The fat lay six inches deep on the bear's ribs; and, being boiled down, filled six porcupine skins.
"Said I not that Netawis would bring us good luck?" demanded Menehwehna.
But Meshu-kwa claimed the head of her ancestress, and set it up on a scaffold within the lodge, spreading a new blanket beneath it and strewing tobacco-leaf in front of its nose. As though poor Azoka had not enough misery, her mother took away her trinkets to decorate the bear, and forced her to smear her pretty, ochred face with cinders. Then for a whole day the whole family sat and fasted; and Azoka hated fasting. But next morning she and Seeu-kwa swept out the lodge, making all tidy. Pipes were lit, and Menehwehna, after blowing tobacco-smoke into the bear's nostrils, began a long harangue on the sad necessity which lay upon men to destroy their best friends. His wife's eye being upon him, he made an excellent speech, though he did not believe a word of it; but as a chief who had married the daughter of a chief, he laid great stress upon her pedigree, belittling his own descent from thecanicu, or war eagle, with the easier politeness because he knew it to be above reproach. When he had ended, the family, Meshu-kwa included, seated themselves and ate of the bear's flesh very heartily.
A few days later, they struck their camp and moved inland, for the beaver were growing scarcer, and the heavy fall of snow hid their houses and made it difficult to search the banks for washes. But raccoon were plentiful at their new station, and easy to hunt. Before the coming of the Cold Moon—which is January—John was set to number the peltries, which amounted to three hundred odd; and the scaffold, on which the dried venison hung out of reach of the wolves, was a sight to gladden the heart. Only the women grumbled when Menehwehna gave order to strike camp, for theirs were the heaviest loads.
Azoka did not grumble. She could count now on Ononwe to help her with her burden, since, like a sensible girl, she had long since made up her quarrel with him and they were to be married in the spring on their return to the village. She had quite forgiven Netawis. Hers was that delicious stage of love when the heart, itself so happy, wants all the world to be happy too. Once or twice John caught her looking at him with eyes a little wistful in their gladness; he never guessed that she had overheard his secret and pitiéd him, but dared not betray herself. Ononwe, possessed with his new felicity, delighted to talk of it whenever he and John hunted together.
Did it hurt? Not often; and at the moment not much. But at night, when sleep would not come, when John lay staring at the chink in the doorway beyond which the northern lights flickered, then the wound would revive and ache with the aching silence. Once, only once, he had started out of sleep to feel his whole body flooded with happiness; in his dream the curtains of the lodge had parted and through them Diane had come to him. Standing over his head she had shaken the snow from her cloak and from her hair, and the scattered flakes had changed into raindrops, and the raindrops into singing birds, and the lodge into a roof of sunlit boughs, breaking into leaf with a scent of English hawthorn, as she stretched out her hands and knelt and he drew her to his heart. Her cheek was cold from her long journey; but a warm breeze played beneath the boughs, and under her falling hair against his shoulder her small hand stole up and touched his silver armlets. Nay, surely that touch was too real for any dream.…
He had sprung up and pulled aside the curtain; but she was gone. His eyes searched across a waste where only the snow-wraiths danced, and far to the north the Aurora flickered with ribbons of ghostly violet.
Would she come again? Yes, surely, under the stars and across the folds and hollows of the snow, that vision would return, disturbing no huddled wild creature, waking no sleeper in the lodge; would lift the curtain and stretch out both hands and be gathered to him. Though it came but once in a year he could watch for it by night, live for it by day.
But by day he knew his folly. He was lost, and in forgetting lay his only peace. He never once accused his fortune nor railed against a God he could not believe in. He had come to disaster through his own doubts; himself had been the only real enemy, and that sorry self must be hidden and buried out of sight.
On the whole he was burying it successfully. He liked these Ojibways, and had unlearnt his first disgust of their uncleanly habits, though as yet he could not imitate them. He had quite unlearnt his old loathing of Menehwehna for the sergeant's murder. Menehwehna was a fine fellow, a chief too, respected among all the nations west of Fort Niagara. John's surprise had begun at Fort Révéille, where, on Menehwehna's word of credit only, the Tobacco Indians had fetched out paint and clothes to disguise him, and had smuggled him, asking no questions, past the fort and up through the Lake aux Claies to Lake Huron. At Michilimackinac a single speech from Menehwehna had won his welcome from the tribe; and they were hunting now on the borders of the Ottawas through the favour of Menehwehna's friendship with the Ottawa chief at l'Arbre Croche. John saw that the other Indians considered him fortunate in Menehwehna's favour, and if he never understood the full extent of the condescension, at least his respect grew for one who was at once so kingly and so simple, who shared his people's hardships, and was their master less by rank than by wisdom in council, skill of hand, and native power to impress and rule.
