The letter sent with this was found sealed and bearing your name and address in the room where Roger died yesterday. He had spoken of you so often that I came almost to know you. That is why I am writing this note; you were his friend, and one so noble as he must have noble friends. I thought for a moment I would ask you to let me read the letter; but I could not bear to see it and know that it was his last, and written to another.—The trouble was his heart. Will you be present? I cannot write any more for crying.
Said Doris: “You are just as I pictured you. May I call you just Anne? How long they prayed! I did not know you would come. I could not think who you were, standing beside his grave so beautiful and tearless. I could not see well for weeping, and the wind was cold, and my head ached. Oh, the wan face! The black clothes—I did not like the black. I wanted to lie down there with him and be covered up. The clay was so cold and wet. Oh, how cold my heart grew! Did you think they prayed long? I was so cold!”
“I have never been told how he died,” said Anne.
“I entered the library, where he was waiting for me,” Doris replied. “It was near twilight. He sat by the window, looking out. When I came in he turned and his face was pale. The room was cold. The fire had gone out. I never saw him pale before; I was frightened and cried out. He came to re-assure me, and his face was so pale! He looked at me long and anxiously—so anxiously. I did not understand this look, it was so strange. It hurt me because I did not understand it. Now I know it was physical suffering. He went back to the window and sank into his chair. ‘Are you not ill?’ I asked. He answered, ‘A little,’ and added, ‘It will pass.’ But he did not speak at all or touch me, and when I stroked his forehead he leaned suddenly forward, his face in his arms, on the window-sill, and would not answer me. I ran out to tell them he was ill. When the doctor came I was told he was dead. They gave me his letter to send you, and tell you.”
“You do not wish,” said Anne, “to read the letter?”
Doris did not reply.
“It would make you less able to realize that he is—gone,” said Anne, gently.
“Yes,” said Doris, “and then it was to you,—not me.”
The other’s face was suffused with tender pity. She spoke impulsively, and yet with a timorous boldness, as one who ventures upon hazardous and novel ways:—
“Doris, he loved you with all his heart!”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“He spoke of you so often, Anne. We shall always be friends.”
“Yes, always.”
“You are sure he loved me so?” The girl’s mouth tremored at the corners. “He did not tell me often enough.”
“He loved you dearly,” said Anne.
“Ah, if you knew what sweet comfort you give! You are sure?—quite sure?”
“He loved you with all his heart,” repeated Anne.
“I will go, Anne. I thank you so much! I think I can weep again, now. For a while, goodbye. Give me both your hands, and kiss me.”
THE November day was drawing to a close. The shadows were deepening in the pine forest that lay on one side of the sandy road. On the other side, the corn-stalks stood in level rows against the yellow of the sunset. My horse limped painfully, for he had cast a shoe several hours since, and my hurried ride through a thinly inhabited part of lower Maryland, with which I was unfamiliar, had so far brought me near no blacksmith’s shop. Great, then, was my relief, on passing the wood, to find a three-cross-roads, and a small house with a shed from which rang the measured stroke of the anvil, while the square of the door was ruddy with the forge fire.
After calling loudly and waiting in vain for a reply, I dismounted. Just then the blacksmith came to the door,—a big, low-browed, long-haired fellow, of few words. After examining my horse’s feet, he announced that it would be necessary to replace not only the missing shoe, but also three others.
As he proceeded slowly to work, I saw that there was before me the prospect of a long wait which did not promise to be agreeable, for the man was either surly or stupid, and gave out monosyllabic replies in answer to my questions about the country. A dreary country it was, that through which I was passing,—flat, sandy, impoverished, the virtue having been tilled out of the soil for two hundred years. Now that the old landed proprietors had departed to the cities, the majority of the inhabitants were miserable poor whites and negroes, principally fishermen and oystermen. Here and there one came across a relic of the past,—an old manor-house, ruined or deserted, the property generally of one man, a former overseer, who seemed to own most of the country.
And yet there was a charm of the past over this low-lying land,—a blaze of glory in the west, reflected in the broad river that almost lapped the roots of the huge pine forests that grew along its banks.
As I stood at the door of the smithy, looking eastward, I could see only one exception to this sombre monotony of pines. On the roadside, in the middle of a dense sweep of meadows, entirely isolated, stood a huge oak-tree, the only one of its kind to be seen for miles around.
“That must be a pretty old tree,” I remarked.
“The Dead Oak? Many a hundred years old, I reckon.”
“It doesn’t look dead to me,” I answered; “it has a dense foliage.”
“That’s what they call it,—the Dead Oak. A man hung himself to it three years ago,” said the smith, with some show of animation.
“One of the neighborhood?”
“No; a stranger round here. Nobody ever could find out where he come from,—Washington likely. The niggers say it’s ha’nted.”
“How is that?” I asked, much interested.
“Don’t know; just ha’nted,” said the man gruffly, relapsing into silence amid a fire of sparks.
Leaving my taciturn companion, I sauntered down to the road, my steps turning intuitively in the direction of the old tree.
A chill wind came from the river, and a flight of crows with harsh cries arose from its branches, as it stood, the central landmark in the stretch of meadows. On one side of the road was a zigzag rail fence, and on the topmost rail of this, under the tree, I seated myself. The lowest branches almost touched my head, and the dry and dense foliage rustled with every breeze.
