Kitabı oku: «The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Old Quebec», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XVII
STAMEN

That knowledge of forest-craft, which enables the traveller to guide his feet unerringly through pathless bush, was only in rare instances acquired by the New World venturers, and then only after years of hard experience. When Woodfield abandoned his captain to follow the career of Hough he struck indeed in the right direction, but the native trails were numerous, and along one of these the yeoman went astray. By seeking to set himself right he became hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of the forest; and at last succumbed to weariness and stretched himself to sleep upon a bed of moss, until a ray of sunlight stabbed through the dense roof of foliage and smote him across the eyes.

Woodfield arose and looked around in sore perplexity, knowing not which way to turn. The globes of dew gleamed in opal tints upon the grass, the big robins passed wreathed in filmy gossamers, the earth smoked with mist and thrilled with the voice of the glad west wind. But all the beauty and peace of nature combined made no satisfying meal for an empty body. Trusting to Providence, Woodfield started out afresh, and walked strongly for many hours, but always making direct north and away from the camping-ground of the Iroquois, away from Couchicing and the little settlement upon its shore.

The yeoman tramped on, until exhaustion came upon him. All around the great white pines lifted two hundred feet in height, interspersed with dazzling spruce and gleaming poplars. He smoked to still the pain of hunger, but the strong tobacco made him dazed. He staggered on, and presently heard the voices of approaching men. The trail bent sharply. He passed on, with half-opened eyes and wildly throbbing brain, went round the bend, and started suddenly as from an evil dream. Half-naked bodies and painted faces closed round him in a clamorous ring; and Woodfield awoke fully to the knowledge that he had fallen into the hands of the Algonquins.

With an effort he drew himself upright, and gazed bravely at an old warrior with flowing hair, who nodded and smiled at him in a not unfriendly fashion.

"J'ai faim," the adventurer muttered, trusting that one at least of the braves might understand the French language.

It was the wily old fox Oskelano who confronted the Englishman. He stretched out his hand – the etiquette of handshaking he had acquired from his visit to the fortress – and articulated with difficulty:

"You … French?"

Woodfield grasped the brown hand and nodded violently.

"Necessity makes hypocrites of us all," he muttered for the satisfaction of his stubborn English conscience.

Oskelano grinned amicably and gave an order to his men; and straightway the warriors closed round and escorted Woodfield to their camp, every step widening the distance between him and his companions. They gave him food and drink; they provided him with a shelter; they built a smoky fire before him to keep away the flies. Finally Oskelano himself came, accompanied by his brother, and the two squatted gravely at the entrance to the bower and scrutinised their captive with pride and interest.

"Um," grunted Oskelano, after a long period of silence.

"Ho," muttered the weary Englishman with equal gravity.

The French vocabulary of the Algonquin chief did not extend beyond the single word diable, a word which he uttered constantly in his subsequent efforts to converse with his guest, without any understanding of its meaning, but believing, since he had heard it issue with frequency from the lips of the soldiers in the fortress, that it was an expression of possibilities. He endeavoured to convey by means of gestures that it had come to his knowledge that the Iroquois were about to attack the fortress at the instigation of the English. His spies had seen a messenger bearing the symbol of the headless bird. They had also observed the general movement eastward of the tribes. The gods had provided him with a rare opportunity for attacking his enemy. He was the friend of the great French people – he slapped his insidious old heart with his treacherous hand – he was eager to fight for his allies, and in return he doubted not that the chief far over seas, King Louis to wit, would graciously send to his good Algonquin friends many of the magic fire-tubes, with an abundant supply of that unholy admixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal which possessed such a wondrous property of exploding to the physical detriment of a foe.

"Diable?" he grunted, staring eagerly at Woodfield.

"Oui," answered the harassed Englishman, though in truth he had understood nothing.

"Um," grunted Oskelano; and there the interview ended, with nothing gained on either side.

But as the chief returned to his skin-hut, his brother, a sachem wiser than he, made the disquieting assertion: "The white stranger is not of the French tribe."

"How know you so?" cried the perturbed chief.

"He does not lift his hands, nor does he shake his shoulders when he speaks. He sits without motion. He does not laugh. He is one of the race they call English."

