At the governor’s table that night certain ladies and gentlemen assembled to do the envoy honour. There came, too, a young gentleman, son of a distinguished New Englander, his name George Gering, who was now in New York for the first time. The truth is, his visit was to Jessica, his old playmate, the mistress of his boyhood. Her father was in England, her mother had been dead many years, and Colonel Nicholls and his sister being kinsfolk, a whole twelvemonth ago she had been left with them. Her father had thought at first to house her with his old friend Edward Gering, but he loved the Cavalier-like tone of Colonel Nicholls’s household better than the less inspiriting air which Madam Puritan Gering suffused about her home. Himself in early youth had felt the austerity of a Cavalier father turned a Puritan on a sudden, and he wished no such experience for his daughter. For all her abundancy of life and feeling, he knew how plastic and impressionable she was, and he dreaded to see that exaltation of her fresh spirit touched with gloom. She was his only child, she had been little out of his sight, her education had gone on under his own care, and, in so far as was possible in a new land, he had surrounded her with gracious influences. He looked forward to any definite separation (as marriage) with apprehension. Perhaps one of the reasons why he chose Colonel Nicholls’s house for her home, was a fear lest George Gering should so impress her that she might somehow change ere his return. And in those times brides of sixteen were common as now they are rare.
She sat on the governor’s left. All the brightness, the soft piquancy, which Iberville knew, had returned; and he wondered—fortunate to know that wonder so young—at her varying moods. She talked little, and most with the governor; but her presence seemed pervasive, the aura in her veins flowed from her eye and made an atmosphere that lighted even the scarred and rather sulky faces of two officers of His Majesty near. They had served with Nicholls in Spain, but not having eaten King Louis’s bread, eyed all Frenchmen askance, and were not needlessly courteous to Iberville, whose achievements they could scarce appreciate, having done no Indian fighting.
Iberville sat at the governor’s end, Gering at the other. It was noticed by Iberville that Gering’s eyes were much on Jessica, and in the spirit of rivalry, the legitimate growth of race and habit, he began to speak to her with the air of easy but deliberate playfulness which marked their first meeting.
Presently she spoke across the table to him, after Colonel Nicholls had pledged him heartily over wine. The tone was a half whisper as of awe, in reality a pretty mockery. “Tell me,” she said, “what is the bravest and greatest thing you ever did?”
“Jessica, Jessica!” said the governor in reproof. An old Dutch burgher laughed into his hand, and His Majesty’s officers cocked their ears, for the whisper was more arresting than any loud talk. Iberville coloured, but the flush passed quickly and left him unembarrassed. He was not hurt, not even piqued, for he felt well used to her dainty raillery. But he saw that Gering’s eyes were on him, and the lull that fell as by a common instinct—for all could not have heard the question—gave him a thrill of timidity. But, smiling, he said drily across the table, his voice quiet and clear: “My bravest and greatest thing was to answer an English lady’s wit in English.”
A murmur of applause ran round, and Jessica laughed and clapped her hands. For the first time in his life Gering had a pang of jealousy and envy. Only that afternoon he had spent a happy hour with Jessica in the governor’s garden, and he had then made an advance upon the simple relations of their life in Boston. She had met him without self-consciousness, persisting in her old ways, and showing only when she left him, and then for a breath, that she saw his new attitude. Now the eyes of the two men met, and Gering’s dark face flushed and his brow lowered. Perhaps no one saw but Iberville, but he, seeing, felt a sudden desire to play upon the other’s weakness. He was too good a sportsman to show temper in a game; he had suddenly come to the knowledge that love, too, is a game, and needs playing. By this time the dinner was drawing to its close and now a singular thing happened. As Jessica, with demure amusement, listened to the talk that followed Iberville’s sally, she chanced to lift her eyes to a window. She started, changed colour, and gave a little cry. The governor’s hand covered hers at once as he followed her look. It was a summer’s night and the curtained windows were partly open. Iberville noted that Jessica’s face wore the self-same shadow as in the afternoon when she had seen the stranger with Radisson.
“What was it, my dear?” said the governor.
She did not answer, but pressed his hand nervously. “A spy, I believe,” said Iberville, in a low voice. “Yes, yes,” said Jessica in a half whisper; “a man looked in at the window; a face that I have seen—but I can’t remember when.”
The governor went to the window and drew the curtains. There was nothing to see. He ordered Morris, who stood behind his chair, to have the ground searched and to bring in any straggler. Already both the officers were on their way to the door, and at this point it opened and let in a soldier. He said that as he and his comrade were returning from their duty with Radisson they saw a man lurking in the grounds and seized him. He had made no resistance, and was now under guard in the ante-room. The governor apologised to his guests, but the dinner could not be ended formally now, so the ladies rose and retired. Jessica, making a mighty effort to recover herself, succeeded so well that ere she went she was able to reproach herself for her alarm; the more so because the governor’s sister showed her such consideration as would be given a frightened child—and she had begun to feel something more.
