Alice of Old Vincennes

by Maurice Thompson

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE ATTACK

  It has already been mentioned that Indians, arriving singly or insquads, to report at Hamilton's headquarters, were in the habit offiring their guns before entering the town or the fort, not only as asignal of their approach, but in order to rid their weapons of theircharges preliminary to cleaning them before setting out upon anotherscalp-hunting expedition. A shot, therefore, or even a volley, heard onthe outskirts of the village, was not a noticeable incident in thedaily and nightly experience of the garrison. Still, for some reason,Governor Hamilton started violently when, just after nightfall, five orsix rifles cracked sharply a short distance from the stockade.

  He and Helm with two other officers were in the midst of a game ofcards, while a kettle, swinging on a crane in the ample fire-place,sang a shrill promise of hot apple-jack toddy.

  "By Jove!" exclaimed Farnsworth, who, although not in the game, wasamusing himself with looking on; "you jump like a fine lady! I almostfancied I heard a bullet hit you."

  "You may all jump while you can," remarked Helm. "That's Clark, andyour time's short--He'll have this fort tumbling on your heads beforedaylight of to-morrow morning comes."

  As he spoke he arose from his seat at the card table and went to lookafter the toddy, which, as an expert, he had under supervision.

  Hamilton frowned. The mention of Clark was disturbing. Ever since thestrange disappearance of Lieutenant Barlow he had nursed the fear thatpossibly Clark's scouts had captured him and that the American forcesmight be much nearer than Kaskaskia. Besides, his nerves were unruly,as they had been ever since the encounter with Father Beret; and hisvision persisted in turning back upon the accusing cold face of Alice,lying in the moonlight. One little detail of that scene almost maddenedhim at times; it was a sheeny, crinkled wisp of warm looking hairlooped across the cheek in which he had often seen a saucy dimple dancewhen Alice spoke or smiled. He was bad enough, but not wholly bad, andthe thought of having darkened those merry eyes and stilled those sweetdimples tore through him with a cold, rasping pang.

  "Just as soon as this toddy is properly mixed and tempered," said Helm,with a magnetic jocosity beaming from his genial face, "I'm going topropose a toast to the banner of Alice Roussillon, which a wholegarrison of British braves has been unable to take!"

  "If you do I'll blow a hole through you as big as the south door ofhell," said Hamilton, in a voice fairly shaken to a husky quaver withrage. "You may do a great many insulting things; but not that."

  Helm was in a half stooping attitude with a ladle in one hand, a cup inthe other. He had met Hamilton's glowering look with a peculiarlyinnocent smile, as if to say: "What in the world is the matter now? Inever felt in a better humor in all my life. Can't you take a joke, Iwonder?" He did not speak, however, for a rattling volley of musket andrifle shots hit the top of the clay-daubed chimney, sending down intothe toddy a shower of soot and dirt.

  In a wink every man was on his feet and staring.

  "Gentlemen," said Helm, with an impressive oath, "that is Clark'ssoldiers, and they will take your fort; but they ought not to havespoiled this apple toddy!"

  "Oh, the devil!" said Hamilton, forcibly resuming a calm countenance,"it is only a squad of drunken Indians coming in. We'll foregoexcitement; there's no battle on hand, gentlemen."

  "I'm glad you think so, Governor Hamilton," Helm responded, "but Ishould imagine that I ought to know the crack of a Kentucky rifle. I'veheard one occasionally in my life. Besides, I got a whiff of freedomjust now."

  "Captain Helm is right," observed Farnsworth. "That is an attack."

  Another volley, this time nearer and more concentrated, convincedHamilton that he was, indeed, at the opening of a fight. Even while hewas giving some hurried orders to his officers, a man was wounded atone of the port-holes. Then came a series of yells, answered by aripple of sympathetic French shouting that ran throughout the town. Thepatrol guards came straggling in, breathless with excitement. Theyswore to having seen a thousand men marching across the water-coveredmeadows.

  Hamilton was brave. The approach of danger stirred him like atrumpet-strain. His fighting blood rose to full tide, and he gave hisorders with the steadiness and commanding force of a born soldier. Theofficers hastened to their respective positions. On all sides soundsindicative of rapid preparations for the fight mingled into a confusedstrain of military energy. Men marched to their places; cannon werewheeled into position, and soon enough the firing began in good earnest.

