At first I was for mocking and laughing down so blind a propulsion, but then the thought that it was in some sort an outward expression of my great desire for Yvonne compelled me to take it with sobriety. Possibly, indeed, it meant that she was thinking of me, needing me even, at the moment; and at this I sprang forward in fierce haste lest I should be too late for the ferry. I was not going to follow blindly an impulse which I could not quite comprehend. I would not be a plaything of whims and vapours. But I would so far yield as to get safely upon the Grand Pré side of the river, pay a visit or two there which I had intended deferring to next day, and return to De Lamourie’s about bed-time, too late to invite another rebuff from Yvonne. This compromise gave me peace of mind, but did not delay my pace. I was back at the ferry in a few minutes, in time to see old yellow Ba’tiste fastening up the scow as a sign that ferrying was over till next tide.
95I rushed down to him with a vehemence which left no need of words. Dashing through the waterside strip of red and glistening mud I sprang upon the scow, and cried:
“If ever you loved me, Ba’tiste,—if ever you loved my father before me,—one more trip! I must be in Grand Pré to-night if I have to swim!”
His lean, yellow, weather-tanned face wrinkled shrewdly, and he cast off again without a moment’s hesitation, saying heartily as he did so:
“If it only depended on what I could do for you, Master Paul, your will and your way would right soon meet.”
“I always knew I could count on you, Ba’tiste,” said I warmly, watching with satisfaction the tawny breadth of water widen out between the shore and the rear of the scow, as the ferryman strained rhythmically upon the great oar. I sniffed deep breaths of the cool, contenting air which blew with a salty bitterness from the uncovering flats; and I dimly imagined then what now I know, that when the breath of the tide flats has got into one’s veins at birth he must make frequent return to them in after-life, or his strength will languish.
“So you got wind, Master Paul, of Le F?ret’s return, and thought well to keep on his track, eh?” panted Ba’tiste.
96“What do you mean?” I asked, awakened from my reverie.
“Didn’t you know he came right back, as soon as he give you the slip?” asked Ba’tiste. “I ferried him over again not an hour gone.”
“Why,” I cried in surprise, “I thought he was on his way to the Black Abbé!”
Ba’tiste smiled wisely.
“He lied!” said he. “You don’t know that lot yet, Master Paul. I saw you listened careless-like, but I thought you knew that was all lies about the Black Abbé and Vaurin being at Pereau. If they’d been at Pereau ‘The Ferret’ would ha’ said they were at Piziquid.”
“I’m an ass!” I exclaimed bitterly.
Ba’tiste laughed.
“That’s not the name you get hereabouts, Master Paul. But I reckon you’ve been used to dealing with honest men.”
“I believe I do trust too easily, my friend,” said I. “But one thing I know, and that is this: I will make never a mistake in trusting you, and some other faithful friends whom I might name.”
This seemed to Ba’tiste too obvious to need reply, so he merely wished me good fortune as I sprang ashore and made haste up the trail.
I made haste—but alas, not back toward Grand Pré! In the bitter after-days I had leisure to curse the obstinate folly which led me to carry 97out my plan of delay instead of hurrying straight to Yvonne’s side. But I had made up my mind that the best time to return to De Lamourie’s was about the end of evening—and my dull wits failed to see in Le F?ret’s action any sufficient cause to change my plans. It never occurred to me, conceited fool that I was, that the causes which had swayed the Black Abbé to my will the night before might in the meantime have ceased to work. Even had this idea succeeded in penetrating my thick apprehension, I suppose it would have made no difference. I should have felt sure that the abbé’s scoundrel crew would choose none but the dim hours after midnight for anything their malice might intend. The fact is, I had been yielding to inauthoritative impulses and vague premonitions till the reaction had set in, determining me to be at all costs coolly reasonable. Now Fortune with her fine irony loves to emphasize the fact that the slave of reason often proves the most pitiable of fools. Such was I when I turned to my right from the ferry, and strode through the scented, leafy dusk to the open flax-fields of the Le Marchand settlement, though the disregarded monitor within me was urging that I should turn to the left, through the old beech woods, to Grand Pré—and Yvonne.
The Le Marchand settlement in those days consisted of six little farms, each with its strip of 98upland flax-field and apple-orchard, and a bit of rich, secluded dyke held in common. All the Le Marchands—father and five sons—still owned their hereditary allegiance to the Sieur de Briart, and paid him their little rents as occasion offered. My welcome was not such as is commonly accorded to the tax-gatherer. These retainers of my uncle’s made me feel that I was myself their seigneur; and their rents, paid voluntarily and upon their own reckonings, were in effect a love-gift. I supped—chiefly upon buckwheat cakes—at the cottage of Le Marchand père, and then, dark having fallen softly upon the quiet fields, I set out at a gentle pace for Grand Pré village.
Soon after I got into the still dark of the woods the moon rose clear of the Gaspereau hills, and thrust long white fingers toward me through the leafage. The silence and the pale, elusive lights presently got a grip upon my mood, and my anxieties doubled, and trebled, and crowded upon each other, till I found myself walking at a breathless pace, just the hither side of a run. I stopped short, with a laugh of vexation, and forced myself to go moderately.