The ladies gone, the governor drew his guests about him and ordered in the prisoner. Morris spoke up, saying that the man had begged an interview with the governor that afternoon, but, being told that his excellency was engaged, had said another hour would do. This man was the prisoner. He came in under guard, but he bore himself quietly enough and made a low bow to the governor. He was not an ill-favoured fellow. His eye was steely cold, but his face was hearty and round, and remarkably free from viciousness. He had a cheerful air and an alert freedom of manner, which suggested good-fellowship and honest enterprise.
Where his left hand had been was an iron hook, but not obtrusively in view, nor did it give any marked grimness to his appearance. Indeed, the effect was almost comical when he lifted it and scratched his head and then rubbed his chin with it; it made him look part bumpkin and part sailor. He bore the scrutiny of the company very well, and presently bowed again to the governor as one who waited the expression of that officer’s goodwill and pleasure.
“Now, fellow,” said the colonel, “think yourself lucky my soldiers here did not shoot you without shrift. You chance upon good-natured times. When a spying stranger comes dangling about these windows, my men are given to adorning the nearest tree with him. Out with the truth now. Who and what are you, and why are you here?”
The fellow bowed. “I am the captain of a little trading schooner, the Nell Gwynn, which anchors in the roadstead till I have laid some private business before your excellency and can get on to the Spanish Indies.”
“Business—private business! Then what in the name of all that’s infernal,” quoth Nicholls, “brought your sneaking face to yon window to fright my lady-guests?” The memory of Jessica’s alarm came hotly to his mind. “By Heaven,” he said, “I have a will to see you lifted, for means to better manners.”
The man stood very quiet, now and again, however, raising the hook to stroke his chin. He showed no fear, but Iberville, with his habit of observation, caught in his eyes, shining superficially with a sailor’s open honesty, a strange ulterior look. “My business,” so he answered Nicholls, “is for your excellency’s ears.” He bowed again.
“Have done with scraping. Now, I tell you what, my gentle spy, if your business hath not concern, I’ll stretch you by your fingers there to our public gallows, and my fellows shall fill you with small shot as full as a pod of peas.”
The governor rose and went into another room, followed by this strange visitor and the two soldiers. There he told the guard to wait at the door, which entered into the ante-room. Then he unlocked a drawer and took out of it a pair of pistols. These he laid on the table (for he knew the times), noting the while that the seaman watched him with a pensive, deprecating grin.
“Well, sir,” he said sharply (for he was something nettled), “out with your business, and your name in preface.”
“My name is Edward Bucklaw, and I have come to your excellency because I know there is no braver and more enterprising gentleman in the world.” He paused. “So much for preamble; now for the discourse.”
“By your excellency’s leave. I am a poor man. I have only my little craft and a handful of seamen picked up at odd prices. But there’s gold and silver enough I know of, owned by no man, to make cargo and ballast for the Nell Gwynn, or another twice her size.”
“Gold and silver,” said the governor, cocking his ear and eyeing his visitor up and down. Colonel Nicholls had an acquisitive instinct; he was interested. “Well, well, gold and silver,” he continued, “to fill the Nell Gwynn and another! And what concern is that of mine? Let your words come plain off your tongue; I have no time for foolery.”
“‘Tis no foolery on my tongue, sir, as you may please to see.”
He drew a paper from his pocket and shook it out as he came a little nearer, speaking all the while. His voice had gone low, running to a soft kind of chuckle, and his eyes were snapping with fire, which Iberville alone had seen was false. “I have come to make your excellency’s fortune, if you will stand by with a good, stout ship and a handful of men to see me through.”
The governor shrugged his shoulders. “Babble,” he said, “all babble and bubble. But go on.”
“Babble, your honour! Every word of it is worth a pint of guineas; and this is the pith of it. Far down West Indies way, some twenty-five, maybe, or thirty years ago, there was a plate ship wrecked upon a reef. I got it from a Spaniard, who had been sworn upon oath to keep it secret by priests who knew. The priests were killed and after a time the Spaniard died also, but not until he had given me the ways whereby I should get at what makes a man’s heart rap in his weasand.”
“Let me see your chart,” said the governor.
A half-hour later he rose, went to the door, and sent a soldier for the two king’s officers. As he did so, Bucklaw eyed the room doors, windows, fireplaces, with a grim, stealthy smile trailing across his face. Then suddenly the good creature was his old good self again—the comfortable shrewdness, the buoyant devil-may-care, the hook stroking the chin pensively. And the king’s officers came in, and soon all four were busy with the map.
Iberville and Gering sat on with the tobacco and the wine. The older men had joined the ladies, the governor having politely asked them to do so when they chose. The other occupant of the room was Morris, who still stood stolidly behind his master’s chair.
