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"Consent," said fanatic and youth together; and Penfold gave consent against his better judgment.

Unaided, the stranger carried the short gun up the steps, rested it in position upon its crutch on the sloping deck, and arranged the priming, while the stern boy at his bidding produced knife and flint. The men below awaited results with a certain curiosity, looking for little more than an explosion of powder, and the hurling of a defiant missile harmlessly into space.

It might have been the excellence of the aim, it might have been the working of Providence, more probably it was sheer commonplace English luck; but, when the quaint little weapon had howled, kicked viciously, and rolled over, there came the dull crash of lead with wood, a shower of tough splinters, and – most glorious sight for the adventurers' eyes – the top of the French mainmast, carrying the great white and gold flag, which had been blessed by a bishop upon the high altar of Notre Dame in Paris, sprang into the air like a pennoned lance, described a half circle, and plunged to deck, piercing the canopy as though it had been paper, missing the ministrant by inches only, scattering the candlesticks and breaking the candles before the eyes of the scandalised soldiers, who were concluding their devotions to the "Ite missa est" of the priest.

A great cheer ascended from the Dutch ship, making the cold, pine-clad hills echo and ring. Hough forgot his sternness, and laughed aloud as he clasped the gunner's hand. Old Penfold smiled grimly, with more inward jubilation than he cared to show.

"Now plume her, lads, and let us fly," he shouted. "Steer her around yonder bend in safety, and we may laugh at her cannon."

"The prisoners, captain! We cannot both fight the ship and hold guard over them."

"To the river with them," said Hough. "Let them swim ashore."

"There may be some who cannot swim."

"What better chance shall they have of learning? My father cast me into the Thames when I was but a whipster, and said, 'Sink or swim, my lad.' And I thought it well to swim."

Protesting, struggling, swearing in an unknown tongue, the prisoners were brought forth from the cabins and hurried over the side, the laggards helped by a cuff or kick at starting. The turgid river splashed with Dutchmen, like a school of porpoises, making with what speed they could – for the water was exceedingly cold – towards the rock-bound shore.

Great was the confusion upon the Frenchman when she became so notably disgraced, but presently D'Archand restored a semblance of order, and the men trailed off to their duties, probably not a little afraid at discovering that the ever-dreaded English, whose appearance north of far-distant Plymouth had become a familiar nightmare, were aboard their supposed Dutch ally. La Salle, who had immediately rushed into his cabin and there divested himself of his ecclesiastical finery, speedily reappeared in secular costume with his redoubtable sword naked in his hand. The abbé could swear as heartily as any soldier when put to it, which fact he proved beyond lawyers' arguments then and there.

"Body of St. Denis!" he cried. "See to your priming, knaves. Ah, hurry, young imp of the pit," kicking a scrambling powder-boy as he shouted. "By St. Louis, our Lady, and the Cardinal! This is a Dutch word, a Dutch troth, a Dutch alliance. We shall harry the traitors who have leagued themselves with our enemies, unless their master, Satan, lends them wings to carry them to the uttermost parts of the earth. We shall hang them speedily to the rigging, if the saints be favourable. Fire, rogues! See you not that she is slipping away from us? Ah, for a sand bank, or sunken rock, to catch her as she runs! Mark you now, when I throw a curse over them, how they shall be brought down in their pride."

Despite the malediction of Holy Church, the trim Dutchman swept on nearly a quarter of a mile ahead. Sailors manned the rigging, and crammed on as much additional sail as the masts would bear; the dishonoured flag was replaced; Roussilac paced the main deck, pale with rage, his fingers clasping and unclasping his sword-hilt. D'Archand hurried to and fro, issuing orders with typical French rapidity.

A jet of smoke broke over her bows, and a ball threw up a spout of water in the wake of the fleeing vessel.

"A most courteous and inoffensive messenger," quoth Flower, bowing to the enemy. "Captain, shall we not make a suitable reply?"

"I fear me powder and ball are out of reach," said the captain. "The noisy hornets below guard the magazine. Would that we had a flag to hoist over us, though it were nothing more comprehensible to our foes than the five heads of county Berks."

