The Road to Frontenac Part 37

"We must think now," Menard said abruptly; "we must put our wits together. It is late in the night, and we should be free before dawn.

Have you thought of any way?"

"Yes," replied the priest, slowly, "we have thought of one. Teganouan is with our party. At the first he tried to keep out of sight, but of course he could not, once we were on the way. He was a long time at the Mission of St. Francis, and I at one time hoped that he would prove a true believer. It was drink that led him away from us,--an old weakness with him. This morning, when he pa.s.sed me, I knew that he was ashamed. I dared not speak to him; but since then, whenever my eyes have met his, I have seen that look of understanding."

"I fear you will not see it to-night," said the Captain. "They are drinking."

"Ah, but he is not. He is guarding the hut. Come, M'sieu, it may be that we can see him now."

Menard rose, and with the priest peered through the cracks at the rear of the hut. After a moment they saw him, standing in the shadow of a tree.

"You are sure it is he, Father?"

"Ah, M'sieu, I should know him."

Menard rested his hand on a strip of rotting bark in the wall. The priest saw the movement.

"Yes," he said cautiously, "it would be very simple. But you will be cautious, M'sieu. Of course, I do not know--I cannot tell surely--and yet it must be that Teganouan still has a warm heart. It cannot be that he has forgotten the many months of my kindness."

While they stood there, hesitating between a dozen hasty plans, a light step sounded, and in an instant their eyes were at the opening.

A second Indian had joined the guard, and was talking with him in a low voice. Father Claude gripped the Captain's arm.

"See, M'sieu,--the wampum collar,--it is the Long Arrow."

Menard laid his finger on his lips. The two Indians were not a dozen yards away. The chief swayed unsteadily as he talked, and once his voice rose. He carried a bottle, and paused now and then to drink from it.

"Teganouan is holding back," whispered Menard. "See, the Long Arrow has taken his arm--they are coming--is the door fast?"

"We cannot make it fast, M'sieu. It opens outward."

Menard sprang across to the door and ran his hands over it, but found no projection that could be used to hold it closed. He stood for a moment, puzzling; then his face hardened, and he fell back to where the priest and the maid stood side by side.

"They will get in, M'sieu?"

"Yes. It is better."

They did not speak again. The moccasined feet made no noise on the cleared ground, and it seemed a long time before they could hear the log fall from the door. There were voices outside. At last the door swung open, and the Long Arrow, bottle in hand, came clumsily into the hut and stood unsteadily in the square of moonlight. He looked about as if he could not see them. Teganouan had come in behind him; and the door swung to, creaking.

"The White Chief is the brother of the Long Arrow," said the chief, speaking slowly and with an effort to make his words distinct. "He loves the Onondagas. Deep in his mind are the thoughts of the young white brave who lived in our villages and hunted with our braves and called the mighty Big Throat his father. He never forgets what the Onondagas have done for him. He has a grateful heart." The effort of speaking was confusing to the chief. He paused, as if to collect his ideas, and looked stupidly at the three silent figures before him.

"... grateful heart," he repeated. "The Long Arrow has a grateful heart, too. He remembers the kind words of the white men who come to his village and tell him of the love of the Great Mountain. He never forgets that the Big Buffalo is his brother--he never forgets. When the Big Buffalo took his son from the hunting party of the Onondagas he did not forget."

Menard did not listen further. He was looking about the hut with quick, s.h.i.+fting eyes, now at the chief in the moonlight, now at Teganouan, who stood at one side in the shadow, now at the door. Could Teganouan be trusted to help them? He glanced sharply at the warrior, who was looking at his chief with an alert, cunning expression. His musket lay carelessly in the hollow of his arm, his knife and hatchet hung at his waist. The chief had only his knife; in his hand was the bottle, which he held loosely, now and then spilling a few drops of the liquor.

"The Long Arrow nev'r f'rgets,"--the chief's tongue was getting the better of him. "His house is lonely, where the fire burns alone and the young warr'r who once laid 's blanket,--laid 's blanket by the fire, no long'r 's there to warm the heart of the Long Arrow. But now his loneliness is gone. Now when he comes from the hunt to 's house he'll find a new fire, a bright fire, and a new squaw to warm 's heart--warm 's heart." He swayed a little as he spoke, and Teganouan took a short step forward; but the chief drew himself up and came slowly across the patch of moonlight. His eyes were unnaturally bright, and they rolled uncertainly from one to another of the little group before him. His coa.r.s.e black hair was matted and tangled, and the eagle feathers that at the council had stood erect from his head now drooped, straggling, to one side.

The maid had understood. The two men drew close to her on each side, and her hand rested, trembling, on Menard's arm. All three were thinking fast. One scream, the sound of a struggle or even of loud voices, would bring upon them the whole drunken band. As the chief approached, the maid could feel the muscles harden on the Captain's arm.

"Long Arrow's lonely--his fire's not bright when he comes from hunt--"

Here and there in his talk a few words were distinguishable as he stood lurching before them. He reached out in a maudlin effort to touch the maid's white face. She drew in her breath quickly and stepped back; then Menard had sprung forward, and she covered her eyes with her hands.

There was a light scuffle, but no other sound. A strong smell of brandy filled the hut. Slowly she lifted her head, and let her hands drop to her sides. The Long Arrow lay sprawling at her feet, his head gashed and bleeding, and covered with broken gla.s.s and dripping liquor. The priest had kneeled beside him, and over his bowed head she saw Teganouan, startled, defiant, his musket halfway to his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the door. Her eyes followed his gaze. There stood the Captain, his back to the door, the broken neck of the bottle firmly gripped in his hand.