For a time he heard the talk of the two young men as in a kind of dream. Their words were not loud, their manner was amicable enough, if the sharing of a bottle were anything to the point. But they were sitting almost the full length of the table from him, and to quarrel courteously and with an air hath ever been a quality in men of gentle blood.
If Morris’s eyesight had been better, he would have seen that Gering handled his wine nervously, and had put down his long Dutch pipe. He would also have seen that Iberville was smoking with deliberation, and drinking with a kind of mannered coolness. Gering’s face was flushed, his fine nostrils were swelling viciously, his teeth showed white against his red lips, and his eyes glinted. There was a kind of devilry at Iberville’s large and sensuous mouth, but his eyes were steady and provoking, and while Gering’s words went forth pantingly, Iberville’s were slow and concise, and chosen with the certainty of a lapidary.
It is hard to tell which had started the quarrel, but an edge was on their talk from the beginning. Gering had been moved by a boyish jealousy; Iberville, who saw the injustice of his foolish temper, had played his new-found enemy with a malicious adroitness. The aboriginal passions were strong in him. He had come of a people which had to do with essentials in the matter of emotions. To love, to hate, to fight, to explore, to hunt, to be loyal, to avenge, to bow to Mother Church, to honour the king, to beget children, to taste outlawry under a more refined name, and to die without whining: that was its range of duty, and a very sufficient range it was.
The talk had been running on Bucklaw. It had then shifted to Radisson. Gering had crowded home with flagrant emphasis the fact that, while Radisson was a traitor and a scoundrel,—which Iberville himself had admitted with an ironical frankness,—he was also a Frenchman. It was at this point that Iberville remembered, also with something of irony, the words that Jessica had used that afternoon when she came out of the sunshine into the ante-room of the governor’s chamber. She had waved her hand into the distance and had said: “Foolish boy!” He knew very well that that part of the game was turned against him, but with a kind of cheerful recklessness, as was ever his way with odds against him, and he guessed that the odds were with Gering in the matter of Jessica,—he bent across the table and repeated them with an exasperating turn to his imperfect accent. “Foolish boy!” he said, and awaited, not for long, the event.
“A fool’s lie,” retorted Gering, in a low, angry voice, and spilled his wine.
At that Iberville’s heart thumped in his throat with anger, and the roof of his mouth became dry; never in his life had he been called a liar. The first time that insult strikes a youth of spirit he goes a little mad.
But he was very quiet—an ominous sort of quietness, even in a boy. He got to his feet and leaned over the table, speaking in words that dropped on the silence like metal: “Monsieur, there is but one answer.”
At this point Morris, roused from his elaborate musings, caught, not very clearly, at the meaning of it all. But he had not time to see more, for just then he was called by the governor, and passed into the room where Mammon, for the moment, perched like a leering, little dwarf upon the shoulders of adventurous gentlemen grown avaricious on a sudden.
“Monsieur, there is but one way. Well?” repeated Iberville.
“I am ready,” replied Gering, also getting to his feet. The Frenchman was at once alive to certain difficulties. He knew that an envoy should not fight, and that he could ask no one to stand his second; also that it would not be possible to arrange a formal duel between opposites so young as Gering and himself. He sketched this briefly, and the Bostonian nodded moody assent. “Come, then,” said Iberville, “let us find a place. My sword is at my hand. Yours?”
“Mine is not far off,” answered Gering sullenly. Iberville forbore to point a moral, but walked to the mantel, above which hung two swords of finest steel, with richly-chased handles. He had noted them as soon as he had entered the room. “By the governor’s leave,” he said, and took them down. “Since we are to ruffle him let him furnish the spurs—eh? Shall we use these, and so be even as to weapons? But see,” he added, with a burst of frankness, “I am in a—a trouble.” It was not easy on the instant to find the English word. He explained the duties of his mission. It was singular to ask his enemy that he should see his papers handed to Count Frontenac if he were killed, but it was characteristic of him.
“I will see the papers delivered,” said Gering, with equal frankness.
“That is, if by some miraculous chance I should be killed,” added Iberville. “But I have other ends in view.”
“I have only one end in view,” retorted Gering. “But wait,” he said, as they neared the door leading into the main hall; “we may be seen. There is another way into the grounds through a little hall here.” He turned and opened a door almost as small as a panel. “I was shown this secret door the other day, and since ours is a secret mission let us use it.”
“Very well. But a minute more,” said Iberville. He went and unhooked a fine brass lantern, of old Dutch workmanship, swung from the ceiling by a chain. “We shall need a light,” he remarked.
They passed into the musty little hallway, and Gering with some difficulty drew back the bolts. The door creaked open and they stepped out into the garden, Iberville leading the way. He had not conned his surroundings that afternoon for nothing, and when they had reached a quiet place among some firs he hung the lantern to the branch of a tree, opening the little ornamental door so that the light streamed out. There was not much of it, but it would serve, and without a word, like two old warriors, they took off their coats.
