Читать книгу Montlivet - Alice Prescott Smith - Страница 16

I had not vaunted idly when I told the prisoner that our plans were ready. I had scarcely dropped the latch of the commandant's door when I saw Singing Arrow sauntering near.

She was graceful in her finery. Even a white man might commend. Her skin garments looked soft and clean, and draped her cunningly. In the dusk and the firelight with the bright blanket falling from her hair, she looked so winning that I thought the guards could find excuse if the prisoner loitered at the window.

And loiter he did. I sauntered and watched while the prisoner and Singing Arrow threw glances that proved them no tyros in the game of love and life. The comedy was pleasing, and I did not wonder that the guards tilted their heads to one side, and looked on with grins. Singing Arrow bridled, and drew away and then drew near. All was going as we planned, till Pemaou and a band of his Hurons came around the corner of the house.

I had done Pemaou the justice to hate him when I first saw him. And one does not hate an inferior. He had as keen a mind as I have ever known, and he was not hampered by any of the scruples and decencies that interfere with a white man. So he was my superior in resource. I knew, as I saw him look at me now, that my share in the game was over. He had seen me listening to Longuant. Where had my wits been lagging that I had not foreseen that he would have spies watching me, and would trace some connection between the prisoner and myself? Well, there was nothing left me but to stroll away. I did not dare go in the direction of the canoes; it would be unwise to seek Cadillac; so I turned boldly to the Ottawa camp. Hardly knowing what I planned, I asked for Longuant.

Somewhat to my surprise, the Ottawas listened with respect. I had apparently won some reputation among them, and without demur they took me to the chief.

Longuant was squatting before his lodge. A piece of wood was laid across his lap, and he was chopping rank tobacco with a scalping knife. He smelled of oil, and smoke, and half-cured hides; yet he met me as a ruler meets an ambassador. As I stumbled after him into his dark lodge, I saw that he was preparing to greet me with all the silence and circumlocution of a state messenger. I had no time for that—though it gratified me. I tramped my way through all ceremony and plunged at my point.

"I am no envoy," I began, shaking my head in refusal of the proffered seat upon the mat beside him. "I am only a voice. A bird that calls 'beware' from the branches, and then flits away. Why watch the old wolf, and let the cub play free? Would you make yourself a laughing-stock among your people, by letting the Englishman escape into the Baron's hands? Pemaou, son of the Baron, stands with his followers outside the Englishman's window. What does he seek? I am no Ottawa. I am a free man, bound to no clan, and to no covenant, and friend to the Ottawas and Hurons alike. But I do not like to see a wise man tricked by a boy. I have spoken."

Longuant rose. "My brother's voice speaks the truth," he said, gathering his robes to leave me. "My brother sent his words, even as he flung his spear at Pemaou, straight at the mark. Only one word goes astray. My brother is not the free man he vaunts himself. He is tied by hate;" and pushing out his lip till his huge nose pendant stood at a right angle, he went on his way to be my willing, but entirely unhoodwinked agent.

I went to my canoes, stumbling a little, for I was tired. It was dark now, and the fires glowed brazenly, so that the Indians showed like dancing silhouettes. The sky was cloudless, and to the east lay a band of uncertain light that meant the rising moon. This was the time that I had planned to use in action, and the knowledge that I was powerless to accomplish anything myself made me so irritable that I could not bear to speak even to Pierre and the men. I sent them to a distance, and sat down on the sand so torn and frayed by anxiety that I was like a sick man.

And here, after long minutes, Singing Arrow found me. She came running down the beach, slipping on the rolling pebbles, and careless either of her grace, or of the noise she made.

"And you sit here doing nothing!" she cried, quite as a white girl might have done.

I pushed her down on the sand. "Stop!" I said. "I knew you would seek me here. Now answer briefly. Pemaou and his men would not let you get near the window?"

"No."

"They had seen you with me," I explained. "I feared it. Did Longuant and his men come?"

"Like bees," she answered, with a fling of her arms. "They are everywhere. We can do nothing;" and she dropped her head in her arms and cried.

Now what indeed could be her motive? "Never mind, Singing Arrow," I said experimentally. "What is it to you, after all?"

She wriggled her head to throw me a wrathful look. "I always win at a game," she mumbled.

She was as hard to read as a purring cat, but that did not matter. "We've not lost yet," I said, as slowly and coolly as if I did not see the disk of the moon looking at me. "I sent Longuant there. I was sure that Pemaou would keep you away, and I am playing for time. So long as the Ottawas and Hurons are squabbling with one another, Cadillac will not deliver the prisoner. But we must get them farther away. Singing Arrow, I have brandy in my cargo. I have drawn off two large flasks. Could you carry them to the other end of the camp, and send word among the braves?"