Just beyond were two wooden posts, the entrance of a carriage-way leading through a corn-field to what I had not noticed before, a large house far back from the road. As I sat there, facing the afterglow of the sunset, I became aware of the figure of an old negro coming slowly through the corn-rows, through the gate,—a bent negro with bushy white hair. Taking off his rabbit-skin cap, with a courtly bow he seated himself on the roots of the tree.
For some moments we sat there in silence, the old man, with his hands folded, gazing into the west.
“Good evening, uncle,” I ventured to remark. “Do you live near here?”
“Not far away,—up dat a-way,” waving his hand indefinitely in the direction of the shadowy mansion.
“Have you lived here long?” I asked.
“Many an’ many a year,” he responded wearily. “Ebber sence I cum inter de world. I belonged to Mars’ Brooke up yonder.”
“Then you must know about the man who hung himself here three years ago?”
“He war n’t no man,” said the old darky sternly. “He wuz first quality, my young gen’leman. I ought ter know, kase I buried him bofe times.”
At these words, suddenly a thrill ran over me, a sense of mystery, something accursed brooding over this desolate spot.
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Who was he?”
“Befo’ de Lord, boss, I don’ know, an’ nobody else does. It came about dis ‘er’ way: De first time wuz years an’ years ago. Dar wuz good times in de country den. De quality had n’t all gone away an’ sol’ de ole places to oberseers an’ po’ white trash. Mars’ Harry Brooke wuz keepin’ bachelor’s hall up dar, an’ many’s de high ol’ times and junketings dey had. Well, one night dey had a gran’ time, a-drinkin’ an’ a-carryin’ on, he an’ de udder young gemlemens.‘Bout day de party bruk up, kase de wuz sober enuff den ter ride home. I wuz a young chap den, an’ I wuz runnin’ on in front ter open de gate, bar’footed, from de door, kase it war hot weather den, like Injum summer. When I open’ de gate I scrich out ‘O Gord!’ an’ I like ter fall ter de groun’, kase dar, wid his face all white an’ orful ‘gainst de red leabes, a-lookin’ me right in de eyes, wuz a man tied to der branch, wid a white han’chif aroun’ his neck. It didn’t take me long ter jump fo’ward an’ take him down, an’ when de gemlemen rid up dar he wuz a-lyin’ on de groun’ an’ me a-settin’ right hyar on dis same stump wid his curly head on my knees. He war n’t quite dead an’ his han’ kotch mine, an’ his beautiful brown eyes closed a minute, an’ he gasped like an’ died. All de gemlemen dat came up an’ stan’ ‘roun’, dey say dey nebber see any one so handsom’ ez my young man wuz, jes like one er de marble statues in de parlor, wid a eagle nose, an’ a mouth many a young lady must ‘a’ kissed. But dose days wuz ober fur him far ebber,—yes, mon.
“De quarest thing wuz, he didn’t hab nuthin’ on but a shirt, an’ dat wuz de fines’ quality, real linin, embroidered, but no mark or sign on it ter tell whar he cum from. Nobody ain’t nebber seed him befo’ in dis part ob de kentry. Mars’ Harry sont all ober the kentry, clar up ter Washin’ton an’ Baltimor’, but nobody cum fo’ward ter claim him, so he wuz buried. De parson say he can’t be buried in de cons’crated groun’, kus he mus’ ‘a’ kill hisself, so me an’ anudder man buried him in de medder, under dis tree, right nigh whar you is a-settin’.”
The old man’s narrative ran on monotonously. It seemed as natural, as much a part of the scene, as the croaking of the frogs in the deepening twilight, in which it seemed that I could almost see that white face with its aquiline nose and large brown eyes.
“Dat wuz long ago, long ago,” the old man resumed, “long ago. De War come an’ went, an’ Mars’ Harry wuz killed, an’ de firs’ people lef’ de kentry and de kentry wuz like new-made sod, dirt up’ards; but I nebber fo’got my young gemleman, real quality, hangin’ hyar in dis tree, away from all his people. Well, boss, many years parse, an’ Mars’ Harry’s oberseer done bought de ole place up dar. One night ‘bout three years ago dey gib one er dese hyar big abricultural suppers, an’ dey set dare all night eatin’ an’ drinkin’ like dere betters used ter do. It wuz de same time er year, but misty an’ damp an’ in de early mornin’ I wuz comin’ long de road an’ I see a crowd gaddered aroun’ de tree, jus’ like it wuz dat udder mornin’ long time ago. When I come up, boss, for Gord! dar wuz my young, beautiful gemleman a-lyin’ on de groun’, stiff an’ stark, in his shirt, wid dat hankerchief ‘roun’ his neck. I wuz glad ter see him ag’in, but he war n’t nearly alive, like he wuz befo’. De doctor wuz dere, an’ he felt him an’ he say, ‘Dis man bin dead fo’ days. Who has hang dis corpse to dis tree? Who is de man?’ Jes’ like dey say befo’, ‘Who is de man?’ Nobody remember’ him ‘cept’n’ me. De ole crowd dat wuz dere befor’, de quality, dey all parsed ‘way, what wid de War an’ one thing ur nudder, all gone but me. But I nebber said nuthin’ ter be called ole crazy nigger,—no, mon. Dare he wuz, shore ‘nuff, de same eagle nose an’ brown eyes an’ curls, de same leetle scratch, like de razor done scratch him on de chin. I knowed him, an’ I cyarried him; none er dem common folks ain’t fetched him. Dey abertised eberywhar, but nobody ain’t answer.‘’Case dey can’t. Dey war n’t nobody lef’ ter answer ‘cept me,” and the old man gave an eerie chuckle. “De doctors an’ de lawyers talk it all ober, but dey cay n’t agree, an’ de parson, one er dese hyar new kind, he say he kin be buried in de churchyard, but de people make a fuss, kase he mought er bin a su’cide. So I helped bury him ag’in. Seems like I wuz specially ‘pinted ter be his body-sarvant; dis time it’s right outside de churchyard, an’ nobody don’t know it’s him but me, kase dey all passed away.”
