Law of the North (Originally published as Empery)

by Samuel Alexander White

  CHAPTER XXII

  FAWN AND PANTHER

  Like a colossal casting in bronze Fort La Roche loomed against thebloody sunset. Brochet glimpsed it for the first time with a prescienceof impending evil. Couchant on the serrated headland it lay some sixtyfeet above river level, commanding the waterway, grinning like apowerful monster, impregnable, austere, forbidding. Strongest of all theNor'west posts, most cunningly built, most substantially fortified, themere thought of bringing anyone over its stockades unresisted seemedmaddest folly.

  The priest had in his day seen many weird-looking dens bristling withdefence, smacking of wrong-doing, smelling of spilled blood. But thisimpressed him above all as likely to be the abode of extrememalevolence. Even to enter it, he felt, would be like putting one's headinto a wild beast's lair not knowing what minute it might be snappedoff.

  Brochet was glad at this crisis that he had never seen Black Ferguson.He rejoiced that the Nor'west leader had had no opportunity to set eyeson him, for in such a contingency he could not hope to blind the man'sinnate cunning and preserve his incognito. Recognition by two people hestill had to fear. They were Flora Macleod and Gaspard Follet. Againstthis he drew up the hood of his black cassock to shade his features,formulating in his mind an excuse which embraced asthma and the darkevening mist for the moment when he should be questioned as to thecause.

  Under the lee of the headland the Nor'wester's canoe drifted.Backwatering with his rigidly held paddle, he lay to below therivergate. A loud voice hailed them from the watchtower.

  "Halloo! Who comes?"

  "It is Black Ferguson himself," whispered the Nor'west man to Brochet,studying the tall figure poised on the high wall. "He finds it harder towait than he thought."

  Then, lifting up his shout, Ferguson's messenger answered his leader.

  "Cartienne!" he roared. "Cartienne comes. And with a priest!"

  Wide swung the watergate in the space of a breath. Black Ferguson seemedto have fallen from the watchtower so quickly did he accomplish thedescent. His eager face peered at them from the dusky landing.

  "By all the saints, Cartienne!" he laughed, mightily pleased. "What didyou use? Witchcraft?"

  The messenger explained. Voluble with blessings on his good luck,Ferguson dismissed Cartienne and haled the priest off to the store, in aroom above which Desiree Lazard was confined.

  "No supper, Father," he joked, "till you have seen my bride-to-be. Andknife me, she'll give you an appetite! I'll warrant that. After supperyou shall marry us."

  "Is she so fair, then?" ventured Brochet.

  "Fair? I'll take my oath you saw none like her in all the Pontiac,Father Marcin. But you shall judge for yourself! Here is the place. Letme lead the way aloft."

  Brochet looked round as he followed Ferguson up the stairway and saw,coming into the building with some trappers to barter goods, thefamiliar, hideous figure of Gaspard Follet. He swiftly turned his backand pulled the hood tighter. The spy's bellowing laugh made him flinchwith the sickening feeling of discovery, but immediately he was ashamedof the falsity of his alarm. Gaspard's mirth held no hint of wickedtriumph; nothing but harsh deviltry as he stared a second upon Fergusonand the black cassocked one.

  "A priest, a marriage and afterwards--h--l!" Brochet heard the dwarfcheerfully prophesy to the trappers. Again his mawkish laugh vibratedamong the hewn rafters.

  Above the Nor'west leader quickly crossed the room and indicated a door.

  "Here, Father! Cover your eyes lest her beauty blind you!" The tone wasexultant as well as bantering.

  He fumbled with the bolt, failed to shoot it, and stooped to examine,for the dark was gathering thickly so that small things could not beeasily seen.

  "The devil!" he cried amazedly. "It's unlocked! Now what cursed trickeryis this?"

  Kicked back without ceremony, the door banged and quivered. Fergusonbounded inside, the breathless priest on his heels. A single candle,burning serenely, lighted an empty room.

  "Legions of fiends and devils!" blasphemed the angry Nor'wester,blundering round in sheer astonishment. "Escaped? It can't be, FatherMarcin! She could not have gone through the store. My men would haveseen. And yonder door, the only other way out, leads into the upper partof the fur-house where the powder is stored. It is locked! Whattraitor----"

  The grating of a key interrupted him. Ferguson whirled at the sound. Thedoor he had mentioned had opened and closed softly. Flora, paler thanwhen Brochet had last seen her and with the shadow of disappointment inher eyes, quietly broke the key in the lock. She failed to recognize thepriest whose face was partly concealed by his hood.