Meanwhile Morris had returned to the dining-room to find Jessica standing agaze there. She had just come in; for, chancing to be in her bed-chamber, which was just over the secret hallway, she had heard Gering shoot the bolts. Now, the chamber was in a corner, so that the window faced another way, but the incident seemed strange to her, and she stood for a moment listening. Then hearing the door shut, she ran down the stairs, knocked at the dining-room door and, getting no answer, entered, meeting Morris as he came from the governor’s room.
“Morris, Morris,” she said, “where are they all?”
“The governor is in his room, mistress.”
“Who are with him?” He told her.
“Where are the others?” she urged. “Mr. Gering and Monsieur Iberville—where are they?”
The man’s eyes had flashed to the place where the swords were used to hang. “Lord God!” he said under his breath.
Her eyes had followed his. She ran forward to the wall and threw up her hands against it. “Oh Morris,” she said distractedly, “they have taken the swords!” Then she went past him swiftly through the panel and the outer door. She glanced around quickly, running, as she did so, with a kind of blind instinct towards the clump of firs. Presently she saw a little stream of light in the trees. Always a creature of abundant energy and sprightliness, she swept through the night, from the comedy behind to the tragedy in front; the grey starlight falling about her white dress and making her hair seem like a cloud behind her as she ran. Suddenly she came in on the two sworders with a scared, transfigured face.
Iberville had his man at an advantage, and was making the most of it when she came in at an angle behind the other, and the sight of her stayed his arm. It was but for a breath, but it served. Gering had not seen, and his sword ran up Iberville’s arm, making a little trench in the flesh.
She ran in on them from the gloom, saying in a sharp, aching voice: “Stop, stop! Oh, what madness!” The points dropped and they stepped back. She stood between them, looking from one to the other. At that moment Morris burst in also. “In God’s name,” he said, “is this your honouring of the king’s governor! Ye that have eat and drunk at his table the night! Have ye nae sense o’ your manhood, young gentlemen, that for a mad gossip ower the wine ye wend into the dark to cut each other’s throats? Think—think shame, baith o’ ye, being as ye are of them that should know better.”
Gering moodily put on his coat and held his peace. Iberville tossed his sword aside, and presently wrung the blood from his white sleeve. The girl saw him, and knew that he was wounded. She snatched a scarf from her waist and ran towards him. “You are wounded,” she said. “Oh, take this!”
“I am so much sorry, indeed,” he answered coolly, winding the scarf about his arm. “Mistress Leveret came too soon.”
His face wore a peculiar smile, but his eyes burned with anger; his voice was not excited. Immediately, however, as he looked at Jessica, his mood seemed to change.
“Morris,” he said, “I am sorry. Mademoiselle,” he added, “pardon! I regret whatever gives you pain.” Gering came near to her, and Iberville could see that a flush stole over Jessica’s face as he took her hand and said: “I am sorry—that you should have known.”
“Good!” said Iberville, under his breath. “Good! he is worth fighting again.”
A moment afterwards Morris explained to them that if the matter could be hushed he would not impart it to the governor—at least, not until Iberville had gone. Then they all started back towards the house. It did not seem incongruous to Iberville and Gering to walk side by side; theirs was a superior kind of hate. They paused outside the door, on Morris’s hint, that he might see if the coast was clear, and return the swords to their place on the wall.
Jessica turned in the doorway. “I shall never forgive you,” she said, and was swallowed by the darkness. “Which does she mean?” asked Iberville, with a touch of irony. The other was silent.
In a moment Morris came back to tell them that they might come, for the dining-room was empty still.
Bucklaw having convinced the governor and his friends that down in the Spaniards’ country there was treasure for the finding, was told that he might come again next morning. He asked if it might not be late afternoon instead, because he had cargo from the Indies for sale, and in the morning certain merchants were to visit his vessel. Truth to tell he was playing a deep game. He wanted to learn the governor’s plans for the next afternoon and evening, and thought to do so by proposing this same change. He did not reckon foolishly. The governor gave him to understand that there would be feasting next day: first, because it was the birthday of the Duke of York; secondly, because it was the anniversary of the capture from the Dutch; and, last of all, because there were Indian chiefs to come from Albany to see New York and himself for the first time. The official celebration would begin in the afternoon and last till sundown, so that all the governor’s time must be fully occupied. But Bucklaw said, with great candour, that unfortunately he had to sail for Boston within thirty-six hours, to keep engagements with divers assignees for whom he had special cargo. If his excellency, he said, would come out to his ship the next evening when the shows were done, he would be proud to have him see his racketing little craft; and it could then be judged if, with furbishing and armaments, she could by any means be used for the expedition. Nicholls consented, and asked the king’s officers if they would accompany him. This they were exceedingly glad to do: so that the honest shipman’s good nature and politeness were vastly increased, and he waved his hook in so funny and so boyish a way it set them all a-laughing.