Of the deer especially Menehwehna was a mighty hunter; and in February the wealth of the camp increased at a surprising rate. For at this season the snow becomes hard enough to bear the hunter and his dogs, but the sharp feet of the deer break through its crust and his legs are cut to the bone. Often a hunting party would kill a dozen stags in two or three hours, and soon the camp reckoned up five thousand pounds of dried venison, all of which had to be carried back seventy miles to the shore of the lake near l'Arbre Croche, where the canoes had been left.
Early in March the women began to prepare the bundles, and in the second week the return began, all starting at daybreak with as much as they could carry, and marching until noon, when they built a scaffold, piled their loads upon it, and returned to the camp for more. When all had been carried forward one stage, the lodge itself was removed, and so, stage by stage, they brought their wealth down to the coast. As they neared it they fell in with other lodges of Ojibways, mostly from Michilimackinac, gathering for the return voyage up the lake.
Having recovered and launched their canoes, which had lain hidden among the sandhills, they loaded up and coasted cheerfully homewards by way of La Grande Traverse and l'Arbre Croche, and on the last day of April landed under the French fort of Mackinac, which looked across the strait to Cap Saint-Ignace. A dozen traders were here awaiting them; and with these Menehwehna first settled out of the common fund for guns, powder, and stores supplied on credit for the winter's hunting. He then shared the residue among the camp, each hunter receiving the portion fixed by custom; and John found himself the owner of one hundred and twenty beaver skins, fifty raccoon, and twelve otter, besides fifty dubious francs in cash. The bear skin, which also fell to his share, he kept for his wedding gift to Ononwe. Twenty pounds of beaver bought a couple of new shirts; another twenty a blanket; and a handsome pair of scarletmitases, fashionably laced with ribbon, cost him fifteen. Out of what remained he offered to pay Menehwehna for his first outfit, but received answer that he had amply discharged this debt by bringing good luck to the camp. Under Menehwehna's advice, therefore, he spent his gains in powder and ball, fishing-lines, tobacco, and a new lock for his gun.
"And I am glad," said Menehwehna, "that you consulted me to-day, for to-night I shall drink too much rum."
So indeed he did. That night his people—women and men—lay around the fort in shameless intoxication. It pleased John to observe that Azoka drank nothing; but on the other hand she made no attempt to restrain her lover, who, having stupefied himself with rum, dropped asleep with his head on her lap.
John, seated and smoking his pipe by the camp fire, watched her across its blaze. She leaned back against a pole of the lodge, her hands resting on Ononwe's head, her eyes gazing out into the purple night beyond the doorway. They were solemn, with the awe of a deep happiness. "And why not?" John asked himself. Her father, mother, and kinsfolk lay drunk around her; even the children had taken their share of the liquor. A disgusting sight, no doubt! yet somehow it did not move him to reprobation. He had lived for six months with this people, and they had taught him some lessons outside the craft of hunting: for example, that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that only a fool condemns his fellows for being unlike himself. At home in Devonshire he had never understood why the best farm-labourers and workmen broke out at times into reckless drinking, and lay sodden for days together; or how their wives could accept these outbursts as a matter of course. He understood now, having served apprentice to hardship, how the natural man must revolt now and again from the penalty of Adam, the grinding toil, day in and day out, to wrest food from the earth for himself, his womenkind, and children. He understood, too, how noble is the discipline, though pardonable the revolt. He had discovered how little a man truly needs. He had seen in this strange life much cruelty, much crazy superstition, much dirt and senseless discomfort; but he had made acquaintance with love and self-denial. He had learnt, above all, the great lesson—to think twice before judging, and thrice before condemning.
The camp fire was dying down untended. He arose and cast an armful of logs upon it; and at the sound Azoka withdrew her eyes from the doorway and fastened them upon him.
"Netawis," said she, "when will you be leaving us?"
"I have no thought of leaving." "You are not telling me the truth, now."
"Indeed, I believe I am," John assured her.
"But what, then, of the girl yonder, whom you wanted to marry? Has she married another man, or is she dead? Yes, I know something about it," Azoka went on, as he stood staring amazedly. "For a long time I have wanted to tell you. That night, after you had killed the bear and Ononwe took you aside—I was afraid that you two would be quarrelling, and so I crept after you—" She waited for him to understand.
"I see," said John gravely.
"Tell me what has become of her."
"I suppose that she is living still with her own people; and there is nothing more to tell, Azoka, except that she cannot be mine, and would not if she could."
"Whose fault was it, Netawis? Yours or hers?"