I was perhaps half way to Grand Pré, and in the deepest gloom of the woods,—a little dip where scarce a moonbeam came,—when, with a suddenness that gave even my seasoned nerves a start, a tall figure stood noiselessly before me.
99I clapped my hand upon my sword and asked angrily:
“Who are you?”
But even as I spoke I knew the apparition for Gr?l. I laughed, and exclaimed:
“Pardon me, Mysterious One. And pray tell me why you are come, for I am in some haste!”
“Haste?” he re?choed, with biting scorn. “Where was your haste two hours ago? Fool, poor fool, staying to fill your belly and wag your chin with the clod-hoppers! You are even now too late.”
“Too late for what?” I asked blankly, shaken with a nameless fear.
“Come and see!” was the curt answer; and he led the way forward to a little knoll, whence, the trees having fallen apart, could be had a view of Grand Pré.
There was a red light wavering at the back of the village, and against it the gables stood out blackly.
“I think you promised to guard that house!” said Gr?l.
But I had no answer. With a cry of rage and horror I was away, running at the top of my speed. The Abbé’s stroke had fallen; and I—with a sickness that clutched my heart—saw that my absence might well be set down to treachery.
As I emerged from the woods I noted that the glare was greater than before. But before I reached the outskirts of the village it had begun to die down. My wild running up the main street attracted no attention—every one able to be about was at the fire.
I have no doubt that I was not long in covering those two miles from the western end of the village to the De Lamourie farm—but to me they seemed leagues of torment. At last I reached the gate, and dashed panting up the lane.
I saw that the house was already in ruins, though still burning with a fierce glow. I saw also, and wondered at it, that there had been no attempt made to quench the flames. There were no water buckets in view; there was no confusion of household goods as when willing hands throng to help; and the outbuildings, which might easily have been saved, were only now getting fairly into blaze. Across my confusion and pain there flashed 101a sense of the Black Abbé’s power. This fire was his doing—and none dared interfere to mitigate the stroke lest the like should fall upon them also. My eyes searched the mass of staring, redly lit faces, expecting to find some one of the De Lamourie household; but in vain. Presently I noticed that every one made way for me with an alacrity too prompt for mere respect; and I grew dully conscious that I was an object of shrinking aversion to my old fellow-villagers. My rage at the villain priest began to turn upon these misjudging fools. But I knew not what to say; I knew not what to do. I pushed roughly hither and thither, demanding information, but getting only vague and muttered replies.
“Where are they?” I asked again and again, and broke out cursing furiously; but every one I spoke to evaded a direct answer.
“Have that arch fiend and his red devils carried them off?” I asked at last; and to this I got hushed, astonished, terrified replies of—
“No, monsieur!” and, “No indeed, monsieur! They have escaped!” and, “Oh, but no, monsieur!”
Flinging myself fiercely away from the crowd, I rushed to look into a detached two-story outbuilding which had but now got fairly burning. I wondered if there were no stuff in it which I might rescue. The smoke and flame were pouring so 102hotly from the door that I could not see what was inside. But as I peered in, my face shaded with my hand from the scorching glare, I heard a faint, pitiful mewing just above me, and looked up.
There, on the sill of a window of the second story, a window from which came volumes of smoke, but of flame only a slender, darting tongue, crouched a white kitten. With a curious gripping at my heart I recognized it as one which I had seen playing at Yvonne’s feet the evening before. I remembered how it was forever pouncing with wild glee upon the tip of her little slipper, forever being gently rolled over and tickled into fresh ecstasies. The scene cut itself upon my brain as I ran for a yet undamaged ladder, which I noticed leaning against a shed near by.
The action doubtless filled the crowd with amazement, but no one raised a hand to help me. The ladder was long and very awkward to manage, but in little more than the time it takes to tell of it I got it up beside the window and sprang to the rescue. By this time, however, the flames were spouting forth. The moment I came within reach of it the little animal leapt upon me and clung with frantic claws. A vivid sheet of flame burst out in my very face, hurling me from the ladder; yet I succeeded in alighting on my feet, jarred, but whole. There was a smell of burnt hair in my nostrils, and I saw that the 103kitten’s coat, no longer white, was finely crisped. But what I smelt was not all kitten’s hair. Lifting my hand to my bitterly smarting face, I found my own locks, over my forehead, seriously diminished, while my once fairly abundant eyebrows and eyelashes were clean gone. My moustache, however, had escaped—and even at that moment, when my mind was surely well occupied with matters of importance, I could feel a thrill of satisfaction. A man’s vanity is liable to assert itself at almost any crisis; and it did not occur to me that a man lacking eyebrows and eyelashes could not hope to be redeemed from the ridiculous by the most luxuriant moustache that ever grew.
Half dazed, I stared about me, wondering what was next to be done. Suddenly I thought—“Why, of course; they have gone to Father Fafard’s!”