So it was arranged forthwith that he should be at a quiet point on the shore at a certain hour to row the governor and his friends to the Nell Gwynn. And, this done, he was bade to go to the dining-room and refresh himself.
He obeyed with cheerfulness, and was taken in charge by Morris, who, having passed on Iberville and Gering to the drawing-room, was once more at his post, taciturn as ever. The governor and his friends had gone straight to the drawing-room, so that Morris and he were alone. Wine was set before the sailor and he took off a glass with gusto, his eye cocked humorously towards his host. “No worse fate for a sinner,” quoth he; “none better for a saint.”
Morris’s temper was not amiable. He did not like the rascal. “Ay,” said he, “but many’s the sinner has wished yon wish, and footed it from the stocks to the gallows.”
Bucklaw laughed up at him. It was not a pretty laugh, and his eyes were insolent and hard. But that, changed almost on the instant. “A good thrust, mighty Scot,” he said. “Now what say you to a pasty, or a strip of beef cut where the juice runs, and maybe the half of a broiled fowl?”
Morris, imperturbably deliberate, left the room to seek the kitchen. Bucklaw got instantly to his feet. His eye took in every window and door, and ran along the ceiling and the wall. There was a sudden click in the wall before him. It was the door leading to the unused hallway, which had not been properly closed and had sprung open. He caught up a candle, ran over, entered the hallway, and gave a grunt of satisfaction. He hastily and softly drew the bolts of the outer door, so that any one might come in from the garden, then stepped back into the dining-room and closed the panel tight behind him, remarking with delight that it had no spring-lock, and could be opened from the hallway. He came back quickly to the table, put down the candle, took his seat, stroked his chin with his hook, and chuckled. When Morris came back, he was holding his wine with one hand while he hummed a snatch of song and drummed lightly on the table with the hook. Immediately after came a servant with a tray, and the Scotsman was soon astonished, not only at the buxomness of his appetite, but at the deftness with which he carved and handled things with what he called his “tiger.” And so he went on talking and eating, and he sat so long that Jessica, as she passed into the corridor and up the stairs, wearied by the day, heard his voice uplifted in song. It so worked upon her that she put her hands to her ears, hurried to her room, and threw herself upon the bed in a distress she could set down to no real cause.
Before the governor and his guests parted for the night, Iberville, as he made his adieus to Gering, said in a low voice: “The same place and time to-morrow night, and on the same conditions?”
“I shall be happy,” said Gering, and they bowed with great formality.
The governor had chanced to hear a word or two and, thinking it was some game of which they spoke, said: “Piquet or a game of wits, gentlemen?”
“Neither, your excellency,” quoth Gering—“a game called fox and goose.”
“Good,” said Iberville, under his breath; “my Puritan is waking.”
The governor was in ripe humour. “But it is a game of wits, then, after all. Upon my soul, you two should fence like a pair of veterans.”
“Only for a pass or two,” said Iberville dryly. “We cannot keep it up.”
All this while a boat was rowing swiftly from the shore of the island towards a craft carrying Nell Gwynn beneath the curious, antique figurehead. There were two men in her, and they were talking gloatingly and low.
“See, bully, how I have the whole thing in my hands. Ha! Received by the governor and his friends! They are all mad for the doubloons, which are not for them, my Radisson, but for you and me, and for a greater than Colonel Richard Nicholls. Ho, ho! I know him—the man who shall lead the hunt and find the gold—the only man in all that cursed Boston whose heart I would not eat raw, so help me Judas! And his name—no. That is to come. I will make him great.”
Again he chuckled. “Over in London they shall take him to their bosoms. Over in London his blessed majesty shall dub him knight—treasure-trove is a fine reason for the touch of a royal sword—and the king shall say: ‘Rise, Sir William’—No, it is not time for the name; but it is not Richard Nicholls, it is not Hogarth Leveret.” He laughed like a boy. “I have you, Hogarth Leveret, in my hand, and by God I will squeeze you until there is a drop of heart’s blood at every pore of your skin!”
Now and again Radisson looked sideways at him, a sardonic smile at his lip. At last: “Bien,” he said, “you are merry. So—I shall be merry too, for I have scores to wipe away, and they shall be wiped clean—clean.”
“You are with me, then,” the pirate asked; “even as to the girl?”
“Even as to the girl,” was the reply, with a brutal oath.
“That is good, dear lad. Blood of my soul, I have waited twelve years—twelve years.”
“You have not told me,” rejoined the Frenchman; “speak now.”