Another gun exploded, and after it another, and so they continued ringing their wild music, the balls falling astern for the most part, though more than one whizzed through the rigging, yet without doing more damage than cutting a rope.

"Take her wide round yonder point, master helmsman," cried the stranger. "There lies a mud-bank stretching under the water well-nigh to mid-stream. Mark you the place where it ceases by the ripple across the river? Steer your passage to the left of that ripple, and all shall go well."

"Methinks the wind blows more keenly," said Woodfield.

"There is coming upon us that wind which the Indians call the life of the day, a breath of storm from the west which endures but a few moments, blowing away the vapours of early morn and the last clouds of night," said the man of Kent. "We may be sure of that wind at this season of the year. After it follows calm, and the sun grows hot. Haul down the lower main-sail, Sir Leader. The heavy mist upon yonder hills tells us that the wind shall blow full strength this morning."

Even as he spoke a ball from the enemy's bows roared overhead, and snatched away a portion of the sail he indicated. The loose canvas began already to flap and the flying ropes to whistle in the wind.

"Let it remain so," said the Kentishman. "We have no need to take in our sail since they have saved us the work. Didst see how she staggered then? She shall never carry all that weight of canvas through the life of the day, and the wind bears more heavily on her than upon us. Ah, she gains!"

It was as he had said. The unwieldy vessel fell into the breath of the wind, and, righting herself after a sudden lurch, settled down into the water, ploughing a deep white furrow, every mast bending and every rope straining, every inch of canvas bellying mightily.

The Dutchman came out to avoid the mud flat. She began to make the bend, and her helmsman already saw the wide reach of river beyond, when a terrible shout ascended from the men who were caged between decks. At the same moment a pungent odour tainted the free air, and a thin blue vapour began to leak from the cracks and joinings of the planks.

The Dutchman was burning internally. Soon her deck smoked like a dusty road under wind, and the shouts of the prisoners became terrible to endure. The adventurers smelt the choking fumes, saw the curling vapours, and their faces grew pale with the knowledge that they had to face a more dangerous foe than the French, knowing well that any moment a spark or a flame might touch the magazine.

"Unfortunates!" groaned Penfold. "I had hoped to win this ship, and with her sail to Virginia, there to gather a crew of mine own people, and return hither to harry the French."

"To the boats," cried Flower. "Better be sunk by a cannon ball than perish like rats in a corn-stack."

The wind rushed down from the westward rocks with a shout. It smote the waters of the St. Lawrence, beating them into waves. It penetrated the womb of the Dutch vessel, and fanned the smouldering fire into life. It plucked at the cordage, fought with the sails, and bent the masts until they cracked again. It came in a haze through which the sun glowed faintly, and behind over the unseen heights the sky cleared and burst into blue patches, because the passing of the life of the day was as sudden as its birth.

Down went the mizzenmast of the Frenchman with its crowning weight of canvas, carrying away the spanker, the shrouds, davits, and quarter boat; and her sky-sails, which a moment before had raked the breeze so proudly, spread disabled in the river. She dragged on with her wreckage, while men with axes swarmed into the poop to cut away the dead weight of wood and saturated canvas. The mainmast curved like a bow from the main shrouds to the truck, but remained fast until the haze broke, and the sky became a field azure, from which the sun shone out in his might.

Flames were now pouring from the doomed ship, and the poop was a mass of fire. The Englishmen ran for the boats, into which they flung every article upon which they could lay their hands: swords and guns, axes, clothing, provisions, bedding, and even spare sails and ropes. Everything would serve some useful purpose in their life upon the shore. The lord of the isles alone took nothing. He entered his canoe with the boy, and before the adventurers quitted the doomed ship they had reached the shore and entered the cover of the trees, the man carrying the light canoe beneath his arm.

"Release the prisoners," cried Flower, as he cast his last burden into the boat.

"Not so," replied the vindictive Hough. "Let them perish like the men of Amalek before Israel."

"Nay, we are no cold-blooded murderers," protested Woodfield. "Unfasten the hatches, and let them save themselves."

"Have they not been delivered into our hands that we may destroy them?" said Hough.

