Alice of Old Vincennes Part 46

"I didn't mean that I had heard from him, and I don't know where he is; but--but they always come back."

"You say that because your man--because Lieutenant Beverley has returned. It is always so. You have everything to make you happy, while I--I--"

Again her eyes spilled their shower, and she hid her face in her hands which Alice tried in vain to remove.

"Don't cry, Adrienne. You didn't see me crying--"

"No, of course not; you didn't have a thing to cry about. Lieutenant Beverley told you just where he was going and just what--"

"But think, Adrienne, only think of the awful story they told--that he was killed, that Governor Hamilton had paid Long-Hair for killing him and bringing back his scalp--oh dear, just think! And I thought it was true."

"Well, I'd be willing to think and believe anything in the world, if Rene would come back," said Adrienne, her face, now uncovered, showing pitiful lines of suffering. "O Alice, Alice, and he never, never will come!"

Alice exhausted every device to cheer, encourage and comfort her.

Adrienne had been so good to her when she lay recovering from the shock of Hamilton's pistol bullet, which, although it came near killing her, made no serious wound--only a bruise, in fact. It was one of those fortunate accidents, or providentially ordered interferences, which once in a while save a life. The stone disc worn by Alice chanced to lie exactly in the missile's way, and while it was not broken, the ball, already somewhat checked by pa.s.sing through several folds of Father Beret's garments, flattened itself upon it with a shock which somehow struck Alice senseless.

Here again, history in the form of an ancient family doc.u.ment (a letter written in 1821 by Alice herself), gives us the curious brace of incidents, to wit, the breaking of the miniature on Beverley's breast by a British musket-ball, and the stopping of Hamilton's bullet over Alice's heart by the Indian charm-stone.

"Which shows the goodness of G.o.d," the letter goes on, "and also seems to sustain the Indian legend concerning the stone, that whoever might wear it could not be killed. Unquestionable (sic) Mr. Hamilton's shot, which was aimed at poor, dear old Father Beret, would have pierced my heart, but for that charm-stone. As for my locket, it did not, as some have reported, save Fitzhugh's life when the musket-ball was stopped.

The ball was so spent that the blow was only hard enough to spoil temporary (sic) the face of the miniature, which was afterwards restored fairly well by an artist in Paris. When it did actually save Fitzhugh's life was out on the Illinois plain. The savage, Long-Hair, peace to his memory, worked the miracle of restoring to me--" Here a fold in the paper has destroyed a line of the writing.

The letter is a sacred family paper, and there is not justification for going farther into its faded and, in some parts, almost obliterated writing. But so much may pa.s.s into these pages as a pleasant authentication of what otherwise might be altogether too sweet a double nut for the critic's teeth to crack.

While Adrienne and Alice were still discussing the probability of Rene de Ronville's return, M. Roussillon came to the door. He was in search of Madame, his wife, whom he had not yet seen.

He gathered the two girls in his mighty arms, tousling them with rough tenderness. Alice returned his affectionate embrace and told him where to find Madame Roussillon, who was with Dame G.o.dere, probably at her house.

"n.o.body killed," he said, in answer to Alice's inquiry about the catastrophe at the fort. "Some of 'em hurt and burnt a little. Great big scare about nearly nothing. Ziff! my children, you should have seen me quiet things. I put out my hands, this way--omme ca--pouf! It was all over. The people went home."

His gestures indicated that he had borne back an army with open hands.

Then he chucked Adrienne under the chin with his finger and added in his softest voice:

"I saw somebody's lover the other day, over yonder in the Indian village. He spoke to me about somebody--eh, ma pet.i.te, que voulez-vous dire?"

"Oh, Papa Roussillon! we were just talking about Rene!" cried Alice.

"Have you seen him?"

"I saw you, you little minx, jumping into a man's arms right under the eyes of a whole garrison! Bah! I could not believe it was my little Alice!"

He let go a grand guffaw, which seemed to shake the cabin's walls.