  Late in the afternoon a rumor of Clark's approach had gone abroadthrough the village; but not a French lip breathed it to a friend ofthe British. The creoles were loyal to the cause of freedom; moreover,they cordially hated Hamilton, and their hearts beat high at theprospect of a change in masters at the fort. Every cabin had its hiddengun and supply of ammunition, despite the order to disarm issued byHamilton. There was a hustling to bring these forth, which wasaccompanied with a guarded yet irrepressible chattering, delightfullyFrench and infinitely volatile.

  "Tiens! je vais frotter mon fusil. J'ai vu un singe!" said JaquesBourcier to his daughter, the pretty Adrienne, who was coming out ofthe room in which Alice lay.

  "I saw a monkey just now; I must rub up my gun!" He could not besolemn; not he. The thought of an opportunity to get even with Hamiltonwas like wine in his blood.

  If you had seen those hardy and sinewy Frenchmen gliding in the dusk ofevening from cottage to cottage, passing the word that the Americanshad arrived, saying airy things and pinching one another as they metand hurried on, you would have thought something very amusing andwholly jocund was in preparation for the people of Vincennes.

  There was a current belief in the town that Gaspard Roussillon nevermissed a good thing and always somehow got the lion's share. He wentout with the ebb to return on the flood. Nobody was surprised,therefore, when he suddenly appeared in the midst of his friends, armedto the teeth and emotionally warlike to suit the occasion. Of course hetook charge of everybody and everything. You could have heard himwhisper a bowshot away.

  "Taisons!" he hissed, whenever he met an acquaintance. "We willsurprise the fort and scalp the whole garrison. Aux armes! lesAmericains viennent d'arriver!"

  At his own house he knocked and called in vain. He shook the doorviolently; for he was thinking of the stores under the floor, of thegrimy bottles, of the fragrant Bordeaux--ah, his throat, how itthrobbed! But where was Madame Roussillon? Where was Alice? "Jean!Jean!" he cried, forgetting all precaution, "come here, you scamp, andlet me in this minute!"

  A profoundly impressive silence gave him to understand that his homewas deserted.

  "Chiff! frightened and gone to stay with Madame Godere, I suppose--andI so thirsty! Bah! hum, hum, apres le vin la bataille, ziff!"

  He kicked in the door and groped his way to the liquors. While hehastily swigged and smacked he heard the firing begin with a crackling,desultory volley. He laughed jovially, there in the dark, betweendraughts and deep sighs of enjoyment.

  "Et moi aussi," he murmured, like the vast murmur of the sea, "I wantto be in that dance! Pardonnez, messieurs. Moi, je veux danser, s'ilvous plait."

  And when he had filled himself he plunged out and rushed away, wroughtup to the extreme fighting pitch of temper. Diable! if he could butcome across that Lieutenant Barlow, how he would smash him and manglehim! In magnifying his prowess with the lens of imagination he swelledand puffed as he lumbered along.

  The firing sounded as if it were between the fort and the river; butpresently when one of Hamilton's cannon spoke, M. Roussillon saw theyellow spike of flame from its muzzle leap directly toward the church,and he thought it best to make a wide detour to avoid going between thefiring lines. Once or twice he heard the whine of a stray bullet highoverhead. Before he had gone very far he met a man hurrying toward thefort. It was Captain Francis Maisonville, one of Hamilton's chiefscouts, who had been out on a reconnoissance and, cut off from hisparty by some of Clark's forces, was trying to make his way to the mai
ngate of the stockade.

  M. Roussillon knew Maisonville as a somewhat desperate character, aleader of Indian forays and a trader in human scalps. Surely the fellowwas legitimate prey.

  "Ziff! diable de gredin!" he snarled, and leaping upon him choked himto the ground, "Je vais vous scalper immediatement!"

  Clark's plan of approach showed masterly strategy. Lieutenant Bailey,with fourteen regulars, made a show of attack on the east, while MajorBowman led a company through the town, on a line near where Main streetin Vincennes is now located, to a point north of the stockade.Charleville, a brave creole, who was at the head of some daringfellows, by a brilliant dash got position under cover of a naturalterrace at the edge of the prairie, opposite the fort's southwesternangle. Lieutenant Beverley, in whom the commander placed highestconfidence, was sent to look for a supply of ammunition, and to gatherup all the Frenchmen in the town who wished to join in the attack.Oncle Jazon and ten other available men went with him.