Now this was a contemptible thing to suggest; but any one who stoops, as I was letting myself do, to use a cat's-paw to work out his ends will surely soil his fingers. The sword is the clean weapon. I felt that even this Indian would look at me with disdain, but she did not. She thought a moment, then wagged her head in assent.

"But I promised Father Carheil not to drink any brandy myself," she added defiantly, as if she feared I might protest, and I felt myself as low as the hound that I had kicked that day because it would have stolen a child's sagamité.

"Make haste!" I cried, in a fury with myself, and with the speeding time. "Tell the prisoner to saunter away from the door, to pass the largest fire, and then to go straight through the old maize field toward the timber. I will be waiting there."

"I can do it," she vaunted, and she gathered the brandy under her blanket, and ran like a quail, while I went to my red-topped giant.

"Pierre Boudin," I cried, with my hand on his collar, "if we get back to this place alive, you are to marry that Ottawa girl; to marry her fairly with priest and book. Remember that."

My man turned a complacent eye. "If the master wishes," he said dutifully. Then he gave a fat chuckle. "I promised to marry her when we came back if she would save the Englishman—but then I thought that we should go home the other way."

Why try to teach decency to a barnyard brood! I dusted my fingers free from the soil of him. "I will marry her to you, if only to see her flout you," I promised vengefully. "Now to the canoes, and have your paddles ready." I had no smile for him, though he sought it, as I walked away.

The moon had swung free of the horizon, and cabins and trees stood out as if made of white cardboard. The night was chilly, and as I crept along the edge of the maize field, I caught my numbed toes on the stiffened clods of earth turned up by last year's plowing. Yet I moved silently, and by keeping in the shadow of blackened stumps and withered maize stalks, I reached bow-shot of the commandant's door.

Truly one part of my plan had succeeded. The house was the centre of an ant-like swarm skurrying here and there, apparently without method, but with a jerkiness of movement that suggested attack and recoil. I could distinguish the nose pendants of the Ottawas and the bristling crests of the Hurons. It was a crew with choice potentialities for mischief. Cadillac was justified in feeling that his scalp sat but unsteadily upon his head.

I had given Singing Arrow fifteen minutes to hide her brandy and send word to the braves, and I counted off the time to myself, trying to numb my anxiety. But among savages news runs underground as well as over, and I had scarcely covered half the space that I had set for myself before the crowd began to disappear. It slipped away like water between the fingers, and in a moment there remained only the guards, Pemaou, and a few Ottawas. The guards, relieved from immediate anxiety of a riot, leaned listlessly on their muskets, the Ottawas would not interfere with a girl of their own tribe, and Pemaou could not watch all quarters at once. Now was certainly the time to act; but where was Singing Arrow? My inaction pressed on me like a hideous weight. It seemed days instead of hours that I had sat like a crone by her distaff and let others do my work—or fail to do it. Why was Singing Arrow so slow to come?

I thought that I had not shifted my gaze from the house for more than an instant; but now, as I watched the door, I learned, and not for the first time, that a white man should have a score of eyes instead of two when it comes to watching an Indian. For the commandant's door suddenly opened, and out came a blanket-draped, skin-clad figure. My muscles stiffened. It was the Englishman. Singing Arrow had brought him the clothing, and I had not seen.

So the moment had come. I gripped my sword as one turns instinctively to the friend loved best. Would the prisoner act his part? So keen was my anxiety, that I felt my spirit leap out to stand by his side, and I shut my teeth upon the cry of encouragement that welled within me.

But he needed no help of mine. He made his way leisurely past the great fire, walking with wonderful mimicry of a woman's gait, and he kept his face well in the shelter of the blanket in a way that suggested coquetry rather than disguise.

And in this manner he came straight to me. He came, unerringly as a sleep-walker, past fires, past Indians, and through the gaunt rows of maize. He looked neither to right nor left, and no one molested him. He came to where I stood silent, and put out his hand to touch mine.

"It is done," he said quietly.

His fingers were warm, and his touch tingled. I marveled. "It is a miracle," I said.

He looked at me in question. "Your hand is very cold. Monsieur, monsieur, did you fear for me so much?"

I bowed. "Yes. I did not think it could be done. You are an able man, monsieur."

He did not answer for a moment, and he followed me silently along the edge of the maize field. Then he touched my shoulder.

"Monsieur, how strange the world looks to-night. The moon—have you ever seen it so remote and chill? Oh, we are puppets! No, it was not my wit that carried me through. It was Fate. Life has been hard on me. She is saving me now for some further trick she has to play. I pray that it may not bring you ill, monsieur."