“There is not much to tell, but we are to be partners once and for all. See, my beauty. He was a kite-livered captain. There was gold on board. We mutinied and put him and four others—their livers were like his own—in a boat with provisions plenty. Then we sailed for Boston. We never thought the crew of skulkers would reach land, but by God they drifted in again the very hour we found port. We were taken and condemned. First, I was put into the stocks, hands and feet, till I was fit for the pillory; from the pillory to the wooden horse.” Here he laughed, and the laugh was soft and womanlike. “Then the whipping-post, when I was made pulp from my neck to my loins. After that I was to hang. I was the only one they cooked so; the rest were to hang raw. I did not hang; I broke prison and ran. For years I was a slave among the Spaniards. Years more—in all, twelve—and then I came back with the little chart for one thing, this to do for another. Who was it gave me that rogues’ march from the stocks to the gallows’s foot? It was Hogarth Leveret, who deals out law in Massachusetts in the king’s name, by the grace of God. It was my whim to capture him and take him on a journey—such a journey as he would go but once. Blood of my soul, the dear lad was gone. But there was his child. See this: when I stood in the pillory a maid one day brought the child to the foot of the platform, lifted it up in her arms and said: ‘Your father put that villain there.’ That woman was sister to one of the dogs we’d set adrift. The child stared at me hard, and I looked at her, though my eyes were a little the worse for wear, so that she cried out in great fright—the sweet innocent! and then the wench took her away. When she saw my face to-night—to-day—it sent her wild, but she did not remember.” He rubbed his chin in ecstasy and drummed his knee. “Ha! I cannot have the father—so I’ll have the goodly child, and great will be the ransom. Great will be the ransom, my Frenchman!” And once more he tapped Radisson with the tiger.
The rejoicing had reached its apogee, and was on the wane. The Puritan had stretched his austereness to the point of levity; the Dutchman had comfortably sweated his obedience and content; the Cavalier had paced it with a pretty air of patronage and an eye for matron and maid; the Indian, come from his far hunting-grounds, bivouacked in the governor’s presence as the pipe of peace went round.
About twilight the governor and his party had gone home. Deep in ceremonial as he had been, his mind had run upon Bucklaw and the Spaniards’ country. So, when the dusk was growing into night, the hour came for his visit to the Nell Gwynn. With his two soldier friends and Councillor Drayton, he started by a roundabout for the point where he looked to find Bucklaw. Bucklaw was not there: he had other fish to fry, and the ship’s lights were gone. She had changed her anchorage since afternoon.
“It’s a bold scheme,” Bucklaw was saying to his fellow-ruffian in the governor’s garden, “and it may fail, yet ‘twill go hard, but we’ll save our skins. No pluck, no pence. Once again, here’s the trick of it. I’ll go in by the side door I unlocked last night, hide in the hallway, then enter the house quietly or boldly, as the case may be. Plan one: a message from his excellency to Miss Leveret, that he wishes her to join him on the Nell Gwynn. Once outside it’s all right. She cannot escape us. We have our cloaks and we have the Spanish drug. Plan two: make her ours in the house. Out by this hall door-through the grounds—to the beach—the boat in waiting—and so, up anchor and away! Both risky, as you see, but the bolder the game the sweeter the spoil. You’re sure her chamber is above the hallway, and that there’s a staircase to it from the main hall?”
“I am very well sure. I know the house up-stairs and down.”
Bucklaw looked to his arms. He was about starting on his quest when they heard footsteps, and two figures appeared. It was Iberville and Gering. They paused a moment not far from where the rogues were hid.
“I think you will agree,” said Iberville, “that we must fight.”
“I have no other mind.”
“You will also be glad if we are not come upon, as last night; though, confess, the lady gave you a lease of life?”
“If she comes to-night, I hope it will be when I have done with you,” answered Gering.
Iberville laughed a little, and the laugh had fire in it—hatred, and the joy of battle. “Shall it be here or yonder in the pines, where we were in train last night?”
“Yonder.”
“So.” Then Iberville hummed ironically a song:
“Oh, bury me where I have fought and fallen,Your scarf across my shoulder, lady mine.”
They passed on. “The game is in our hands,” said Bucklaw. “I understand this thing. That’s a pair of gallant young sprigs, but the choice is your Frenchman, Radisson.”
“I’ll pink his breast-bone full of holes if the other doesn’t—curse him.”
A sweet laugh trickled from Bucklaw’s lips like oil. “That’s neither here nor there. I’d like to have him down Acapulco way, dear lad... And now, here’s my plan all changed. I’ll have my young lady out to stop the duel, and, God’s love, she’ll come alone. Once here she’s ours, and they may cut each other’s throats as they will, sweetheart.”
He crossed the yard, tried the door,—unlocked, as he had left it,—pushed it open, and went in, groping his way to the door of the dining-room. He listened, and there was no sound. Then he heard some one go in. He listened again. Whoever it was had sat down. Very carefully he felt for the spring and opened the door. Jessica was seated at the table with paper and an ink-horn before her. She was writing. Presently she stopped—the pen was bad. She got up and went away to her room. Instantly Bucklaw laid his plan. He entered as she disappeared, went to the table and looked at the paper on which she had been writing. It bore but the words, “Dear Friend.” He caught up the quill and wrote hurriedly beneath them, this:
“If you’d see two gentlemen fighting, go now where you stopped them last night. The wrong one may be killed unless.”