  "You--you!" Ferguson shrieked, choking with terrible wrath.

  "I," she answered unflinchingly. "I told you that you would never marryher. Neither shall you! Had I been able to spirit her out of La Roche,it would have been done. Failing that, I have placed her beyond yourearthly reach. You cannot kiss her living lips!"

  "What! You she-fiend," shouted the Nor'wester, thoughts of evil dealingleaping into his bewildered brain, "do you dare tell me----"

  But Flora stopped him with an imperious gesture.

  "Don't misunderstand me," she returned contemptuously. "Go look for herin the powder-room."

  At that, enlightenment swept him. He leaped forward, madly incensed,with fists clenched to strike her. Father Brochet had just time to throwhimself between.

  "Softly," the priest cautioned, whispering low that the Factor'sdaughter might not know his voice; "you must not offer a blow to awoman. I thought a prospective bridegroom had been more gentle with thesex."

  "Your pardon, Father," he begged.

  But he was barely containing himself. The judgment for the woman who washis wife leaped out.

  "I'll suffer you here no longer," he snarled. "Leave La Roche at dawn.That's my last word to you!"

  But the gleaming devil in his eye leered back at him in the steadycontemptuous gaze of Malcolm Macleod's daughter.

  Downstairs in wild, inconsiderate haste the Nor'wester dragged thepriest. Dark had fallen on La Roche, a deep darkness of velvety,impenetrable gloom peculiar to the North. A drifting pall of mist thatbeaded the stockades and dripped from the blockhouse eaves added to theintensity of the night. Suggestive of tragedy, symbolic of disaster,prophetic of unknown calamity, the weird atmosphere chilled the men aswith a breath of fatalism. Both felt it, but neither stopped long enoughto analyze the feeling. Brochet attributed the odd sensation to hisdelicate position which in the event of discovery would become fatal.Black Ferguson thought the impression was simply attendant upon hisabnormal excitement as he raced across the yard to the fur-house.

  There the priest sweated with a very natural fear when they met a groupof Indians who had been storing bales by torchlight. Trooping back fromtheir work, the red gleam licking across their coppery features, Brochetsaw Running Wolf, his hot-tempered son Three Feathers and others of theCree tribe from the Katchawan.

  Veering a little, the priest walked on Ferguson's right side on the edgeof the ring of light. Thus he avoided encountering them fairly andescaped keen eyes that would have undoubtedly recognized him even underhis muffling capote.

  "_Bo' jou', bo' jou'_," the Crees grunted, and stalked on.

  Into the fur-house between rows of strong-odored pelts the Nor'westerhurried through the dark with Brochet. Up the long ladder which was wideenough for both to climb abreast they hastened. Ferguson threw back theceiling trapdoor with a resounding clang. The tableau that met the twomen's eyes as they pushed up their heads was one to be stamped indeliblyon their memories.

  A candle gleaming beside her in a sconce on the wall, Desiree Lazardcrouched behind a heap of powder kegs in the middle of the room. The topof the central keg had been broken in. The powder's black crystals shonewith an awesome refraction of light. And, white-lipped, tense-fibered,Desiree held the great pistol in her hand so that its muzzle was buriedin the deadly stuff.

  Her eyes lightened with recognition at sight of Brochet's colorless face
in the dark square of the trapdoor's space. But, being behind Ferguson'sshoulder, he placed a finger on his lips so that the girl understood andgave no sign.

  First the Nor'wester cursed in helplessness and baffled anger. Then hispowers of entreaty were exhausted to no betterment. His handsome,diabolical countenance was set with a rigid glare almost maniacal indistortion.

  "Are you mad, girl?" he screamed, his voice more animal-like than human.

  "No, but you are," Desiree retorted scornfully, "if you think toapproach me. Remember! A crook of my finger and Fort La Roche goes!"

  To Brochet it was splendid--the soft woman holding at certain bay thewily Nor'wester whom none had ever baffled before. Her courage sent aglow through his own frame, but instantly he shivered at the thoughtthat this could not last any great length of time. The situation wasimpossible. Yet such as it was, Desiree was mistress of it!