"There was much fault indeed, and all of it mine; but against my marrying her it did not count, for that was impossible from the beginning. Suppose, now, your nation were at war with the Ottawas, and a young Ottawa brave fell in love with you. What would you do?"
"That is idle talk, for of course I should do nothing," said Azoka composedly. "But if I were a man and fell in love with an Ottawa maiden, it would be simple. I should carry her off."
John, being unable to find an answer to this, lit his pipe and sat staring into the fire.
"Was she an Englishwoman then?" Azoka asked after a while.
"An Englishwoman?" He looked up in surprise; then, with a glance around at the sleepers, he leaned forward until his eyes met the girl's at close range across the flame. "Since you have learnt one secret, Azoka, I will tell you another. She was a Frenchwoman, and it is I who am English."
But Azoka kept her composure. "My father is always wise," she said quietly. "If he had told the truth, you would have been in great danger; for many had lost sons and brothers in the fighting, and those who came back were full of revenge. You heard their talk."
"Then you have only to tell them, Azoka, and they may take their revenge. I shall not greatly care."
"I am no babbler, Netawis; and, moreover, the men have put their revenge away. When the summer comes very few will want to go fighting. For my part I pay little heed to their talk of killing and scalping; to me it is all boys' play, and I do not want to understand it. But from what I hear they think that the Englishmen will be victorious, and it is foolishness to fight on the losing side. If so—" Azoka broke off and pressed her palms together in sudden delight.
"If so?" echoed John.
"If the English win, why then you may carry off your Frenchwoman, Netawis! I do very much want you to be happy."
"And I thank you a thousand times, Azoka, for your good wishes; but I fear it will not happen in that way."
She smoothed the head of Ononwe in her lap. "Oh yes, it will," she assured him. "My father told me that you would be leaving us, some day; and now I know what he meant. He has seen her, has he not?"
"He has seen her."
"My father is never mistaken. You will go back when the time comes, and take her captive. But bring her back that I may see her, Netawis."
"But if she should resist?"
Azoka shook her pretty head. "You men never understand us. She will not resist when once you have married her; and I do very much want you to be happy."
For three days the Ojibways sprawled in drunkenness around Fort Mackinac, but on the fourth arose and departed for their island; very sullenly at first, as they launched their canoes, but with rising spirits as they neared home. And two days after their arrival Ononwe and Azoka were married.
In the midst of the marriage feast, which lasted a week, the great thaw began; and thereafter for a month Menehwehna watched John closely. But the springtime could not thaw the resolve which had been hardening John's heart all the winter—to live out his life in the wilderness and, when his time came, to die there a forgotten man. He wondered now that he had ever besought Menehwehna for help to return. Although it could never be proved against him, he must acknowledge to himself that he, a British officer, was now in truth a willing deserter. But to be a deserter he found more tolerable than to return at the price of private shame.
Menehwehna, cheated of his fears, watched him with a new and growing hope. The snows melted; May came with its flowers, June with its heat, July with the roaring of bucks in the forest; and still the men hung about the village, fishing and shooting, or making short excursions to Sault Sainte-Marie or the bay of Boutchitouay, or the mouth of the Mississaki river on the north side of the lake (where the wildfowl were plentiful), but showing no disposition to go out again upon the war-path as they had gone the year before. The frenzy which then had carried them hundreds of miles from their homes seemed now to be entirely spent, and the war itself to have faded far away. Once or twice a French officer from Fort Mackinac was paddled across and landed and harangued the Indians; and the Indians listened attentively, but never stirred. Of the French soldiers drilling at the fort they spoke now with contempt.
John saw no reason for this change, and set it down to that flightiness of purpose which—as he had read in books—is common to all savages. He had yet to learn that in solitary lands the very sky becomes as it were a vast sounding-board, and rumour travels, no man knows how.
It was on his return from the isles aux Castors, where with two score young men of his tribe he had spent three weeks in fishing for sturgeon, that he heard of the capture of Fort Niagara by the English. Azoka announced it to him.
"Said I not how it would happen?" she reminded him. "But if you leave us now, you must come back with her and see my boy. When he comes to be born he shall be called Netawis. Ononwe and I are agreed on it."
"I have no thought of leaving," John answered. "Fort Niagara is far from here."
"They say also," Menehwehna announced later, "that Stadacona has fallen."
"Stadacona?"
"The great fortress—Quebec."
John mused for a while. "I had a dear friend once," he said, "and he laid me a wager that he would enter Quebec before me. It appears that he has won."
"A friend, did my brother say?"
"And a kinsman," John answered, recognising the old note of jealousy in Menehwehna's voice. "But there's no likeness between us; for he is one that always goes straight to his mark."