A pale, watery moon had emerged, the wind soughed among the pine-trees, and away off an owl hooted.
“De nex’ time I’s gwine to bury him right in de churchyard. He gwine ter come once mo’, an’ I ain’t gwine ter die till den, an’ dat time he’s gwine ter be buried in de churchyard, and he won’t come no mo’, an’ den I’ll pass away.”
A shout came through the dusk from the smithy:
“Say, mister, come; here’s your horse.” The other words were indistinguishable. I arose and started up the road reluctantly, longing to know more of the mystery. The old man again removed his cap, and so I left him, motionless, seated in the shadows, facing the faint glow in the west. My horse was ready when I reached the forge, the blacksmith standing dark and massive in the doorway. “An old negro has just been telling me a remarkable story,” I said after mounting; “that there have been two suicides found hanging to the old oak, one long ago.”
“Can’t say,” answered the blacksmith, impassively and stolidly. “Ain’t lived here very long myself. Always been called the ‘Dead Oak’ ever since I knowed it.”
“Well, do you know an old negro with a bushy white head and beard, who lives near the Brooke House? Who is he?”
“Might be old Sam, or Lige, or Cash. Lots of ‘em round here,” answered the man, and that was all he would say.
I mounted and rode off rapidly, for there were still six hours of travel before reaching my destination.
The moonlight was faint and chill, silvering the dry foliage of the old tree. I drew rein under it, and peered vainly into the shadows for the darker outlines of the old negro; he had disappeared, but it seemed to me he was still present, sitting on the gnarled root, with the pallid face of that young old corpse against his knee, waiting.
The owl hooted. A faint light shone from the dim mansion in the fields, and I pressed on through a belt of low pines. When some distance on my way I turned and looked back. The glow of the smithy was hidden. All the low stretch of land was folded in twilight, and against the pale sky the Dead Oak stood spectral and alone.
Twas a stormy evening of March, 1611. All day snow had fallen in a white whirlwind on Port Royal, winning one by one its points of vantage, and submerging each in turn relentlessly, till now the tiny colony had almost vanished in the drifts.
Signs of outline there were none. The great stone gateway at the southeast, carven above with the fleur-de-lis, was dim and shapeless even to the sentry in the guard-room beside it; the bastion to the southwest, its four cannon quite buried, melted vaguely into the darkness. Snow lay everywhere. The gabled houses were turned into white misshapen monsters, and strange fantastic mounds stretched across the Square. Even the flag of France in the centre, beneath which the Seigneur of Port Royal stood each year to greet his vassals, had suffered with the rest, the wind having wrapped it tightly about its staff, and the interminable flakes blotted out its lilies.
It was ten by the clock, and the colonists long since abed, so that, save for the blink of the sentry’s candle, a stranger passing by the guard-room would have seen no sign of life. But that was only because a giant drift hid the great hall of the seigneurie from sight, for there a few of them were still awake and drinking deep, in honor of the coming to Acadie of the Duc de Montpelier, cousin of the king.
Within the long wainscoted room, Poutrincourt, Seigneur of Port Royal, sat musing before a huge log fire, with his thin white hands spread out to the mellow heat. His face, delicately contoured and crossed by many lines, gleamed with a ruddy hue while the flames roared up the high-arched chimney; when they sank low again, it had the likeness of an ashen mask against the blackness of his silken doublet. He was clad entirely in black, even to his ruffles. His head was sunken on his breast. And thus he sat gazing at the fire, his shadow on the wall behind keeping time grotesquely to the leaping flames.
To his left Marc Lescarbot, the poet of the colony, listened across a bowl of muscat to one of Imbert’s endless stories. He was tall and thin, with dreamy gray eyes; there were girlish dimples on his cheeks.
Just now, however, his face was flushed and his fingers played nervously about his girdle, for Imbert, after a fashion of his own, was emphasizing the narrative with reckless flourishings of his naked sword. But even then, with the point almost upon his breast, Monsieur Lescarbot by no means lost his urbanity, for his smile, albeit a trifle anxious, was still most wondrous sweet. As for Imbert, the story he was telling had excited him beyond control. It was as if his wild sea-roving days had returned. His black eyes flashed fiercely from out his red, scarred face; his rubicund lips were protruded; his massive left hand was twined in the coarse black hair that overhung his forehead. As the firelight danced athwart him he seemed to Lescarbot, always fanciful, much like the gods on the bowls of the Indian lobster-claw pipes, so broad was his short, squat body and so flaming red his face.