"Now you would undo the good work, and raise up again a host to be our destruction in the time to come."

"Let us not argue, lest we be destroyed," said young Viner. "What says our captain?"

But old Penfold was lying back in the boat, fainting with exhaustion and loss of blood, and when Woodfield appealed to him he only murmured the death sentence of the Dutchmen, "Let Jeremiah Hough command."

"Cast off," said the Puritan. "Let the enemies of our country perish. The Lord do so to me and more also if I spare any of the accursed race who have sworn to sweep England from the seas."

So the boat pushed off, and came after hard rowing to the shore, beside the mouth of the little river which enters the main stream midway between Cap Tourmente and the cleft of the Saguenay. Up this river the men pulled to find a place for encampment, until the sweet-smelling pine forest closed behind and hid them from their enemies, whose flag they had flouted and beaten that day. While they worked their way inland a mighty explosion shook the atmosphere, the cones rained from the overhanging trees, the rock land thrilled, the face of the water shivered, and the birds flew away with screams.

"I fear me," said Hough, as he ceased his nasal droning of a psalm, "I fear me that the popish dogs have been given time to rescue the Hollanders."

True it was that the French had been allowed both time and opportunity for setting at liberty the wretches in the burning ship, but neither Roussilac nor any of his captains dared to lead the venture, knowing that any moment might witness the destruction of the ship. The master took in his sails, cast anchor, and waited for the end.

Thus the undertaking of Holland failed, as her treachery deserved. It was her one attempt at wresting the fortress from the Cardinal's grip. And from that day to this no man-of-war from the Netherlands has ever sailed up the gulf of the St. Lawrence.

CHAPTER VIII
COUCHICING

A month went after the failure of the Dutch venture, and the sachems of the Iroquois still awaited the signal of the raft of fire. Van Vuren had entered the fortress that morning which witnessed the loss of his ship, and there remained at the mercy of the French, spending his days in making friendly overtures to the commandant, avoiding La Salle – who still refused to believe that it was not Van Vuren who had been his cowardly attacker that distant night at the street corner in Avignon – and anxiously inquiring for news concerning the expedition which he had sent out to the west. The Dutchman was being punished for his treachery by the knowledge that a sword was suspended by an exceedingly frail thread above his head, for he strongly suspected that the dwarf Gaudriole was cognisant of his visits to the council fire. He was therefore afraid to approach the Indians again; but his mind was yet occupied with its former plot of seizing the fortress with their aid.

During that month Roussilac had not been idle. With half his men he had harried the country to east and west, that he might find and hang the Englishmen who had dared to occupy his territory and disgrace his flag. He did not venture into the forests of the north, because the Iroquois were masters there. Once the adventurers came very near to being taken, but bravery and English luck opened a way for their escape. They were, however, compelled to abandon their cave among the cliffs, and flee for refuge into the district inhabited by the friendly Cayugas; and there, a few paces from the brink of Couchicing, the Lake of Many Winds, they built them a hiding-place surrounded by a palisade, which they ambitiously named New Windsor. To the north they were protected by the face of the water, to the south by the primæval forest; on the west the Cayugas held the land, on the east the Oneidas, both tribes well disposed towards the English and bitterly hostile to the French.

Finding himself again defeated, Roussilac cast about in his mind for a sounder policy, and finally resolved to adopt Samuel de Champlain's cunning and stir up the Algonquins anew to attack their hereditary foes. Accordingly he despatched Gaudriole with a couple of soldiers to the north, with a present of guns and ammunition and a message to the chief Oskelano, praying him to descend straightway to the river, and view for himself the majesty and power of the representatives of the King of France. Oskelano, a treacherous and heartless rogue, snatched at the gifts, asked greedily for more, and consented to return with the dwarf to the fortress.

