Silas Upcliff groaned bitterly when he heard the Puritan's shout. Being a brave man, his spirit inclined towards lending aid to his compatriots, but being honest also, his sense of duty impelled him to observe the oath which he had made to his niggardly owner. While he was thus halting between two opinions, the three venturers left him upon the shore, the blood tingling in their veins at the prospect of a glorious death.
Penfold led the way and took command, carrying his burden of years as lightly as any man upon that coast. Striking upward from the bay, where the sailors were fighting the ice, he brought his companions to a height of three hundred feet above the sea, where the cliffs were divided by a narrow defile down which in summer coursed a stream.
"I have kept this place in mind," said the old man, when they halted at the extremity of the pass. "Here we shall make our stand."
So contracted was the way that the snow, massed heavily upon the sides, in places nearly touched. Some pines clung to the rock, hanging over the defile, straining at their rope-like roots. At these the old yeoman pointed with the order:
"Fell me two trees so that they shall fall along the pass."
The others scrambled up the cliff and cut at the snaky roots, while Penfold occupied himself below in treading the snow into a firm bed. Soon the tough pines began to crack and sway. First one crashed down, then another, and after that Upcliff came running, short of breath, into the defile, having at length made up his mind that Master Grignion must lose his ship.
"The enemy show black against the snow yonder, a hundred men if there be one," he shouted. "Tell me now, how shall I dispose my men?"
"Return to your ship, Master Skipper, and cut her free with what speed you may," replied Penfold gruffly. "We stand here to hold back the enemy so long as life remains."
"Mayhap they shall not come this way?" suggested Upcliff.
"If they do not, then are ye doubly safe. Before they can pass round you shall be away, for I know of no easy path up yonder wall, and on the south the sea guards us. See you not that they must here advance singly, and that one good fighter may hold them all at bay?"
"They have guns," said Upcliff, cocking his ear to listen to the axes ringing keenly in the bay.
"They shall not use them. The snow must drench their priming."
The skipper made a step back, but halted again.
"I cannot desert you, comrades," he said hoarsely. "My owner is also an Englishman, an alderman of London town, and, close-minded though he be, I wot he would lose his venture and his ship rather than see England shamed. Bid me call my men to the far end of this pass, and there let us stand together until the end."
"See you not that this is our affair?" replied Penfold. "We are fighting for our own hands, having blood of comrades to avenge. Go, for you do but waste your time and ours."
"Away," added Hough, pushing the skipper gently back. "The Lord being on our side, how should we be afraid? They come about us like bees, and are extinct even as the fire among the thorns, for in the name of the Lord shall we destroy them. Go, good master, and while we smite these worshippers of idols do you release your ship."
Thus compelled to observe his oath, Upcliff gave way, though with great unwillingness, and ran to the end of the pass, where his eyes were gladdened by the sight of theDartmouthriding in the black channel, dressed out in all her canvas. His sailor's heart warmed at the spectacle, but sank again when he contemplated the wide white field which still spread between the deep sea and his ship. He staggered down, blowing like a whale, and snatching an axe from the tired hands of one of his sailors wielded it furiously.
The men in the pass twisted the pine-boughs and snagged the trunks to form a rough chevaux-de-frise. Before an hour had passed they heard footfalls crushing the snow, and then Penfold smiled and rose to his feet. The old man had been resting beneath a tree.
"Comrades," he said, "I lead by the privilege of age. Not more than one can make a stand in this narrow pass. Do you ascend the cliff, one on either side, and as the enemy attempt to climb the barrier cast snow into their faces. The rest you shall leave to me."
"Out on you, old Simon," said Hough strongly. "I am younger than you by many years, and thus shall last the longer."
"You may fill this place after me," said Penfold. "But while I live I rule."
Hough was not satisfied, and the argument was only brought to an end by the sight of a cap lifting above the ridge.
"To your places," whispered Penfold, stepping quickly to the barrier.
The knight was already upon the cliff, sheltering his spare body behind a pine. He awaited the one man who, he felt assured, would not lose the opportunity of a fight, and he did not desire to risk his life until he and that man could meet.
"Captain!" called a French voice startlingly, "a barrier is thrown across the way."
"Over it," ordered the officer.
The man jumped upon the fallen trunk and threw up his hands to grasp the higher branches; but his fingers merely clutched the air, he gave a groan, and fell back, pierced through the heart by Penfold's sword, which had darted from the interlacing branches. A shout went up from the pass, which was now a struggling mass of soldiers.
"Information ever costs a man," said the officer coolly. "Storm the barrier."
Two soldiers rushed out and flung themselves upon the locked trees, jostling each other in the constricted space. A lump of snow hit the foremost between the eyes, he gasped, and would have turned, but a sword-thrust sent him to his doom, and his comrade, blinded in the self-same manner, shared his fate.
"There are men in hiding yonder," rang a voice. "The villains shelter behind the trees."
"Find me a way round," roared an angry voice, and La Salle pushed along the pass. "Are we to be held here by one man behind a fallen tree?"
"There is no way up, Excellency," said an officer, gazing up the face of the rock. "The heretics have well chosen their place."