On the right at a small table the Seigneur’s son, Biencourt, and the Duc de Montpelier played at dice; the one eagerly, as if mindful of his growing pile of pistoles, the other in listless unconcern. And this difference the appearance of the two enhanced, for while Biencourt was tall, blue-eyed, and smooth and fresh of face, the duc was short and dark, with glittering black eyes and a pale, wearied countenance. And whereas Biencourt was bravely dressed in doublet and hose of soft blue satin, the duc wore a black velvet that harmonized sombrely with his paleness and his listlessness. He had but that day reached Acadie from France, yet the sight of the forest life about him, the fur-clad lackeys and strange Indian relics, seemed scarcely to stir his pulses. Instead he sat in silence by the table, carelessly toying with his white, ringed hands.
The round ended and Biencourt swept in his gains. “Doubles?” he cried.
The duc nodded and pushed forward his stake.
“It was then the English came aboard us, Monsieur Lescarbot,” roared Imbert, waving his sword, “and I leave you to judge how fierce the fighting was with half our men already dead. The deck was a red shambles, and in the midst stood Pierre Euston, blood from head to heel.”
“It is worthy of a ballad,” murmured his hearer.
The duc shivered and drew nearer the fire. “Do ballads flourish in this frozen land?” he asked, with a languid lift of his black eyebrows.
Poutrincourt started from his reverie. “Lescarbot is a famous poet, monsieur le duc. For a ballad or love-song I know few to equal him.”
A blush reddened the poet’s dimpled cheeks. “The wilderness is full of subjects,” said he, modestly.
The wind was rising higher and the stout oaken door rattled clamorously to the white gusts. His highness the Duc de Montpelier shivered again and looked about him somewhat curiously at the quaintly carven doors and the bearskins and heads of deer that hung upon the dark wainscoted walls.
“It was then I came up from the lower deck,” went on Imbert, “and side by side Pierre Euston and I charged together. Ah! Pierre was a brave fighter in those days, I warrant you, and together we swept the decks before us. And droll enough work it was, with the wounded dogs of English laying their swords about our heels as we passed.”
“It was scoundrelly work,” broke in Biencourt, balancing his dice-box on his fingers. “Nothing would please me better than a meeting with this droll gentleman, this Pierre Euston.”
Half seriously, half amusedly, the quondam pirate shrugged his great shoulders. “Tush! I was but a lad,” he said in a tone of apology, “and I took no share beyond the fighting.”
The dicing went on. The duc threw and lost again and impassively as ever filled his silver flagon from the pitcher on the long oaken table behind him. “To your next ballad, Monsieur Lescarbot,” he said, politely. But the wine was scarce half way to his lips ere there came a strange interruption. The door opened slowly from without, and a woman entered, an infant in her arms.
In after years, when alone with Imbert in the ruined fort, that scene came back to Biencourt with startling vividness. Once again he beheld the long room dyed red in the glow of the fire; once more he saw them as they started to their feet and stood staring blankly at the stranger. And much cause was there to stare, for women in Port Royal this winter there were none,—least of all grand ladies, such as each movement showed this to be,—while beyond the fort lay naught but a savage, unbroken wilderness. And Biencourt remembered standing thus while one might slowly count ten.
The duc was the first to speak. “You are cold, madame,” he said softly. “You must drink some wine.” And, flagon in hand, he approached her.
But the newcomer, who was blue-eyed and most marvellously fair of face, waved him curtly back. “I have come to ask shelter for myself and babe, from the lord of the seigneurie, monsieur, not to drink wine.” Then, pausing as if for breath, she stood erect beside the door, slender and lissome, a multitude of snow-flakes slowly melting in the red-gold of her hair.
For a moment Poutrincourt was silent. Idly his thoughts travelled the endless forest wastes of Acadie, snow-clad and inhospitable, where, this winter of 1611, was no white settlement beside his own. He had even passed up the great river to Quebec, where his friend Captain Samuel Champlain had three years before planted the banner of the fleur-de-lis, when with a start he became aware the woman’s eyes were fixed haughtily upon him. Then, mindful of his duty, he stepped forward, bowing low, and bade her welcome to his seigneurie of Port Royal, brushing the snow from her long fur mantle with his own white hands. And in an instant more the stranger was ensconced in a chair before the fire.
Biencourt and the duc resumed their gaming, Monsieur Lescarbot took out his tablets preparatory to verse-making, and Imbert busied himself mulling wine for the conclusion of the evening’s potations, which in Port Royal were wont to be of the deepest. But no one ventured to mar the hospitality of Port Royal with a question, and the newcomer proved more taciturn than would have been expected from the laughing curves of her lips, sitting moment after moment silent in the glow of the fire.