I knew not how to answer, for I was moved. As he said, the moon made the world strange. Great beauty is disturbing, and the night was like enchantment. He had come to me like a dream spirit in his woman's dress. I felt the need of a dash of cold water on my spirit.

"You must not put on woman's fancies with your petticoats, monsieur," I cautioned over my shoulder. "Now we had best not talk till we are safe afloat in the canoes."

The men were ebon, the canoes vague gray, and the water like sheet ice under the moon. The Englishman and I crept across the pebbles with panther feet, and the splash of a frightened otter was the only sound. I laid my finger on my lips, and my men checked their breathing. We were silent as figures in a mirror. I tapped the Englishman on the shoulder, and motioned where he should sit in the canoe.

And then, from the timber fringe behind us, came a call. "Singing

Arrow! Singing Arrow! Stop! Stop!"

Sword unsheathed, I dashed across the open space of moonlight toward the trees. Who called, or why, I did not question. But I must smother the noise. "Singing Arrow!" the call came again, and the roar of it in the quiet night made my flesh crawl.

I had not taken two strides into the timber when I saw a man running toward me. He was still calling. I leaped upon him, winding an arm about his neck, and covering his mouth. He was a small armful; a weazened body to have sheltered so great a power of lung.

"Hush! For the Virgin's sake, hush!" I stormed in noisy whispers. "Father Carheil, is it you? Hush! Hush!" I dropped my hand from his mouth. "Now speak in whispers," I implored.

The father shook his cassock free from my fingers. My embrace had been fervid, and his cassock was rumpled, and his scant hair was stringing wildly from under his skullcap. But shrunken and tumbled as he was, he was impressive. With some men, if you disarrange their outer habit, you lower their inner dignity as well. It was not so with Father Carheil.

He looked at me closely, with a sober gentleness that became him well, and that he did not often use. "Why should I go quietly?" he asked. "My errand is righteous. It is only black work that needs the cover of a silent tongue. My son, you are letting your men abduct Singing Arrow. Did your promise to me count for so little in your mind?"

I bowed, and mumbled something meaningless to gain time. I was not clear as to my course. "Why do you think that we have Singing Arrow?" I blurted out finally.

"Pemaou told me."

Pemaou again! But we had tricked him. I grinned with joy to think of him with his nose still rooted close to the deserted hole. I could almost forgive him for the trouble he was causing now.

"Pemaou lied," I said cheerfully. "Singing Arrow is not with us, Father Carheil. Will you go back now? My mission is urgent and demands secrecy."

He looked at the ground. "You swear to this? You swear that Singing

Arrow is not with you?"

I laid my hand on my sword, and bared my head. "I swear."

He turned away. "You seem a gentleman," he said reluctantly. "I regret that I troubled you. I wish you fair winds, monsieur."

Beshrew me, but the man could get close to my heart. "Thank you, father," I cried earnestly. "I wish that I might requite your trust with greater candor. But, in the end, I hope to justify my means. I would that I might have your blessing on my mission and my cargo."

Blockhead that I was, not to have let well enough alone. For I was to blame for what followed. I may have grown unconsciously rhetorical, and waved my hand in the direction of the canoes. I do not know. I do know that at the word "cargo" Father Carheil turned and looked toward the shore. There, in my canoe, with gaze searching the timber where I had disappeared, stood a figure—a woman's figure in Singing Arrow's dress and blanket.

Father Carheil looked at me. He did not speak; it was not necessary. I endured his gaze for a moment, then sold my prudence to save my honor. I laid my finger on the priest's arm.

"Come with me to the canoes," I demanded. "If you find yourself in the wrong, it may teach you to trust a man's word against your own eyesight."

He assented. We walked swiftly across the moon-lighted open, and I had scant time for fear. Yet I was afraid. I could give the Englishman no helping hand, no word of warning. Would he rise to the moment?

He did. He turned his back upon us, Indian-fashion, and squatted in his blanket. He lost all suggestion of Singing Arrow's slim elasticity, and sat in a shapeless huddle. I laughed with relief.

"Where is Singing Arrow now?" I twitted the priest. "Is this she?"

The old priest peered. "No," he meditated. "No, this is not Singing Arrow." He wheeled on me with one of his flashes of temper. "I cannot recognize this girl. Let her take off her blanket."

I motioned my men to take stations in the canoes. "Father Carheil, I beg you to let me go at once," I implored. "You see you were wrong. As to this Indian, you never saw her; she is a stranger here."

But the father was not pacified. "Let her take off her blanket," he repeated, with all the aimless persistency of age.

Did I say that the man had grown close to my heart? Why, I could have shaken him. But the Englishman cut the knot. He turned with a hunch of the shoulder, and peered at us over the corner of his blanket. Gesture, and roll of the head, he was an Indian. I was so pleased at the mimicry, that I gave way to witless laughter.

