XVII
SHOWING HOW LOVE TOOK TOLL OF FRIENDSHIP
For some few days after Jennifer's narrow escape at the entrance to ourhiding place, the Cherokees were hot upon our scent, quartering theforest on both banks of the river, determined, as it seemed, to hunt orstarve us out.
It was in this time of siege that I came to know, as I had not knownbefore, the depth and tenderness of my dear lad's love for me. While thelife-tide was at its ebb and I was querulous and helpless weak, he wasmy leech and nurse and heartening friend in one. And later, when thetide was fairly turned and I had found my soldier's appetite again, hespent many of the nights abroad and never let me guess what risks he ranto fetch me dainties from the outer world.
In this night raiding no danger was too great to hold him back fromserving me. Once, when we were washing down our evening meal of meat andmaize cake with plain cold water, I mourned the good wine idling in itsbin at Jennifer House. At that, without a word to me, he took the wholenight for a perilous adventure and fetched a dozen bottles of theJennifer port to make me choke and strangle at the thought of what itsbringing had cost in toil and hazard.
Another time I spoke of English beef, saying how it would rebuild a manat need--how it had made the English soldier what he is. Whereupon, asbefore, my loving forager took a hint where none was intended; was gonethe night long, and slaughtered me some Tory yearling,--'twas Mr.Gilbert Stair's, I mistrusted, though Dick would never name the owner,and so I had a sirloin to my breakfast.
In these and many other ways he spent himself freely for love of me. Ifhe had been a younger brother of my own blood the common parentage couldnot have made him tenderer.
'Twas not the mere outgushing of a nature open-armed to make a bosomfriend of all the world; nor any feminine softness on his part. If Ihave drawn him thus my pen is but a clumsy quill, for he was manly-roughand masterful, with all the native strength and vigor of theborder-born.
But on the side of love and friendship no woman ever had a truer heart,a keener eye or a lighter hand. And in a service for friend or mistresshe would spend himself as recklessly as those old knights you read aboutwho made a business of their chivalry.
With his daily offerings of unselfishness to shame me, you may be surethat I was flayed alive; self-flogged like a miserable monk, with allthe woundings of the whip well salted by remorse. As you have guessed,I had not yet summoned up the courage to tell him how I had staked hischance of happiness upon a casting of the die of fate--staked and lostit. Now that it was gone, I saw how I had missed the golden opportunity;how I had weakly hesitated when delay could only make the tellingharder.
By tacit consent we never spoke of Margery. Richard's silence hung upondespair, I thought; and as for mine, since the husband's road and thelover's lay so far apart, I could not bring myself to speak of her. Butshe was always first in my thoughts in that time of convalescence, as Imade sure she was in his; and at the last the hidden thing between uswas brought to light.
It was on a night some three weeks or more after my fever turn. Ourlarder had run low again, and Jennifer had spent the earlier hours ofthe night abroad--to little purpose, as it chanced. 'Twas midnight orthereabouts when he came swearing in to tell me that the Tories were outagain to harry our side of the river afresh, and to make a refugee'sbegging of a bag of meal a thing of peril.
"They'll starve us out in shortest measure at this rate," he prophesied."They have trampled down all the standing corn for miles around, andthis morning they burned the mill. 'Tis our notice to quit, and we'dbest take it. There has been fighting to the south of us--a plenty ofit--at Rocky Mount and Hanging Rock, and elsewhere, and every man isneeded. If you are strong enough to stand the march, we'll run thegantlet down the river in the pirogue and cut across from the lower fordto join Major Davie or Mr. Gates."
I said I was fit enough, and would do whatever he thought best. And thenI took a step upon the forbidden ground.
"Falconnet is still at Appleby Hundred?" I said.
He nodded.
"And you will join the army at the front and leave Margery to his tendermercies?"
His laugh was bitter; so bitter that I scarce knew it for RichardJennifer's.
"Mistress Margery Stair is well, and well content, as I told you oncebefore. She has no wish for you or me, unless it be to see us wellhanged."
"Nay, Richard; you judge her over-harshly. I fear you do not love her asher lover should."