The kitten clung to me, mewing piteously, and I was embarrassed by it. First I dropped it into a large currant bush, where, as I thought, it would not be trodden upon. Then, remembering that it was Yvonne’s, I snatched it up, and with a grim laugh at the folly of my solicitude over so small a matter strode off with it toward the parsonage. I passed in front of the swaying crowd; and some one, out of sight, tittered. I had begun to forget the fool rabble of villagers,—to regard them as a painted mob in a picture, or as wooden puppets,—but 104their reality was borne back upon me at that giggle. I walked on, scowling upon the faces which shrank into gravity under my eye, till at last I noticed a kind-looking girl. Into her arms, without ceremony, I thrust the little animal; and as she took it I said:
“It belongs to Mademoiselle de Lamourie. Take care of it for her.”
Not waiting to hear her answer, I was off across the fields for the parsonage.
All this had come and gone as it were in a dream, and it seemed to me that I yet panted from my long race. I had seen nothing, meanwhile, of the Black Abbé or of his painted pack. Spies, however, he had doubtless in plenty among those gaping onlookers; and his devilish work yet lighted me effectually on my way across the wet fields. The glow was like great patches of blood upon the apple-trees, where the masses of bloom fairly fronted the light. The hedgerow thickets took on a ruddy bronze, a sparkle here and there as a wet leaf set the unwonted rays rebounding. The shadows were sharply black, and strangely misleading when they found themselves at odds with those cast by the moon. The scene, as I hastened over the quiet back lots, was like the unreal phantasmagoria of a dream. I found myself playing with the idea that it all was a dream, from my meeting with old Mother Pêche here—yes, in this very field—the 106night before to the present breathless haste and wild surmising. Then the whole bitter reality seemed to topple over, and fall upon me and crush me down. Not only was Yvonne pledged to another, but through grossest over-confidence I had failed her in her need, and worst of all, the thought that made my heart beat shakingly, she believed me a traitor. It forced a groan to my lips, but I ran on, and presently emerged upon the lane a few paces from Father Fafard’s gate.
As I turned in the good priest came and stood in the doorway, peering down the lane with anxious eyes. Seeing me, he sprang forward and began to speak, but I interrupted him, crying:
“Are they here? I must see them.”
“They will not see you, Paul. They would curse you and shut their ears. They believe you did it.”
“But you, father, you,” I pleaded, “can undeceive them. Come with me.” And I grasped him vehemently by the arm.
But he shook me off, with a sort of anxious impatience.
“Of course, Paul, I know you did not do it. I know you, as she would, too, if she loved you,” he cried, in a voice made high and thin by excitement. “I will tell them you are true. But—where is Yvonne?” And he pushed past me to the gate, where he paused irresolutely.
107“Don’t tell me she is not with you!” I cried.
“She ran out a minute ago, not telling us what she was going to do,” he answered.
“But what for? What made her? She must have had some reason! What was it?” I demanded, becoming cold and stern as I noted how his nerves were shaken.
He collected himself with a visible effort, and then looked at me with a kind of slow pity.
“I had but now come in,” said he, “and thoughtlessly I told Madame a word just caught in the crowd. You know that evil savage, Etienne le Batard. Or you don’t, I see; but he’s the red right-hand of La Garne, and it was he executed yonder outrage. As he was leading his cut-throats away in haste, plainly upon another malignant enterprise, I heard him tell one of my parishioners what he would do. The man is suspected of a leaning to the English; and the savage said to him with significance:
“I go now to Kenneticook, to the yellow-haired English Anderson. Neither he nor his house will see another sun.
“I had thought perhaps you were right, Paul, and that Yvonne had promised herself to the Englishman more in esteem than love; but she cried out, with a piteous, shaken voice, that he must be warned—that some one must go to him and save him. With that she rushed from the 108house, and we have not seen her since. But stay—what have you said or done to her, Paul? Now that I see her face again, I see remorse in it. What have you done to her?”
I made no answer to this sharp question, it being irrelevant and my haste urgent. But I demanded:
“Where could she go for help?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, “unless, perhaps, to the landing.”
“The tide is pretty low,” said I, pondering, “but the wind serves well enough for the Piziquid mouth. Where do you suppose the savages left their canoes?”
“Oh,” said he positively, “well up on the Piziquid shore, without doubt. They came over on the upper trail, and they must be now hurrying back the same way. They cannot get up the Kenneticook, by that route, till a little before dawn.”
“I have time, then!” I exclaimed, and rushed away.
“Where are you going? Paul! Paul! What will you do?” he cried after me.
“I will save him!” I shouted as I went. “Come you down to the landing, the Gaspereau wharf, and get Yvonne if she’s there.”
Glancing back, I saw that he followed me.
My heart was surging with gratitude to God for this chance. I vowed to save Anderson, though it 109cost me my own life. If Yvonne loved him she should then owe her happiness to me. If she did not love him she would see that I was quite other than the traitor she imagined. Strange to say, I felt no bitterness against her for so misjudging me. It seemed to me that my folly had been so great that I had deserved to be misjudged. But now, here was my opportunity. I swore under my breath that it should not slip from my grasp.
It was a good two-thirds of a mile from the parsonage to the wharf, and I had time to scheme as I ran. I thought at once of Nicole, the smith,—of his boat, and his brawn, and his loyal fidelity. His boat would assuredly be at the wharf, but where should I find his brawn and his fidelity?