This move on the part of the commandant escaped the knowledge of the men who were busy in their way spinning the web of England's empire, fighting for their own existence and for supremacy at one and the same time. At their councils figured the lord of the isles – whose well-hidden shelter in the heart of the region of the lost waters had never been suspected by the searching party – and his stern young son. Since that unlooked-for meeting on the deck of the Dutch vessel the Kentishman had come into frequent contact with the men of Berks, and their common nationality, cause, and necessities had quickly forged a stubborn tie between them. But the geniality of the yeomen never succeeded in breaking down the reserve of their mysterious colleague. When asked to recount some portion of his past history he would but answer brusquely, and when they demanded to know his name he merely returned his former answer, "I am a man of Kent."

During that month another provision ship, the St. Wenceslas of Marseilles, had sailed up the St. Lawrence, and so soon as she had made fast and told the news of the world D'Archand lifted anchor and headed for home, carrying Roussilac's despatches, and those soldiers and settlers who, by reason of wounds or sickness, had become unfitted to fulfil their military obligations. The French Government had taken advantage of the dissensions which were rending England apart to send by the St. Wenceslas more emigrants into the new world – all picked men, destined by the Government to be established, willing or unwilling, regardless of soil or natural advantages, upon such districts as might be considered to need strengthening, there to survive or to become extinct. It would be their duty to form, not a settlement capable of extension, but a military post; and they would be sustained by supplies brought over from France by warships. It was a weak policy, bound by the test of time to fail. The English motto was settlement and a friendly attitude towards the natives; that of her great colonial rival, aggrandisement and the destruction of the aborigines.

These facts were remembered by the venturers, when they beheld the coming of the one ship and the departure of the other, and, egotists though they were, the truth that they could not possibly form a settlement unaided became at last too obvious to be ignored. After repeated deliberations they decided upon a course which was indeed the only one open to them. The advice, that one of the party should attempt to reach the king's loyal town of Boston by overland journey and there beg for help, proceeded in the first instance from the man of Kent. He explained that the province of Massachusetts was well occupied by Englishmen of every grade – soldiers of fortune as well as artisans, farmers, and titled scions of great houses; and, he added, there were ships of war in Boston and Plymouth harbours. This advice found favour in the eyes of the others, and they proceeded to draw lots to decide which one should make the hazard. The lot fell upon Geoffrey Viner, the youngest of the party. His seniors at once held forth objections, grounded upon his youth and inexperience; but the boy as stoutly held out for his privilege, until the dissentients gave way.

At noon upon the day which had been selected for the young man's departure, the lord of the isles appeared at New Windsor to bid the messenger farewell. Geoffrey went out with him, and they stood alone in the shade of a hemlock, facing the lake and a white cascade which streamed like a bridal veil over the face of the rocks. After the Kentishman had imparted what little knowledge he had of the country to the south, he went on to fix deeply into the mind of his listener the importance of seeing Lord Baltimore, the Governor of New England, personally, and of impressing the papist peer strongly with the vital necessity of sending immediate succour to the north.

"And what if my Lord Baltimore will not hear me, or hearing will not believe?" asked Geoffrey anxiously.

"Give to him this ring," replied the other, drawing reluctantly from his left hand a gold circlet set with a stone bearing a coat-of-arms. "Bid him remember the promise made to this ring's owner one summer night in a Kentish orchard. Bid him also recall the words of King Henry the Sixth upon Southwark Bridge, hard by Saint Mary Overies, to his ancestor the keeper of the privy seal, and to mine the sheriff of Kent."

"Think you that our plans shall prosper?" the young man asked.

"Have no doubt. Believe that already we have succeeded. Persuade yourself that the French are driven out of their fastnesses, and the land from Acadia to Hochelaga gives allegiance to King Charles. As a man wills so shall it be. And yet be cautious."

"Should I not bid them attack Acadia first? It is but a small colony, and open to the water they say."

"Nay," said the other. "Let us fight with our faces to the sea. How shall it profit us to drive our enemy inland and disperse them as a swarm of flies which rises and settles in another spot? We must drive them eastward to the sea, where they shall either conquer or die. I pray you guard that ring."

As they moved away from the hemlock's shade a canoe swept over the lake and touched the sand, and two stern-faced Cayugas lifted their paddles, shaking the water from the blades. These brought a brace of land-locked salmon to the beach. A young woman followed, and after her an old man, his thick hair adorned with a bunch of feathers. These were Shuswap and Onawa, his youngest daughter.