"Say you so? Listen: to-night I got as far as the manor house, beingfool enough to risk my neck for another sight of her. God help me, Jack!I had it. They have scraped together all the Tory riff-raff this side ofthe river--Falconnet and the others--and are holding high revel atAppleby. Since it is still our true-blue borderland, they are scantenough of women of their own kidney, and I saw Madge dancing like anylight o' love with every jackanapes that offered."
"In her father's house she could not well do less," I averred, cut tothe heart, as he was, and yet without his younger lover's jealousy tomake me unjust.
"Or more," he added, savagely. "'Tis as I say; she lacks nothing we cangive her, and we'd as well be off about our business."
I think he never had it in his heart to leave her in any threat ofdanger. But from his point of view there was no danger threatening hersave that which she seemed willing enough to rush upon--a life of titledmisery as Lady Falconnet. I saw how he would see it; saw, too, that hiswas the saner summing of it up. And yet--
He broke into my musings with a pointed question. "What say you, Jack?'Tis but a little whiffet of a Tory jade who cares not the snap of herfinger for either of us. The night is fine and dark. Shall we float thecanoe and give them all the slip?"
This was how it came to turn upon a "yes" or "no" of mine. I hesitated,I know not why. In the little pause the fire burned low between us, andthe shadows deepened in the burrow cavern until they strangled the eyeas mephitic vapors scant a man of breath. The silence, too, wasstifling. There was no sound to breach it save the gurgling murmur ofthe river, and this was subdued and intermittent like the death-rattlein the throat of the dying.
I've always made a scoff of superstition, and yet, my dears, a thousandquestions in this life of ours must hang answerless to the crack of doomif you deny it standing-room. I knew no more than I have set down hereof Margery's besetment; nay, I had every reason Richard Jennifer had tobelieve that she was well and well content, lacking nothing, save,mayhap, the freedom to marry where she chose.
And yet, out of the stifling silence there came a sudden cry for help; acry voiceless to the outward ear, but sharp and piercing to that finerinward sense; a cry so real that I would start and listen, marvelingthat Jennifer made no sign of having heard it.
In the harkening instant there was a faint twang like the thrumming of adistant harp string, and then the grave-like silence was rent smartly bythe whistling hiss of an arrow, the shaft passing evenly between us andscattering the handful of fire where it struck.
Jennifer came alive with a start, leaping up with a malediction betweenhis teeth upon our dallying.
"Too late, by God!" he cried. "They've trapped us like a pair of blindmoles!" And with that he caught up the ancient broadsword, only to swearagain when he found no room to swing it in.
Having the handier weapon, I slipped out before him, creeping on handsand knees till I could see the leafy screen at the den's mouth, and theshimmering reflection of the stars upon the water beyond it. There wasno sight nor sound of any enemy, and the canoe lay safe as Jennifer hadleft it.
To make assurance sure, I would have scrambled to the bank above; butat the moment Jennifer hallooed softly to me, and so I crept back intothe burrow.
"See here," he said, excitedly. "What a devil will you make of this?"
He had drawn the scattered embers together, fanning them ablaze again,and had sought and found the arrow. It was a blunt-head reed and no warshaft. And around the middle of it, tightly wrapped and tied with silkenthreads, was a little scroll of pa
rchment.
"'Tis the Catawba's arrow," said Jennifer, though how he knew I couldnot guess; and then he cut the threads to free the scroll.
Unrolled and spread at large, the parchment proved to be that map ofCaptain Stuart's that I had found and lost again. And on the margin ofit was my note to Jennifer, written in that trying moment when thebribed sentry waited at the door and my sweet lady stood tremblingbeside me, murmuring her "Holy Marys."
"Read it," said I. "It explains itself. Tarleton had laid me by theheels to wait for the hangman, and I would have passed the word aboutthe Indian-arming on to you. But my messenger was overhauled, and--"
"Yes, yes," he broke in; "I've spelled it out. But this line added atthe bottom--surely, that is never your crabbed fist. By heaven! 'tis inMadge's hand!"