At his cottage, beside the forge, I stopped to ask for him.
“At the fire, monsieur,” quavered his old mother, poking a troubled face from the window in answer to my thundering on the door. “What would you with him? Do not lead him into harm, Master Paul!”
But I was off without answering; and the poor, creaking, worried old voice followed in my ears:
“He takes no sides. He hurts no one, Master Paul!”
Passing the De Lamourie gate I paused to shout at the height of my lungs:
110“Nicole! Nicole Brun! I want you! Nicole! Nicole!”
“Coming, Master Paul!” was the prompt reply, out of the heart of the crowd; and in a moment the active, thick-set form appeared, bareheaded as usual, for I had never known Nicole to cover his black shock with cap or hat.
I was leaning on the fence to get my breath.
“You were there, Nicole, when I was looking for a friend?” said I, eying him with sharp question and reproach as he came up.
“You did not seem to need any one just then, Master Paul; leastwise, no one that was thereabouts,” he answered, with a sheepish mixture of bantering and apology.
I ignored both. I knew him to be true.
“Will you come with me, right now, Nicole Brun?” I asked, starting off again toward the river.
“You know I will, Master Paul,” said he, close at my side. “But where? What are we up to?”
“The boat!” said I. “The wind serves. I’m going to the Kenneticook to warn Anderson that the Black Abbé is to cut his throat this night!”
I turned and looked him in the eyes as I spoke.
His long, determined upper lip drew down at my words, but his little grey eyes flashed upon mine a half-resigned, half-humorous acquiescence.
“It’s risky, Master Paul. And no good, like as 111not,” he answered. “We’ll be just about in time to get our own throats slit, I’m thinking,—to say nothing of the hair,” he added, rubbing his crown with rueful apprehension.
“Let me have your boat, and I go alone,” said I curtly. But I was sure of him nevertheless.
“I’m with you, sure, Master Paul, if you will go,” he rejoined. “And maybe it’s worth while to disturb his reverence’s plans, if it be only an Englishman that we’re taking so much trouble about.”
“We must and shall save him, Nicole,” I said, as deliberately as my panting breath would permit, “or I will die in the trying. He is betrothed to Mademoiselle de Lamourie, you know.”
“I should say, rather, let him die for her, that a better man may live for her,” he retorted shrewdly. “But as you will, Master Paul, of course!”
In the privacy of my own heart I thought extremely well of Nicole’s discrimination; but I said nothing, for by this we were come to the wharf; and I saw—Yvonne!
Almost to her side I came before she was aware of me, so intent she was upon her purpose. Two men of the village, fishermen whom I knew, she had summoned to her, and was passionately urging them to take her to Kenneticook. But for all her beauty, her enthralling charm, they hung back doggedly—being but dull clods, and in a shaking terror at the very name of the Black Abbé. It passed my comprehension that they should have any power at all when those wonderful eyes burned upon them. Never had I seen her so beautiful as then, her face wild with entreaty, her bewildering hair half fallen about her shoulders. A white, soft-falling shawl, such as I had never before seen her wear, was flung about her, and one little hand with its live, restless fingers clutched the fabric closely to her throat, as if she had been disturbed at her toilet.
I was about to interrupt her, for there was no moment to lose if I would accomplish my purpose; 113but of a sudden she seemed to realize the hopelessness of her effort to move these stolid fishermen. Flinging out her arms with a gesture of bitterness and despair, she cried, pointing to Nicole’s boat:
“Push off the boat, you cowards, and I will go alone!”
And turning upon the word she found herself face to face with me.
Even in that light I could see her lips go ashen, and for a moment I thought she would drop. I sprang to catch her, but she recovered, and shrank in a kind of speechless fury from my touch. Then she found words for me, dreadful words for me to hear:
“Traitor! Assassin! Still you to persecute and thwart me. It is you they fear. It is you who plan the murder of that good and true man—you who will not let me go to warn him!” Then her voice broke into a wilder, more beseeching tone: “Oh, if you have one spark of shame, remember! Let them push off the boat; and let me go, that I may try to save him!”
Her reproaches hurt me not, but what seemed her passion for him steadied me and made me hard.
“You are mad, mademoiselle!” I answered sternly. “I am going to save him.”
“As you have saved our house to-night!” she 114cried, with a laugh that went through me like a sword.
“I was outwitted by my enemies—and yours, mademoiselle. I go now to warn him. Push down the boat, men. Haste! Haste!” I ordered, turning from her.
But she came close in front of me, her great eyes blazed up in my face, and she cried, “You go to see that he does not escape your hate!”
“Listen, mademoiselle,” I said sharply. “I swear to you by the mother of God that you have utterly misjudged me! I am no traitor. I have been a fool; or my sword would have been at your father’s side to-night. I swear to you that I go now to expiate my mistake by saving your lover for you.”
The first wave of doubt as to my treason came into her eyes at this; but her lips curled in bitter unbelief. Before she could speak, I went on:
“I swear to you by—by the soul of my dead mother I will save George Anderson or die fighting beside him! You shall have your lover,” I added, as I stepped toward the boat, which was now fairly afloat on the swirling current. Nicole was hoisting the sail, while one of the fishermen held the boat’s prow.