"Send men round," shouted the priest.
A detachment was sent instantly to find a way over the cliff, while woodmen with axes went out and laid furiously upon the pines. Penfold disabled the first, but another advanced, and after him another, each unwilling to obey, but unable to hang back.
Three dead bodies were dragged out, and La Salle tried the expedient of sending his men in rapid succession against the barrier. The wet snow dashed upon their faces, one by one they dropped before that stinging sword, man after man fell back, but another always stood ready to rush into the gap, to make the attempt, and give way to someone more confident than he. Penfold's dogged old tongue counted off the strokes to the ringing of the ice-axes from the bay. The soldier-settlers came faster, each man more fierce than the last, because their blood was heated by the shame of this defeat. The old man's misty breath came streaming between the branches where his untiring sword flickered in and out.
Two at a time came the Frenchmen, until at length, profiting by a mis-stroke, a couple gained the summit of the barrier. The first to jump down fell a prey to the stout yeoman, but the second reached the ground unharmed. A shout of triumph went up, and the soldiers swarmed the obstacle.
"Excellency, the Indian woman has shown us a way over the cliff," exclaimed a voice beside La Salle. "That way, says she, we shall encounter no opposition."
"I will myself make the trial," La Salle answered. "Do you in the meantime win this pass."
"She says also that we must hasten, because these men are holding the pass while their comrades free the ship from the ice."
Penfold fought on, grim to the end, but his sword had lost its deadliness and his arm was growing numb. His comrades aided him as best they could, but they too were acting upon the defensive, because some of the more daring soldiers had scaled the slippery sides of the pass in a futile endeavour to drag them down. The old man groaned and tottered as the light failed gradually from his eyes.
"Let it be said of me," he gasped, "that I gave them half an hour."
Voices roared in his ears, like the waves of a stormy sea about to close over his head.
"Strike! He is spent. Strike him down."
There followed an onward rush. Over the old man's failing body sped the bitterness of death.
He felt a sword in his side, another in his shoulder, and at the pain he revived like an old lion, and roared and plunged forward, feeling his way with his point, until he found his striker's heart, and then he shouted with all the strength that was left:
"Stand up in my stead, comrade! I have made a good fight, and accounted for the best. They shall run before us yet. To me, comrade! Ha! St. Edward and St. George!"
With that last shout he fell, deep into the red snow, his old body spouting blood, and so died like a valiant man of Berks, with his sword fast held, and his grey head set towards the foe.
Hough hurled back a soldier, who had clambered up the cliff to dislodge him, and would have flung himself down to stop the way, when on a sudden a tall figure slid down the side opposite him, and stood immediately to defy the body of men sweeping through like an inundating wave, wielding his sword with calm, nervous strength, his keen eyes starting from a thin, brown face.
Then Hough's courage gave way, and sinking to his knees, while the enemy rushed through, he cried aloud. Death had no terror for him; but the spectacle of that cold man, whom for an instant he had seen, fighting in the raw light of the dawn, then thrown down and trodden under foot, made him shiver to the heart.
"The Lord encompasses us with the spirits of our friends," he cried, knowing that it was Jesse Woodfield who already lay hacked and bruised and buried in the snow of the defile.
The Acadians swept towards the bay, but their governor was not with them. La Salle had gone alone over the cliffs, along the way which Onawa had revealed, and he went not unseen. The Kentishman followed, searching out each footprint in the snow. Once again the priest was destined to take up the sword, before assuming the mantle of spiritual power. As he passed among the pines the loneliness of the place began to make him fear, and when he stopped with a curse, because he knew not which way to turn, he seemed to behold the sword of his dream flashing like lightning between the mitre and himself. And while halting he heard perplexing shouts, lessening, receding, and growing faint, as his men rushed down upon their foes.
Hearing those shouts Upcliff looked up from the field of ice, and his heart for an instant ceased when he saw that the enemy had gained the pass.
"Now, men of Somerset," he shouted, "let our bird fly right soon, or we shall never sight England again."
"We can do no more than our best, captain," growled the sailor Jacob Sadgrove. "My arms are near dead with work."
"Out!" cried Madeleine, sweeping forward. "Out, and make room for a woman."
She caught up the axe which the grumbler had dropped, and, lifting her brave arms, attacked the barrier of ice with never a thought of fear, until the sailor returned glumly to his work for shame.
"Only a few more yards," the deceiving girl cried, throwing back her flushed face. "Look not behind. To regard work closely is to fear it. Attack boldly, and it is done. See how the ship struggles to be free! Soon we shall fly through the open water, with the wind in our sails. Then shall you rest, and it shall delight you to remember the work."
So she called, laughing and singing at intervals, and running here and there to encourage the toilers, a faithful angel of hope, while the axes rang more strongly and the men cast side-glances towards the foe and swore breathlessly at their impotence.
"Get you aboard, lass," said Upcliff, loosening his cutlass. "Here is work for men. My lads, we shall make a good fight for country and faith, and die, if God will, like true men facing odds. Now we are taken on both sides."