He knelt to hold it closer to the flickering firelight, and wedeciphered it together. It was but a line, as he had said, with neithergreeting nor leave-taking, address nor signature.
"If this should come into the hands of any true-hearted gentleman"--herewas a blot as if the pen had slipped from the fingers holding it; andthen, in French, the very wording of the inarticulate cry that had cometo me out of the darkness and silence: "_A moi! pour l'amour de Dieu!_"
We fell apart, each to his own side of the handful of embers.
"You make it out?" said I, after a moment of strained silence.
He nodded. "She has prattled the parlez-vous to me ever since we wereboy and maid together."
A full minute more of the threatening silence, and at the end of it wewere glaring at each other like two wild creatures crouching for thespring.
It was Jennifer who spoke first. "'Twas meant for me," he said; and hisvoice had the warning of a mastiff's growl in it.
"No!" said I, curtly.
"I say it was!"
"Then you say the thing which is not."
Had I been Richard Jennifer, I know not what bitter reproach I shouldhave found to hurl at the man who had thrice owed his life to me. But hesaid no word of what had gone before.
"You may give me the lie, if you like, John Ireton; I shall not strikeyou." He said it slowly, but his face was gray with anger. Then headded, hotly: "You know well that word was meant for me!"
At this--God forgive me!--my jealous wrath broke bounds and I cursed himfor a beardless coxcomb who must needs think he stood alone in the eyeof every woman he should meet. "She needs a man!" I raged, lost now toevery sense of decent justice, "a man, I say! And to whom would she sendif not to her--"
I choked upon the word. He had risen with me, and we stood face to facein that grim earth-womb, snarling fiercely at each other across thenarrow firelit space; two men with every tie to knit us close together,and yet--God save us all!--a pair of wild beasts strung up to thekilling pitch because, forsooth, we must needs front each other across adeadline drawn by the finger of a woman!
God knows what would have come of all this had my dear lad been asfierce a fool as I. 'Twas his good common sense that saved us both, Ithink, for when the savage rival madness was at its height he turnedaway, swearing we were the very pick and choice of a world of asses tostand thus feeling for each other's throats when, mayhap, the ladyneeded both of us.
This brought me to my senses at a gallop, as you would guess; to themand to the lighting of the conscience fire within whereon to grill thewicked heart that but now had thirsted for a brother's blood.
"Now God have mercy on us both!" I groaned. "Forgive me, Dick, if youcan; I was as mad as any Bedlamite. If I have any claim on her, 'tis notof her good will, you may be sure. You have the baronet to fear--notme."
He shook his head and pointed to the parchment--to the line in French.
"Francis Falconnet was under the same roof with her--or at least in easycall--when she wrote that, Jack. He is no longer my rival--nor yours."
His word set me thinking, and I would fall to picking out the strandsthat jealous wrath had woven for me into the web of happenings. Settingaside the story brought by Ephraim Yeates, there was no certain proofthat she had ever favored the Englishman; nay, more, till I had come tobe madly jealous of Falconnet, I had made sure that Jennifer was thefavored one.
At this, as one sees a landscape struck out clear and vivid by thelightning's flash, I saw the true meaning of the word the hunter hadbrought--saw it and went upon my knees to grope blindly for the sword Ihad let fall when Dick had found the arrow.
"What is it, Jack?" he asked, gently.
"My sword!" I gasped. "We should have been half-way there by this.Yeates was misled. 'Tis Falconnet she fears. She was at bay--hark you,at bay and fair desperate. That word of hers to the baronet was her poorpitiful defiance built on her trust in us, and we have lain here--"
He found the sword and thrust it into my hand, crying:
"Come on! You can strew the dust and ashes on me later. You said youloved her the better, and I do believe it now, Jack! You trusted her, asI did not. We'll fight as one man to cut her out of this coil, whateverit may be; and after that is done I'll make my bow and leave you a fairfield."
"Nay, nay; that you shall not, Dick," I began; but he was half-waythrough the narrow passage to the open, trailing the ancient broadswordand the bearskin from his bed; and I was fain to follow quickly, leavingthe protest all unfinished.
The Master of Appleby Page 19