Old Kaskaskia Part 13

"It is rising higher," said Peggy.

Angelique wished she had not mentioned Mademoiselle Zhone. Perhaps, when the colonel had risked his life to bring the sick girl out of a swamped house, her family might prefer to wait until morning to putting her in the boat now.

The bells kept ringing, now filling the attic with their vibrations, and then receding to a faint and far-off clamor as the wind swept by. They called to all the bluff-dwellers within miles of Kaskaskia.

The children sat down, and leaned their heads against their mother's knee. The others waited in drawing-room chairs; feeling the weariness of anxiety and broken domestic habits. Captain Saucier watched for the return of the boat; but before it seemed possible the little voyage could be made they felt a jar under the gable window, and Rice Jones's voice called.

The gable of the house had a sloping roof, its window being on a level with the other windows. Captain Saucier leaned far out. The wind had extinguished the boat's lantern. The rowers were trying to hold the boat broadside to the house, but it rose and fell on waves which became breakers and threatened to capsize it. All Kaskaskia men were acquainted with water. Pierre Menard had made many a river journey. But the Mississippi in this wild aspect was new to them all.

"Can you take her in?" shouted Rice. "My sister thinks she cannot be got ash.o.r.e alive."

"Can you lift her to me?"

"When the next wave comes," said Rice.

He steadied himself and lifted Maria. As the swell again tossed the boat upward, he rose on a bench and lifted her as high as he could. Captain Saucier caught the frail bundle and drew the sick girl into the attic.

He laid her down on the children's bed, leaving her to Angelique, while he prepared to put them and their mother into the boat. Rice crept over the wet strip of gable roof, and entered the window after his sister. By lantern light he was a strong living figure. His austerely white face was full of amus.e.m.e.nt at the Kaskaskian situation. His hat had blown away. The water had sleeked down his hair to a satin skullcap on his full head.

"This is a wet night, madame and mesdemoiselles," he observed.

"Oh, Monsieur Zhone," lamented Madame Saucier, "how can you laugh? We are all ruined."

"No, madame. There is no such word as 'ruin' in the Territory."

"And I must take my two little children, and leave Angelique here in the midst of this water."

Rice had directly knelt down by his sister and put his hand on her forehead. Maria was quite still, and evidently gathering her little strength together.

"But why do you remain?" said Rice to Angelique. She was at Maria's opposite side, and she merely indicated the presence behind the screens; but Peggy explained aloud,--

"She can't go because tante-gra'mere won't be moved."

"Put that limb of a Morrison girl out of the house," came an unexpected mandate from amongst the screens.

"I would gladly put her out," said Captain Saucier anxiously. "Peggy, my child, now that Mademoiselle Zhone is with Angelique, be persuaded to go with madame and the children."

Peggy shook her head, laughing. A keen new delight in delay and danger made her sparkle.

"Go yourself, Captain Saucier. One gentleman is enough to take care of us."

"I think you ought to go, Captain Saucier," said Rice. "You will be needed. The boat may be swamped by some of those large waves. I am ashamed of leaving my stepmother behind; but she would not leave my father, and Maria clung to me. We dared not fill the boat too full."

Angelique ran and kissed the children before her father put them into the boat, and offered her cheeks to her mother. Madame Saucier was a fat woman. She clung appalled to her husband, as he let her over the slippery roof. Two slave men braced themselves and held the ropes which steadied him, the whites of their eyes showing. Their mistress was landed with a plunge, but steadied on her seat by Colonel Menard.

"Oh," she cried out, "I have left the house without saying adieu to tante-gra'mere. My mind is distracted. She will as long as she lives remember this discourtesy."

"It could be easily remedied, madame," suggested Colonel Menard, panting as he braced his oar, "if she would step into the boat herself, as we all wish her to do."

"Oh, monsieur the colonel, you are the best of men. If you had only had the training of her instead of my poor gentle Francis, she might not be so hard to manage now."

"We must not flatter ourselves, madame. But Mademoiselle Angelique must not remain here much longer for anybody's whim."

"Do you think the water is rising?"

"It is certainly rising."

Madame Saucier uttered a shriek as a great swell rolled the boat. The searching wind penetrated all her garments and blew back loose ends of her hair. There was now a partially clear sky, and the moon sent forth a little l.u.s.tre as a hint of what she might do when she had entirely freed herself from clouds.

The children were lowered, and after them their black nurse.

"There is room for at least one more!" called Pierre Menard.

Captain Saucier stood irresolute.

"Can you not trust me with these fragments of our families?" said Rice.

"Certainly, Monsieur Reece, certainly. It is not that. But you see the water is still rising."

"I was testing the rise of the water when Colonel Menard reached us. The wind makes it seem higher than it really is. You can go and return, captain, while you are hesitating."

"I am torn in two," declared the Indian fighter. "It makes a child of me to leave Angelique behind."

"Francis Saucier," came in shrill French from the screens, "get into that boat, and leave my G.o.dchild alone."

The captain laughed. He also kissed the cheeks of tante-gra'mere's G.o.dchild and let himself slide down the roof, and the boat was off directly.

The slaves, before returning to their own room, again fastened the sashes of the dormer window. The clamor of bells which seemed to pour through the open window was thus partly silenced. The lantern made its dim illumination with specks of light, swinging from a nail over the window alcove. Maria had not yet unclosed her eyes. Her wasted hand made a network around one of Rice's fingers, and as the coughing spasm seized her she tightened it.

"She wants air," he said hastily, and Angelique again spread wide the window in the gable, when the thin cry of her tante-gra'mere forbade it.

"But, dear tante-gra'mere, Mademoiselle Zhone must have air."

"And must she selfishly give me rheumatism in order to give herself air?"

"But, dear tante-gra'mere"--

"Shut that window."

"I dare not, indeed."

Rice seized two corners of the feather pallet, and made it travel in a swift swish across the attic boards to the window at the front, which he opened. Supporting Maria in his arms, he signaled Angelique, with an amused face, to obey her tyrant; and she did so. But Peggy stalked behind the screens, and put her face close to the black eyes in the great soft lair built up of so many beds.

"You and I are nice people, madame," said Peggy through her teeth. "We don't care who suffers, if we are happy. We ought to have been twins; the same little beast lives in us both."

Tante-gra'mere's eyes snapped.

"You are a limb," she responded in shrill French.

"Yes; we know each other," said Peggy.