"There was a name brought me with the news. Your chief was the Wolf, they said; but whether it be his own name or that of hismanitou, I know not."
A band of five-and-twenty Ojibways came filing down through the woods to the shore of Lake Ontario, at the point where the City of Toronto now stands. Back beyond the Lake aux Claies they had passed many lodges inhabited by women and children only, and had heard everywhere the same story: the men were all gone southward to Fort Niagara to take counsel with the English. This, too, was the goal of the Ojibways' journey, and Menehwehna hurried them forward.
Fort Rouillé by the waterside stood deserted and half ruined. They had hoped to find canoes here to carry them across the lake to Niagara; but here, too, all the male population had stampeded a week ago for the south, and those who wanted canoes must make them. This meant two days' delay but it could not be helped. They fell to work at once, cutting down elm-trees by the shore and stripping off their bark, while the children gathered from the lodges and stood at a little distance, watching.
It was by no desire of his own that John made one of the embassage. As rumour after rumour of British successes came westward to Michilimackinac, and the Indians held long and anxious councils, he had grown aware that Menehwehna was watching him furtively, as if for a sign which could not be demanded in words.
"Menehwehna," said he at length, "what is all this talk of English vengeance? It is not the way of my countrymen to remember wrongs after they have won the battle."
"But who will assure my people of that?" asked Menehwehna. "They have heard that certain things were done in the south, and that toll will be taken."
"What matters that to your people, though it be true? They were not at Fort William Henry."
"But again, how shall they tell this to the English and hope to be believed?"
"You cannot hide your heart from me, Menehwehna. You wish two things of me, and the first is my leave to tell your people that I am English."
"Without your leave I will never tell them, my brother."
"Did I ever suppose that you would? Well, as soon as you have told them, they will clamour for me to go to Fort Niagara, and at need to entreat for them. Now I say that there will be no need; but they will compel me to go, and you too will wish it. Have I not guessed?"
Menehwehna was silent a while. "For my people I wish it," he said at length; "but for my own part I fear more than I wish."
"You fear it because I go into great danger. By my countrymen I shall be rightly held a deserter; and, among them, for an officer to desert is above all things shameful."
"But," answered Menehwehna with a cheerful readiness which proved that he had thought the matter out, "if, as you say, the Governor receive us kindly, we will hide that you are English; to that every man shall give his oath beforehand. If things go ill, we will hand you back as our prisoner and prove that we have kept you against your will."
John shook his head, but did not utter the firm resolve of his heart—that even from ignominy no such lies should save him while he had a gun to turn against himself. "Why do you fear then, Menehwehna," he demanded, "if not for me?"
"Do not ask, my brother!" Menehwehna's voice was troubled, constrained, and his eyes avoided John's.
"Ah, well," said John lightly, after regarding him for a moment, "to you at least I will pay some of my debt. Go and tell your people that I am English; and add—for it will save talk—that I am ready to go with them to Fort Niagara."
By dawn on the third day at Fort Rouillé three canoes lay finished and ready, each capable of carrying eight or nine men. Pushing off from the Toronto shore, the embassage paddled southward across the lake.
They came late that evening to a point of land four miles from Niagara, on the north side of the river mouth. Approaching it, they discerned many clusters of Indian encampments, each sending up its thin column of smoke against the sunset-darkened woods: but night had fallen long before they beached their canoes, and for the last three miles they paddled wide of the shore to skirt a fleet of fishing-boats twinkling with flambeaux, from the rays of which voices challenged them. The Ojibways answered with their own call and were made welcome. A common fear, it seemed, lay over all the nations— Wyandots and Attiwandaronks from the west and north of Lake Erie, Nettaways and Tobacco Indians from around Nottawasaga Bay, Ottawas and Pottawatamies from the far west—who had not yet made their peace with the English. But Menehwehna, whose fear of arriving too late had kept him anxious throughout the voyage, grew cheerful again.
They landed and pitched their camp on a spit of land close beside their old friend the Ottawa chief from L'Arbre Croche, to whose lodge Menehwehna at once betook himself to learn the news. But John, weary with the day's toil, threw himself down and slept.
A touch on his shoulder awakened him at dawn, and he opened his eyes to see Menehwehna standing above him, gun in hand and dressed for an expedition.
"Come," commanded Menehwehna, adding, as John's gaze travelled around upon the sleepers, "We two, alone."