With a quick flash of malice he signed, in half a dozen lightning-like strokes, with a sketch of his hook. Then he turned, hurried into the little hall, and so outside, and posted himself beside a lilac bush, drawing down a bunch of the flowers to drink in their perfume. Jessica, returning, went straight to the table. Before she sat down she looked up to the mantel, but the swords were there. She sighed, and a tear glistened on her eyelashes. She brushed it away with her dainty fingertips and, as she sat down, saw the paper. She turned pale, caught it up, read it with a little cry, and let it drop with a shudder of fear and dismay. She looked round the room. Everything was as she had left it. She was dazed. She stared at the paper again, then ran and opened the panel through which Bucklaw had passed, and found the outer door ajar. With a soft, gasping moan she passed into the garden, went swiftly by the lilac bush and on towards the trees. Bucklaw let her do so; it was his design that she should be some way from the house. But, hidden by the bushes, he was running almost parallel with her. On the other side of her was Radisson, also running. She presently heard them and swerved, poor child, into the gin of the fowler! But as the cloak was thrown over her head she gave a cry.
The firs, where Iberville and Gering had just plucked out their swords, were not far, and both men heard. Gering, who best knew the voice, said hurriedly: “It is Jessica!”
Without a word Iberville leaped to the open, and came into it ahead of Gering. They saw the kidnappers and ran. Iberville was the first to find what Bucklaw was carrying. “Mother of God,” he called, “they’re taking her off!”
“Help! help!” cried Gering, and they pushed on. The two ruffians were running hard, but it had been an unequal race at the best, and Jessica lay unconscious in Bucklaw’s arms, a dead weight. Presently they plunged into the bushes and disappeared. Iberville and Gering passed through the bushes also, but could neither see nor hear the quarry. Gering was wild with excitement and lost his presence of mind. Meanwhile Iberville went beating for a clue. He guessed that he was dealing with good woodsmen, and that the kidnappers knew some secret way out of the garden. It was so. The Dutch governor had begun to build an old-fashioned wall with a narrow gateway, so fitted as to seem part of it. Through this the two had vanished.
Iberville was almost in despair. “Go back,” he suddenly said to Gering, “and rouse the house and the town. I will get on the trail again if I can.”
Gering started away. In this strange excitement their own foolish quarrel was forgotten, and the stranger took on himself to command; he was, at least, not inexperienced in adventure and the wiles of desperate men. All at once he came upon the wall. He ran along it, and presently his fingers felt the passage. An instant and he was outside and making for the shore, in the sure knowledge that the ruffians would take to the water. He thought of Bucklaw, and by some impossible instinct divined the presence of his hand. Suddenly he saw something flash on the ground. He stooped and picked it up. It was a shoe with a silver buckle. He thrilled to the finger-tips as he thrust it in his bosom and pushed on. He was on the trail now. In a few moments he came to the waterside. He looked to where he had seen the Nell Gwynn in the morning, and there was never a light in view. Then a twig snapped, and Bucklaw, the girl in his arms, came bundling out of the trees upon the bank. He had sent Radisson on ahead to warn his boat’s crew.
He saw Iberville as soon as Iberville saw him. He knew that the town would be roused by this time and the governor on fire for revenge. But there was nothing for it but fight. He did not fear the result. Time was life to him, and he swung the girl half behind him with his hook-hand as Iberville came on, and, whipping out his hanger, caught the Frenchman’s thrust. Instantly he saw that his opposite was a swordsman, so he let the girl slip to the ground, and suddenly closing with Iberville, lunged desperately and expertly at him, straight for a mortal part. But the Frenchman was too agile and adroit for him: he took the thrust in the flesh of his ribs and riposted like lightning. The pirate staggered back, but pulled himself together instantly, lunged, and took his man in the flesh of his upper sword arm. Iberville was bleeding from the wound in his side and slightly stiff from the slash of the night before, but every fibre of his hurt body was on the defensive. Bucklaw knew it, and seemed to debate if the game were worth the candle. The town was afoot, and he had earned a halter for his pains. He was by no means certain that he could kill this champion and carry off the girl. Moreover, he did not want Iberville’s life, for such devils have their likes and dislikes, and he had fancied the chivalrous youngster from the first. But he doubted only for an instant. What was such a lad’s life compared with his revenge? It was madness, as he knew, for a shot would guide the pursuit: none the less, did he draw a pistol from his belt and fire. The bullet grazed the lad’s temple, carrying away a bit of his hair. Iberville staggered forwards, so weak was he from loss of blood, and, with a deep instinct of protection and preservation, fell at Jessica’s feet. There was a sound of footsteps and crackling of brush. Bucklaw stooped to pick up his prey, but a man burst on him from the trees. He saw that the game was up and he half raised his knife, but that was only the mad rage of the instant. His revenge did not comprise so unheard-of a crime. He thought he had killed Iberville: that was enough. He sprang away towards the spot where his comrades awaited him. Escape was his sole ambition now. The new-comer ran forwards, and saw the boy and girl lying as they were dead. A swift glance at Iberville, and he slung his musket shoulderwards and fired at the retreating figure. It was a chance shot, for the light was bad and Bucklaw was already indistinct.
