The Road to Frontenac Part 33

Something in her voice brought him a step nearer.

"You know that Captain la Grange is my cousin?"

"Yes."

"You did not know that I am to be his wife?"

They stood face to face, looking deep into each other's eyes, while a long minute dragged by, and the rustling night sounds and the call of the crickets came to their ears.

"No," he said, "I did not know. May I keep the flower, Mademoiselle?"

She bowed her head. She could not speak.

"Good-night."

"Good-night."

He walked away. She saw him stop at the knoll where the priest lay asleep on a bed of boughs, and stand for a moment gazing down at him.

Then he went into the shadows. From the crackling of the twigs she knew that he was walking about among the trees. She sank to the ground and listened to the crickets. A frog bellowed in the valley; perhaps he had been calling before--she did not know.

She fell asleep, with her cheek resting against a mossy log. She did not know when Menard came back and stood for a long time looking at her. He did not awaken Father Claude until long after the time for changing the watch.

When he did, he walked up and down on the path, holding the priest's arm, and trying to speak. They had rounded the large maple three times before he said:--

"You did not tell me, Father."

"What, my son?"

The Captain stopped, and drawing the priest around, pointed toward the maid as she slept.

"You did not tell me--why we are taking her to Frontenac."

"No. She asked it. We spoke of it only once, that night on the river.

She was confused, and she asked me not to speak. She does not know him. She has not seen him since she was a child."

Menard said nothing. He was gripping the priest's arm, and gazing at the sleeping maid.

"It was her father," added Father Claude.

Menard's hand relaxed.

"Good-night, Father." He walked slowly toward the bed on the knoll.

And Father Claude called softly after him:--

"Good-night, M'sieu. Good-night."

Menard lay awake. He could see the priest sitting by the door. He wondered if the maid were sleeping. A late breeze came across the valley, arousing the leaves and carrying a soft whisper from tree to tree, until all the forest voices were joined. Lying on his side he could see indistinctly the council-house. There were still the lighted cracks; the Long House was still in session. Their decision did not now seem so vital a matter. The thought of the maid--that he was taking her to be the wife of another, and that other La Grange--had taken the place of all other thoughts.

Later still came the buzz of many voices. Dark forms were moving about the council-house. Menard raised himself to his elbow, and waited until he saw a group approaching on the path, then he joined Father Claude.

The Big Throat led the little band of chiefs to the hut. They stood, half a score of them, in a semicircle, their blankets drawn close, their faces, so far as could be seen in the dim light, stern and impa.s.sive. Menard and the priest stood erect and waited.

"It has pleased the Great Mountain that his voice should be heard in the Long House of the Iroquois," said the Big Throat, in a low, calm voice. "His voice is gentle as the breeze and yet as strong as the wind. The Great Mountain has before promised many things to the Iroquois. Some of the promises he has broken, some he has kept. But the Onondagas know that there is no man who keeps all his promises.

They once thought they knew such a man, but they were mistaken. White men, Indians,--all speak at night with a strong voice, in the morning with a weak voice. Each draws his words sometimes off the top of his mind, where the truth and the strong words do not lie. The Onondagas are not children. They know the friend from the enemy. And they know, though he may sometimes fail them, that the Great Mountain is their friend, their father."

Menard bowed slowly, facing the chief with self-control as firm as his own.

"They know," the Big Throat continued, "that the Indian has not always kept the faith with the white man. And then it is that the Great Mountain has been a kind father. If he thinks it right that our brothers, the Senecas, should meet with punishment for breaking the peace promised to the white man by the Long House, the Onondagas are not the children to say to their father, 'We care not if our brother has done wrong; we will cut off the hand that holds the whip of punishment.' The Onondagas are men. They say to the father, 'We care not who it is that has done wrong. Though he be our next of blood, let him be punished.' This is the word of the council to the Big Buffalo who speaks with his father's voice."

Well as he knew the Iroquois temperament, Menard could not keep an expression of admiration from his eyes. He knew what this speech meant,--that the Big Throat alone saw far into the future, saw that in the conflict between red and white, the redman must inevitably lose unless he crept close under the arm that was raised to strike him. It was no sense of justice that prompted the Big Throat's words; it was the vision of one of the shrewdest statesmen, white or red, who had yet played a part in the struggles for possession of the New World.