  "The minute that you or your men show foot above those ladder rungs, Ifire," she declared with an intense earnestness which the Nor'wester didnot for an instant doubt. "Your priest there may come up. But noother!"

  Devil that he was, Black Ferguson began to test her nerve, prancing onthe rounds upward, ever upward, showing his waist, his hips, knees, evenankles, while Father Brochet trembled for the sake of the girl. Heexpected every instant to hear the thunderous reverberation that wouldcarry destruction and death. Once the Nor'west leader rose on the lastrung till his boot-tops levelled the floor, balanced thus, grinning tosee how little he had to spare.

  The priest noted Desiree's hand whitening on the pistol butt, noted theweapon's muzzle thrusting deeper into the powder. Involuntarily hisfingertips went to his ears. But the explosion did not come. Laughing agrim, satisfied laugh, Black Ferguson dropped down a rung or soalongside Brochet.

  "You should not do that," the latter reproved. "A slip of your foot or anervous quiver of the girl's hand and we would all be in Heaven!"

  "You and the girl might, Father. I would be in a fitter place."

  Ferguson's face was insolent. He had no fear, neither had he anyreverence.

  "Hard as you are," the priest went on, "I give you credit for yourcourage."

  "Give Desiree credit too! There is a woman of steel, Father. A fit matefor a Nor'wester!"

  "But most unwilling, it seems!"

  "Her will must break."

  Black Ferguson turned again to glimpse her fully. He played again histrick of mounting the ladder rungs.

  Brochet thought the Nor'wester was baiting her out of sardonicrecklessness. This was partially the truth, but had the priest followedBlack Ferguson's eyes more closely, he would have seen that the cunninggiant had an ulterior purpose in his baiting. Once more he dropped backto Brochet's side without betraying that purpose.

  "Beautiful and brave!" he gloated. "Brave and beautiful! Did you eversee her like, Father Marcin? I'll wager not. Not even in the Pontiac!Yet look what madness it is--this standing at bay. I don't want herdestroyed. Nor the fort. She knows that. But how long can she play thispretty game? Soon she will need food, and with that she-fiend whoplanted her here gone, she will never get it. What then? What then, myworthy priest? You see it is no use. Go up and reason with her, Father.You have wisdom. She will listen. As for me I can wait a little longer!"

  He urged Brochet through the opening and closed the trapdoor. His heavyboots clattered down the ladder. The outer door of the fur-house openedand shut.

  Dropping her weapon, Desiree swayed forward on unsteady feet and,sobbing with nerve-strain, collapsed on the priest's breast.

  "My child, my child," murmured Father Brochet.

  And when she lay a little quieter in his arms, he whispered in her ear aword about Dunvegan and Dreaulond.

  "They can't be far off," he explained. "A few miles behind Cartienne'scanoe! That would be all--just enough to keep well out of sight orsound. And I shouldn't wonder if they're about La Roche now!"

  "But what can two men do?" cried Desiree, utterly hopeless. "He--he willonly sacrifice himself. And for me in the end it will be this." Shemotioned to the powder, and then drawing away from Brochet with a returnof strength went and seated herself upon the keg.

  "You had--you had the pistol," ventured the priest.

  "Yes," she returned quietly, "but I could not use it even on a beast.You yourself would not have me use it so, Father!"

  "No, daughter, not so! Nor yet the other way--the powder! Pray God hegives Dunvegan strength to do something."

  Brochet paced up and down in a distracted manner. There was little hecould say. Reason with her the Nor'wester had ordered! The priest wouldrather see her press the trigger above the keg than reason her into thearms of the Nor'wester lord. He began to question her as to the detailsof the attack upon the York Factory packet. Desiree explained how theyhad been waylaid, for since she was in the hands of the victors afterthe skirmish she could better learn how they had fulfilled their plansthan could Basil Dreaulond who had escaped. She shuddered when she toldof the accident to Glyndon which happened afterwards as they made speedto Fort La Roche.

  For accident it was in Desiree's eyes. How could she know that the menof the party had had their orders from Black Ferguson before theydeparted on their mission? Father Brochet did not enlighten her.

  She went on to tell of the arrival at the Nor'west stronghold, ofFerguson's greeting with his offer of marriage. Her eyes flashed as shespoke of it.