Woodfield ate the strong bear-meat brought to his shelter by a silent giant, and turned to compose himself for sleep; but the giant touched his shoulder and made a gesture which there was no mistaking. The Englishman rose, and immediately two other figures glided out of the forest and cut off his retreat.

They led him along a trail where the fireflies were beginning to light their lamps, between the big trees, and out into short bush and sage-brush where the cranes swept overhead, crying mournfully. Rockland appeared presently, streaked granite overrun with poison-ivy. The captive noticed that the rock was fretted with caves.

Into one of these he was ushered by the custodians, who then gravely divested him of his weapons. A fire was lighted near the mouth of the cave, and there the bronze guardians squatted, maintaining an intolerable silence throughout the night.

A change of sentries took place at daybreak; another at mid-day; a third the following nightfall. Food and drink were handed in to the prisoner; but the guards spoke never a word and made him no sign.

Another day went by, but as the time of evening drew near there came the sound of camp-breaking down the wind. A host of armed men tramped beside the cave. A group of doctors, attired in the fantastic mummery of their craft, followed; and last of all came Oskelano and his brother side by side.

Around a solitary poplar men were at work, chopping down the brush with their tomahawks. The guard stepped up upon either side of Woodfield, who watched these preparations with a prisoner's suspicions, and led him out to the cleared space.

"Um," grunted Oskelano, and shook hands amiably with his victim.

Then the men put aside their tomahawks and bound him to the poplar with ropes of vegetable fibre. They piled the moss around him and flung the sagebrush atop. Others brought up pine branches and piled them waist high. Oskelano watched, his crafty face wrinkled with smiles.

At last the Englishman understood that he was about to be made a sacrifice to the fierce Algonquin gods. He uttered no useless prayer and made no cry. "They have spared me the torture," he muttered bravely. "Let me now show them how to die." As the silent and supple natives worked around him, he recalled the tales that old men at home had told him, of the Protestants who had died for their faith, laughing at the flames and bathing their hands in them. The last scene in the life of the old vicar of Hadleigh had often as a boy moved him to tears. He remembered how that the old man had lighted from his horse to dance on his way to the stake, and he recalled his noble words of explanation: "Now I know, Master Sheriff, I am almost at home." The passing into death through fire was merely a sting sudden and sharp.

Water was dashed over the fuel until the pile gleamed frostily in the fading rays. A fiery death for his captive was no part of Oskelano's plan. He had discovered that suffocation was more effective and less rapid than the flames.

Tree and victim became soon hidden in a dense column of cloud, the doctors resumed their march, the guard followed, the two sachems brought up the rear, discussing their proposed attack as indifferently as though that mighty pillar of smoke pouring upward in the still evening air out of the plain of sage-brush had no existence in fact.

Well-laid as was the cruel Algonquin's plan, he had not the wisdom to guard against that element of the improbable which rarely fails to enter into, and mar the working of, the best-contrived plot.

A maid had concealed herself in the bush until the camp became clear. Then she came forth and ran like the wind, but stopped upon the plain with a cry of terror when she beheld an old man, who hobbled painfully through the brush. The ancient turned, suspicious of every sound, but when he saw the girl his dry face broke into a weird smile.

"Hasten, child," he quavered, leaning heavily upon his staff. "The Mother of God forgets not the good done by man or maid."

He dropped a knife at her feet. The girl caught it up and sped onward like a deer.

The old man was a Christian. The maid was heathen. Old mind and young working independently, the former actuated by the religion of altruism, the latter wrought upon by nature, had entertained in secret the self-same plan of rescuing the young Englishman from his terrible plight.

CHAPTER XVIII
COMMITTAL

While Woodfield was a prisoner in the camp of the Algonquins, his comrades, who had searched for him in vain, made their sad parting from George Flower upon the Windy Arm where the waters mourn for ever.

This promontory had been so named by the Indians because it thrust itself far out, like an arm, into Lake Couchicing, meeting the full force of every wind. It made a suitable spot, thought the survivors, for an Englishman's grave, being rough and rugged and strong to behold, like the man whom they had known and loved and lost.

When Hough had done droning his prayers, they heaped the soil into the form of a mound, which they covered with warm peat. While thus employed they beheld Shuswap passing down to the beach, where a dozen long canoes lay ready for a start. One, which was covered with green branches, had already been launched, and was rocking gently upon the shallows. The Englishmen hastened to complete their work, when they discovered that the sachem was awaiting them with impatience.