Greatest of all, only a master could have convinced that hot-blooded council that peace was the safest course. The chief went on:--

"The Big Buffalo has spoken well to the council. He has told the chiefs that he has not been a traitor to the brothers who have for so long believed that his words were true words. The Big Buffalo is a pine tree that took root in the lands of the Onondagas many winters ago. From these lands and these waters, and the sun and winds that give life to the corn and the trees of the Onondagas, he drew his sap and his strength. Can we then believe that this pine tree which we planted and which has grown tall and mighty before our eyes, is not a pine tree at all? When a quick-tongued young brave, who has not known the young tree as we have, comes to the council and says that this Big Buffalo, this pine tree, is not a pine but an elm with slippery bark, are we to believe him? Are we to drop from our minds what our hearts and eyes have long known, to forget what we have believed? My brothers of the Long House say no. They know that the pine tree is a pine tree.

It may be that in the haze of the distance pine and elm look alike to young eyes; but what a chief has seen, he has seen; what he has known, he has known. The Big Buffalo speaks the truth to his Onondaga brothers, and with another sun he shall be free to go to his white brothers."

"The Big Throat has a faithful heart," said Menard, quietly. "He knows that the voice of Onontio is the voice of right and strength."

"The chiefs of the Onondagas and Cayugas will sit quietly before their houses with their eyes turned toward the lands beyond the great lake, waiting for the whisper that shall come with the speed of the winds over forests and waters to tell them that the white man has kept his promise. When the dog who robbed our villages of a hundred brave warriors has been slain, then shall they know that the Big Buffalo is what they have believed him to be, their brother."

"And the maid and the holy Father?"

"They are free. The chiefs are sorry that a foolish brave has captured the white man's squaw."

Menard and Father Claude bowed again, and the chiefs turned and strode away. The priest smiled gently after them.

"And now, M'sieu, we may rest quietly."

"Yes. You lie down, Father; it will not be necessary to watch now, and anyway I am not likely to sleep much." He walked back to the bed on the knoll, leaving the priest to stretch out across the doorway.

The elder bushes and briers crowded close to the little clearing behind the hut, and Menard, lying on his side with his face close to the ground, watched the cl.u.s.ters of leaves as they gently rustled. He rolled half over and stared up at the bits of sky that showed through the trees. It seemed as if the great world were a new thing, as if these trees and bushes and reaches of tufted gra.s.s were a part of a new life. Before, they had played their part in his rugged life without asking for recognition; but to-night they came into his thoughts with their sympathy, and he wondered that all this great world of summer green and winter white, and of blue and green and lead-coloured water could for so long have influenced him without consciousness on his part. But his life had left little time for such thoughts; to-night he was unstrung.

Over the noise of the leaves and the trickle of the spring sounded a rustle. It was not loud, but it was a new sound, and his eyes sought the bushes. The noise came, and stopped; came, and stopped. Evidently someone was creeping slowly toward the hut; but the sound was on the farther side of him, so that he could reach the maid's side before whoever was approaching could cross the clearing.

For a time the noise died altogether. Then, after a s.p.a.ce, his eyes, sweeping back and forth along the edge of the brush, rested on a bright bit of metal that for an instant caught the light of the sky, probably a weapon or a head ornament. Menard was motionless. Finally an Indian stepped softly out and stood beside a tree. When he began to move forward the Captain recognized Tegakwita, and he spoke his name.

The Indian came rapidly over the gra.s.s with his finger at his lips.

"Do not speak loud," he whispered. "Do not wake the holy Father."

"Why do you come creeping upon my house at night, like a robber?"

"Tegakwita is sad for his sister. His heart will not let him go among men about the village; it will not let his feet walk on the common path."

"Why do you come?"

"Tegakwita seeks the Big Buffalo."

"It cannot be for an honest reason. You lay behind the bush. You saw me here and thought me asleep, but you did not approach honestly. You crept through the shadows like a Huron."