Old Kaskaskia Part 12

"On that account, madame, I came out with the boat as soon as I could.

But we shall be stove in here. Monsieur the captain, can you let the family down the roof to me?"

Captain Saucier thought he could, and he saw it would have to be done quickly. By dim lantern light the Saucier children were hurried into their clothing, and Wachique brought a wrap of fur and wool for tante-gra'mere. Three of the slave men were called in, and they rigged a rope around their master's waist, by which they could hold and guide him in his attempt to carry living freight down the slippery roof.

"How many can you carry?" he inquired.

"Six at a time," answered Colonel Menard. "To try to do more would hardly be safe, in this rough water."

"Were the boats at the wharf swept away?"

"It is not now easy to tell where the wharf was. But some of the large craft seem wedged among trees along the bluff. By daylight we shall get some out. And I have sent to the governor for all the boats he can muster for us."

Angelique came to the dormer window and touched her father's shoulder.

"Are you all ready?" he asked.

"Tante-gra'mere will not go into the boat."

"But she must. There will be six of you, with Peggy; and Colonel Menard cannot much longer hang by the eaves."

"Perhaps if you pick her up and run with her, papa, as you did from the danger below, she may allow it."

"She must go into the boat directly," said Captain Saucier; and the negroes paid out the rope as he stalked to the screened corner.

Angelique leaned over the sill and the chill wilderness of waters. The wind sung in her ears. She could not distinctly see Colonel Menard, and there was such a sound of waves that she was not sure it was best to try her voice against them. His man had an oar thrust into the broken window below, and was thereby able to hold the boat against the current.

"Monsieur the colonel!" called Angelique; and she saw the swift removal of his hat.

"Mademoiselle, have you been alarmed?"

"Yes, monsieur. Even my father was unable to do anything for the family until you came. But it seems when we find one relief we get another anxiety with it."

"What other anxiety have you now?"

"I am afraid you will be drowned trying to carry us out."

"My bel-o-ved, would you care?" said Pierre Menard, speaking English, which his slave could not understand, and accenting on the first syllable the name he gave her.

"Yes; it would be a serious inconvenience to me," replied Angelique.

"Now that is worth coming here for. De northwest wind, I do not feel it since you say that."

"I was thinking before you came, monsieur, what if I should never see you again? And if I saw you plainly now I could not talk so much. But something may happen. It is so strange, and like another world, this water."

Tante-gra'mere screamed, and Angelique disappeared from the window-sill.

It was not the mere outcry of a frightened woman. The keen small shriek was so terrible in its helplessness and appeal to Heaven that Captain Saucier was made limp by it.

"What shall I do?" he asked his family.

"I cannot force her into the boat when she cries out like that."

"Perhaps she will go at dawn," suggested Angelique. "The wind may sink.

The howling and the darkness terrify her more than the water."

"But Colonel Menard cannot wait until dawn. We shall all be drowned here before she will budge," lamented Madame Saucier.

"Leave her with me," urged Peggy Morrison, "and the rest of you go with Colonel Menard. I'll manage her. She will be ready to jump out of the window into the next boat that comes along."

"We cannot leave her, Peggy, and we cannot leave you. I am responsible to your father for your safety. I will put you and my family into the boat, and stay with her myself."

"Angelique will not leave me!" cried the little voice among the screens.

"Are you ready to lower them?" called Colonel Menard.

Captain Saucier went again to the window, his wife and daughter and Peggy with him.

"I could not leave her," said Angelique to Peggy. They stood behind the father and mother, who told their trouble across the sill.

"That spoiled old woman needs a good shaking," declared Peggy.

"Poor little tante-gra'mere. It is a dreadful thing, Peggy, to be a child when you are too old for discipline."

"Give my compliments to madame, and coax her," urged Colonel Menard.

"Tell her, if she will let herself be lowered to me, I will pledge my life for her safety."

The two children stood huddled together, waiting, large-eyed and silent, while their elders kneeled around the immovable invalid. Peggy laughed at the expectant att.i.tudes of the pleaders.

"Tante-gra'mere has now quite made up her mind to go," Madame Saucier announced over and over to her family and to Peggy, and to the slaves at the part.i.tion door, all of whom were waiting for the rescue barred from them by one obstinate little mummy.

But these hopeful a.s.sertions were wasted. Tante-gra'mere had made up her mind to stay. She held to her whip, and refused to be touched. Her fixed decree was announced to Colonel Menard. He asked for the women and children of the family in haste. He and his man were wasting time and strength holding the boat against the waves. It was in danger of being swamped.

Angelique stood deferentially before her father and asked his permission to stay with his grand-aunt. In the same deferential manner she asked permission of her mother. Madame Saucier leaned on her husband's shoulder and wept. It was plain that the mother must go with her two young children only. Peggy said she would not leave Angelique.

"Monsieur the colonel," spoke Angelique again into the windy darkness, "we are not worth half the trouble you are taking for us. I wonder you do not leave such ridiculous people to drown or get out as we can. But my tante-gra'mere is so old; please forgive her. My mother and the children are quite ready. I wish poor Mademoiselle Zhone were with you, too."

"I will fetch Mademoiselle Zhone out of her house before madame and the children get in," said Pierre Menard promptly. "As for the delay, it is nothing, mademoiselle; we must get you all to land as we can."

"Monsieur, will it not be dangerous? I thought of her because she is so sick. But there is foam everywhere; and the trees are in your way."

"We can find a track," answered the colonel. "Push off, boy."

The boat labored out, and the click of oars in rowlocks became presently a distant thumping, and then all sound was lost in the wash of water.

Angelique went to the dormer window in the gable. As she threw the sashes wide she was partly drenched by a wave, and tante-gra'mere sent from the screens a shrill mandate against wind which cut to the bone.

Captain Saucier fastened the sashes again. He was a crestfallen man. He had fought Indians with credit, but he was not equal to the weakest member of his household.

Occasionally the rafters creaked from a blow, and a wave rushed up the roof.