The lord of the isles went forward, and met his native relatives upon the beach.

"Gitsa," cried the old man. "We greet you, Gitsa."

"Is it well, Shuswap?"

"It is the time of the wind of life, the good time," the old man answered. "The waters are free, and the animals breed in the forest. Where are the white men of the smooth tongue, Gitsa? Where are the men who came to us at the council fire and said to us, 'Your enemy is our enemy. Aid us now when we rise up against them'? Shall they return with the wind of life?"

"The north wind came upon them and swept them away," his son-in-law replied, employing the sachem's figurative speech. "You have something to tell me, Shuswap?"

"There is a strange ship come to the high cliffs, a great ship from the land of the accursed people," said the old man. "What is this that you have told us, Gitsa? Said you not that the King of England shall send many ships and men when the ice has gone, to drive out the men of France and restore their own to the tribes of the Iroquois? What is this that we see? The priest of France sends more ships, and more men who shall kill the beasts of the forest and the fish of the waters, and drive us back with their fire-tubes into the forests of the north where the enemies of our race, the Algonquins, lie ever in wait. Is there a king in England, Gitsa? Has he ships to send out? Has he men to put into them? Have you lied to the sachems of the Iroquois?"

"Be not afraid, Shuswap," said the white man. "You shall learn whether there be a king of England or no. But he has many enemies in the far-away world, and these he must conquer first. Even now we are sending a messenger to the king's country, and he shall return with ships and men, and the French shall flee before them."

The man of Kent spoke with a heavy heart. He dared not confess what he believed to be the truth – namely, that England was already embroiled in civil war.

"A tribe divided against itself shall be annihilated," said the sachem sharply, with the clairvoyant power of the primitive man. "The remaining tribes stand by until it is exhausted, and then fall upon that tribe, and it is known no more. Is it so with the English, Gitsa?"

"It is not so," replied the Englishman, a flush upon his tanned features. "England stands above other nations of the world, even as the sun is greater than all lights. She shines over the earth in her strength. Were there no England the world would fall into decay, the creatures who supply us with meat and fur would die, the fish would fail in the waters, the forests would wither, there would be no rain and no light by night or by day. The sun would turn black, the moon would fall into the sea, the very gods would die if England were no more. She shall take possession of this land in her own time, and Frenchmen shall have no place in it except as subjects of our king."

The old sachem lifted his cunning eyes and said: "It is well, Gitsa. But if it be so, why does not your king lift his hand and drive away his enemies, or blow with his breath and destroy their ships? Surely that would be a small thing to a king who governs the world."

"It would be a small thing in truth," replied the Englishman, smiling in spite of his sorrow. "But the ways of the king are not our ways. He allows his enemies to go upon their course, until a day comes when he shall say, 'You have gone too far.' It is thus that he shows his power."

"It is so," said the sachem gravely. "We cannot read the mind of him who rules. One year there are many animals in the forest, and we live in plenty. The next we starve. A small tribe overthrows a great one. A great tribe becomes too prosperous and is plagued with pestilence. The young men are smitten. The old live on. The wind destroys the forest, the river breaks its own banks. The lightning strikes down the totem-pole which we have raised for his pleasure. It is so. There is a mystery in life. The gods destroy their own handiwork. They remove the strong, and let the weak survive."

He passed on, an erect figure, in spite of his age, and treading firmly.

Onawa, a silent listener to their talk, stepped out. She was good to look upon, with her wealth of black hair, her large eyes, her rounded face, the cheeks and lips lightly touched with paint, her slim muscular figure. She could run against any man, and aim an arrow with the sureness of any forester of Nottingham. But she was headstrong, as changeable as water, and the Englishman did not trust her.

"Where have you been, Onawa?" he said.

"I have come from the camp with my father," she replied. "Where have you left your son? They say, among the tribes, that he grows into a great warrior. They say also that he carries wood and draws water and cuts up the deer which he has killed. Our young men despise a woman's work."

"I have taught him the duty of helping his mother," came the reply. "In my country a man lives for his mother or his wife, and her good favour is his glory."