He pointed to the north-west. Out of the gloom of dawn and the fog-wreaths, which ever haunt the Nova Scotian banks, sailed a full-rigged man-of-war beating against the breeze. It was the provision ship making for the settlement now that the helmsman could see to steer between the rocks.
"Nothing but a miracle can serve," quoth the skipper. "And the age of miracles is past."
"Have but faith, and the miracle shall yet be wrought," cried Madeleine, her magnificent confidence strong within her, even in that hour when a less bold spirit would have seen the doors of a heretic's prison reopening. "God shall yet make a way for us to escape. I know we are not doomed. Help me, captain, and you sailors, with your faith. We are never to be taken. We are to escape from our enemies, and God shall give to us the victory."
Upcliff smiled sadly as he gazed at the radiant face of the prophetess, shaking his grizzled head as he muttered:
"May the good Lord bless you, girl. You send us forth strong to fight."
Then again he faced his men and formed them in line; and when they stood ready to receive the enemy, every man his cutlass in hand, the master cried out strongly:
"Let no man surrender. For such the French have a gallows. Lads, we shall, by God's grace, leave a deep mark on yonder little army before the ship comes nigh. See you how slowly she labours down? She can scarce make headway against the tide, and the breeze freshens every minute. Now for a bold stand, a stern struggle, and may the Lord have mercy on us all."
Stout Somerset throats answered him with a cheer. They had exercised their privilege of grumbling over the uncongenial work of cutting a way for their ship through the ice-field while their compatriots fought upon the cliffs; but not a man drew back from the prospect of that hopeless battle.
The Acadians struggled down the long hill, floundering in the soft snow, and, halting upon the flat, drew up in the form of a crescent. There were signs of unwillingness among the settlers, due in part to the reputation gained in those days by Englishmen of never shrinking from a struggle to the death. They were also perturbed by the absence of La Salle, whom they had not seen since Woodfield had been overwhelmed and left for dead in the defile.
While the French thus hesitated, Upcliff and his impetuous men were for advancing to the attack; but Madeleine came before them, and in a strained voice, altogether unlike her usual tones, implored the skipper not to move towards the shore.
"Do not leave the ice," she cried. "I charge you go not beyond the ice."
"The maid has surely lost her wits," muttered Upcliff.
"See the eyes of her!" whispered Jacob Sadgrove to his nearest companion. "Have seen a horse look so, when he knows of somewhat coming, and would speak of it if he might."
A roar broke the morning fog. The ship had fired to encourage her allies. The ball splashed into the black water far from the gallantDartmouth, which quivered and shook her sails in furious helplessness.
"Swear to me that you will not leave the ice-field," cried Madeleine.
"Ay, if you wish it," said Upcliff; adding bluntly: "May die as well here as yonder. Stand together, lads. They come!"
"Oh, why so long?" prayed Madeleine, bending upon the snow. "It is time for the miracle. I know we are to be saved, but it is terrible to wait. I know that not a hair upon the head of any of these men shall be harmed; but they know it not, and they prepare for death because they cannot see. Oh, God, send us now the miracle!"
"Stand firm!" shouted Upcliff. "Let them make the charge, and we shall smite them as they stumble in the snow."
He spoke, and straightway a mighty report rang along the shore. The ice on which the men planted their resolute feet quivered and heaved. The attackers halted and drew back; the attacked stared at one another in superstitious wonderment. No smoke drifted behind. The guns upon the ship had not spoken. But the echoes of that dry, sharp sound still crashed among the cliffs.
Madeleine rose, and sent her rapturous voice singing into the ears of all: "The miracle! The miracle!"
Already a channel of black water frothed and bubbled between the English sailors and the French settlers, a channel which widened each moment, as the ice-floe which the change of temperature had parted so suddenly from the shore drifted seawards, drawn out by the strong gulf current, bearing the men snatched from death, the little ice-locked ship, and the girl who had trusted so firmly and so well.
They flocked round her, the rough sailors, crying like children, and knelt to kiss her hands.
"To work!" she cried, pointing to the silver strip which held the floe united.
But before the men could again use their axes the strain told. The ice cracked again and the field was divided into two parts. There was a momentary danger lest the brigantine should be crushed between the floes, but this peril was averted by the regularity of the current. The men swung themselves aboard, lifting Madeleine up the ladder of ropes and so upon deck. The enemy already had become grotesque black spots upon the shore.
"Clear the decks for battle!" the captain thundered as the little ship ran free of the ice.
The Frenchman had altered her course, and was bearing down upon theDartmouth, roaring with all her guns.
Onawa, daughter of Shuswap, vagrant and traitress, she who had brought disaster upon her own people, continued to reap the reward of all her constancy to the enemy of her race. Famished and parched, she sank into a bed of snow, and rested her wildly throbbing head against a frosted tree. She had not eaten for many hours, her shelter was more than a league away, and her strength was gone. Her reward also was a maddening thirst.