  They all made a great noise when they felt that the place wascompletely invested. Nor can we deny, much as we would like to, thestrong desire for vengeance which raised those shouting voices andnerved those steady hearts to do or die in an undertaking whichcertainly had a desperate look. Patriotism of the purest strain thosemen had, and that alone would have borne them up; but the recollectionof smouldering cabin homes in Kentucky, of women and children murderedand scalped, of men brave and true burned at the stake, and of all theindescribable outrages of Indian warfare incited and rewarded by thecommander of the fort yonder, added to patriotism the terrible urge ofthat dark passion which clamors for blood to quench the fire of wrath.Not a few of those wet, half-frozen, emaciated soldiers of freedom hadexperienced the soul rending shock of returning from a day's hunting inthe forest to find home in ashes and loved ones brutally murdered andscalped, or dragged away to unspeakable outrage under circumstances tooharrowing for description, the bare thought of which turns our bloodcold, even at this distance. Now the opportunity had arrived for astroke of retaliation. The thought was tremendously stimulating.

  Beverley, with the aid of Oncle Jazon, was able to lead his littlecompany as far as the church before the enemy saw him. Here a volleyfrom the nearest angle of the stockade had to be answered, and prettysoon a cannon began to play upon the position.

  "We kin do better some'rs else," was Oncle Jazon's laconic remark flungback over his shoulder, as he moved briskly away from the spot justswept by a six-pounder. "Come this yer way, Lieutenant. I hyer some o'the fellers a talkin' loud jes' beyant Legrace's place. They ain't nosort o' sense a tryin' to hit anything a shootin' in the dark nohow."

  When they reached the thick of the town there was a strange stir in thedusky streets. Men were slipping from house to house, arming themselvesand joining their neighbors. Clark had sent an order earlier in theevening forbidding any street demonstration by the inhabitants; but hemight as well have ordered the wind not to blow or the river to standstill. Oncle Jazon knew every man whose outlines he could see or whosevoice he heard. He called each one by name:

  "Here, Roger, fall in!--Come Louis, Alphonse, Victor, Octave--venezici, here's the American army, come with me!" His rapid French phrasesleaped forth as if shot from a pistol, and his shrill voice, familiarto every ear in Vincennes, drew the creole militiamen to him, and soonBeverley's company had doubled its numbers, while at the same time itsenthusiasm and ability to make a noise had increased in a far greaterproportion. In accordance with an order from Clark they now tookposition near the northeast corner of the stockade and began firing,although in the darkness there was but little opportunity formarksmanship.

  Oncle Jazon had found citizens Legrace and Bosseron, and through themClark's men were supplied with ammunition, of which they stood greatlyin need, their powder having got wet during their long, watery march.By nine o'clock the fort was completely surrounded, and from everydirection the riflemen and musketeers were pouring in volley aftervolley. Beverley with his men took the cover of a fence and some housessixty yards from the stockade. Here to their surprise they foundthemselves below the line of Hamilton's cannon, which, being planted onthe second floor of the fort, could not be sufficiently depressed tobear upon them. A well directed musket fire, however, fell from theloopholes of the blockhouses, the bullets rattling merrily against thecover behind which the attacking forces lay.

  Beverley was thinking of Alice during every moment of all this stir andtumult He feared that she might still be a prisoner in the fort exposedto the very bullets that his men were discharging at every crack andcranny of those loosely constructed buildings. Should he ever see heragain? Would she care for him? What would be the end of all thisterrible suspense? Those remote forebodings of evils, formless,shadowy, ineffable, which have harried the lover's heart since timebegan, crowded all pleasant anticipations out of his mind.

  Clark, in passing hurriedly from company to company around the line,stopped for a little while when he found Beverley.

  "Have you plenty of ammunition?" was his first inquiry.

  "A mighty sight more'n we kin see to shoot with," spoke up Oncle Jazon."It's a right smart o' dad burn foolishness to be wastin' it onnothin'; seems like to me 'at we'd better set the dasted fort afire an'smoke the skunks out!"

  "Speak when you are spoken to, my man," said the Colonel a triflehotly, and trying by a sharp scrutiny to make him out in the gloomwhere he crouched.