The girl hesitated, a frown crossing her forehead. "Why are the French so beautiful, so bold-looking?" she asked suddenly.

"That they may captivate the minds and eyes of women who are weak."

"They are better to look at than Englishmen. They do not wear old garments marked with dirt. They do not let the hair upon their faces grow down their bodies. They do not talk deep in their throats. They are not serious. I love to hear them talk, to see them move. They walk like men who own the world."

"I have warned you against them," he said earnestly. "They are the natural enemies of your people. Consider! What Frenchman has ever married into your tribe and settled down among you?"

The girl laughed scornfully, and turned to go, grasping her long hair in her hand.

"You hide from them because you know that they are better men than you," she taunted. "It was a Frenchman who first came Jo our country from the other world. Perhaps there was no England in those days. The sun loves to shine upon Frenchmen. The English live in the mists. You have taken my sister for wife, but I – I, Onawa, daughter of Shuswap, would marry a Frenchman."

"Never shall I wish you a harder fate," retorted the calm man; and having thus spoken he turned aside towards the tiny English settlement to greet his friends and join again his son.

It was the first hour of night when Viner started upon his great journey. The forest was white with a moon, and sparks of phosphorus darted across the falls. When the wooden bars were drawn out of their sockets and the five men emerged from the palisade, the monotonous chirping of frogs ceased abruptly, and a great calm ensued.

In single file they passed along the dark trail, the wet bush sweeping their legs, the branches locked overhead. They rounded the red fires which marked the camping-ground of the Oneidas; they smelt the acrid smoke, and dimly sighted many a brown lean-to; the dogs jumped out barking. They passed, the lights disappeared, the silence closed down. Presently the trail divided; the branch to the left leading to the river, that to the right bearing inland to the lakes, rivers, and hunting-grounds known only to the Indians.

"Get you back now," said Viner, halting at the parting of the ways. "We are already in the country of the enemy. Bid me here God-speed."

There they clasped hands, and in the act of farewell Flower slipped into Viner's hand a little black stone marked with a vein of chalk. "Keep it, lad," he muttered. "One spring when I was near drowning in the Thames by being held in the weeds I caught this stone from the river-bed. Methinks it has protected me from ill. May that same fortune be on you, and more added to it, in the work which lies before you."

A ray of moonlight fell through an opening in the trees, and whitened the five keen faces.

"Superstition made never a soldier of any man," muttered the stern voice of the Puritan. "Fling that idolatry to the bush, Geoffrey, and go your way, trusting rather in the Lord with a psalm upon your lips."

"It is but a reminder of home for the lad," protested Flower gently. "We have each other. But in the solitudes what shall he have?"

"'Tis but a stone from our river, friend Hough," said Geoffrey timidly. "I thank you, neighbour," he added.

"Fare you well," said old Penfold sadly. "We shall lack you sore."

They turned away, and instantly became lost from the man who was going south, because the trail bent sharply. The little band of adventurers, now reduced to four, walked slowly and sorrowfully towards New Windsor, until they came out upon the lake, and heard the beavers gnawing the rushes, and the wind splashing the fresh water up the beach.

"What has come to our nightingales?" said Penfold suddenly. "I like not this silence."

The frogs about the palisade were songless, and the sign was ominous. At their leader's hasty remark the others came to a stand, and scanned the prospect keenly, until silently and abruptly the ghost-like shape of a woman rose between them and the moon.

"'Tis but the girl Onawa, daughter of Shuswap," muttered Woodfield reassuringly; but there was a suspicion in his mind which prompted him to add, "What does she here?"

Even while he put the question Hough cried out, and pointed with a wild gesture, feeling that same moment for his sword. Gazing in the direction which he indicated with a quivering hand, his brethren saw before them the palisade, but not as they had left it. The wooden bars had been set back into their sockets, as though to forebode the occupation of their enclosure by an enemy.

"Stay!" called Onawa haughtily, when the men approached her at a run. "Your tepee has passed from you into the power of the king."

"There is only one king," cried old Penfold. Then he shouted at her, for all the land to hear, "What king?"

"King Louis," said the girl defiantly.