After tracking down the Englishmen, watching them in the fall of the snow, enduring every privation until she had learnt their strength, she had gone at full speed to the settlement, madly hoping even then that La Salle might look on her with favour, despite her branded cheeks and mutilated face. His reward was to give her over to the soldiers, who had mocked her because she was of the hated race, a savage in their eyes, and had bound her with a rope and scourged her with the end of it, and had even struck her with their fists when she halted from exhaustion, and would have stabbed her to death had she refused to obey. Thus she received her full reward. And now she could do no more.
Neuralgic pains coursed through her head, until the weight of her hair became a torment. Feverishly she sucked a handful of snow, but the awful thirst remained unquenched. The sounds of the chase entered her ears dimly from that half-lit region ahead, until drowsiness passed into her body, and her head dropped, and her eyes closed, and the sleep which moves imperceptibly into death came upon her. Her passionate heart lowered its beat, her pulses throbbed more sluggishly, as she drew close to the threshold which separates life and its object from the world of dreams. Her body collapsed, her head slid down; the soft snow sucked her in like quicksand.
A figure passed among the slim terebinth columns. Though the sleeper had brought down her father into dishonour, had betrayed her tribe, and called the shadow of death across the home of her kindred, her sister had not forgotten her. The figure approached, bent over the huddled shape, and shook it roughly back to life.
"Tuschota!" muttered the girl, as her eyes opened upon the immobile brown face.
"Rise," said the woman. "Lean on me, and I will take you to my hut."
"Leave me here," moaned Onawa. "I would lie until the great sleep comes."
"I am your sister. I may not leave you thus to die. Yonder food awaits you, and drink, and the warmth of burning logs."
She assisted Onawa to rise. The girl staggered and clung with dead hands. Together they passed down the slope, and so came to the cabin cunningly hidden amid snowy bush. A fire burnt redly, and hard by stood a stone vessel filled with rice-water. Towards this Onawa reached her hands, with the cry:
"I am tortured with thirst."
Without a word her sister gave her drink, and watched her while she gulped at the tepid liquor. Suddenly she put out her hand, and grasped the vessel, saying:
"See! I have meat ready for you."
Onawa partook of the food like a famished beast, and as strength returned the former love of life awoke, and she longed to go forth to renew the hopeless quest; but she felt her sister's eyes reading her thoughts, and presently she heard that sister's voice:
"It is good to live, Onawa."
She made no reply, but leaned forward, thrusting her hands against the scarlet wood.
"Even when son and husband are taken away, and the light fails, and all the ground is dark, it is still good to live," went on the voice. "Why the good God gives this love of life we may not know."
"Give me more drink," the girl panted.
"Our father shall soon pass into the spirit land," went on the stern woman, unheeding her request. "He is old, but 'tis not age that saps his strength. Honour has departed from him. He has lost the headship, and another fills his office."
Onawa stared sullenly into the leaping heart of the fire.
"As this life continues we find trouble. You have lost beauty, and I a son. We shall not regain that which we have lost. Sisters in blood we are, and sisters in unhappiness also."
"I have brought sorrow into your life," muttered Onawa, less in penitence than defiance.
"And shall do so again. This night you have brought the enemy of my people out from Acadie. There was a time when you betrayed my son into the hands of him who now spurns you from his side. That which is done cannot be undone, and God shall punish."
"Why, then, have you brought me here?" cried Onawa fiercely. "Why did you not leave me to perish, that you might be rid of me for ever?"
"Remember you not the words that I spoke to you in the grove? I bade you have in mind that in the time when you should hunger and thirst you might turn to me. I have not forgotten, though you turned against me when your heart followed its own longing.
"I grieved for your Richard."
"So the hunter grieves when he by mischance has slain the bear cub which has strayed. And so he avoids the mother if he loves his life."
At that moment there rang in her steady voice a threat. Onawa looked up and met a suffering brown face and large quiet eyes. There was no menace there, nothing but longing for the dead and charity for the living.
She pressed a hand upon her burning throat. "Give me drink," she gasped.
Her sister poured some of the rice-water into a smaller vessel. This she stirred gently with a stick, watching the ruined face of Onawa with the same patient eyes. Outside the hut a flight of snow birds whirred from side to side.
"When you have drunk you shall go forth," said Mary Iden deliberately. "You shall seek to aid my enemy when he strives to strike down my husband."
Onawa gave a cry. In wondering over her sister's forgiveness she had forgotten La Salle.
"They may already have met," she muttered.
A stern smile crossed her sister's face.
"Can you not hear?" she whispered. "Yet you say you love the white priest. I have heard this long while the noise of sword striking sword. I listen without fear, knowing that no man can conquer my husband when no treachery hangs behind. Can you not hear the sounds of the fight?"
"My ears burn," cried Onawa. "I hear only the cold wind passing among the pines."
"They fight!" exclaimed her sister triumphantly. "My Richard shall rest to-day."
"The water," gasped Onawa for the third time. "My throat is on fire."
"Drink and go forth."
Grasping the vessel in both hands, Onawa drained it to the dregs. Then, as her arms fell, and the taste in her mouth became exceeding bitter, and a strange exaltation visited her brain, and her body began to burn, and numbness came into her feet, she bent with one terrible groan, to hide her fear and her shame, and—if it were possible—her awful knowledge of the wolfsbane poisoning that draught, from the calm black eyes which stared at her across the fire.