  "Ventrebleu! I'm not askin' YOU, Colonel Clark, nor no other man, whenI shill speak. I talks whenever I gits ready, an' I shoots jes' thesame way. So ye'd better go on 'bout yer business like a white man!Close up yer own whopper jawed mouth, ef ye want anything shet up!"

  "Oho! is that you, Jazon? You're so little I didn't know you!Certainly, talk your whole damned under jaw off, for all I care," Clarkreplied, assuming a jocose tone. Then turning again to Beverley: "Keepup the firing and the noise; the fort will be ours in the morning."

  "What's the use of waiting till morning?" Beverley demanded withimpatience. "We can tear that stockade to pieces with our hands in halfan hour."

  "I don't think so, Lieutenant. It is better to play for the sure thing.Keep up the racket, and be ready for 'em if they rush out. We must notfail to capture the hair-buyer General."

  He passed on, with something cheerful to say whenever he found a squadof his devoted men. He knew how to humor and manage those independentand undisciplined yet heroically brave fellows. What to see and hear,what to turn aside as a joke, what to insist upon with inflexiblemastery, he knew by the fine instantaneous sense of genius. There weremany men of Oncle Jazon's cast, true as steel, but refractory as flint,who could not be dominated by any person, no matter of what stamp oroffice. To them an order was an insult; but a suggestion pleased andcaptured them. Strange as it may seem, theirs was the conquering spiritof America--the spirit which has survived every turn of progress andbuilt up the great body of our independence.

  Beverley submitted to Clark's plan with what patience he could, and allnight long fired shot for shot with the best riflemen in his squad. Itwas a fatiguing performance, with apparently little result beyondforcing the garrison now and again to close the embrasures, thusperiodically silencing the cannon. Toward the close of the night arelaxation showed itself in the shouting and firing all round the line.Beverley's men, especially the creoles, held out bravely in the matterof noise; but even they flagged at length, their volatility simmeringdown to desultory bubbling and half sleepy chattering and chaffing.

  Beverley leaned upon a rude fence, and for a time neglected to reloadhis hot rifle. Of course he was thinking of Alice,--he really could notthink in any other direction; but it gave him a shock and a start whenhe presently heard her name mentioned by a little Frenchman near him onthe left.

  "There'll never be another such a girl in Post Vincennes as AliceRoussillon," the fellow said in the soft creole patois, "and to thinkof her being shot like a dog!"

  "And by a man who calls himself a Governor, too!" said another. "Ah, asfor m
yself, I'm in favor of burning him alive when we capture him.That's me!"

  "Et moi aussi," chimed in a third voice. "That poor girl must beavenged. The man who shot her must die. Holy Virgin, but if GaspardRoussillon were only here!"

  "But he is here; I saw him just after dark. He was in great fightingtemper, that terrible man. Ouf! but I should not like to be ColonelHamilton and fall in the way of that Gaspard Roussillon!"

  "Morbleu! I should say not. You may leave me out of a chance like that!I shouldn't mind seeing Gaspard handle the Governor, though. Ah, thatwould be too good! He'd pay him up for shooting Mademoiselle Alice."

  Beverley could scarcely hold himself erect by the fence; the smoky,foggy landscape swam round him heavy and strange. He uttered a groan,which brought Oncle Jazon to his side in a hurry.

  "Qu' avez-vous? What's the matter?" the old man demanded with quicksympathy. "Hev they hit ye? Lieutenant, air ye hurt much?"

  Beverley did not hear the old man's words, did not feel his kindlytouch.

  "Alice! Alice!" he murmured, "dead, dead!"

  "Ya-as," drawled Oncle Jazon, "I hearn about it soon as I got intertown. It's a sorry thing, a mighty sorry thing. But mebby I won't do alittle somepin' to that--"

  Beverley straightened himself and lifted his gun, forgetting that hehad not reloaded it since firing last. He leveled it at the fort andtouched the trigger. Simultaneously with his movement an embrasureopened and a cannon flashed, its roar flanked on either side by acrackling of British muskets. Some bullets struck the fence and flungsplinters into Oncle Jazon's face. A cannon ball knocked a ridge polefrom the roof of a house hard by, and sent it whirling through the air.

  "Ventrebleu!--et apres? What the devil next? Better knock a feller'seyes out!" the old man cried. "I ain't a doin' nothin' to ye!"

