Fort Amity
Page 12
CHAPTER XI.
FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS.
For a little while after leaving the shore the priest kept silence.
"Dominique," said he at length, "there is something in your gueststhat puzzles me; and something too that puzzles me in the manner oftheir coming to Boisveyrac. Tell me now precisely how you foundthem."
"It was not I who found them, Father. Telesphore Courteau camerunning to me, a little before sunset, with news that a man--anIndian--was standing on the shore opposite and signalling with hisarms as if for help. Well, at first I thought it might be some trickof the Iroquois--not that I had dreamed of any in the neighbourhood:and Chretien got his men ready and under arms. But the glass seemedto show that this was not an Iroquois: and next I saw a bundle, whichmight be a wounded man, lying on the bank beside him. So we launcheda boat and pushed across very carefully until we came within hail:and then we parleyed for some while, the soldiers standing ready tofire, until the Indian's look and speech convinced me--for I havebeen as far west as Michilimackinac, and know something of theOjibway talk. So when he called out his nation to me, I called backto him to leave speaking in French and use his own tongue."
"Yes, yes--he is an Ojibway beyond doubt."
"Well, Father, while I was making sure of this, we had pushedforward little by little and I saw the wounded man clearly.He was half-naked, but lay with his tunic over him, as the Indian hadwrapped him against the chill. Indeed he was half-dead too, and pastspeaking, when at length we took him off."
"And they had lost their boat in the Cedars?"
"So the Ojibway said. The wonder is that they ever came to shore."
"The wonder to my thinking is rather that, coming through thewilderness from the Richelieu River, they should have possessed acanoe to launch on the Great River here."
"Their tale is that they were four, and happened on a small party ofIroquois by surprise: and that two perished while this pair possessedthemselves of the Iroquois' canoe and so escaped."
"Yes," mused the priest, "so again the Ojibway told me. A strangestory: and when I began to put questions he grew more and morestupid--but I know well enough by this time, I should hope, when anIndian pretends to be duller than he is. The sick man I could notwell cross-examine. He told me something of the fight at FortCarillon, where he, it appears, saw the main fighting upon the ridge,while the Indians were spread as sharpshooters along the swampsbelow. For the rest he refers me to his comrade." Father Launoyfell to musing again. "What puzzles me is that he carries nomessage, or will not own to carrying one. But what then brings himacross the Wilderness? The other boats with the wounded andprisoners went down the Richelieu to its mouth, and will betravelling up the Great River to Montreal--that is, if they have notalready arrived. Now why should this one boat have turned aside?That I could understand, if the man were upon special service: theway he came would be a short cut either down the river to Montreal,or up-stream to Fort Amitie or Fort Frontenac. But, as I say, thisman apparently carries no message. Also he started from FortCarillon with two wounds; and who would entrust special service to awounded man?"
"Of a certainty, Father, he was wounded, as I myself saw when we drewoff his shirt. The hurt in his ribs is scarcely skinned over, and hehas a fresh scar on his wrist. But the blow on the head, from whichhe suffers, is later, and was given him (he says) by an Indian."
"A bad blow--and yet he escaped."
"A bad blow. Either from that or from the drenching, towards morninghis head wandered and he talked at full speed for an hour."
"Of what did he talk?" asked the priest quickly.
"That I cannot tell, since he chattered in English."
"English? How do you know that it was English?"
"Why, since it was not French, nor like any kind of Indian! Moreover,I have heard the English talk. They were prisoners brought down fromOswego, twelve bateaux in all, and I took them through the falls.When they talked, it was just as this man chattered last night."
"Then you, too, Dominique, find your guest a strange fellow?"
"Oh, as for that! He is a sergeant, and of the regiment of Bearn.Your reverence saw his coat hanging by the bed."
"Even in that there is something strange. For Bearn lies in theMidi, close to the Pyrenees; and, as I understand, the regiment ofBearn was recruited and officered almost entirely from its ownprovince. But this Sergeant a Clive comes from the north; his speechhas no taste of the south in it, and indeed he owns to me that he isa northerner. He says further that he comes from my own seminary ofDouai. And this again is correct; for I cross-questioned him on theseminary, and he knows it as a hand knows its glove--the customs ofthe place, the lectures, the books in use there. He has told me,moreover, why he left it. . . . Dominique, you do right in mislikingyour guest."
"I do not say, Father, that I mislike him. I fear him a little--Icannot tell why."
"You do right, then, to fear him; and I will tell you why. He is anatheist."
"An atheist? O--oh!"
"He has been of the true Faith. But he rejected me; he would make noconfession, but turned himself to the wall when I exhorted him._Voyons_--here is a Frenchman who talks English in his delirium; anortherner serving in a regiment of the south; an infidel, fromDouai. Dominique, I do not like your guest."
"Nor I, Father, since you tell me that he is an atheist."
While they talked they had been lifting their voices insensibly tothe roar of the nearing rapids; and were now come to Bout de l'lsleand the edge of peril. Below Bout de l'lsle the river divided toplunge through the Roches Fendues, where to choose the wrong channelmeant destruction. Yet a mile below the Roches Fendues lay theCascades, with a long straight plunge over smooth shelves of rock andtwo miles of furious water beyond. Yet farther down came theterrible rapids of La Chine, not to be attempted. There the_voyageurs_ would leave the canoe and reach Montreal on foot.