Then a mournful procession crossed glass-like Couchicing, headed by the sad canoe where boy and hound slept together as they had been wont to do at home. It reached the fringed shore opposite, amid the sorrowful cries of the paddlers. The canoes were carried across the strip of land and down again to the water where the country was in splendour. Here Nature struck no mourning note. Only a few stripped trees leaning out, held from falling by tougher comrades which supported them on either side, spoke mutely of the presence of death after life; and even so showed strong green saplings from some living nerve of the half-decayed roots to proclaim the final triumph of life over death.

So they continued, until wild islets stood out, their banks humped with beaver mounds, and the lost waters began to shout with the mourners, and the swelling north wind shook the shore. The paddlers wrenched the canoes round, chanting as they worked, and the whitecap waves slapped the frail birch-bark sides.

No man stood beside young Richard's grave. A flock of noisy birds pecked amid the fresh-turned soil and flung themselves away before the carriers. Sir Thomas took no part in these last rites. From that pierced body of his son the jewel of great price had been snatched, and the setting he left for others to handle.

The mother stood beside old Shuswap, her bosom heaving vengefully as the warriors consigned her son to the ground. After the heathen rites had been performed, Hough's stern voice repeated the prayers which he had but recently offered over his brother of the sword, and when he had done green branches were flung into the grave, then a weight of stones, and finally the rich, red clay stopped the mouth of earth which had opened to devour her own. The Indians swept away, shouting a song of war. The waters raced on; and wind and rapids met below with the noise of thunder.

Penfold walked among the trees; and there, scarce a stone's cast from the sounding water, he came upon the knight, huddled upon the stem of a fallen pine, his hands spread out across his knees, his head down, and on the ground between his feet the two parts of a broken sword.

The old yeoman came near and wrecked the silence by a gruff word of sympathy; but Sir Thomas did not look at him. Presently he made a blind movement and extended one lean arm towards the ground.

"If you would serve me, friend," he said in a hollow voice, "cast these fragments into yonder water. My son, whom I should have trained as a man of peace, took that sword from my hand. My Richard's blood lies heavy on me now."

"Not so," said Penfold strongly. "The boy was his father's son. Would you have seen him grow a weakling? Sons bred beside an enemy's camp must fight or be found unworthy of their name."

"The sword has fallen," said the knight. "Last night I had a dream." A shiver coursed through him. "Take up the sword with which I killed my son and bury it in the water. I have sworn to lay hand on it no more."

"I have lost a friend," muttered the yeoman. "One known to me by hearth and in field, at work and pleasure. I have buried him this day in a strange land. I grow old, and my friends drop from me as acorns shed from the oak, but while my eye is steady and my arm strong I shall fight for England's empire over sea. Old age, when dotage grows, is time sufficient to mourn for friends. While strength remains a man must work. Country, then friends, myself the last. 'Tis the motto of the Penfolds of County Berks."

"You have no flesh and blood to mourn."

"What is relationship if it be not friendship? Know you not that two brothers may fall in hatred from one another, and yet either have a friend dear to his heart as his own soul? Our troubles we carry to our pastor. Our highest love to the woman who stays for us on our way through life. Such friendship binds more firmly than any tie of blood."

"Speak not to me," cried the bitter man. "My ambition has fallen to the ground."

"Stand by yonder mound," cried Penfold. "The boy shall speak."

"Vengeance shall not bring him back."

"Had you fallen he would have gone upon his way stronger than before."

"He was young and I grow old."

"Yet I am older far." And the yeoman shook himself like an old lion. "There is work for me."

The knight lifted his head, and spoke more bitterly:

"Poison stirs in our English blood, driving us from home, leading us across seas to fight unthanked for our country's cause. What gadfly of madness stings us on thus to build the foundations of Empire? What honour shall be rendered to pioneers? Who shall seek our graves and pause to say, 'Here lies one who fought to plant the red-cross flag in the face of its enemies'? Fools, fools, fools! We forsake home and kindred in pursuit of a dream, rise up for our unrewarded effort, and fail. So we are gone and our deeds lie buried in our graves."