John caught up his gun, and the pair stepped out into the dawn together. An Indian path led through the forest to the southward, and Menehwehna took it, walking ahead and rapidly. Twice he turned about and looked John in the face with a searching gaze, but held on his way again without speaking. They walked in a dawn which as yet resembled night rather than day; a night grown diaphanous and ghostlike, a summer night surprised in its sleep and vanishing before their footfall. The flicker of fire-flies hurrying into deeper shades seemed, by a trick of eyesight, to pass into the glint of dew. The birds had not yet broken into singing, the shadows stirred with whispers, as though their broods of winged and creeping things held breath together in alarm. A thin mist drifted through the undergrowth, muffling the roar of distant waters; and at intervals the path led across a clearing where, between the pine-trunks to the left, the lake itself came into view, with clouds of vapour heaving on its bosom.
These clearings grew more frequent until at length Menehwehna halted on the edge of one which sloped straight from his feet to a broad and rushing river. There, stepping aside, he watched John's eyes as they fell on Fort Niagara. It stood over the angle where the river swept into the lake; its timbered walls terraced high upon earthworks rising from the waterside, its roofs already bathed in sunlight, its foundations standing in cool shadow. Eyes no doubt were watching the dawn from its ramparts; but no sign of life appeared there. It seemed to sleep with the forests around it, its river gate shut close-lidded against the day, its empty flagstaff a needle of gold trembling upon the morning sky.
Menehwehna had seated himself, his gun across his knees, upon a fallen trunk; and John, turning, met his eyes.
"Do we cross over?"
"To-day, or perhaps to-morrow. I wished you to see it first."
"But why?"
"Does my brother ask why? Well, then, I was afraid."
"Were you afraid that I might wish to go back? Answer me, Menehwehna—By whose wish am I here at all?"
"When I was a young man," answered Menehwehna, "in the days when I went wooing after Meshu-kwa, I would often be jealous, and this jealousy would seize me when we were alone together. 'She is loving enough now,' I said; 'but how will it be when other young men are around her?' This thought tormented me so that many times it drove me to prove her, pretending to be cold and purposely throwing her in the company of others who were glad enough—for she had many suitors. Then I would watch with pain in my heart, but secretly, that my shame and rage might be hidden."
John eyed him for a moment in wonder. "For what did you bring me this long way from Michilimackinac?" he asked. "Was it not to speak at need for you and your nation?"
"For that, but not for that only. Brother, have you never loved a friend so that you felt his friendship worthless to you unless you owned it all? Have you never felt the need on you to test him, though the test lay a hundred leagues away? So far have I brought you, O Netawis, to show you your countrymen. In a while the fort yonder will wake, and you shall see them on the parapet in their red coats, and if the longing come upon you to return to them, we will cross over together and I will tell my tale. They will believe it. Look! Will you be an Englishman again?"
"Let us turn back," answered John wearily. "That life is gone from me for ever."
"Say to me that you have no wish to go."
"I had a wish once," said John, letting the words fall slowly as his eyes travelled over the walls of the fort. "It seemed to me then that no wish on earth could be dearer. Many things have helped to kill it, I think." He passed a hand over his eyes and let it drop by his side. "I have no wish to leave you, Menehwehna."
The Indian stood up with a short cry of joy and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"No, my friend," John continued in the same dull voice; "I will say to you only what is honest. If I return with you, it is not for your sake."
"So that you return, Netawis, I will have patience. There was a time when you set your face against me; and this I overcame. Again there was a time when you pleaded with me that I should let you escape; and still I waited, though with so small a hope that when my child Azoka began to listen for your step I scolded her out of her folly."
"In that you did wisely, Menehwehna. It is not everything that I have learned to forget."
"I told her," said Menehwehna simply, "that, as the snow melts and slides from the face of a rock, so one day all thought of us would slip from your heart and you would go from us, not once looking back. Even so I believed. But the spring came, and the summer, and I began to doubt; and, as I questioned you, a hope grew in my heart, and I played with it as a bitch plays with her pups, trying its powers little by little, yet still in play, until a day came when I discovered it to be strong and the master of me. Then indeed, my brother, I could not rest until I had put it to this proof." He lit his pipe solemnly, drew a puff or two and handed it to John. "Let us smoke together before we turn back. He that has a friend as well as wife and children needs not fear to grow old."
John stretched out a hand and touched the earthen pipe bowl. His fingers closed on it—but only to let it slip. It fell, struck against the edge of the tree stump and was shivered in pieces.
Across the valley in Fort Niagara the British drums were sounding therévéille.
He did not hear Menehwehna's voice lamenting the broken pipe. He stood staring across at the fort. He saw the river-gate open, the red-coats moving there, relieving guard. He saw the flagstaff halliards shake out the red cross of England in the morning sunlight. And still, like a river, rolled the music of British drums.
"Netawis!"
