Heralds of Empire Part 20

And land they did, pompously peaceful, though their swords clanked so oft every man must have had a hand ready at his baldrick, Pierre Radisson receiving them with the lofty air of a gracious monarch, the others bowing and unhatting and bending and crooking their spines supple as courtiers with a king.

Presently came the soldiers back to us as hostages, while Radisson stepped into the boat to go aboard the Prince Rupert with the captain and governor. G.o.defroy called out against such rashness, and Pierre Radisson shouted back that threat about the nippers pulling the end off the fellow's tongue.

Serving under the French flag, I was not supposed to know English; but when one soldier said he had seen "Mr. What-d'y-call-'im before,"

pointing at me, I recognised the mate from whom I had hired pa.s.sage to England for M. Picot on Captain Gillam's s.h.i.+p.

"Like enough," says the other, "'tis a land where no man brings his back history."

"See here, fellow," said I, whipping out a crown, "here's for you to tell me of the New Amsterdam gentleman who sailed from Boston last spring!"

"No New Amsterdam gentleman sailed from Boston," answered both in one breath.

"I am not paying for lies," and I returned the crown to my pocket.

Then Radisson came back, urging Captain Gillam against proceeding up the river.

"The Prince Rupert might ground on the shallows," he warned.

"That will keep them apart till we trap one or both," he told us, as we set off in our canoe. But we had not gone out of range before we were ordered ash.o.r.e. Picking our way back overland, we spied through the bush for two days, till we saw that Governor Brigdar was taking Radisson's advice, going no farther up-stream, but erecting a fort on the sh.o.r.e where he had anch.o.r.ed.

"And now," said Radisson, "we must act."

While we were spying through the woods, watching the English build their fort, I thought that I saw a figure flitting through the bush to the rear. I dared not fire. One shot would have betrayed us to the English. But I pointed my gun. The thing came gliding noiselessly nearer. I clicked the gun-b.u.t.t without firing. The thing paused.

Then I called M. Radisson, who said it was Le Borgne, the wall-eyed Indian. G.o.defroy vowed 'twas a spy from Ben Gillam's fort. The Indian mumbled some superst.i.tion of a manitou. To me it seemed like a caribou; for it faded to nothing the way those fleet creatures have of skimming into distance.

CHAPTER XII

M. RADISSON BEGINS THE GAME

M. Radisson had reckoned well. His warning to prepare for instant siege set all the young fire-eaters of our Habitation working like beavers to complete the French fort. The marquis took a hand at squaring timbers shoulder to shoulder with Allemand, the pilot; and La Chesnaye, the merchant prince, forgot to strut while digging up earthworks for a parapet. The leaven of the New World was working.

Honour was for him only whose brawn won the place; and our young fellows of the birth and the pride were keenest to gird for the task.

On our return from the upper river to the fort, the palisaded walls were finished, guns were mounted on all bastions, the two s.h.i.+ps beached under shelter of cannon, sentinels on parade at the main gate, and a long barracks built mid-way across the courtyard.

Here we pa.s.sed many a merry hour of a long winter night, the green timbers cracking like pistol-shots to the tightening frost-grip, and the hearth logs at each end of the long, low-raftered hall sending up a roar that set the red shadows dancing among ceiling joists. After ward-room mess, with fare that kings might have envied--teal and partridge and venison and a steak of beaver's tail, and moose nose as an _entree_, with a tidbit of buffalo hump that melted in your mouth like flakes--the commonalty, as La Chesnaye designated those who sat below the salt, would draw off to the far hearth. Here the sailors gathered close, spinning yarns, cracking jokes, popping corn, and toasting wits, a-merrier far that your kitchen cuddies of older lands.

At the other hearth sat M. de Radisson, feet spread to the fire, a long pipe between his lips, and an audience of young blades eager for his tales.

"D'ye mind how we got away from the Iroquois, Chouart?" Radisson asks Groseillers, who sits in a chair rough-hewn from a stump on the other side of the fire.

Chouart Groseillers smiles quietly and strokes his black beard. Jean stretches across a bear-skin on the floor and shouts out, "Tell us!

Tell us!"

