Читать книгу The Forge in the Forest - Sir Charles G. D. Roberts - Страница 16

It seemed as if I had but fairly got my eyes shut, when I was awakened by a violent pitching of the boat. I sat up, grasping the gunwale, and saw Marc just catching my knee to rouse me. The boat, heeling far over, and hauled close to the wind, was heading a little up the channel and straight for a narrow inlet which I knew to be the joint mouth of two small rivers.

"Where are you going? Why is our course changed?" I asked sharply, being nettled by a sudden notion that they had made some change of plan without my counsel.

"Look yonder, Father!" said Marc, pointing.

I looked, and my heart shook with mingled wrath and apprehension. Behind us followed three canoes, urged on by sail and paddle.

"They outsail us?" I inquired.

"Ay, before the wind, they do, M'sieu!" said Tamin. "On this tack, maybe not. We'll soon see!"

"But what's this but a mere trap we are running our heads into?" I urged.

"I fear there's nothing else but to quit the boat and make through the woods, Father," explained Marc; "that is, if we're so fortunate as to keep ahead till we reach land."

"In the woods, I suppose, we can outwit them or outfoot them," said I; "but those Micmacs are untiring on the trail."

"I know a good man with a good boat over by Shulie on the Fundy shore," interposed Tamin. "And I know the way over the hills. We'll cheat the rogue of a priest yet!" And he shrewdly measured the distance that parted us from our pursuers.

"It galls me to be running from these dogs!" I growled.

"Our turn will come," said Marc, glowering darkly at the canoes. "Do you guess the Black Abbé is with them?"

"Not he!" grunted Tamin.

"Things may happen this time," said I, "and the good father may wish to keep his soutane clear of them. It's all plain enough to me now. The Indians, finding themselves tricked, have gone back on the Pereau trail and most inopportunely have released the gentle Abbé from his bonds. He has seen through our game, and has sent his pack to look to it that we never get to de Ramezay. But he will have no hand in it. Oh, no!"

"What's plain to me now," interrupted Tamin, with some anxiety in his voice, "is that they're gaining on us fast. They've put down leeboards; an' with leeboards down a Micmac canoe's hard to beat."

"Oh!" I exclaimed bitterly, "if we had but our muskets! Fool that I was, thus to think to save time and not go back for our weapons! Trust me, lad, it's the first time that Jean de Mer has had that particular kind of folly to repent of!"

"But there was nought else for it, Father," said Marc. "And if, as seems most possible, we come to close quarters presently, we are not so naked as we might be. Here's your two pistols, my good whinger, and Tamin's fishy dirk. And Tamin's gaff here will make a pretty lance. It is borne in upon me that some of the good Abbé's lambs will bleat for their shepherd before this night's work be done!"

There was a steady light in his eyes that rejoiced me much, and his voice rose and fell as if fain to break into a war song; and I said to myself, "The boy is a fighter, and the fire is in his blood, for all his scholar's prating of peace!" Yet he straightway turned his back upon the enemy and with great indifference went to filling his pipe.

"Ay, an' there be a right good gun in the cuddy!" grunted Tamin, after a second or two of silence.

"The saints be praised!" said I. And Marc's long arm reached in to capture it. It was a huge weapon, and my heart beat high at sight of it. Marc caressed it for an instant, then reluctantly passed it to me, with the powder-horn.

"I can shoot, a little, myself," said he, "but I would be presumptuous to boast when you were by, Father!"

"Ay, vraiment," said Tamin, sharply; "don't think you can shoot with the Sieur de Briart yet!"

"I don't," replied Marc, simply, as he handed me out a pouch of bullets and a pouch of slugs.

The pursuing canoes were by this come within fair range. There came a strident hail from the foremost:—

"Lay to, or we shoot!"

"Shoot, dogs!" I shouted, ramming home the good measure of powder which I had poured into my hand. I followed it with a fair charge of slugs, and was wadding it loosely, when—

"Duck!" cries Tamin, bobbing his head lower than the tiller.

Neither Marc nor I moved a hair. But we gazed at the canoes. On the instant two red flames blazed out, with a redoubled bang; and one bullet went through the sail a little above my head.

"Not bad!" said Marc, glancing tranquilly at the bullet hole.

But for my own part, I was angry. To be fired upon thus, at a priest's orders, by a pack of scurvy savages in the pay of our own party,—never before had Jean de Briart been put to such indignity. I kneeled, and took a very cautious aim,—not, however, at the savages, but at the bow of the nearest canoe.

Tamin's big gun clapped like a cannon, and kicked my shoulder very vilely. But the result of the shot was all that we could desire. As I made haste to load again I noticed that the savage in the bow had fallen backward in his place, hit by a stray slug. The bulk of the charge, however, had torn a great hole in the bark, close to the water-line.