Menehwehna touched his arm. At first John did not seem to hear, then his hand went up and began to unfasten the silver armlets there.
"Netawis! O my brother!"
But the ice had slipped from the rock and lay around its base in ruin, and the music which had loosened it still sang across the valley. He took a step down the slope towards it.
"You shall not go!" cried Menehwehna, and lifting his gun pointed it full at John's back. And John knew that Menehwehna's finger was on the trigger. He walked on unregarding.
But Menehwehna did not fire. He cast down his gun with a cry and ran to clasp his friend's feet. What was he saying? Something about "two years."
"Two years?" Had they passed so quickly? God! how long the minutes were now! He must win across before the drums ceased…
He halted and began to talk to Menehwehna very patiently, this being the easiest way to get rid of him. "Yes, yes," he heard himself saying, "I go to them as an Indian and they will not know me. I shall be safe. Return now back to my brothers and tell them that, if need be, they will find me there and I will speak for them."
And his words must have prevailed, for he stood by the river's edge alone, and Menehwehna was striding back towards the wood. A boat lay chained by the farther shore and two soldiers came down from the fort and pushed across to him.
They wore the uniform of the Forty-sixth, and one had been a private in his company; but they did not recognise him. And he spoke to them in the Ojibway speech, which they could not understand.
From the edge of the woods Menehwehna watched the three as they landed. They climbed the slope and passed into the fort.
That Spring, three British generals sat at the three gates of Canada, waiting for the signal to enter and end the last agony of New France. But the snows melted, the days lengthened, and still the signal did not come; for the general by the sea gate was himself besieged.
Through the winter he and his small army sat patiently in the city they had ruined. Conquerors in lands more southerly may bury their dead with speed, rebuild captured walls, set up a pillar and statue of Victory, and in a month or two, the green grass helping them, forget all but the glory of the battle. But here in the north the same hand arrests them and for six months petrifies the memorials of their rage. Until the Spring dissolves it, the image of war lives face to face with them, white, with frozen eyes, sparing them only the colour of its wounds.
General Murray, like many a soldier in his army, had dreams of emulating Wolfe's glory. But Wolfe had snatched victory out of the shadow of coming winter; and, almost before Murray's army could cut wood for fuel, the cold was upon them. For two months Quebec had been pounded with shot and shell. Her churches and hospitals stood roofless; hundreds of houses had been fired, vaults and storehouses pillaged, doors and windows riddled everywhere. There was no digging entrenchments in the frozen earth. Walls six feet thick had been breached by artillery; and the loose stones, so cold they were, could hardly be handled.
Among these ruins, on the frozen cliff over the frozen river, Murray and his seven thousand men settled down to wear the winter through. They were short of food, short of fuel. Frost-bite maimed them at first; then scurvy, dysentery, fever, began to kill. They laid their dead out on the snow, to be buried when spring should return and thaw the earth; and by the end of April their dead numbered six hundred and fifty. Yet they kept up their spirits. Early in November there had been rumours that the French under Lévis meant to march on the city and retake it. In December deserters brought word that he was on his way—that he would storm the city on the twenty-second, and dine within the citadel on Christmas Day. In January news arrivéd that he was preparing scaling-ladders and training his men in the use of them. Still the days dragged by. The ice on the river began to break up and swirl past the ramparts on the tides. The end of April came, and with it a furious midnight storm, and out of the storm a feeble cry—the voice of a half-dead Frenchman clinging to a floe of ice far out on the river. He was rescued, placed in a hammock, and carried up Mountain Street to the General's quarters; and Murray, roused from sleep at three o'clock in the morning, listened to his story. He was an artillery-sergeant of Lévis's army; and that army, twelve thousand strong, was close to the gates of Quebec.
The storm had fallen to a cold drizzle of rain when at dawn Murray's troops issued from the St. Louis gate and dragged their guns out through the slush of the St. Foy road. On the ground where Wolfe had given battle, or hard by, they unlimbered in face of the enemy and opened fire. Two hours later, outflanked by numbers, having lost a third of their three thousand in the short fight, they fell back on the battered walls they had mistrusted. For a few hours the fate of Quebec hung on a hair. But the garrison could build now; and, while Lévis dragged up his guns from the river, the English worked like demons. They had guns, at any rate, in plenty; and, while the French dug and entrenched themselves on the ground they had won, daily the breaches closed and the English fire grew hotter.
April gave place to May, and the artillery fire continued on the heights; but, as it grew noisier it grew also less important, for now the eyes of both commanders were fastened on the river. Two fleets were racing for Quebec, and she would belong to the first to drop anchor within her now navigable river.