Alice blushed cherry red. Adrienne, too bashful to inquire about Rene, was trembling with anxiety. The truth was not in Gaspard Roussillon, just then; or if it was it stayed in him, for he had not seen Rene de Ronville. It was his generous desire to please and to appear opulent of knowledge and sympathy that made him speak. He knew what would please Adrienne, so why not give her at least a delicious foretaste? Surely, when a thing was so cheap, one need not be so parsimonious as to withhold a mere antic.i.p.ation. He was off before the girls could press him into details, for indeed he had none.

"There now, what did I tell you?" cried Alice, when the big man was gone. "I told you Rene would come. They always come back!"

Father Beret came in a little later. As soon as he saw Alice he frowned and began to shake his head; but she only laughed, and imitating his hypocritical scowl, yet fringing it with a twinkle of merry lines and dimples, pointed a taper finger at him and exclaimed:

"You bad, bad, man! why did you pretend to me that Lieutenant Beverley was dead? What sinister ecclesiastical motive prompted you to describe how Long-Hair scalped him? Ah, Father--"

The priest laid a broad hand over her saucy mouth. "Something or other seems to have excited you mightily, ma fille, you are a trifle impulsively inclined to-day."

"Yes, Father Beret; yes I know, and I am ashamed. My heart shrinks when I think of what I did; but I was so glad, such a grand joy came all over me when I saw him, so strong and brave and beautiful, coming toward me, smiling that warm, glad smile and holding out his arms--ah, when I saw all that--when I knew for sure that he was not dead--I, why, Father--I just had to, I couldn't help it!"

Father Beret laughed in spite of himself, but quickly managed to resume his severe countenance.

"Ta! ta!" he exclaimed, "it was a bold thing for a little girl to do."

"So it was, so it was. But it was also a bold thing for him to do--to come back after he was dead and scalped and look so handsome and grand!

I'm ashamed and sorry, Father; but--but, I'm afraid I might do it again if--well, I don't care if I did--so there, now!"

"But what in the world are you talking about?" interposed Adrienne.

Evidently they were discussing a most interesting matter of which she knew nothing, and that did not suit her feminine curiosity. "Tell me."

She pulled Father Beret's sleeve. "Tell me, I say!"

It is probable that Father Beret would have pretended to betray Alice's source of mingled delight and embarra.s.sment, had not the rest of the Bourcier household returned in time to break up the conversation. A little later Alice gave Adrienne a vividly dramatic account of the whole scene.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the pet.i.te brunette, after she had heard the exciting story. "That was just like you, Alice. You always do superb things. You were born to do them. You shoot Captain Farnsworth, you wound Lieutenant Barlow, you climb onto the fort and set up your flag--you take it down again and run away with it--you get shot and you do not die--you kiss your lover right before a whole garrison! Bon Dieu! if I could but do all those things!"

She clasped her tiny hands before her and added rather dejectedly: "But I couldn't, I couldn't. I couldn't kiss a man in that way!"

Late in the evening news came to Roussillon place, where Gaspard Roussillon was once more happy in the midst of his little family, that the Indian Long-Hair had just been brought to the fort, and would be shot on the following day. A scouting party captured him as he approached the town, bearing at his belt the fresh scalp of a white man. He would have been killed forthwith, but Clark, who wished to avoid a repet.i.tion of the savage vengeance meted out to the Indians on the previous day, had given strict orders that all prisoners should be brought into the fort, where they were to have a fair trial by court martial.

Both Helm and Beverley were at Roussillon place, the former sipping wine and chatting with Gaspard, the latter, of course, hovering around Alice, after the manner of a hungry bee around a particularly sweet and deliciously refractory flower. It was raining slowly, the fine drops coming straight down through the cold, still February air; but the two young people found it pleasant enough for them on the veranda, where they walked back and forth, making fair exchange of the exciting experiences which had befallen them during their long separation.