  He capered around rubbing his leathery face after the manner of ascalded monkey. Beverley was struck in the breast by a flattened andspent ball that glanced from a fence-picket. The shock caused him tostagger and drop his gun; but he quickly picked it up and turned to hiscompanion.

  "Are you hurt, Oncle Jazon?" he inquired. "Are you hurt?"

  "Not a bit--jes' skeert mos' into a duck fit. Thought a cannon ball hadknocked my whole dang face down my throat! Nothin' but a handful o'splinters in my poorty count'nance, makin' my head feel like aporc'-pine. But I sort o' thought I heard somepin' give you a diff."

  "Something did hit me," said Beverley, laying a hand on his breast,"but I don't think it was a bullet. They seem to be getting our rangeat last. Tell the men to keep well under cover. They must not exposethemselves until we are ready to charge."

  The shock had brought him back to his duty as a leader of his littlecompany, and with the funeral bell of all his life's happiness tollingin his agonized heart he turned afresh to directing the fire upon theblock-house.

  About this time a runner came from Clark with an order to cease firingand let a returning party of British scouts under Captain Lamothere-enter the fort unharmed. A strange order it seemed to both officersand men; but it was implicitly obeyed. Clark's genius here made anotherfine strategic flash. He knew that unless he let the scouts go backinto the stockade they would escape by running away, and might possiblyorganize an army of Indians with which to succor Hamilton. But if theywere permitted to go inside they could be captured with the rest of thegarrison; hence his order.

  A few minutes passed in dead silence; then Captain Lamothe and hisparty marched close by where Beverley's squad was lying concealed. Itwas a difficult task to restrain the creoles, for some of them hatedLamothe. Oncle Jazon squirmed like a snake while they filed past allunaware that an enemy lurked so near. When they reached the fort,ladders were put down for them and they began to clamber over the wall,crowding and pushing one another in wild haste. Oncle Jazon could holdin no longer.

  "Ya! ya! ya!" he yelled. "Look out! the ladder is a fallin' wi' ye!"

  Then all the lurking crowd shouted as one man, and, sure enough, downcame a ladder--men and all in a crashing heap.

  "Silence! silence!" Beverley commanded; but he could not check the wildjeering and laughing, while the bruised and frightened scouts hastilyerected their ladder again, fairly tumbling over one another in theirhaste to ascend, and so cleared the wall, falling into the stockade tojoin the garrison.

  "Ventrebleu!" shrieked Oncle Jazon. "They've gone to bed; but we'llwake 'em up at the crack o' day an' give 'em a breakfas' o' hot lead!"

  Now the fighting was resumed with redoubled spirit and noise, and whenmorning came, affording sufficient light to bring out the "bead sights"on the Kentucky rifles, the matchless marksmen in Clark's band forcedthe British to close the embrasures and entirely cease trying to usetheir cannon; but the fight with small arms went merrily on until themiddle of the forenoon.

  Meantime Gaspard Roussillon had tied Francis Maisonville's hands fastand hard with the strap of his bullet-pouch.

  "Now, I'll scalp you," he said in a rumbling tone, terrible to hear.And with his words out came his hunting knife from its sheath.

  "O have mercy, my dear Monsieur Roussillon!" cried the panting captive;"have mercy!"

  "Mercy! yes, like your Colonel's, that's what you'll get. You stand bythat forban, that scelerat, that bandit, and help him. Oh, yes, you'llget mercy! Yes, the same mercy that he showed to my poor little Alice!Your scalp, Monsieur, if you please! A small matter; it won't hurtmuch!"

  "But, for the sake of old friendship, Gaspard, for the sake--"

  "Ziff! poor little Alice!"

  "But I swear to you that I--"

  "Tout de meme, Monsieur, je vais vous scalper maintenant."

  In fact he had taken off a part of Maisonville's scalp, when a party ofsoldiers, among whom was Maisonville's brother, a brave fellow andloyal to the American cause, were attracted by his cries and came tohis rescue.

  M. Roussillon struggled savagely, insisting upon completing his cruelperformance; but he was at last overpowered, partly by brute force andpartly by the pleading of Maisonville's brother, and made to desist.The big man wept with rage when he saw the bleeding prisoner protected."Eh bien! I'll keep what I've got," he roared, "and I'll take the restof it next time."