"Aid whom you will," said the steady voice, which was scarce audible above the furious beatings of the listener's heart. "The day breaks."
A lifeless winter sun was struggling into the hut.
The pride of her race remained with Onawa to the end. She would not show fear, nor useless rage, in the presence of her sister. She would not confess what she knew, nor acknowledge that she had met with the punishment which she deserved and the laws of their race demanded. Passing into a sad beam of light, she drew herself erect and panted:
"I shall go forth."
"Go, sister," said the poisoner. "I too go forth, but we shall not walk together. For you the west and the forest, for me the south and the sea."
"I go among the pines."
"Farewell, sister."
"Farewell."
Erect and proud, Onawa passed out with her awful sorrow, through the opening morning, and so among the trees, still dignified and unbending because she knew those calm black eyes followed all her movements. On she went into the increasing gloom, until the snow carpet appeared to grow hot, and opalescent colours fringed the trees, and sounds of sleepy music hummed around her head. The red and green lights flashed up and down; solitude closed behind her; the pine-barrens were on fire. The world was gone.
The path taken by La Salle ascended and brought him finally to the crest of a hill. Here a wood of storm-beaten pines stood motionless in the white calm of the long winter sleep. Between the dimly lighted trees spread a narrow scar of black earth, which had been protected from snow by the funereal boughs above. The spot was as silent and as sad as a burying-place. It seemed to the priest that the balsamic pines might have been planted to neutralise any noxious odours emanating from the ground. He shivered at the thought, turned to retrace his steps and find an outlet which might lead him to the shore; but straightway a restraint fell upon his feet, and a thrill raced through his body, when he perceived that the place whereon he walked was haunted ground.
Before him stood a figure, white-faced and worn, clad in ragged garments, a man to all outward seeming no more sentient than the pines, for he moved not at all, nor did he speak, nor make a sign. As though rooted and frozen, he stood across the way, showing life and feeling only in his eyes.
"By all the saints!" the priest muttered. "'Tis but a half-starved Englishman."
Then he shouted his ready challenge to the silent man, who passed immediately with swift movements to the strip of bare ground, and, halting within touch of his enemy, addressed him sternly in the Gallic tongue:
"That you may learn, Sir Priest, with whom you have to deal, know that before you stands Sir Thomas Iden, a squire of England and a knight of Kent, a man moreover who has sworn to fight you fairly to the death. Remember you that night on which you put to death a boy in the forest beside Couchicing? That boy was my son, my only child. Sir Priest, you and I have crossed swords before this day. I was then a better man than now; but, with the help of my God and the spirit of my child, I shall lay out your body in this lonely spot for the winds to howl upon, and leave your eyes open for the crows to peck at. I pray you answer only with your sword."
Hot words came to La Salle's tongue, but he did not utter them. He found himself daunted by the horror of the place and the unyielding attitude of the knight. As he brought up his renowned right arm, it shivered and the hand was cold. But so soon as their blades met, his fighting spirit arose and conquered the superstitious fear, and a fierce light shone again in his eyes, and the knowledge was borne back upon him that he was in truth the finest swordsman in the New World, and with that he shouted out, "Have at you, heretic dog!" and attacked with all his might.
Not a bird moved through the air, not an insect lived upon that hill top, not an animal passed that way. The two men had the gloomy wood to themselves. Not even a breath of wind passed to wave the pines, or scatter into motion last autumn's rusted leaves, which spotted with red the sable rent in the great white sheet which Nature had drawn across the ground. The rhythm of the swords rang monotonously, as the two weird figures drifted to and fro, from side to side of the dusky bluff, struggling the one against the other, with life as the winner's prize. Before the abbé spread his splendid career of power as a prince of the Church. He had but to emerge triumphant from this last taking of the sword to assume the dignity of his new office and realise the ambition of his heart. While the avenger saw neither priest, nor governor, nor fencer of renown, but merely a fellow-being who had extinguished the light of his young son's life.
So the momentous minutes passed. When the sound of quick and furious breathing began to pulsate around the hill, Mary Iden ascended from the hollow, after playing her part in the avenging of her son's death, and watched with bosom heaving rapidly every movement of her husband, sure in her faith that he was the strongest man alive. Yet she aided him with her counsel; and when the passion of the fight had entered also into her she cast contempt and hatred upon La Salle, and mocked his skill, though he was on that day the finer swordsman of the pair.
"Wait not, husband," she cried warningly. "He is more spent than you."
Sir Thomas heard and rushed out. La Salle, standing sideways, parried the thrust with a slight motion of his iron wrist, and, rounding, took up the attack, which ended in a feint and a lunge over the heart. His sword glanced under the knight's arm and the point struck a fir and was almost held.
"Perdition!" he muttered. "I must use greater caution."
For a few seconds the blades were dazzling as they darted together with the malignity and swiftness of serpents; then La Salle feigned to stumble, lowering his point as though he had lost his grip, an old trick he had often employed successfully, and as the knight leaped forward to take his opening, the priest recovered and sent the blade into his opponent's side. Life had never appeared to him so good as at that moment, but before his laugh had died the Englishman leaned forward, grasping the sword and holding it firmly in his side, lunged out, and ran the priest through the chest, after La Salle had saved his life by throwing up his arm and deflecting the point from his heart.