Now the man dropped on his knee and felt Iberville’s heart. “Alive!” he said. “Alive, thank the mother of God! Mon brave! It is ever the same—the great father, the great son.”
As he withdrew his hand it brushed against the slipper. He took it out, glanced at it, and turned to the cloaked figure. He undid the cloak and saw Jessica’s pale face. He shook his head. “Always the same,” he said, “always the same: for a king, for a friend, for a woman! That is the Le Moyne.”
But he was busy as he spoke. With the native chivalry of the woodsman, he cared first for the girl. Between her lips he thrust his drinking-horn and held her head against his shoulder.
“My little ma’m’selle-ma’m’selle!” he said. “Wake up. It is nothing—you are safe. Ah, the sweet lady! Come, let me see the colour of your eyes. Wake up—it is nothing.”
Presently the girl did open her eyes. He put the drinking-horn again to her lips. She shuddered and took a sip, and then, invigorated, suddenly drew away from him. “There, there,” he said; “it is all right. Now for my poor Iberville.” He took Iberville’s head to his knee and thrust the drinking-horn between his teeth, as he had done with Jessica, calling him in much the same fashion. Iberville came to with a start. For a moment he stared blindly at his rescuer, then a glad intelligence flashed into his eyes.
“Perrot! dear Nick Perrot!” he cried. “Oh, good—good,” he added softly. Then with sudden anxiety:
“Where is she? Where is she?”
“I am safe, monsieur,” Jessica said gently; “but you—you are wounded.” She came over and dropped on her knees beside him.
“A little,” he said; “only a little. You cared for her first?” he asked of Perrot.
Perrot chuckled. “These Le Moynes!” he said: under his breath. Then aloud: “The lady first, monsieur.”
“So,” answered Iberville. “And Bucklaw—the devil, Bucklaw?”
“If you mean the rogue who gave you these,” said Perrot, touching the wounds, which he had already begun to bind, “I think he got away—the light was bad.”
Jessica would have torn her frock for a bandage, but Perrot said in his broken English: “No, pardon. Not so. The cloak la-bas.”
She ran and brought it to him. As she did so Perrot glanced down at her feet, and then, with a touch of humour, said: “Pardon, but you have lost your slipper, ma’m’selle?”
He foresaw the little comedy, which he could enjoy even in such painful circumstances.
“It must have dropped off,” said Jessica, blushing. “But it does not matter.”
Iberville blushed too, but a smile also flitted across his lips. “If you will but put your hand into my waistcoat here,” he said to her, “you will find it.” Timidly she did as she was bid, drew forth the slipper, and put it on.
“You see,” said Iberville, still faint from loss of blood, “a Frenchman can fight and hunt too—hunt the slipper.”
Suddenly a look of pain crossed her face.
“Mr. Gering, you—you did not kill him?” she asked. “Oh no, mademoiselle,” said Iberville; “you stopped the game again.”
Presently he told her what had happened, and how Gering was rousing the town. Then he insisted upon getting on his feet, that they might make their way to the governor’s house. Stanchly he struggled on, his weight upon Perrot, till presently he leaned a hand also on Jessica’s shoulder-she had insisted. On the way, Perrot told how it was he chanced to be there. A band of coureurs du bois, bound for Quebec, had come upon old Le Moyne and himself in the woods. Le Moyne had gone on with these men, while Perrot pushed on to New York, arriving at the very moment of the kidnapping. He heard the cry and made towards it. He had met Gering, and the rest they knew.
Certain things did not happen. The governor of New York did not at once engage in an expedition to the Spaniards’ country. A brave pursuit was made, but Bucklaw went uncaptured. Iberville and Gering did not make a third attempt to fight; Perrot prevented that. Iberville left, however, with a knowledge of three things: that he was the first Frenchman from Quebec who had been, or was likely to be, popular in New York; that Jessica Leveret had shown a tender gratitude towards him—naive, candid—which set him dreaming gaily of the future; that Gering and he, in spite of outward courtesy, were still enemies; for Gering could not forget that, in the rescue of Jessica, Iberville had done the work while he merely played the crier.
“We shall meet again, monsieur,” said Iberville at last; “at least, I hope so.”
“I shall be glad,” answered Gering mechanically. “But ‘tis like I shall come to you before you come to me,” added Iberville, with meaning. Jessica was standing not far away, and Gering did not instantly reply. In the pause, Iberville said: “Au revoir! A la bonne heure!” and walked away. Presently he turned with a little ironical laugh and waved his hand at Gering; and laugh and gesture rankled in Gering for many a day.