Then came a day when, as Murray sat brooding by the fire in his quarters in St. Louis Street, an officer ran in with the news of a ship of war in the Basin, beating up towards the city. "Whatever she is," said the General, "we will hoist our colours." Weather had frayed out the halliards on the flagstaff over Cape Diamond, but a sailor climbed the pole and lashed the British colours beneath the truck. By this time men and officers in a mob had gathered on the ramparts of the Château St. Louis, all straining their eyes at a frigate fetching up close-hauled against the wind.
Her colours ran aloft; but they were bent, sailor-fashion, in a tight bundle, ready to be broken out when they reached the top-gallant masthead.
An officer, looking through a glass, cried out nervously that the bundle was white. But this they knew without telling. Only—what would the flag carry on its white ground? The red cross? or the golden fleurs-de-lys?
The halliards shook; the folds flew broad to the wind; and, with a gasp, men leaped on the ramparts—flung their hats in the air and cheered—dropped, sobbing, on their knees.
It was the red cross of England.
They were cheering yet and shouting themselves hoarse when theLowestoffefrigate dropped anchor and saluted with all her twenty-four guns. On the heights the French guns answered spitefully. Lévis would not believe. He had brought his artillery at length into position, and began to knock the defences vigorously. He lingered until the battleshipVanguardand the frigateDianecame sailing up into harbour; until theVanguard, pressing on with theLowestoffe, took or burned the vessels which had brought his artillery down from Montreal. Then, in the night, he decamped, leaving his siege-train, baggage, and sick men behind him. News of his retreat reached Murray at nightfall, and soon the English guns were bowling round-shot after him in the dusk across the Plains of Abraham; but by daybreak, when Murray pushed out after him, to fall on his rear, he had hurried his columns out of reach.
Three months had passed since the flying of the signal from theLowestoffe, and now in the early days of August three British armies were moving slowly upon Montreal, where Lévis and Governor Vaudreuil had drawn the main French forces together for a last resistance.
Murray came up the river from Quebec with twenty-four hundred men, in thirty-two vessels and a fleet of boats in company; followed by Lord Rollo with thirteen hundred men drawn off from dismantled Louisbourg. As the ships tacked up the river, with their floating batteries ranged in line to protect the advance, bodies of French troops followed them along the shore—regiments of white-coated infantry and horsemen in blue jackets faced with scarlet. Bourlamaque watched from the southern shore, Dumas from the northern. But neither dared to attack; and day after day through the lovely weather, past fields and settlements and woodlands, between banks which narrowed until from deck one could listen to the song of birds on either hand and catch the wafted scent of wild flowers, the British wound their way to Isle Sainte-Therese below Montreal, encamped, and waited for their comrades.
From the south came Haviland. He brought thirty-four hundred regulars, provincials, and Indians from Crown Point on Lake Champlain, and moved down the Richelieu, driving Bougainville before him.
Last, descending from the west by the gate of the Great Lakes, came the Commander in Chief, the cautious Amherst, with eighteen hundred soldiers and Indians and over eight hundred bateaux and whale-boats. He had gathered them at Oswego in July, and now in the second week of August had crossed the lake to its outlet, threaded the channels of the Thousand Islands, and was bearing down on the broad river towards Fort Amitié.
And how did it stand with Fort Amitié?
Well, to begin with, the Commandant was thoroughly perplexed. The British must be near; by latest reports they had reached the Thousand Islands; even hours were becoming precious, and yet most unaccountably the reinforcements had not arrivéd!
What could M. de Vaudreuil be dreaming of? Already the great Indian leader, Saint-Luc de la Come, had reached Coteau du Lac with a strong force of militia. Dominique Guyon had been sent down with an urgent message of inquiry. But what had been La Corne's answer? "I know not what M. de Vaudreuil intends. My business is to stay here and watch the rapids."
"Now what can be the meaning of that?" the Commandant demanded of his brother.
M. Etienne shook his head pensively. "Rusticus expectat… I should have supposed the rapids to stand in no danger."
"Had the Governor sent word to abandon the Fort, I might have understood. It would have been the bitterest blow of my life—"
"Yes, yes, brother," M. Etienne murmured in sympathy.
"But to leave us here without a word! No; it is impossible. Theymustbe on their way!"
In the strength of this confidence Dominique and Bateese had been dispatched down the river again to meet the reinforcements and hurry them forward.
Dominique and Bateese had been absent for a week now on this errand. Still no relief-boats hove in sight, and the British were coming down through the Thousand Islands.