"One leaf makes not a summer," replied Penfold. "The one cannot be discerned by the eye, and yet that one does its share in making the tree perfect. We also have our part to play. Our lives are obscure. Our deeds shall live, if not our names. Let others reap the harvest."

The knight rose, frowning at the sun-lit scene.

"There is a cave a league away," he said. "There sorrow and myself shall dwell. Seek not to find me."

He placed a hand upon his breast.

"Something has broken there," he said; and then went with drooping head, striking the trees in the blindness of his flight.

Hough stood low upon the shore between the islets. He heard the footsteps of his captain, and spoke:

"See where our friend's wife goes. Closing her ears to my good counsel, she went into the hut, and returned with bow and arrows and a knife. These she placed in her canoe, and yonder she goes to find the track of that papist priest who has brought sorrow to us all."

"Said she as much?"

"Ay. 'Onawa, your sister, has brought this trouble upon you and us,' said I, as she pushed away. 'She it was who smote down George Flower by treachery, and she it was who brought the Frenchman to our hiding-place.'"

"Said she anything?"

"Never a word. But her eyes strained upon the knife."

Then the two lonely men returned to New Windsor, the slow day passed, and night enwrapped in cloud fell upon the land. The fires of the allied tribes spotted the forest with scarlet, and between the black trees the upright figures of warriors, fully painted and feathered, crossed as they threaded the mazes of the dance. Five thousand fighters were there gathered, the best and bravest of the Oneidas, Senacas, and Onandagas, mad to avenge their wrongs. Spies were posted at every point; a hundred watched the fortress, passing the word from man to man. In a chain they stretched from the height above the river to the council fire, where the nine sachems sat muttering in whispers and drawing omens from the flight of the smoke and the burning of the logs.

"Shuswap, great chief of the Cayugas, the woman your daughter would speak to you," a voice sounded.

"Let her come near," answered the old man.

His keen eyes distended. He had looked, prepared to behold his younger daughter, but instead his eyes fell upon Tuschota, her sister. The father noted her warlike bearing, the bow slung upon her shoulders, the arrows and knife thrust through her girdle. He saw also the sternness of her countenance.

"What would you, daughter?"

"Where is Onawa, my sister?"

"I know not," said the sachem.

"Find her and bring her forth. She led hither the Frenchman who has slain my son."

The sachems turned and their black eyes glittered upon her.

"It is false," cried Shuswap.

"She desires to win the French doctor for husband. She brought him therefore to the lake that he might lie in wait to kill the Englishmen. One man Onawa killed with her own hand. My son is your son. Your daughter, my sister, must die."

She spoke, and passed away into the glow of the forest.

Shuswap dashed his grey head to the ground.

"She must die," muttered the counsellors.

The news travelled like an evil wind from fire to fire. All the tribes swore by their gods that the woman who had sought to betray them must die. Not till then might Shuswap lift up his head among them. They danced more cruelly, maddened by disgrace.

A runner came from the depths of the forest, spots of blood thrown from his flying heels. Three hours had he run at that speed. He passed the warriors and their fires and reached the council. All the sachems sat erect, save only old Shuswap, who lay forward, his head upon the dust.

"Oskelano comes upon us at the head of the tribes of the Algonquins," spoke the messenger. "They carry the fire-tubes given them by the French."

The sachems sat like figures of stone.

"Which way do they come?" demanded Piscotasin, surnamed Son of the Weasel, the learned chief of the Oneidas.

"From the north."

"They shall find us ready."

The messenger passed back. Straightway the forest shivered with a wild cry for battle until the leaves were shed like rain.

There came another runner.

"A fire-float passes down the Father of Waters."

"It is well," said the Son of the Weasel. "It is the signal of the friendly Dutch."

Thereupon commenced that great advance of the confederate tribes which descendants speak of to this day. The flower and strength of the Iroquois, that great people which from time immemorial had ruled the north-eastern land from the coast to the chain of inland seas, went out to avenge their wrongs. The women rushed to find shelter from their hereditary enemies the pitiless Algonquins. The army poured away in a roaring torrent, draining the forest, leaving the fires licking the sharp breeze with forked tongues, leaving only one man behind:

Old Shuswap, doubled in the dust.