Montlivet Part 36

"Outchipouac. He showed me a gra.s.s ring hanging on a pole by his lodge. He says that when you come again and hang a silver one in its place it will be time for him to listen."

I knew the Indians were watching, though covertly, so I could only bow.

I went to the canoe and looked to its provisioning. There were two bags of rice, one of jerked meat, some ears of maize, and the dried rind of a squash; a knife and a hatchet lay with them. Our hosts had been generous. We were to be aided even if we were to be disciplined.

I found my place, and Pierre took the paddle and pushed away.

It is one thing to be at enmity with savages, it is another to be an outcast among them. I knew that their att.i.tude had excuse, and I was sick with myself. Then my Indian dress chafed my pride. I was sure that Pierre was laughing under his wrinkled red skin, and I was childish enough to be ready to rate him if he showed so much as a pucker of an eye. For I had always refused to let my men adopt the slightest particular of the savage dress. I had held--and I contend rightly--that a man must resist the wilderness most when he loves it most, and that he is in danger when he forgets the least point of his dress or manner. After that the downward plunge is swift. I had said this many times, and I knew Pierre must be recalling it.

And so I was sore with fate. Wounded, skin-clad, I was not heroic in look; it was hard to be heroic in mind. I had jeopardized the chance of an empire for a woman. But that proved nothing. The weakest could do that. It must be shown that I could justify my sacrifice.

These were irritations, yet they were but the surface of my suffering.

Underneath was the grinding, never-ceasing ache of anxiety. What was happening at Michillimackinac? Would I reach there in time? I could do nothing but sit and think. Always, from dawn to dusk, my impatient spirit fretted and pushed at that canoe, but my hands were idle. I tried paddling with my left hand, but it dislocated my bandages, and I did not dare. I was in some pain, but exposed as I was, broiled by the sun and drenched by showers, I yet mended daily. I ate well and drank deep of the cold lake water and felt my strength come. My cut was healing wholesomely without fever, and Pierre washed and bandaged it twice a day. He told me with many a twist of his hanging lip that it was well for me that he was there.

But on the point of his being there I had new light. It came one day after long silence. The giant rested and wiped his forehead.

"There are plovers on the waters," he pointed. "They make good eating.

Singing Arrow can cook them with bear's grease. I am going to marry the Indian when we get to Michillimackinac. Then when we reach Montreal you will give her a dowry. There is the grain field on the lower river that was planted by Martin. Martin has no wife. What does he need of grain? The king wishes his subjects to marry. And if the master gave us a house we could live, oh, very well. I thought of it when I went through the Malhominis land and saw all those squashes.

The Indian sews her own dresses, and I shall tell her I do not like her in finery. We will send a capon to the master every Christmas."

I grinned despite myself. I had grown fatuous, for I had taken it without question that the oaf had followed from his loyalty to me. But I nodded at him and promised recklessly--house, pigs, and granary. The same star ruled master and man.

But the way was long, long, long. Nights came and days came, and still more nights and days. Yet it ended at last. Late one afternoon we saw the sh.o.r.e line that marked Michillimackinac. Once in sight it came fast, fast, fast,--faster than I could prepare my courage for what might meet me. What should I find?

We reached the beach where I had tied Father Carheil. We rounded the point. The garrison, the board roofs of the Jesuit houses, the Indian camps,--all were as usual. They were peaceful, untouched. I swallowed, for my throat and tongue were dry.

CHAPTER XXIV

I MEET VARIOUS WELCOMES

It was Father Carheil who first sighted us. He sounded the cry of our arrival, and came skurrying like a sandpiper, his scant gown tripping him, his cap askew.

I leaped from the canoe and hurried to him. The man must hate me, but he could not refuse me news. I stretched out my hand.

"Is all well here, father? Is all well?"

He disdained my hand, and held his arms wide. "All is well with us.

But you---- We feared the Iroquois wolf had devoured you."

And I had thought the man capable of petty spite. I dropped on my knees to him. "Father Carheil, I grieve for what I did, yet I could not have done otherwise."

He drew back a little and rumpled his thin hair with a bloodless hand.