  "Did you ever see a panther stalk a fawn?" she cried. "That was it! ButI defied him. I scorned him. I--I spurned him. Yet defiance seemed onlyto increase his appetite. He laughed at my fear. He roared at my fury.He thrust me into a locked chamber to change my mind before the priestarrived. He said I was lucky to have a priest----"

  She paused, interrupted by a slight sound which seemed to come up fromthe river. The wall trembled never so slightly. "What is it?" shewhispered.

  Brochet had stepped swiftly to the other end of the powder room and laidear to a loop-hole. Suddenly his left hand beckoned. Desiree tip-toedacross.

  "What?" she panted. "Who?" She breathed in little gasps.

  "I don't know, daughter," murmured the priest, his voice tremulous withexcitement. "Dunvegan--maybe. He swore he would carry you over thesewalls."

  "What madness!" Desiree gasped. "Think of the cliffs. The stockades arefifty feet above the water. It would require a miracle!"

  "You forget there is a God who still works miracles. And through earthlyinstruments! Remember the fur-chute!"

  "But it is drawn up every night," the girl protested.

  "To-night it cannot be, for the noise is coming from it. The Crees andvoyageurs were unloading fur-bales. They have been careless and left itdown. Or perhaps they have not finished. Pray Heaven they may not comeback too soon!"

  Undoubtedly the noise, as of someone crawling, was coming from thefur-chute, the long box-pipe of pine that projected like a spout fromthe lower room of the fur-house and slanted down over the stockades towithin a few feet of the river's surface. It was used for the loadingand unloading of pelts carried in canoes, the huge bales being hoistedor lowered by a stout rope which ran through the center on a pulley. Theheight of Fort La Roche above the water made such a contrivancenecessary. It effected a tremendous saving of time and portaging up thesteep.

  The only drawback was that it afforded means of ingress to enemies,since an active man could pull himself up by the rope, and this theNor'westers had overcome by hinging the fur-house end on a great woodenpin. Thus at will the spout could be raised like the arm of a derrickout of reach from anyone below.

  That the chute was not raised now could hardly have been an oversight.Brochet knew that Ferguson was far too careful for that. It must meanthat there was still work to be done. The priest sweated at everydistant echo of voice or footfall for fear it heralded the return of theNor'west voyageurs.

  The scraping, crawling noise continued. While they strained to hear,their ears tense as those of listening deer, they caught a faintmetallic sound from the room downs
tairs.

  "Bolts," muttered Brochet, straightening up suddenly. "Now what doesthat mean?"

  He was shown! The trapdoor behind them flew open and Black Ferguson'shead and shoulders rose up. He had worked the ruse of coming backunheard. In his hand the priest could see a piece of binding cord drawntaut as if fastened to something under the powder-room's floor.

  "Ho! Ho!" His huge laugh reverberated among the rafters. "Ho! Ho!"

  Desiree dashed toward the kegs, but the Nor'wester swiftly jerked on thecord he held. A gap yawned in the floor before her feet. Kegs and pistoltumbled down into the fur-room.

  "Ho! Ho!" roared Ferguson. "It's an old trapdoor where the ladder usedto be. I put a string to the bolt. What do you think of my reasoning,Father? Better than yours, what?"

  He had reached the floor and was rushing across to them.

  "The candle, Father! The candle!" Desiree shrieked. For keg on keg ofpowder, many of them open, was still up-piled around the room.

  She sprang for it. Black Ferguson sprang also and wrested the flamingtaper from her fingers. Still laughing, he shoved her aside with onegreat paw and replaced the light in the sconce on the wall.

  "There's a spitfire, Father Marcin," he exulted. "There's spirit foryou. It's the spirit I want. By heaven you'll marry us now. I ask nobetter chancel."

  And he leaped after the retreating girl.

  "Wait till I get her in these arms," he cried hoarsely, his cheeksaflame, his eyes shining with desire. "Else will she not stand quiet forthe vows!"

  Fawn and panther!--the comparison Desiree herself had made! As tawny, ascruel, as strong, and as fierce to feed as any beast of prey theNor'wester ran round the yawning floor-gap to seize her. As slim, assupple, as tender as any fawn Desiree crouched and trembled an instantbefore him. Then she leaped straight down through the opening.