They fell apart, gulping the keen air for a taste of new life. The watcher advanced, her brown face ghastly, but her husband put out his hand and motioned her back.
"Away, Mary. There is life in me yet."
Unwillingly she retired, and a flush of pride crossed her face when her husband staggered across the snow, his eyes still clear and fierce. La Salle, no whit less dauntless, came up also and stood swaying like one of the trees behind.
"You are brave, Englishman, and a worthy foe," he gasped. "We have shed each other's blood. Let us now cry hold and part."
"There can be no truce between you and me," came the deep reply. "This fight is to the death."
"Life has its pleasures," urged La Salle.
"Of such you deprived my son."
"Your blood be upon your own head!"
Again their swords clashed. No signs of weakening yet upon either drawn face. The balance swayed neither to the one side nor to the other.
Again the watcher started out, appealing to her husband. It would be an easy matter to attack La Salle from the rear; to trip his foot with a stick; to blind him by a handful of snow. But the knight would not hear her; and even threatened when she made as though she would disobey.
The priest listened for the tramp of feet and the call of voices. He would then have called the meanest settler in Acadie his brother. Shoutings came to him from the bay, the roar of the ship's gun, and the splitting of the ice. He groaned and cursed the folly which had driven him into this snare.
Courage revived when he scored by a clever stroke; but again his triumph was short-lived. The knight answered by driving his point hard into the open side. Darkness dropped upon their eyes. They reeled like drunken men, fighting the air, feeling for each other, falling body to body, and pushing apart with a convulsive shudder.
"Where are you?" gasped the abbé.
"Here," moaned the Englishman, striking towards the voice.
"It is enough," said La Salle, the voice gurgling in his throat. "Flesh and blood can endure no more. Put up your sword."
"Only in your heart."
They held at each other with one hand while fighting with the other. A wound on one side was answered by a wound on the other. It appeared as though neither had another drop of blood to shed, not a muscle left unspent, nor a breath to come. The chill of the winter was in the soul of each, and it was also the chill of death. They crawled at each other like torn beasts, upon hands and knees.
"You are spent," pulsated La Salle.
"My sword has gone through you twice."
"Husband, bid me strike him," implored the watcher. "He is scarce able to lift his arm."
"Back, woman," panted the dying man.
Once more they stood upon their feet, and again their points were raised, but now against bodies which had lost all consciousness, save the ruling passion of ambition in the one and vengeance in the other.
"Down!" snarled the abbé, knowing not it was the last word which his tongue should utter; and, closing with his enemy, threw his remaining life into one lunge.
The sword left his hand for ever. By a glimmer of light through the red darkness he saw the body of the knight stretched black along that ghastly carpet; he saw the woman running forth with a great cry to raise it by the shoulders. Then night fell upon the victor as he stumbled on among the trees, with a small sane voice of consciousness singing in his departing soul: "You have fought your last fight. You shall win the red hat yet."
So he was found by his defeated soldiers, feeling his way from pine to pine, leaving in his wake two dotted lines more ruby-red than the cardinal's soutane. They bound up his wounds as best they could, and, raising him upon their shoulders, bore the dead weight of unconscious matter into Acadie.
At noon the ship came to the landing-stage. During the excitement which accompanied and followed her arrival even the governor became forgotten. A cadaverous priest was the first to step ashore, casting around him glances of intolerable pride. Others were quick to follow, and soon it became noised abroad that Roussilac was to be recalled and that Pope Urbano had need of La Salle the priest. Even such momentous matters were put aside by the settlers in their anxiety to hear tidings of home and friends.
In the meantime the pale-faced priest had set forth for the governor's abode, muttering imprecations upon the bitter country in which it had become his evil lot to settle.
"His Excellency?" he inquired shortly at the door; and the seneschal, awed by his morose manner, merely made a reverence and pointed as he said: "He lies within, Holiness."
More he would have said, but the nuncio passed on quickly and entered the room, holding forth a missive tied with scarlet thread, calling in a jealous voice:
"Your Excellency! A letter from Rome. A call for your return."
La Salle was lying along the bed. The messenger came nearer.
"Awake, your Excellency! His Holiness Pope Urbano sends to you——"
There the strange priest stopped at beholding a broken crucifix beneath the sleeper's right hand; and a sneering smile curved his lips, and he shrugged his thin shoulders, as he callously observed:
"Methinks his Holiness has sent in vain."
It has now been shown how the golden lilies prospered in the north, and how the red lion, who should in time tear those gay lilies down, was laughed at and despised. The paths of ambition, of treachery, of vengeance, have brought direct to the same terminus, where that "fell sergeant death" stood forth to cry "Halt" to soldier and to priest. The name of La Salle has ever been held in honour, but chiefly to memorise Robert the explorer, not the ambitious priest his uncle. The name of Iden is still revered by Kentish folk; but that respect is won, not by Sir Thomas, who—if the tradition in his family be true—married an Indian wife and flung away his life to avenge his son, but to Sir Alexander, who slew the rebel Cade in a Sussex orchard. The name of Onawa is held in memory by none, though for many generations the wood wherein she died of the poisoned draught administered by her sister was shunned by the Iroquois, because there sounded amid the pines at night the howling of a werewolf.