His face was frowning, but his restless, brilliant eyes were full of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"So your conscience is not at ease? My son, you are as strong as a Flemish work horse. I limped to ma.s.s for the next fortnight, and my gown was in fiddle-strings,--you may send me another. As for the rest, we need new altar hangings. Now, come, come, come. Tell us what has happened."

And there it ended. One makes enemies in strange ways in this world and friends in stranger. I should not have said that the way to win a man's heart was to bind him like a Christmas fowl and then leave him with his back on the sand.

The priest's cry had waked the garrison, and the officers came running.

Cadillac, stout as he was, was in the lead. I knew, from the press of his arms about me, that he had thought me dead.

"Is Madame de Montlivet safe? Are the Senecas here?" I clamored at him.

A babel of affirmatives arose. Yes, madame was there. The Senecas were there. So the English prisoner had proved to be a woman. Had I known it at the time? I was a sly dog. All tongues talked at once, while I fought for a hearing. We turned toward the commandant's. The door of the nearest cabin opened and Starling came out. He did not look toward us, and he walked the other way. The woman walked beside him.

A hush clapped down on us as if our very breathing were strangled. A lane opened in front of me. I took one step in it, then stopped.

There was the woman. I had followed her through wounds and hards.h.i.+p.

Through the long nights I had watched the stars and planned for our meeting. But when I would have gone to her my feet were manacled, for this was not the woman of my dreams. This woman wore trailing silk, and her hair was coifed. And she was walking away from me; no instinct told her that I was near. She was walking away, and Starling walked beside her. I did not remember that I was wounded and a sorry figure; I did not remember that I was dressed in skins. I remembered that I had married this woman by force, and that she had once wished of her own accord to marry Starling. And now she walked with him; she wore a gown he must have brought; she had forgiven him. A hot spark ran from my heart to my brain. I turned and started toward the beach.

I heard a breath from the throats around me and a stretching of cramped limbs. Cadillac's arm dropped round my shoulders, and I felt the pressure of his fingers.

"Come to my quarters," he said. "You have mail waiting. And we will find you something to wear. Dubisson is near your size."

And so I let him lead me away. I pressed him for news of the Indian situation, but he only shrugged and said, "Wait. Matters are quiescent enough on the surface. We will talk later."

It was strange. I bathed and dressed quite as I had done many times before, when I had come in from months in camp; quite as if there were no woman, and as if ma.s.sacre were not knocking at the window. But I carried a black weight that made my tongue leaden, and I excused myself from table on the plea of going through my mail.

The news the letters brought was good but unimportant. In the Montreal packet was a sealed line in a woman's hand.

"I have tracked my miniature," it read. "I mourned its disappearance; I should welcome its return. Can you find excuses for the man who took it from me? If you can, I beg that you let me hear them. He was once my friend, and I am loath to think of him hardly." The note bore no signature. It was dated at the governor's house at Montreal, and directed to me at Michillimackinac.

I was alone with Dubisson and I turned to him. "Madame Bertheau is at Montreal?"

He shrugged. "So I hear."

"She has come to see her brother?"

Now he grinned. "Ostensibly, monsieur."

There was no need to hide my feeling from Dubisson, so I sat with my chin sunk low and thought it over. I was ill pleased. I had been long and openly in Madame Bertheau's train, and this was a land of gossips.

I turned to the lieutenant.

"Madame de Montlivet, where is she housed?"

He looked relieved. "She has a room next door. Starling we have taken in with us. I would rather have a tethered elk. He is so big he fills the whole place."

Now, square issues please me. "Dubisson, why has no one offered to take me to my wife?"

The man laughed rather helplessly. "'T is from no lack of respect for either of you, monsieur. But you said nothing, and Starling"----

"Yes, it is from Starling that I wish to hear."

"Well, Starling has said---- Monsieur, why repeat the man's gossip?"

"Go on, Dubisson."

"After all, it is only what the Englishman has said. Madame, so far as I know, has said nothing. But Starling has told us that yours was a marriage of form only,--that the woman consented under stress, and now"----