I think Yvonne’s heart believed me now, though her excited brain was as yet but partially convinced, or even, perhaps, as I have sometimes 115dared to think in the light of her later actions, another motive, quite unrealized by herself, began to work obscurely at the roots of her being as soon as she had admitted the first doubts as to my treachery. But not even her own self-searching can unravel all the intricacies of a woman’s motive. As I was about to step into the boat she passed me lightly as a flower which the wind lifts and blows. She seated herself beside the mast.
“What folly is this, mademoiselle?” I asked angrily, pausing with my hand upon the gunwale, and noticing the astonishment on Nicole’s face.
Her mouth set itself obstinately as her eyes met mine.
“I am going, too,” she said, “to see if you respect your mother’s soul.”
“You cannot!” I cried. “You will ruin our only chance. We must run miles through the woods after we land, if we are to get there ahead of La Garne’s butchers. You could not stay alone at the boat”—
“I can!” said she doggedly.
“You could not keep up with us,” I went on, unheeding her interruption. “And if we delayed for you we should be too late. Every moment you stay us now may be the one to cost his life.”
“I am going!” was all she said.
I set my teeth into my lips. There was no alternative. Stepping quietly into the boat as if forced 116to acquiesce in her decision, with my left hand I caught both little white wrists as they lay crossed, still for a moment, in her lap. I held them inexorably. At the same time I passed my right arm about the slim body, and lifted it. There was but the flutter of an instant’s struggle, its futility instantly recognized; and then, stepping over the boatside with her, I carried her to the edge of the wharf, set her softly down, sprang back into the boat, and pushed off as I did so.
“I will save him for you, mademoiselle,” I said, “and, believe me, I have just now saved him from you!”
But she made no answer. She did not move from the place where I had set her down. There was a strange look on her face, which I could not fathom; but I carried it with me, treasured and uncomprehended, as the boat slipped rapidly down the tide.
As long as I could discern the wharf at all I could see that white form moveless at its edge. I forgot my errand. I forgot her cruel distrust. I strained my gaze upon her, and knew nothing save that I loved her.
When I could no longer discern even the shore whence we had started, I in a measure came to myself. Nicole—sagacious Nicole—had left me to my dream. He had got up the mainsail and jib unaided, and now sat like a statue at the tiller. We were in the open basin, running with a steady wind abeam. There was quite a swell on, and the waves looked sinister, cruel as steel, under the bare white moon. A fading glow still marked the spot where the De Lamourie house had stood; but save for that there was no hint of man’s hand in all the wild, empty, hissing, wonderful open. Far to the left lay Blomidon, a crouching lion; and straight ahead a low, square bluff guarded the mouth of the Piziquid. I saw that we were nearing it rapidly, for Nicole’s boat had legs. Once in the Piziquid mouth, we should have a hard run up against the ebb; but the wind would then be right aft, and I felt that we could stem the current and make our landing in time.
118“Will this wind carry her against the Piziquid tide?” I asked Nicole. It was the first word spoken in perhaps an hour, and my voice sounded strange to me.
“We’ll catch the first of the flood soon after we get inside, Master Paul,” said he, in the most matter-of-fact voice in the world.
Content with this, and knowing that for the time there was nothing to do but wait, I lapsed back into my reverie.
I felt exhausted, not from bodily effort, but from emotion. My nerves and brain felt sleepy; yet nothing was further from my eyes than sleep. Situations and deeds, mental and physical crises, agonies and ecstasies and dull despair, had so trodden upon one another’s heels that I was breathless. I caught at my brain, as it were, to make it keep still long enough to think. Yet I could not think to any purpose. I was aware of nothing so keenly as the sensation that had intoxicated me as I held Yvonne’s unconsenting body for those few moments in my arms, while removing her from the boat. To have touched her at all against her will seemed a sacrilege; but when a sacrilege has seemed a plain necessity I have never been the one to balk at it. Now I found myself looking with a foolish affection at the arms which had been guilty of that sacrilege—and straightway, coming to my wits again, I glanced at 119Nicole to see if he had divined the vast dimensions of my folly.
From this I passed to wondering what was truly now my hope or my despair. During all my talk with Yvonne—from the moment, indeed, when Father Fafard had told me of her agitation over Anderson’s peril—I had been as one without hope, in darkness utterly. Only a great love—the great love, as I had told myself—could inspire this desperate and daring solicitude. And against the one great love, in such a woman as Yvonne, I well knew that nothing earthly could prevail. My own bold resolution had been formed on the theory that her betrothal was but the offspring of expediency upon respect. Now, however, either the remembrance of her touch deluded me or something in her attitude upon the wharf held significance, for assuredly I began to dream that remorse rather than love might have been the mainspring of her agitation; remorse, and pity, and something of that strange mother passion which a true woman may feel toward a man who stirs within her none of the lover passion at all. I thought, too, of the wild sense of dishonour she must feel, believing me a traitor and herself my dupe. Strange comfort this, of a surety! Yet I grasped at it. I would prove her no dupe, myself no traitor; and stand at last where I had stood before, with perhaps some advantage. And my rival—he, 120I swore, should owe his life to me; a kind but cruel kind of revenge.