"Now!" I cried triumphantly. "Now, are you satisfied?"

But the priest did not reply. He stared, and his eyes grew ferret-sharp. Then he shifted his position, and stared again. It beat into my brain that he had lived thirty years among the Indians, and that his eyes were trained. He could see meanings, where I saw a blank wall.

"This is no Indian woman," he said slowly, with a wagging forefinger that beat off his words like the minute hand of Fate. "This is—this is—why, this is the English prisoner!"

He brought out the last words in a crescendo, and again my hand clapped tight against his mouth.

"Be still! Be still!" I spluttered wildly, and I threw a disordered glance at the horizon, and at my astonished crew. I had not meant that the men, except Pierre, should be taken into the secret until we were well afloat. Here was another contretemps.

"Are you mad, Father Carheil!" I began, with a sorry show of dignity, while my palm stuck like a leech against his lips. "This is not"——

"Not any one but the prisoner himself," interrupted the Englishman's voice. He dropped his blanket, and sprang to the sand. "Do not lie for me, monsieur," he went on in his indolent, drawling French that already had come to have a pleasant quaintness in my ears. "Monsieur, let me speak to the father."

If Nature had given me a third hand, I should have used it to throttle the Englishman. "Get back in the canoe!" I stormed.

He motioned me away. Standing slim and tall in Singing Arrow's dress, he put me—such creatures of outward seeming are we—absurdly in the wrong, as if I had been rude to a woman.

"Father Carheil," he began, "your ears at least are not fettered. Listen, if you will. This man is not to blame. I was thrown in his way, and he took me from pity, to save my life. Now that I am discovered, I will go back to prison with you. Let this man go west. Whatever his business, it is pressing."

With two mad men on my hands, I had to choose between them. I dropped the priest, and gripped the Englishman.

"If you go back, I go with you!" I raged in his ear. Then I turned to

Father Carheil. "Are you going to report this, father? It is as the

Englishman says. I take him as the only way to save him from torture.

May we go?"

The father thought a moment. "No," he said.

I gripped my sword. "You have seen torture, Father Carheil. Would you hand this man over to it?"

The father looked at me as if I were print for his reading. "I am piecing facts together," he said, with unmoved slowness. "Singing Arrow is in league with you, for the prisoner is wearing her clothes. The Indians are wild with brandy, which, it is rumored, Singing Arrow furnished. The brandy must have come from you. Is that so? Answer me. Answer, in the name of the Holy Church. Is that so?"

I bowed. "You are a logician," I said bitterly. "Father, I can hear the tom-toms. It is a miracle that we have escaped undetected so long. Our respite cannot last many minutes longer. May we go?"

My tone seemed to reach him, and he wavered a moment. "Perhaps," he began haltingly; then he backed several paces. "No!" he cried, all his small wiry figure suddenly tense. "No! You are a dangerous man. You carry brandy, and no one knows your errand. If I let you go, I may save one man from torture—which, after all, is but an open door to the blessed after life—but I shall be letting you carry brandy and perdition on to scores of souls. No." And he opened his mouth to call for help.

But I was on him before his shout could frame itself to sound. I drew my handkerchief, and tied it, bandage-firm, across his mouth. Then I called to Pierre, and bidding him bring me thongs from our store in the canoe, I proceeded to bind the priest firmly. He was slight as a woman in my hands. I could feel the sharpness and brittleness of his old bones through his wrinkled skin, and I was sick at myself. "I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry," I heard myself repeating, explaining to him, and to myself, and, mostly, to the God who judges us. I looked at the wonderful mobile old face, with all its weakness, and all its wonderful white goodness, and hated myself for laying hands of violence on such a man. "I am sorry," I cried again. I looked at the spit of land that separated us from the camp, and the light from the fires glowed red above it. The din of dogs and men swelled high. Something was happening. I glanced down at the priest, but turned away quickly, for I had no stomach for what I had done.

"They will find you soon," I said, with my throat tightening. "God knows I'm sorry."

Then I dashed to the canoes. "Quickly!" I cried, and I shoved the Englishman down behind me, that I might not have to see even the glint of his red blanket to anger me by thought of what I had sacrificed.

In a moment, our paddles were dipping. I looked back at the settlement. "It is done!" I cried under my breath, and I could not forbid a moment of exultation. I glanced at the Englishman.

But I met no exultation there. The man's strange eyes were still grave. "No, monsieur, it is just begun," he corrected, and I thought, as I saw his look at the retreating shore, that he shrunk from the uncertainties ahead more than from the death behind. Was there a coward streak in him, after all? I turned my back, and did not speak again.