The old chronicles mention two Englishmen who escaped from the French, and Jesse Woodfield and Jeremiah Hough are the names recorded. When the Acadians swept down the defile to secure Upcliff and his men, the Puritan was ignored, and the yeoman, who had made so startling an appearance, was left for dead. So soon as they had gone Hough made for his companion, and discovered that he was indeed material and alive, though sorely wounded. Presently Woodfield revived, and when he was able to stand the Puritan led him away up the white hills to find a place of shelter. The hut in the pine-wood being too far away, they proceeded by slow stages towards the home of the knight, knowing nothing of what had occurred, and scarce guessing it when they gained the bush-filled hollow, which was stirred to its depths by the wailing of a death-song.
"A fitting welcome for broken-hearted men," said the Puritan. "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept. The children of Edom have smitten us full sore. Happy shall he be that rewardeth them as they have served us. Take courage, old lad. We are even now at home."
"Home without friends," broke from the pale lips of the man within his arms.
"Where the graves of comrades are, there is the brave man's home. In England we are gone out of mind, and broken like a potter's vessel. Here amid the snows old Simon and old George lie sleeping well."
The song stopped when they entered the hut and stood between the living and the dead. Immediately Woodfield sank down in unconsciousness, and after one glance upon the sad scene and a few bitter words, Hough knelt at his comrade's side and searched for his wounds.
"Let a woman perform a woman's work," said the pale watcher, rising from her husband's side. "For him"—she inclined her head to the silent figure—"the light is gone. He sees no longer the sparkling air. His eyes shall not burn again. The great God knows how well he lived and how he died."
Seeing the question on the Puritan's lips, she went on:
"The hand that smote our son smote him. I saw the man go, and death with him like a cloud above his head. Give me the water that stands yonder that I may wash these wounds."
"Who brought him hither?" the Puritan asked.
"These arms carried him. While he lived he would have me bear no burden. The wood for the fire he took from me, saying, 'This is no woman's work. A woman shall smile for her husband, prepare him food, and keep a home for his return.' These arms carried my son to his grave. My husband was not there, or surely he would have said, 'This is no work for you.' These arms carried my husband from the place where he fell. His eyes looked up to mine, as though again he would say, 'This is no work for you.' Once more they shall carry him. Afterwards I will wait for the coming of the south wind, which carries the souls of the dead."
She applied her skill in healing to the restoration of the white man. She cleansed his wounds and cooled his fever, leaving him at length sleeping with a wan smile of triumph on his face. By then Hough also was asleep, his face terrible in its mutilation and sternness.
When he revived, Woodfield told his comrade how he had been captured by the Algonquins and how they had sought to put him to death.
"I awoke from unconsciousness," he said, "to find myself within a cave, attended by the maid who had loosed my body from the tree. An old man watched the entry and brought me food. These two had saved my life, the maid because she loved my white skin, the man because he was Christian and had lost a son who would have been of my age had he lived. I remained in that cave many days, gaining vigour, and on a certain evening, when left alone, ran out into the shadows and hid myself in the forest, covering my tracks as best I could.
"The maid pursued and besought me in her own manner to return. Many times I escaped from her. Often she brought me food, or I must have perished of hunger during my long wanderings through the forest. I would hear her calling after me in the still night. I would from some hill-top see her following my track, and when she found me she would hold me by the feet and strive to move my heart. But resisting the wiles of Satan, who would have me to forget my own country and my father's house, I ran from her again."
"We thought you dead these many months."
"It was the will of God that I should seek for you in vain," went on Woodfield. "Once I lay in a swamp to hide myself from a band of French explorers. Once I was attacked by six men. One I killed, and the remainder fled, frightened by lightning which struck down a tree between us. Another time I concealed myself in a hemlock while the soldiers made their camp beneath its branches. So I fought my way on towards the east with an Englishman's longing for the sea, and when winter drew on I made me a shelter in the pine woods on the westward side of Acadie, and there mourned for you and for Simon Penfold as for comrades who had fallen in the battle."
"How came you so suddenly to our aid?"
"In the darkness of the falling snow I ventured to approach the settlement. Nay more, I entered at the open gate, careless of my life, and followed the soldiers out, my heart rejoicing when I learnt from their shouts that countrymen of mine were near at hand. I climbed among the cliffs, and, looking down, beheld old Simon fighting in the defile. I was descending to give him help when he fell."
"The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away," said the Puritan solemnly.
While the words were on his lips the wattle door was shaken and a soft voice called. Another moment a white figure entered with a rush of smoky air, and Madeleine stood before them, wrapped in a sail which she had assumed to render her progress across the snow invisible. She threw away the covering and laughed triumphantly.
"Say not that the ship is taken?" cried Hough. Then he muttered: "A man may tell nothing from the maid's manner. Sorrow or joy—'tis the same to her. She laughs through it all."