The wind still battered at the door and muttered angrily in the chimney, but to Biencourt the room was filled with a new light—a strange radiance that seemed to emanate from the stranger’s golden head or the crimson kirtle which she wore. He forgot his game. He watched only her drooping lashes, with a vague hope that soon she might raise them. And as he watched, the pile of money before him lessened rapidly.
“I fear you bring me ill-luck, madame,” he cried at last, ruefully smiling toward her. “These pistoles have a sorry trick of vanishing since you came.”
The stranger raised her lashes, as he had hoped.
She smiled back responsively, and her eyes caught an amber light from the leaping flames. “Would you turn me into the night again?” she asked, jestingly, yet with a strange inflection in her voice as though speaking to some one far away.
Biencourt shook his head. “This may bring me fortune,” he said, in eager tones. And rising and striding to her side, he stooped down and made the sign of the cross above the baby’s forehead—a simple superstition, but evidently not to the newcomer’s liking, for she said with some hauteur, “I, monsieur, am of the reformed faith,” and leaned back coldly in her chair.
“Methinks, madame, you cannot have journeyed far,” broke in Poutrincourt, who had been staring into the fire. “Your cloak had little snow for much travel, and, besides, there was the babe.”
Madame’s face lost its haughtiness, and she smiled once more.
Poutrincourt rubbed his slender hands softly together. “All about us is the endless forest, and lo! as if by magic you appear! Are you sure there be no witchcraft in it?”
The stranger’s laugh rang through the hall, dying faintly amid the armor in the far corner. “Mayhap I sailed hither in some sea-rover from the Spanish lands, or perhaps”—and here she smiled demurely—“I hid myself in yonder vessel that this day came from France. Perchance I dared the drifts alone, or I may have bribed some of the red savages to carry me. But where’er I came from, the sentry at the gate is not to blame. The night is dark, and the snow has heaped an easy road from outside over the bastion.”
“I am waiting, Monsieur Biencourt,” broke in the duc, with an impatient glance at his opponent, who was still standing by the stranger lady’s side. There was such anger in his tone that the other men, remembering his former listlessness, glanced curiously at him.
His pale face was even paler than before; tiny drops of moisture glittered on his forehead; one hand was clenched above his winnings, in the other his dice-box trembled. “Does he love his pistoles after all?” thought the poet, pausing in his poem. The wine was mulled at last and the goblets filled. The Seigneur of Port Royal drank slowly and reflectively, in small sips, glancing alternately from the fair-haired mother to her dark-eyed, cooing child. “I have thought about your lodging, madame,” he said at last, tilting his goblet to and fro.
“Here you would have no rest, else I would give you my own apartments. This evening we are something quieter than usual, but oftener the noise of revelling disturbs the forest far into the night. The hall is full of men in leathern hunting suits, the red savages sit smoking by the fire, there is gaming and wine-drinking, and in the intervals we sing the songs of France. But without the fort, a half-mile beyond the gate, are two disused huts. One of these I give you to inhabit. And that you suffer insult from none, a protector shall go with you, who shall answer for your honor with his own. There be two huts, and each shall have one. But this night you will lodge here.”
The stranger leaned forward. Her slender fingers touched his arm. “You have forgotten to name the one who is to guard me,” she said hastily, a curious thrill vibrating through her voice.
The Seigneur pointed at Biencourt, and her face, which had seemed strained and eager, relaxed again. “We shall be brave allies, shall we not?” she cried, turning her blue eyes toward him. Biencourt laughed. “None better,” he responded in great good-humor.
The storm was growing fiercer as the night went on. The door rattled more noisily, and the flames in the great chimney waved to and fro in the sudden gusts. The space on the other side of the table, feebly lit by two candles in brazen candlesticks, became a battleground of shadows from the group before the fire. The stranger lady, seeming not to mind the storm, looked dreamily about her at the strange antlers on the walls, and at the motto of the lords of Port Royal, carved above the oaken mantel, shielding her baby’s face the while from the glare of the flames. Presently her eyes met Biencourt’s.
“You are brave; is it not so?” she asked, with a laugh and a toss of her head that spread her golden hair in sunshine over her shoulders.
Imbert answered in his place. “Very brave, and a fine swordsman!” cried the old pirate, while his black eyes flashed. “All Port Royal knows the young admiral and his famous wrist-play.”
“Admiral!” Again the blue eyes looked into his, and again Biencourt had the same strange feeling, as if the speaker’s thoughts were far away, and she were merely toying with the words.
“Aye!” went on Imbert, coming nearer, and laying his monstrous hands upon the mantel, “the late King Henry made him an admiral for these waters months ere his martyrdom, and since then he has swept the freebooters from the coast.”
His highness the Duc de Montpelier leaned lazily backward in his chair, raising his black eyebrows. “So my good cousin, Henry of Navarre, chose for his admirals beardless boys!” he said very softly and very languidly.
There was an instant hush throughout the room, in which the clatter of the door rose almost to a scream. Imbert drew in his breath with a sharp, hissing sound; the poet looked up from his tablets, and Poutrincourt from the fire. These latter were just in time to see Biencourt leap to his feet and draw his sword, and almost before they understood the cause the fight had begun.