At last, my heart beating uncomfortably from the too swift self-chasing of my thoughts, I stood up, shook myself, and looked about me. We had rounded the bluff, and were standing up the broad Piziquid straight before the wind; and the boat was pitching hotly in the short seas where the wind thwarted the tide. I glanced at Nicole’s face. It was as plaintively placid as if he dreamed of the days when he leaned at his mother’s knee.
But the expression of his countenance changed; for now, from out the shadowed face of the bluff, came that bell-like, boding cry—
“Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the hour of her desolation is at hand!”
Nicole looked awed.
“He knows, that Gr?l!” he muttered. “It’s coming quick now, I’ll be bound!”
“Well, so are we, Nicole!” I rejoined cheerfully; “and that’s what most concerns me at this moment.”
I peered eagerly ahead, but could not, in that deluding light, discriminate the mouth of the Kenneticook stream from its low adjacent shores. Presently the waves and pitching lessened. The ebb had ceased, and the near shore slipped by more rapidly. The slack of tide lasted but a few minutes. Then the flood set in—noisily and 121with a great front of foam, as it does in that river of high tides; and the good boat sped on at a pace that augured accomplishment. In what seemed to me but a few minutes the mouth of the Kenneticook opened, whitely glimmering, before us.
Barely had I descried it when Nicole put the helm up sharp and ran straight in shore.
“What are you doing, man?” I cried, in astonishment. “You’ll have us aground!”
But the words were not more than out of my mouth when I understood. I saw the narrow entrance to a small creek, emptying between high banks.
“Oh!” said I. “I beg your pardon, Nicole; I see you know what you’re about all right!”
He chuckled behind unsmiling lips.
“They’ll go up the Kenneticook in their canoes,” said he. “We’ll hide the boat here, where they’ll not find it; and we’ll cut across the ridge to the Englishman’s. Quicker, too!”
The creek was narrow and winding, but deep for the first two hundred yards of its course; and Nicole, he knew every turn and shallow. We beached the boat where she could not be seen from the river, tied her to a tree on the bank above so that she might not get away at high tide, and then plunged into the dense young fir woods that clothed the lower reaches of the Piziquid 122shore. There was no trail, but it was plain to me that Nicole well knew the way.
“You’ve gone this way before, Nicole?” said I.
“Yes, monsieur, a few times,” he answered.
I considered for a moment, pushing aside the wet, prickly branches as I went. Then—
“What is her name, Nicole?” I asked.
“Julie, Master Paul,” said he softly.
“Ah,” said I, “then you had reasons of your own for coming with me to-night?”
“Not so!” he answered, a rebuking sobriety in his voice. “None, save my love for you and your house, Master Paul. She is in no peril. She is far from here, safe in Isle St. Jean this month past.”
“I beg your pardon, my friend,” said I, at once. “I know your love. I said it but to banter you, for I had not guessed that you had been led captive, Nicole.”
“A man’s way, Master Paul, when a woman wills!” said he cheerfully.
But I had no more thought of it than to be glad it had taught Nicole Brun a short path through the woods to Kenneticook.
What strange tricks do these our tangled makeups play us! I know that that night, during that swift half-hour’s run through the woods, my whole brain, my every purpose, was concentrated upon the rescue of George Anderson. The price I was 123prepared to pay was life, no less. Yet all the shaping emotion of it—sharp enough, one would think, to cut its lines forever on a man’s face, to say nothing of his brain—has bequeathed to me no least etching of remembrance. Of great things all I recall is that the name “Yvonne” seemed ever just within my lips—so that once or twice I thought I had spoken it aloud. But my senses were very wide awake, taking full advantage, perhaps, of the heart’s preoccupation. My eyes, ears, nose, touch, they busied themselves to note a thousand trifles—and these are what come back to me now. Such idle, idle things alone remain, out of that race with death.
Things idle as these: I see a dew-wet fir-top catch the moonlight for an instant and flash to whiteness, an up-thrust lance of silver; I see the shadow of a dead, gnarled branch cast upon a mossy open in startling semblance of a crucifix—so clear, I cannot but stoop and touch it reverently as I pass; I see, at the edge of a grassy glade, a company of tall buttercups, their stems invisible, their petals seeming to float toward me, a squadron of small, light wings. I hear—I hear the rush of the tide die out as we push deeper into the woods; I hear the smooth swish of branches thrust apart; I hear the protesting, unresonant creak of the green underbrush as we tread it down, and the sharp crackle of dry twigs as we 124thread the aisles of older forest; I hear, from the face of a moonlit bluff upon our left, the long, mournful Whóo-hu-hu—Hóo-oo of the brown owl. I smell the savour of juniper, of bruised snakeroot, of old, slow-rotting wood; with once a fairy breath of unseen linn?a; and once, at the fringed brink of a rivulet, the pungent fragrance of wild mint. I feel the frequent wet slappings of branches on my face; I feel the strong prickles of the fir, the cool, flat frondage of the spruce and hemlock, the unresisting, feathery spines of the young hackmatack trees; I feel, once, a gluey web upon my face, and the abhorrence with which I dash off the fat spider that clings to my chin; I feel the noisome slump of my foot as I tread upon a humped and swollen gathering of toad-stools.