"The ship is safe," said Madeleine. "We were attacked by the man-of-war, but when we drew clear of the ice we soon left her lumbering astern, until she gave up the chase and sailed for shore. We have not lost a man."
"Then what do you here?"
"Think you that Silas Upcliff would desert friends?" cried Madeleine indignantly. "So soon as he knew himself to be safe, he changed his course and beat up the coast eastward until darkness fell. Then he dropped down, and now has sent a boat to bring you off. I have come for you, and must take no refusal, else I am sure they shall hang me upon my return. I would bear the message myself. The master at first crossed me, but, being a wise man, he gave way to a woman's whim. Come! The boat waits, and liberty lies beyond."
She moved across the earth floor and grasped the Puritan's arm.
"What maid is this?" asked Woodfield, as he gazed at the vision of beauty; and when Hough had told him the good soldier's heart swelled, and he raised his stiff body that he might take her hand, while she smiled at him through a mist of pity.
"I want you, wounded man," she said. "There are none sick aboard, and I must have one to care for, or my hands will hang idle all the day. I have thrown in my lot with your people, because mine own have driven me forth. You shall call me sister if you will, and you shall be brother to me, because he who is to be my husband is your true comrade, and 'tis friendship that makes brotherhood rather than blood. Rise, brother, and lean on me."
"Girl," said Hough, with his stern smile, "this spell you cast over us is more potent than witchcraft."
"We come," cried Woodfield, drawing himself upright. "Say, comrade, let us flee to Virginia, and settle among our own, that we may hear the blessed English tongue again."
"We go," answered Hough gloomily. "Here is no English colony, but we seek one in the south."
"Go," said Mary Iden, now again Tuschota, daughter of Shuswap, to the three. "Take what you desire for your journey, and go forth. Here are furs, and here strong medicines. Take all. The great God guard you upon the seas and upon the land whither you go to dwell."
So the two Englishmen and the French girl went forth under the winter sky, where a shy moon peeped through laced clouds like a fair maid looking between the curtains of her bed. A dull glow of firelight showed when they looked back into the hollow; and once, when they paused for breath, their ears became filled with the wild sound of singing for the dead.
Morning dawned, and the brigantine was well away, running with a fresh breeze from the colony of France, all hearts aboard as light as the frosty waves which kissed her sides. Through fog and snow she went, like a bird flying to the warmth. Little wonder that the men sang at their tasks; that Upcliff repeated his old stories of the main with a fresh delight, none grudging him a laugh; that Woodfield gathered health at every hour; that Madeleine laughed from morn to night. They were as children released from school, playing on the happy home-going.
So theDartmouthdrew down to Boston quay, after one delay on the unfrequented shore to make repairs, the men clanking at the pumps to keep the leaking barque above the line of danger. The citizens flocked down to meet her, and Hough's approving gaze fell upon Puritan faces among whom he could feel himself indeed at home.
Winthrop himself was called to give the sailors welcome to New England. He stepped aboard, and grasped the master's hand; but not a word could he utter before Madeleine came between them, her beauty all in splendour, her mouth quivering, as she cried:
"Tell me, sir—tell me quickly, where is my Geoffrey?"
She had forgotten that other men bearing her lover's name walked the earth. Winthrop stared in some bewilderment, and the more stern of his following frowned at so much glorious life and impetuous loveliness. The majority repeated the name with ominous shakings of bearded chins.
"'Tis our comrade, young Geoffrey Viner, of whom the maid speaks," said Woodfield in explanation.
"Yea," exclaimed Madeleine. "Let me off the ship."
"Stay," said Winthrop. "The young man is here indeed." He turned to Hough with the demand: "Is he beyond doubt a true Englishman?"
"True!" exclaimed Madeleine, her violet eyes two angry flashes. "You suspect him? Oh, you false man!"
It was the first time that John Winthrop had been accused of falseness; and the novelty of the accusation brought a smile to his face.
"The boy is loyal to the faith, and as true an Englishman as yourself, brother Winthrop," broke in the voice of Hough.
"Let justice prevail where I rule," said the pious governor when he heard this. "I thank God that you have come in time. It has been proved to our satisfaction against this boy that he has conspired with the Dutch for the capture of our town, and as I speak he lies under sentence of death. Thus the wisest judges err, and the humble of us ask Heaven to amend our faults."
Madeleine had paled very slightly while Winthrop spoke. Then she drew her small dignified self upright, and said very confidently: "I knew that we should arrive in time."
"Methinks we shall scarcely find any swifter messenger to bear the good news to the young man——" commenced the quiet voice of Roger Williams, who had joined his friend and governor upon the quay.
The end of the pastor's sentence became drowned in a shout of hearty laughter such as had never been heard before in Boston; for immediately he began to speak Madeleine picked up her skirt, and was already running like Atalanta, breathlessly demanding from those who stood by whether her feet were carrying her in the right way.
"Send a cheer after her, men of Somerset," shouted Silas Upcliff. "For, by my soul, a braver lass ne'er loved an Englishman!"