if you love your worthless life!"

There was no gainsaying the devil in the Chevalier's eyes.

Scowling blackly, the corporal emptied his pockets. Immediately the Chevalier scooped up the coin in his hand.

"When did D'Hérouville give these to you?"

"This afternoon."

"You lie, wretch!"

Both the corporal and the Chevalier turned. D'Hérouville's form stood, framed in the doorway.

"Leave the room!" pointing toward the door.

D'Hérouville stepped aside, and the corporal slunk out.

The two men faced each other.

"He lies. If I have applied epithets to you, it has been done openly and frankly. I have not touched you over some one's shoulder, as in the De Leviston case. I entertain for you the greatest hatred. It will be a pleasure some day to kill you."

The Chevalier looked at the coin in his hand, at D'Hérouville, then back at the coin.

"Believe me or not, Monsieur. I overheard what took place, and in justice to myself I had to speak." D'Hérouville touched his hat and departed.

The Chevalier stood alone, staring with blurred eyes at the sinister contents of his hand.


CHAPTER XXX

THE VICOMTE D'HALLUYS RECEIVES BROTHER JACQUES' ABSOLVO TE

The fort had four large compartments which consisted of a mess-room already described, a living-room, general sleeping quarters for the Jesuit Fathers, lay brothers and officers, and a large room for stores. A roomy loft extended over the mess-room, to be resumed again over the sleeping quarters, the living-room being situated between. Unknown to the Iroquois, a carpenter's shop had been established in the loft for the purpose of constructing some boats.

From the living-room there came to the Chevalier the murmur of voices, sometimes a laugh. He was unaware of how much time passed. He was conscious only of the voices, the occasional laugh, and the shining pieces of silver in his hand. The perpendicular furrow above his nose grew deeper and deeper, the line of his lips grew thinner and thinner, and the muscles of his jaws became and remained hard and square. Presently he shook his head as a lion shakes his when about to leap. He righted the corporal's chair and pushed his own under the table. He had forgotten his hunger. With the coin closed tightly in his fist, he started toward the door which gave into the living-room. He stopped still when his foot touched the threshold, and leaned against the jamb, gloomily surveying the occupants of the room. He saw Victor seated at his table, making corrections on the pages of what was to be his book of lore. Father Chaumonot and Brother Jacques shared the table with the poet, and both were reading. The gentlemen who had been forced either by poverty or the roving hand of adventure to take parts in this mission drama were gathered before the fire, discussing the days of prosperity and the court of Louis