Save in one respect the appearance of the Fort had not changed since the evening of John à Cleeve's dismissal. The garrison cows still graced along the river-bank, and in the clearing under the eastern wall the Indian corn was ripe for harvest (M. Etienne suggested reaping it; the labour, he urged, would soothe everyone's nerves). Only on Sans Quartier's cabbage-patch the lunette now stood complete. All thehabitantsof Boisveyrac had been brought up to labour in its erection, building it to the height of ten feet, with an abattis of trees in front and a raised platform within for the riflemen. Day after day the garrison manned it and burned powder in defence against imaginary assaults, and by this time the Commandant and Sergeant Bédard between them had discussed and provided against every possible mode of attack.
Diane stood in the dawn on theterre-pleinof the river-wall. The latest news of the British had arrivéd but a few hours since, with a boatload of fugitives from the upstream mission-house of La Galette, off which an armed brig lay moored with ten cannon and one hundred men to check the advance of the flotilla. It could do no more.
The fugitives included Father Launoy, and he had landed and begged Diane to take his place in the crowded boat. For himself (he said) he would stay and help to serve out ammunition to Fort Amitié—that was, if the Commandant meant to resist.
"Do you suppose, then, that I would retire?" the Commandant asked with indignation.
"It may be possible to do neither," suggested Father Launoy.
But this the Commandant could by no means understand. It seemed to him that either he must be losing his wits or the whole of New France, from M. de Vaudreuil down, was banded in a league of folly. "Resist? Of course I shall resist! My men are few enough, Father; but I beg you to dismiss the notion that Fort Amitié is garrisoned by cowards."
"I will stay with you then," said the Jesuit. "I may be useful, in many ways. But mademoiselle will take my place in the boat and escape to Montreal."
"I also stay," answered Diane simply.
"Excuse me, but there is like to be serious work. They bring the Iroquois with them, besides Indians from the West." Father Launoy spoke as one reasoning with a child.
Diane drew a small pistol from her bodice. "I have thought of that, you see."
"But M. de Noël—" He swung round upon the Commandant, expostulating.
"In a few hours," said the Commandant, meeting his eyes with a smile, "New France will have ceased to be. I have no authority to force my child to endure what I cannot endure myself. She has claimed a promise of me, and I have given it."
The priest stepped back a pace, wondering. Swiftly before him passed a vision of the Intendant's palace at Quebec, with its women and riot and rottenness. His hand went up to his eyes, and under the shade of it he looked upon father and daughter—this pair of the oldnoblesse, clean, comely, ready for the sacrifice. What had New France done for these that they were cheerful to die for her? She had doled them out poverty, and now, in the end, betrayal; she had neglected her children for aliens, she had taken their revenues to feed extortioners and wantons, and now in the supreme act of treachery, herself falling with them, she turned too late to read in their eyes a divine and damning love. There all the while she had lived—the true New France, loyally trusted, innocently worshipped. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."… Father Launoy lowered his gaze to the floor. He had looked and learned why some nations fall and others worthily endure.
All that night the garrison had slept by their arms, until with the first streak of day the drums called them out to their alarm-post.
Diane stood on theterre-pleinwatching the sunrise. As yet the river lay indistinct, a broad wan-coloured band of light stretching away across the darkness. The outwork on the slope beneath her was a formless shadow astir with smaller shadows equally formless. She heard the tread of feet on the wooden platform, the clink of side-arms and accoutrements, the soft thud of ramrods, the voice of old Bédard, peevish and grumbling as usual.
Her face, turned to the revealing dawn, was like and yet curiously unlike the face into which John à Cleeve had looked and taken his dismissal; a woman's face now, serener than of old and thoughtfuller. These two years had lengthened it to a perfect oval, adding a touch of strength to the brow, a touch of decision to the chin; and, lest these should overweight it, had removed from the eyes their clouded trouble and left them clear to the depths. The elfin Diane, the small woodland-haunting Indian, no longer looked forth from those windows; no search might find her captive shadow behind them. She had died young, or had faded away perhaps and escaped back to her native forests.
But she is not all forgotten, this lost playmate. Some trick of gesture reappears as Diane lifts her face suddenly towards the flagstaff tower. The watchman there has spied something on the river, and is shouting the news from the summit.
His arm points down the river. What has he seen? "Canoes!"—the relief is at hand then! No: there is only one canoe. It comes swiftly and yet the day overtakes and passes it, spreading a causeway of light along which it shoots to the landing-quay.
Two men paddle it—Dominique and Bateese Guyon. Their faces are haggard, their eyes glassy with want of sleep, their limbs so stiff that they have to be helped ashore.
The Commandant steps forward. "What news, my children?" he asks. His voice is studiously cheerful.
Dominique shakes his head.
"There is no relief, Monseigneur."
"You have met none, you mean?"
"None is coming, Monseigneur. We have heard it in Montreal."