Father Launoy was a brave man. Thrice before he had let Dominiquelead him through the awful dance ahead, and always at the end of ithad felt his soul purged of earthly terrors and left clean as achild's.
Dominique reached out a hand in silence and took the paddle from theEtchemin, who crawled aft and seated himself with an expressionlessface. Then with a single swift glance astern to assure himself thatthe other Indian was prepared, the young man knelt and crouched, withhis eyes on the V-shaped ripple ahead, for the angle of which theywere heading.
On this, too, the priest's eyes were bent. He gripped the gunwale asthe current lifted and swept the canoe down at a pace past control;as it sped straight for the point of the smooth water, and so,seeming to be warned by the roar it met, balanced itself fore-and-aftfor one swift instant and plunged with a swoop that caught away thebreath.
The bows shot under the white water below the fall, lifted to thefirst wave, knocking up foam out of foam, and so dived to the next,quivering like a reed shaken in the hand. Dominique straightenedhimself on his knees. In a moment he was working his paddle like amadman, striking broad off with it on this side and that, forcing thecanoe into its course, zigzagging within a hand's breadth of rockswhich, at a touch, would have broken her like glass, and across theedge of whirlpools waiting to drown a man and chase his body roundfor hours within a few inches of the surface; and all at a speed offifteen to eighteen miles an hour, with never an instant's pausebetween sight and stroke. The Indian in the stern took his cue fromDominique; now paddling for dear life, now flinging his body back aswith a turn of the wrist he checked the steerage.
The priest sat with a white drenched face; a brave man terrified.He felt the floor of the world collapsing, saw its forests reeling byin the spray. It cracked like a bubble and was dissolved inrainbows--wisps caught in the rocks and fluttering in the wind of theboat's flight. Then, as the pressure on heart and chest grewintolerable, the speed began to slacken and he drew a shudderingbreath; but his brain still kept the whirl of the wild minutes pastand his hand scarcely relaxed its gri
p on the gunwale. As a runawayhorse, still galloping, drops back to control, so the canoe seemed tofind her senses and leapt at the waves with a cunning change ofmotion, no longer shearing through their crests, but riding them witha long and easy swoop. Still Father Launoy did not speak. He sat asone for whom a door has been held half-open, and closed again, upon avision.
Yet when he found his tongue--which was not until they reached theend of the white water, and Dominique, after panting a while, headedthe canoe for shore--his voice did not shake.
"It was a bold thought of these men, or a foolhardy, to strike acrossthe Wilderness," he said meditatively, in the tone of one picking upa talk which chance has interrupted.
"There are many ways through those woods," Dominique answered."Between here and Fort Niagara you may hear tell of a dozen perhaps;and the Iroquois have their own."
"Let us hope that none of theirs crosses the one you and Bateesetaught to Monsieur Armand. The Seigneur will be uneasy about his sonwhen he hears what 'Polyte and Damase report; and Monsieur Etienneand Mademoiselle Diane will be uneasy also."
"But this Ojibway saw nothing of M. Armand or his party."
"No news is good news. As you owe the Seigneur your duty, take yourguests up to Fort Amitie to-morrow and let them be interrogated."
"My Father, must I go?" There was anguish in Dominique's voice."Surely Jo Lagasse or Pierre Courteau will do as well?--and there ismuch work at Boisveyrac which cannot be neglected."
They had come to shore, and the priest had stepped out upon the bankafter Dominique for a few parting words.
"But that is not your true reason?" He laid his hand on the youngman's shoulder and looked him in the eyes.
Dominique's fell. "Father," he entreated in a choking voice,"you know my secret: do not be hard on me! 'Lead us not intotemptation'--"
"It will not serve you to run from yours. You must do battle withit. Bethink you that, as through the Wilderness, there are more waysthan one in love, and the best is that of self-denial. MademoiselleDiane is not for you, Dominique, her father's _censitaire_: yet youmay love her your life through, and do her lifelong service.To-morrow, by taking these men to Fort Amitie, you may ease her heartof its fears: and will you fail in so simple a devoir? There is toomuch of self in your passion, Dominique--for I will not call it love.Love finds itself in giving: but passion is always a beggar."
"My Father, you do not understand--"
"Who told you that I do not understand?" the priest interruptedharshly. "I too have known passion, and learnt that it is full ofself and comes of Satan. Nay, is that not evident to you, seeingwhat mischief it has already worked in your life? Think of Bateese."
"Do I ever cease thinking of Bateese? Do I ever cease fighting withmyself?" Dominique's voice rose almost to a cry of pain. He staredacross the water with gloomy eyes and added--it seemed quiteinconsequently--"The Cascades is a bad fall, but I think it will bethe Roches Fendues that gets me in the end."
He said it calmly, wistfully: and, pausing for a moment, met thepriest's eyes.
"Your blessing, Father. I will go."
He knelt.
Generations of _voyageurs_, upward bound, and porting their canoes toavoid the falls, had worn a track beside the river bank. Dominiquemade such speed back along it that he came in sight of Boisveyrac asthe bell in the little chapel of the Seigniory began to ring theAngelus. Its note came floating down the river distinct above thesound of the falls. He bared his head, and repeated his _Aves_ duly.
"But all the same," he added, working out the train of his thoughtsas he gazed across the deserted harvest-fields, impoverished bytree-stumps, to the dense forest behind the Chateau, "let Godconfound the English, and New France shall belong to a new _noblesse_that have learned, as the old will not, to lay their hands on herwealth."