The first of the encounter was much in the duc’s favor. He fenced so strongly behind a certain affectation of disdain, and his thrusts came so subtly home, that, ere five minutes had passed, Biencourt was bleeding from a wound in his left shoulder. The duc lowered his sword and surveyed his opponent. “Are you satisfied, monsieur?” he asked placidly.
“Not yet!” cried Biencourt, angrily.
Imbert drew near and examined the wound. “A scratch!” he called, contemptuously. Then, with a warning look, he lounged back to his position by the mantel. The room was very still as the two faced each other again,—the duc, dark and pale; Biencourt, with a crimson flush upon his cheeks.
There was the same writhing of swords, the same chilly music of steel, and once again the duellists swayed to and fro. Then for the second time the duc’s sword found its mark; this time not far below the heart.
Biencourt leaned back, ashen white, upon Lescarbot’s shoulder. His blood flowed fast and his eyes were closed as if in pain. The duc himself approached and surveyed him, leaning the while a trifle wearily upon his sword, for the last bout had been a fierce one.
“It was a brave fight,” he said slowly.
At the sound of his voice Biencourt’s blue eyes opened. “Can you stay the bleeding?” he asked huskily of Imbert, who with the deftness of an old campaigner was binding a mass of soft cloths about the wound.
Imbert nodded.
“Then a moment more and I am ready.”
“But, monsieur,” the duc courteously interposed, “your wound is deep and you have already done enough for honor. Believe me you have this night shown a swordsmanship I never saw before—I who have met and conquered everymaître d’armesin France. It was but by using all my skill I touched you.”
But with the duc’s insult still rankling at his heart Biencourt was in no mood for fine speeches. “I can try once more,” he answered rather grimly, “and I warn you to be on your guard. Let no gleam of the stranger’s golden hair tempt you from your watchfulness, or ill may well betide you.”
At this the duc’s pale face flushed and he shook his head in fiercest anger. But he spoke no word. Then the two faced each other again.
Poutrincourt’s oval face was gray and haggard; Lescarbot looked on half eagerly, half sullenly; Imbert, his hands twined in his shaggy black hair, alone was imperturbable. And at one side, with head averted, the stranger leaned idly in her chair, smoothing her baby’s forehead with her hand.
This time there was no respite. The two pressed each other fiercely, their swords flashing in the candlelight like twin twining snakes. To and fro they swayed; a dozen times each saved his life as by a miracle; their breath came in quick and quicker gasps, and still they fought on. The duc’s face was now fiery red with passion, and it was evident no thought of mercy lingered in his mind. And for the first time he became uncertain of the result, for Biencourt was fighting with a dogged persistence that boded ill. Try as he would, his thrusts were parried so that presently he began half doubtfully to wonder if at last he had met his equal. And while these thoughts lingered in his mind, giving to his wounded adversary’s face a look of pale foreboding, the infant in the stranger’s arms began crying shrilly. For an instant the duc glanced hastily toward the chair in which she sat, his guard failed, and Biencourt, fainting from loss of blood, ran him through the chest.
It was months ere Biencourt and the Duc de Montpelier met again. Then one June afternoon, when Acadie lay in a yellow swoon, the duc appeared before the two solitary huts, leaning heavily on a stick.
“We shall not quarrel again, I hope,” he said gayly, bowing to Biencourt, who was lounging in the shadow of the forest. “Of a truth I have no mind to stay longer in bed. And I have come, monsieur, both to make amends for my discourtesy on the evening of our meeting, and to beg the honor of your friendship.”
And having thus spoken, he bowed low again and waited, a short yet stately figure set against a background of deep green spruce. But his face, as Biencourt sprang forward to grasp his hand, showed haggard and drawn as if through pain.
This was the beginning of a strange friendship. Lescarbot had turned the duel into a ballad of Homeric proportions, variegated here and there with choice allusions to the “listless lady by the fire.” This the two read together, seated side by side on a rustic seat Imbert had arranged in the shadow—all except the ending, which the poet, despite his skill, had not yet been able to fashion to his mind. Beneath them the bay sparkled in the sunshine; to the right lay the fort, with its gleaming cannon; in the distance a purple mountain ridge reared itself softly against the sky. Of this scene the duc seemed never to weary. Morning after morning he lounged for hours on the rustic seat, idly drinking in its beauty. It was at the second of these meetings he asked Bien-court about his charge.
“You have no trouble with these Port Royal gallants?” he queried.
Biencourt shook his head.
“And how does madame—Manette, the Seigneur told me was her name—how does madame relish her forest life?”
“She is thinner and her cheeks are pale. Since her child died, I fear she grieves.”
For a time the duc sat silent, carelessly digging with his scabbard in the moist, black earth. “One may not see her?” he said at last, doubtfully.
“Why not? Without doubt you will respect her honor, and she seems lonely.”
On the duc’s lips a faint smile trembled. For a moment he seemed about to laugh. But he only repeated, “So she seems lonely.”
Biencourt rose and knocked at the door of the adjoining hut. “Does madame please to walk?” he called.
There was a reply from within, inaudible to the duc’s ears, and in another moment the stranger lady, whose plain name of Madame Manette ill consorted with her stately air, appeared equipped for walking. The duc sauntered near.
“Madame Manette,” said Biencourt, “I have the honor to present to your notice his highness Monsieur le Duc de Montpelier.”