  He shook the tuft of hair at Maisonville and glared like a mad bull.

  Two or three other members of Lamothe's band were captured about thesame time by some of the French militiamen; and Clark, when on hisround cheering and directing his forces, discovered that theseprisoners were being used as shields. Some young creoles, gay withdrink and the stimulating effect of fight, had bound the poor fellowsand were firing from behind them! Of course the commander promptly putan end to this cruelty; but they considered it exquisite fun while itlasted. It was in broad daylight, and they knew that the English in thefort could see what they were doing.

  "It's shameful to treat prisoners in this way," said Clark. "I will notpermit it. Shoot the next man that offers to do such a thing!"

  One of the creole youths, a handsome, swarthy Adonis in buckskin,tossed his shapely head with a debonair smile and said:

  "To be sure, mon Colonel! but what have they been doing to us? We haveamused them all winter; it's but fair that they should give us a littlefun now."

  Clark shrugged his broad shoulders and passed on. He understoodperfectly what the people of Vincennes had suffered under Hamilton'sbrutal administration.

  At nine o'clock an order was passed to cease firing, and a flag oftruce was seen going from Clark's headquarters to the fort. It was aperemptory demand for unconditional surrender. Hamilton refused, andfighting was fiercely resumed from behind rude breastworks meantimeerected. Every loop-hole and opening of whatever sort was the focusinto which the unerring backwoods rifles sent their deadly bullets. Menbegan to fall in the fort, and every moment Hamilton expected anassault in force on all sides of the stockade. This, if successful,would mean inevitable massacre. Clark had warned him of the terribleconsequences of holding out until the worst should come. "For," said hein his note to the Govern
or, "if I am obliged to storm, you may dependupon such treatment as is justly due to a murderer."

  Historians have wondered why Hamilton became so excited and acted sostrangely after receiving the note. The phrase, "justly due to amurderer," is the key to the mystery. When he read it his heart sankand a terrible fear seized him. "Justly due to a murderer!" ah, thatcalm, white, beautiful girlish face, dead in the moonlight, with thewisp of shining hair across it! "Such treatment as is justly due to amurderer!" Cold drops of sweat broke out on his forehead and a shiverwent through his body.

  During the truce Clark's weary yet still enthusiastic besiegers enjoyeda good breakfast prepared for them by the loyal dames of Vincennes.Little Adrienne Bourcier was one of the handmaidens of the occasion.She brought to Beverley's squad a basket, almost as large as herself,heaped high with roasted duck and warm wheaten bread, while anothergirl bore two huge jugs of coffee, fragrant and steaming hot. The mencheered them lustily and complimented them without reserve, so thatbefore their service was over their faces were glowing with delight.

  And yet Adrienne's heart was uneasy, and full of longing to hearsomething of Rene de Ronville. Surely some one of her friends must knowsomething about him. Ah, there was Oncle Jazon! Doubtless he could tellher all that she wanted to know. She lingered, after the food wasdistributed, and shyly inquired.

  "Hain't seed the scamp," said Oncle Jazon, only he used the patois mostfamiliar to the girl's ear. "Killed an' scelped long ago, I reckon."

  His mouth was so full that he spoke mumblingly and with utmostdifficulty. Nor did he glance at Adrienne, whose face took on as greatpallor as her brown complexion could show.

  Beverley ate but little of the food. He sat apart on a piece of timberthat projected from the rough breastwork and gave himself over toinfinite misery of spirit, which was trebled when he took Alice'slocket from his bosom, only to discover that the bullet which struckhim had almost entirely destroyed the face of the miniature.

  He gripped the dinted and twisted case and gazed at it with the stareof a blind man. His heart almost ceased to beat and his breath had therustling sound we hear when a strong man dies of a sudden wound.Somehow the defacement of the portrait was taken by his soul as thefinal touch of fate, signifying that Alice was forever and completelyobliterated from his life. He felt a blur pass over his mind. He triedin vain to recall the face and form so dear to him; he tried to imagineher voice; but the whole universe was a vast hollow silence. For a longwhile he was cold, staring, rigid; then the inevitable collapse came,and he wept as only a strong man can who is hurt to death, yet cannotdie.

  Adrienne approached him, thinking to speak to him about Rene; but hedid not notice her, and she went her way, leaving beside him a liberalsupply of food.