"We had been captives six months. The Iroquois were beginning to let us wander about alone. Chouart there had sewed his thumb up, where an old squaw had hacked at it with a dull sh.e.l.l. The padre's nails, which the Indians tore off in torture, had grown well enough for him to handle a gun. One day we were allowed out to hunt. Chouart brought down three deer, the padre two moose, and I a couple of bear. That night the warriors came back from a raid on Orange with not a thing to eat but one miserable, little, thin, squealing pig. Pardieu! men, 'twas our chance; and the chance is always hiding round a corner for the man who goes ahead."

Radisson paused to whiff his pipe, all the lights in his eyes laughing and his mouth expressionless as steel.

"'Tis an insult among Iroquois to leave food at a feast. There were we with food enough to stuff the tribe torpid as winter toads. The padre was sent round to the lodges with a tom-tom to beat every soul to the feast. Chouart and a Dutch prisoner and I cooked like kings' scullions for four mortal hours!--"

"We wanted to delay the feast till midnight," explains Groseillers.

"And at midnight in trooped every man, woman, and brat of the encampment. The padre takes a tom-tom and stands at one end of the lodge beating a very knave of a rub-a-dub and shouting at the top of his voice: 'Eat, brothers, eat! Bulge the eye, swell the coat, loose the belt! Eat, brothers, eat!' Chouart stands at the boiler ladling out joints faster than an army could gobble. Within an hour every brat lay stretched and the women were snoring asleep where they crouched.

From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan! But Chouart keeps ladling out the meat. Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other end of the lodge, and begins to beat and yell: 'Stuff, brudders, stuff!

Vat de gut zperets zend, gast not out! Eat, braves, eat!' And the padre cuts the capers of a fiend on coals. Still the warriors eat!

Still the drums beat! Still the meat is heaped! Then, one brave bowls over asleep with his head on his knees! Another warrior tumbles back!

Guards sit bolt upright sound asleep as a stone!"

"What did you put in the meat, Pierre?" asked Groseillers absently.

Radisson laughed.

"Do you mind, Chouart," he asked, "how the padre wanted to put poison in the meat, and the Dutchman wouldn't let him? Then the Dutchman wanted to murder them all in their sleep, and the padre wouldn't let him?"

Both men laughed.

"And the end?" asked Jean.

"We tied the squealing pig at the door for sentinel, broke ice with our muskets, launched the canoe, and never stopped paddling till we reached Three Rivers." [1]

At that comes a loud sally of laughter from the sailors at the far end of the hall. G.o.defroy, the English trader, is singing a rhyme of All Souls' Day, and Allemand, the French pilot, protests.

"Soul! Soul! For a soul-cake!

One for Peter, two for Paul, Three for----."

But La Chesnaye shouts out for the knaves to hold quiet. G.o.defroy bobs his tipstaff, and bawls on:

"Soul! Soul! For an apple or two!

If you've got no apples, nuts will do!

Out with your raisins, down with your gin!

Give me plenty and I'll begin."

M. Radisson looks down the hall and laughs. "By the saints," says he softly, "a man loses the Christian calendar in this land! 'Tis All Souls' Night! Give the men a treat, La Chesnaye."

But La Chesnaye, being governor, must needs show his authority, and vows to flog the knave for impudence. Turning over benches in his haste, the merchant falls on G.o.defroy with such largesse of cuffs that the fellow is glad to keep peace.

The door blows open, and with a gust of wind a silent figure blows in.

'Tis Le Borgne, the one-eyed, who has taken to joining our men of a merry night, which M. de Radisson encourages; for he would have all the Indians come freely.

"Ha!" says Radisson, "I thought 'twas the men I sent to spy if the marsh were safe crossing. Give Le Borgne tobacco, La Chesnaye. If once the fellow gets drunk," he adds to me in an undertone, "that silent tongue of his may wag on the interlopers. We must be stirring, stirring, Ramsay! Ten days past! Egad, a man might as well be a fish-worm burrowing underground as such a snail! We must stir--stir!

See here"--drawing me to the table apart from the others--"here we are on the lower river," and he marked the letter X on a line indicating the flow of our river to the bay. "Here is the upper river," and he drew another river meeting ours at a sharp angle. "Here is Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company," marking another X on the upper river. "Here is Ben Gillam! We are half-way between them on the south. I sent two men to see if the marsh between the rivers is fit crossing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Radisson's map.]

"Fit crossing?"

"When 'tis safe, we might plan a surprise. The only doubt is how many of those pirates are there who attacked you in the woods?"