The duc’s plumed hat swept the earth in greeting. “Methinks the climate suits us strangers ill,” he said, gayly. “From your face it steals the roses; me it hinders too long of recovery.”
Madame Manette shrugged her fine shoulders. “Are you in danger?” she asked politely. The subject was evidently uninteresting.
The duc shook his head and smiled. His black eyes were full of a strange light, and his lips quivered so that Biencourt, watching him, feared he might be in danger of overtaxing his new-found strength. Then the three set out through the forest, loitering along quaint footpaths brown with fallen pine needles, or stooping to gather wild flowers in the shelter of anciently bearded trees, where was naught but primeval stillness.
The walk that day, however, was a short one, for Madame Manette was weary, so that presently they found themselves again before the log hut, with its thatched roof and mossy walls. Vines of Imbert’s planting were beginning to twine about the doorway, and in the air floated the dreamy scent of bursting pine buds. A half mile in the distance the four cannon on the bastion of Port Royal flashed brightly in the sunshine, and the flag of France flaunted civilization and progress in the face of the hoary forest; in a neighboring glade the conical wigwams of an Indian camp stood brown and lonely in the shadow.
At the doorway Madame Manette paused a moment before saying adieu; and as she leaned listlessly against the door, with her eyes fixed on the distant fort, the duc asked a question.
“Your baby!” he cried, abruptly; “where may its grave be?”
Madame Manette’s blue eyes were scanning the great stone gateway, and for a moment it seemed she had not heard. Then, without turning her head, she said slowly: “It is buried where you stand. Your feet, monsieur, are above its heart.”
Her questioner moved hastily aside, a deep pallor on his cheeks, and Madame Manette went on calmly: “It was my own choice it should lie there; and my feet, passing over it each day, do but make it rest the sweeter.” Then, bowing slightly, she retired within.
Next day the duc joined in the walk again, and on many succeeding days, which was very natural, since he and Biencourt were constantly together. Indeed, now that he had shaken off his listlessness, he had become a most fascinating companion. To Biencourt he talked for hours of the court and its affairs; Imbert he held under a respectful spell with stories of his campaigns in the frozen north, where men perished by squadrons in the snowstorms. But his fascinations could hardly be said to extend to Madame Manette, who treated him throughout with a certain chilling disdain. His remarks she answered in monosyllables; the flowers he gave her she languidly let fall ere five minutes had passed. But, without a sign of discomfiture, he next day gathered more and talked on, unconcerned. Very frequently, too, he made excuses to speak to her alone, when the morning stroll was ended, and before she had entered the hut. On these occasions, which generally ended in her abrupt withdrawal, he betrayed a curious dread of stepping upon the unmarked grave, standing always much to one side.
The summer waxed and waned upon the hillside, dying day by day in blood-red spots among the hardwood trees, and still Madame Manette lingered in Acadie. Her seclusion was more rigid than before; it might be that she was thinner, but that was all. At intervals, as vessels left for France, the Seigneur called to offer her passage home, which each time she smilingly refused, accompanying her refusal, however, with such liberal gifts to the colony’s poor as sent Poutrincourt away in a maze of wonder. She took pleasure in her seclusion, she told Biencourt one day, when they were for an instant alone, and in their daily ramblings through the forest. It had been a strange experience, this summer on the very skirt of savagery, and her baby’s grave had bound her to the place. But with the first snow she would return to France. And so time went on.
But after many mornings, there at length chanced one when Madame Manette was indisposed, and there was no walking. Next day the same thing happened, to the evident annoyance of the duc, who paced for hours up and down before her door. On the succeeding morning, however, she appeared again, looking very white and frail. She declined to walk, on account of weariness, and spent an hour idly in the rustic chair.
“You are weak, madame,” cried Biencourt, eagerly, as they walked back to her hut. “You need aid. Indeed, you seem to grow ever frailer and more weary.”
Madame Manette turned on the threshold of her domains and surveyed her two escorts with deliberation. There was a faint shadowy smile upon her lips, and her marvellous hair lay in a golden blaze against the white hollow of her cheeks. “He dreams—does he not?” she asked, addressing the duc.
“I fear his dreams are true.” And Biencourt, glancing at him, thought he had never looked so ghastly since his wound. His lips were aquiver and his words came from them with a strange tremor.
But Madame Manette shook her head. “You are both over anxious,” she said lightly, though even as she spoke her voice faltered wearily. Then, with a bow and a glance at some wild-fowl flying near, she closed the door behind her, leaving the two gazing at each other with a mute, fearful questioning.
That night Biencourt chanced to be favored by a visit from Lescarbot. The poet had been wandering about the forest, vainly striving to fashion an ending to his famous ballad, and was consequently in a state of great depression. His figure drooped; his gray eyes stared moodily before him. And thus for hours he sat, while the moon rose above the trees and paled the solitary candle with her rays.
“There will never be an end,” he cried at last, rising pettishly and flinging the door open wide. “For months have I thought upon it—the wild storm, the dicing, the newcomer, and the duel—and each time I reel back, baffled like a child at the entrance of a gloomy forest. For who can paint the motive that daily forms itself beneath his gaze? And here is that which came perhaps from far.”