She stepped forward, too struck with horror to remain silent.

"Oh, M'sieu!" she said brokenly, stretching out her hands.

He motioned to her to be quiet, and she sank down on the bench.

"Father," he said.

The priest looked up questioningly. There was a long moment of silence, and the shouts and calls of the half-drunken revellers without sounded strangely loud. Then, as the priest gazed at the set, hard face of the Captain, and at the motionless Indian, he understood of a sudden all the wild plan that was forming in the Captain's mind.

He rose slowly to his feet, and stood facing Teganouan, with the light streaming down upon his gentle face.

"The sun has gone to sleep many times, Teganouan, since you left the great white house of the church at St. Francis. You have heard the counsel of evil men, who think only of the knife and the hatchet and the musket, who have no dream but to slay their brothers." He was speaking slowly and in a kindly voice, as a father might speak to a son who has wandered from the right. "Have you forgotten the talk of the holy Fathers, when they told you the words of the Book of the Great Spirit, who is to all your Manitous and Okis as the sun is to the stars. Have you forgotten the many moons that pa.s.sed while you lived in the great white house,--when you gave your promise, the promise of an Onondaga, that you would be a friend to the white man, that you would believe the words of the Great Spirit and live a peaceful life? Have you forgotten, Teganouan, the evil days when your enemy, the fire-water, took possession of your heart and led you away from the white house into the lodges of them that do wrong,--how when the good spirit returned to you and you came back to the arms of the Faith, you were received as a son and a brother? The holy Fathers did not say, 'This warrior has done that which he should not do. Let him be punished. We have no place for the wrongdoer.' No; they did not say this. They said, 'The lost is found. He that wandered from the fold has returned.' And they welcomed the lost one, and bade him repent and lead a right life. Have you forgotten, Teganouan?"

The Indian had slowly lowered his musket.

"Teganouan has not forgotten," he replied. "He has a grateful heart toward the holy Fathers of the great white house. When he was sick, they brought him their good doctor and told him to live. He believed that the white men were his brothers, that they would do to him as the Fathers had promised. But when Teganouan came to the white men, and asked to be made like they were, he left behind in his village a brother and a sister and a father who said that he was a traitor, who said that he was false to the trust of his blood and his nation, that he was not of their blood."

"And did he believe them? Did he not know, better than they could, that the faith of the white man is also the faith of the redman; that the love of the white man includes all who breathe and speak and hunt and trade and move upon the earth?"

"Teganouan has not forgotten. He heard the words of the Fathers, and he believed that they were true; but when the white Captain took from the Onondagas five score of their bravest warriors and called them slaves, when he took the brother of Teganouan, borne by the same mother and fed by the same hand, to be a slave of the mighty Chief-Across-the-Water, could he remember what the holy Fathers had said,--that all men were brothers?"

"Teganouan has heard what the White Chief, the Big Buffalo, has said, that the evil man who was treacherous to the Onondagas shall be punished?"

"Teganouan understands. But the evil man is far from the vengeance of the white man. The White Chief is here in our lodges."

Menard left the door and came to the priest's side. The jagged piece of gla.s.s, his only weapon, he threw to the ground.

"Teganouan," he said slowly and firmly, looking into the Indian's eyes, "you heard the great council at the Long House of the Five Nations. You heard the decision of the chiefs and warriors, that they whom Onontio had sent to bring a message of peace should be set free.

You have broken the pledge made by your council. You have attacked us and made us prisoners, and brought us here where we may be tortured and killed and none may know. But when the Great Mountain finds that the Big Buffalo has not come back, when he sends his white soldier to the villages of the Onondagas and asks what they have done to him who brought his voice, what will you say? When the chiefs say, 'We set him free,' and look about to find the warrior who has dared to disobey the Long House, what will you say? When the young boys and the drunkards with loose tongues have told the story of the death of the Long Arrow, what will you say? Then you will be glad to flee to the white house of the holy Fathers, knowing that they will protect you and save you when the braves of your own blood shall pursue you."

Teganouan's eyelids had drooped, and now he was looking at the ground, where the chief lay.

"You will come with me, Teganouan. You will fly with us over the Long Lake, and through the forests and down the mighty rivers and over the inland sea, and there you shall be safe; and you shall see with your own eyes the punishment that the Great Mountain will give to the evil man who has been false to the Onondagas."

He held out his hand, and silently waited. The priest's head was raised, and his lips moved slowly in prayer. The maid sat rigid, her hands tightly gripping the edge of the bench. Though he knew that every moment brought nearer the chance of discovery, that the lives of them all hung on a thread as slender as a hair, the Captain stood without the twitching of a muscle, without a sign of fear or haste in his grave, worn face.

The Indian's eyes wavered. He looked at the fallen chief, at the priest, at Menard; then he took the offered hand. No further word was needed. Menard did not know the thought that lay behind the cunning face; it was enough that the Indian had given his word.

"Quick, we must hide him," said the Captain, looking swiftly about the hut. "We must disturb you, Mademoiselle--"

In a moment the three men had lifted the body of the Long Arrow and laid it away under the low bench. Teganouan sc.r.a.ped a few handfuls of earth from a corner and spread it over the spot where the chief had been.

"How far is it to the lake, Teganouan?"

"But a few rods."

"And the forest is thick?"