All this is what comes back to me—and Nicole’s form, ever silent, ever just ahead, wasting no breath; till at last we came upon a fence, and beyond the fence wide fields, and beyond the fields a low white house with wings and outbuildings, at peace in the open moonlight.
“We are in time, Master Paul!” said Nicole quietly.
We vaulted the fence, jumped a well-cut ditch (I took note that Anderson was an excellent farmer), and ran across the fields. Presently came a deep, baying bark, and a great, light-coloured English mastiff came bounding toward us.
“Quiet, Ban!” said Nicole; and the huge beast, with a puppy-whine of delight, fell fawning at his knees. We were close to the house. Nicole stopped, and pointed to a cabin just visible at the foot of a long slope falling away to our right.
“Julie’s brother may chance to be there, Master Paul,” said he. “He is known for his devotion to Monsieur Anderson, whom few of us love. I will go wake the lad, if he’s there, while you rouse the master.”
“If you should fail to get back this way, my friend,” said I, “let us meet, say, at the boat.”
“Yes, at the boat,” he answered confidently.
I paused, partly to get breath, partly to follow him with a look of grateful admiration, the 126modest, still, strong, faithful retainer, of a type nigh vanished. He ran with his black-shock head thrust forward, and the great dog bounded beside him like a kitten.
It was the last I ever saw of Nicole Brun; nor to this day, for all my searching, have I had word of what befell him. Of the dog I learned something, seeing his skin, a year later, worn upon the shoulders of an Indian boy of the Micmac settlement. From this I could make shrewd guess at the fate of my Nicole; but the Indian lies astutely, and I could prove nothing. Sleep well, Nicole, my brave and true!
George Anderson’s wide red door carried a brass knocker which grinned venomously in the moonlight. My first summons brought no answer. Then I thundered again, imperatively, and I heard Anderson’s voice within, calling to servants. No servants made reply, so again I hammered, and shook fiercely at the door. Then he came himself, looking bewildered.
“Monsieur Grande, pardon me! The servants”—
“The servants have fled,” I interrupted. “Come quickly! There is not a minute to lose. The abbé’s savages are near. They are coming to scalp you and burn your house. We will leave them the house.”
There was no sign of fear on his face, merely 127annoyance; and I saw that his mind worked but heavily.
“Come in!” he said, leading the way into a wide room looking out upon the Kenneticook tide. “I won’t be driven by those curs. They dare not touch me. At the worst, with the help of the servants we can fight them off. Sit down, monsieur.”
And he proceeded calmly to pull on his boots.
I had followed him inside, wild at his obstinacy.
“I tell you,” said I, “they want your scalp. The servants are traitors and have stolen away while you slept. We are alone. Come, man, come! Would you have my throat cut, too?” And I shook him by the shoulder.
“Why have you come?” he asked, unmoved, staring at me.
“For the sake of Yvonne de Lamourie!”
“Oh!” said he, eying me with a slow hostility.
“You fool!” I exclaimed. “They have burned De Lamourie’s. I swore to Yvonne de Lamourie that I would save you or die with you. If you think she loves you, stir yourself. I cannot carry you. Look at that!”
I pointed to the window. At Yvonne’s name he had risen to his feet. He looked out. A group of canoes was turning in to shore, not two furlongs distant.
128“Where is she?” he inquired, alert at last.
“Safe,” said I curtly, “at Father Fafard’s.”
Still he wavered, brave, but undecided. I think he wondered why I was her chosen messenger.
“She is in a frenzy at your peril,” I said, though the words stuck in my throat. That moved him. His face lighted with boyish pleasure.
“Come!” he cried, as if he had been urging me all the time. “We’ll slip out at the back, and keep the buildings between us and the river till we reach the woods.”
“Have you no weapon?” I asked.
“No,” said he, “but this will do,” and he picked up a heavy oak stick from behind the door of the room.
Great as was the haste, I told him to lock the main door. Then as we slipped out at the back we locked the kitchen door behind us. I knew this would delay the chase; whereas if they found the doors open they would realize at once the escape of their intended victim and rush in pursuit, leaving the little matter of the fire to be seen to afterwards.
From the back door we darted to the garden, a thicket of pole beans and hops and hollyhocks. From the furthest skirt of these shelters we ran along a ditch that fenced a field of growing buckwheat, not yet high enough to give covert; but I think we kept well in shadow of the house all the 129way to the woods. If afterwards our enemies tracked us with what seemed a quite unnecessary promptitude and ease, it must be remembered that our trail was not obscure.
I led the flight, intending we should strike the creek at some distance above the boat and make our way down to it along the water’s edge, to cover our traces. The more we could divide our pursuers, the better would be our chances in the struggle, if overtaken. The pace I set was a sharp one, and soon, as I could perceive by his breathing, began to tell upon my heavy-limbed and unhardened companion. I slackened gradually, that he might not think I did it on his account.