Monsieur Lescarbot’s troubled face relaxed. His analysis evidently pleased him well, for he stepped briskly into the moonlight flung across the doorway.
Biencourt made no answer. He was busy with a long epistle, which a vessel on the morrow would carry to a certain black-eyed maid of honor at the court of France, and scarcely heeded what the poet said.
“From far! Who knows how far?” Lescar-bot went on dreamily. “Perchance from the royal”—here he paused and crossed himself hastily, as heavy footsteps sounded near by. They came nearer still, and the poet drew in from the doorway, falling upon his knees in prayer. Biencourt sprang in wonder to his feet, and there, in the brilliant moonlight, a few feet from the hut, saw what had so transfigured his companion, a man bending laboriously beneath a heavy load—a load with lifeless limbs, and loose hair waving in the night wind. Then he knew, as the poet had known, it was the Duc de Montpelier with the dead form of Madame Manette upon his shoulders.
A moment only the duc paused before he staggered across the threshold, and, shivering violently, laid the body on the floor. Yet in that moment the thought of his broken trust stung Biencourt like a lash, and half unconsciously his sword flashed in the moonlight. But ere he could frame the question surging to his lips, it was answered.
The duc sank down beside the body, his left hand resting on the ashen face. “You will seek to know the meaning of the riddle,” he said mechanically, without lifting his eyes from off her rigid form. “It is very simple. She was my wife. Nay, do not start, monsieur”—as Biencourt made a gesture of amazement. “It is as I say, and this is the body of Madame la Duchesse de Montpelier, wife of a prince of the blood, and—a Huguenot. And know you not”—and here the duc spoke lower and his words came slowly, while he made the sign of the cross—“know you not the Holy Father can disannul such marriages if it be the interest of the Truth? And among all the Huguenots of France—fierce and bitter as they have been and are—is there none more relentless than the comte, her father.”
For an hour the duc spoke no word more. With his arms tightly clasped about his wife’s stiffening form, he crouched beside her on the floor. And at the table near by the two unwilling spectators sat watching.
Finally the duc spoke again, still with the same mechanical tone and with his eyes still fastened on her face. “She came to Acadie without my knowledge, by the connivance of some of her own faith at Rochelle, as she herself told me, hiring a swift trading bark that dogged our course all the way, and landed her in the darkness below the fort. And ever since our meeting here has she been most bitter to me. She gave me no reproaches. She was too proud, if you understand, but each morning her eyes rested scornfully on me, as we left her at the door. Often, too, in the evenings, would I wander about her hut, watching her shadow pass to and fro across the window. Once I tapped lightly at the door, giving a secret signal we had often idly used in France, and she bade me depart so sternly I never ventured signal more. To-night it chanced I was standing not far from the window, when suddenly I heard her fall. In an instant I was within, but Manette was already dead. And now she is dead, monsieur,” went on the duc, his eyes glittering feverishly as he tossed the golden hair caressingly to and fro, “now she is dead, she is mine again. And I will bury her this night in a secret place I last week learned of, so that alien faces shall look on her no more, and where she shall slumber by the dust of dead Indian chiefs, and near the noise of a rushing stream. For it was by a brawling brook on her father’s estate that we first met, and ever she loved its noises well.”
The rest of the night to Biencourt was always like a half-forgotten dream. Together he remembered they had borne the icy body the distance of a hundred yards, when, wearied from their recent wounds, he and the duc had come perforce to a sudden stop. It was then he had left the duc and Lescarbot with their burden, and, running to the fort, brought Imbert, yawning, to their aid. After that the journey was easy, for Imbert poised Madame Manette’s body on his giant shoulders, easily as a mother might raise her child, and mile after mile bore it on through the waving forest. Port Royal, its bastion and palisades swimming in yellow moonlight, was left behind; the forest closed over them, dark and sullen, and still they pressed on. The duc went first, leading the way without hesitation, for the path was well marked, though in shadow, and even to a stranger impossible to miss. And by this the others knew they were going to the ancient sepulchre of the Indian chiefs—a place of mysteries, where strange influences had their hiding-places.
The gray light of dawn was filtering coldly into the rocky well of sepulchre when they arrived. On all sides were niches in the walls, each niche a grave; and, drowning all voices in a hoarse clamor, a tiny stream fell thirty feet adown the rock into a murky pool below, whence a chasm in the cliff led it downward to the sea.
It was here they buried Madame Manette, erstwhile Duchesse de Montpelier, the duc praying long and fervently. And that none might look upon her face again, Imbert, going higher up the stream, changed its course by means of massive rocks, so that now and forever that brawling stream flows down across her grave. And here, with the vagrant spray falling thickly upon their faces, did the duc bind them by a fearful oath to guard his secret well from all save Poutrincourt.
Then, while the sun rose, they went slowly back to Port Royal through the lightening forest. The duc staggered weakly; his eyes were sunken; there was a grayness upon his face much like the grayness of the dead face he had looked at so long. Nor did he speak until the great gate of the fort loomed in sight, when, rousing himself as if from slumber, he said musingly, “It is the ending of—a ballad, Monsieur Lescarbot.”