Between the lines of these mutual recitals sweet, fresh echoes of the old, old story went from heart to heart, an amoebaean love-bout like that of spring birds calling tenderly back and forth in the blooming Maytime woods.

Both Captain Helm and M. Roussillon were delighted to hear of Long-Hair's capture and certain fate, but neither of them regarded the news as of sufficient importance to need much comment. They did not think of telling Beverley and Alice. Jean, however, lying awake in his little bed, overheard the conversation, which he repeated to Alice next morning with great circ.u.mstantiality.

Having the quick insight bred of frontier experience, Alice instantly caught the terrible significance of the dilemma in which she and Beverley would be placed by Long-Hair's situation. Moreover, something in her heart arose with irresistible power demanding the final, the absolute human sympathy and grat.i.tude. No matter what deeds Long-Hair had committed that were evil beyond forgiveness, he had done for her the all-atoning thing. He had saved Beverley and sent him back to her.

With a start and a chill of dread, she thought: "What if it is already too late!"

But her nature could not hesitate. To feel the demand of an exigency was to act. She s.n.a.t.c.hed a wrap from its peg on the wall and ran as fast as she could to the fort. People who met her flying along wondered, staring after her, what could be urging her so that she saw n.o.body, checked herself for nothing, ran splas.h.i.+ng through the puddles in the street, gazing ahead of her, as if pursuing some flying object from which she dared not turn her eyes.

And there was, indeed, a call for her utmost power of flight, if she would be of any a.s.sistance to Long-Hair, who even then stood bound to a stake in the fort's area, while a platoon of riflemen, those unerring shots from Kentucky and Virginia, were ready to make a target of him at a range of but twenty yards.

Beverley, greatly handicapped by the fact that the fresh scalp of a white man hung at Long-Hair's belt, had exhausted every possible argument to avert or mitigate the sentence promptly spoken by the court martial of which Colonel Clark was the ruling spirit. He had succeeded barely to the extent of turning the mode of execution from tomahawking to shooting. All the officers in the fort approved killing the prisoner, and it was difficult for Colonel Clark to prevent the men from making outrageous a.s.saults upon him, so exasperated were they at sight of the scalp.

Oncle Jazon proved to be one of the most refractory among those who demanded tomahawking and scalping as the only treatment due Long-Hair.

The repulsive savage stood up before them stolid, resolute, defiant, proudly flaunting the badge which testified to his horrible efficiency as an emissary of Hamilton's. It had been left in his belt by Clark's order, as the best justification of his doom.

"L' me hack 'is d.a.m.ned head," Oncle Jazon pleaded. "I jes' hankers to chop a hole inter it. An' besides I want 'is scelp to hang up wi' mine an' that'n o' the Injun what scelped me. He kicked me in the ribs, the stinkin' varmint."

Beverley pleaded eloquently and well, but even the genial Major Helm laughed at his sentiment of grat.i.tude to a savage who at best but relented at the last moment, for Alice's sake, and concluded not to sell him to Hamilton. It is due to the British commander to record here that he most positively and with what appeared to be high sincerity, denied the charge of having offered rewards for the taking of human scalps. He declared that his purposes and practices were humane, and that while he did use the Indians as military allies, his orders to them were that they must forego cruel modes of warfare and refrain from savage outrage upon prisoners. Certainly the weight of contemporary testimony seems overwhelmingly against him, but we enter his denial.

Long-Hair himself, however, taunted him with accusations of unfaithfulness in carrying out some very inhuman contracts, and to add a terrible sting, volunteered the statement that poor Barlow's scalp had served his turn in the place of Beverley's.

With conditions so hideous to contend against, Beverley, of course, had no possible means of succoring the condemned savage.

"Him a kickin' yer ribs clean inter ye, an' a makin' ye run the ga'ntlet, an' here ye air a tryin' to save 'is life!" whined Oncle Jazon, "W'y man, I thought ye hed some senterments! Dast 'is Injin liver, I kin feel them kicks what he guv me till yit. Ventrebleu! que diable voulez-vous?"