In a very few minutes there arose behind us, coming thinly through the trees, the screeching war-whoop of the Micmacs, which has ever seemed to me more demoniacal and inhuman than even that of the Iroquois. Then, when we took time to glance over our shoulders, we marked a red glare climbing slowly. I judged that our escape was by this time discovered, and the wolves hot upon our trail.
To my companion, however, the sight brought a different thought.
“Where were you,” he gasped, “when they attacked De Lamourie’s? Did you not—promise—to save the place?”
130“I was a fool,” said I, between my teeth. “I thought the might of my name had saved it. I went to the Habitants. When I got back it was over.”
“Ah!” was all he said, husbanding his breath.
“And they think I am a traitor—that I sanctioned it,” I went on in a bitter voice.
He gave a short laugh, impatiently.
“Who?” he asked.
“Monsieur and Madame,” said I, “and, possibly, Mademoiselle also.”
“I could—have told them better than that,” he panted; “I know a man.”
Under the circumstances I did not think that modesty required me to disclaim the compliment.
A little further on he clutched me by the arm, and stopped, gasping.
“Blown,” said he, smiling, as if the situation were quite casual. “Must—one minute.”
I chafed, but stood motionless.
Suddenly there was a heavy crash some distance behind us.
“They are so sure, they scorn the least precaution,” I whispered, foolishly wroth at their confidence. “But come, though your lungs should burst for it,” I went on. “I will seize the first hiding-place.”
He rallied like a man, and we raced on with fresh speed. Indeed, as I look back upon it, I see 131that he did miraculously well for one so unused to the exercise.
Five minutes later we came to a small brook crossing our path from left to right toward the Kenneticook. It was a place of low, brushy shrubs under large trees.
“Keep close to me,” I whispered, “and look sharp. We’ll stop right here.”
I stepped into the middle of the brook, and he did likewise, carefully. Setting our feet with precaution to disturb no stones, we descended the stream some twenty paces, then crept ashore beneath the thick growth, and lay at full length like logs.
“You must get your breathing down to silence absolute,” I whispered; “they will be here in two minutes.”
In half a minute he had his laboring lungs in harness. Though within an arm’s length of him I could hear no sound. But I could hear our pursuers thrashing along on our trail. In a minute they were at the brook, to find the trail cut short. I caught snatches of their guttural comment, and laughed in my sleeve as I realized that Anderson’s very weakness was going to serve our ends. The savages never dreamed that any one could be winded from so short a run. Had their quarry gone up the brook or down it, was all their wonder. Unable to decide, they split into two parties, going 132either way. From the corner of my eye, violently twisted, I marked seven redskins loping past down stream.
When they were out of hearing, I touched Anderson on the shoulder.
“Come,” said I, “now is our time.”
“That was neat, very,” he muttered, with a quiet little chuckle, rising and throwing off the underbrush like an ox climbing out of his August wallow.
“Straight ahead now for the creek,” I whispered, crossing the brook; but a sound from behind made me turn. There stood a huge savage, much astonished at the apparition of us.
His astonishment was our salvation. It delayed his signal yell. As his breath drew in for it and I sprang with my sword, the Englishman was upon him naked-handed. He forgot his stick; which indeed was well, for his two hands at the redskin’s throat best settled the matter of the signal. For a Quaker, whom I have heard to be peaceful folk, Anderson seemed to me a good deal in earnest. Big and supple though the savage was, he was choked in half a minute and his head knocked against a tree. Anderson let him drop, a limp carcass, upon the underbrush, and stood over him panting and clenching his fingers, ready to try a new hold.
I examined the painted mass.
133“Not dead, quite!” said I. “But he’s as good as dead for an hour, I should say. I think perhaps we need not finish him.”
“Better finish him, and make sure,” urged Anderson, to my open astonishment. “He may stir up trouble for us later.”
But I was firm. I like, positively like, to kill my man in fair fight; but once down he’s safe from me, though he were the devil himself.
“No,” said I, “you shall not. Come on. If the poor rascal ever gets over that mauling, he’ll deserve to. That was neat, now. You are much wasted in Quakerdom, monsieur, when your English armies are needing good men.”
He was following close at my heels, as I once more led the race through the woods. He made no answer. Either he was saving his wind, or he was angry at leaving a good job unfinished. I mocked myself in my own heart, thinking:
“Paul, you fool, out of this big Quaker you have made a fighter, and he seems to like it. You may find your hands full with him, one of these days.”
The thought was pleasant to me on the whole, for it is ill and dishonouring work to fight a man who is no fair match for you. That was something I never could stomach, and have ever avoided, even though at the cost of deep annoyance.
Now the ground began to rise, and I guessed 134we were nearing the creek at a point where the banks were high.
“Nearly there,” I whispered encouragingly, and thrust forward with sudden elation through a dense screen of underbrush. I was right—all too right. The leafage parted as parts a cloud. There was no ground beneath my feet.
“Back!” I hissed wildly, and went plunging down a dark steep, striking, rebounding, clutching now at earth and now at air. At last it appeared to me that I came partly to a stop and merely rolled; but it no longer seemed worth while to grasp at anything.