Montlivet Part 46

Cadillac looked at me fully, and I realized dully that his face grew white as he examined mine. "Go away. Go at once," he urged.

"Leave things here to me."

I nodded and stumbled away. Stretched tarpaulins made my tent, and I crawled under them, drew down the folds, and was alone. The noise of the camp muttered around me like a wind.

And then I lay alone with myself and my beliefs, and fought to know where my feet were set. There was tempest without my tent, but not within. In the valleys where I struggled there was great quiet. And at last I found certainty.

In an hour I went to find Cadillac. He would not let me speak.

"Montlivet, we will stop this attack--if we can hold the Indians."

"It is not possible to hold the Indians. They are blood drunk. We should have general ma.s.sacre."

"Then you must leave. You can go with Onanguisse. He says that if his adopted daughter is with the Senecas he will not join in the attack."

"No, I shall not go with him. I shall lead the allied force of Indians, monsieur."

Cadillac looked me over. I saw, with my own face cold, that his was not steady.

"No victory is worth that," I heard him say, and I listened as if he spoke of another's sorrow. "It is not necessary, Montlivet."

"It is absolutely necessary. The war chiefs are jealous. Without a leader they will fall on one another and we shall have sickening ma.s.sacre. You cannot lead them, for you do not speak their language."

"But even granting that"----

I touched his sleeve. "Monsieur, I have been alone. I have thought it out. There is no escape. I do not know why life should give a man such a thing to do, but it is here. I have told the Indians that I represented the king; that I stood for government, protection. I have called them here in the name of law. It is a new word to them, and I have forced its meaning into their minds. And so they trust me. They trust me in the name of this law I talk about. If I desert them now, they will lapse into savagery of the worst kind. We shall have anarchy. Blood will flow for years. No Frenchman's life will be safe.

I have the best men of six tribes here, and they will think themselves deceived and pay us in red coin. I have been alone. I have thought it out. I cannot do wholesale murder to save one life, even if it is my wife whose life is to be forfeit. We must go on."

Cadillac put out his hand and caught my shoulder. I had reeled against him as I spoke. He removed his hat.

"I await your plans, Monsieur de Montlivet. My troops are ready."

When I found Onanguisse he examined me from under drooping lids.

Despite his age, he was wont to hold his head like a deer, but now his look was on the ground. He handed me a richly feathered bow and a sheaf of arrows.

"I cannot use them," he said. "I called her daughter. I gave her a robe in token. It is only a porcupine who turns against his own. A chief remembers."

I pressed the bow back. "Take it, and save her. I do not know how.

You are an old man in knowledge, I am a child. I trust to you to bring her to me."

He looked up at that, and shook his head in sorrow when he saw my face.

But he would not take his bow. "One man cannot save her," he said, and he bowed his head again and went away.

I did not speak. I saw him summon his warriors and reembark. In the general tumult his leaving made little stir. The Pottawatamies were arrogant, called themselves "lords," and exacted tribute of the other tribes of La Baye. Yet they accomplished this more by diplomacy than warfare. I knew that Onanguisse's desertion was well in tune with his reputation and would not be combated.

I found Pierre, and told him about the woman. "You are to save her.

You are to get her away. It is for you to do. You are to think nothing else, work for nothing else. You can do it. I depend on you to do it. You are never to come to me again if you fail."

But he, too, looked away. "It cannot be done. The Indians will kill her." He turned his head from me, and his voice was thick and grating.

I raged at him. "I shall give the Indians orders to spare all women,"

I declared.

He nodded his great head. "I will help the master. I will do all I can." He humored me as one hushes an ailing child, but I saw the caution and blankness in his look. As soon as he could he slipped out of my sight.

And then I went to work. If I staggered as I made my stumbling, blinded way from war chief to war chief, there was none to know, for blood l.u.s.t had closed eyes and ears. Yet, though my muscles failed, my brain was clear.

The kettle-drums snarled and buzzed like lazy hornets. They sounded spiteful rather than wicked, but I knew what their droning stood for, and my body grew cold. In the Ottawa camp the drummers sat beside a post in the centre of a great circle of warriors, and Longuant stood with them in the ring singing a war chant. His body was painted green and he was hung with chains of wampum. I halted. He was one of the sanest, the most admirable, of the war chiefs, and I listened to him.

He kept his eyes fixed on the westering sun, and yelped his recitation in a sharp, barking voice. I heard of children dashed to death against trees; of men disemboweled and left to the mercy of dogs and flies.

After the recitation of each exploit, he struck his hatchet against the post, and the clamor of the drums doubled.

I found myself sick as well as faint. I beat the air with my clenched fist, and Cadillac saw me, and begged me to go away alone till I had myself in hand. But I pushed by him.

"My mind is clear," I said, and I spoke as coldly as a machine.

"Clearer than yours, for I see this as it is. Let me go. I have undertaken this and I shall go through."

We were ready to march an hour before sunset. The fifty Sacs formed the vanguard, and I was with them. The Winnebagoes followed, then the French troops. The remaining tribes, and the Indians who carried the stores, brought up the rear. Our intention was to march as quietly as possible while daylight lasted, then work our way by dark and starlight till we were near the Seneca camp. We would then drop on the ground, and lie in ambush till it grew light enough to attack. We hoped to surprise the camp. They had fortified themselves, but apparently had no scouts at work, and from all we could learn they were feasting and drinking in Babylonish security, celebrating the return of their messengers from Michillimackinac. With that exploit in mind it was small wonder that they felt arrogant and una.s.sailable. Now was indeed our time.

Our ranks were formed, and I looked them over man by man. Each savage carried a bag with ten pounds of maize flour, a light covering, a bow and arrows, or a fusee. The Winnebagoes I had put well in the lead, for they were protected by great s.h.i.+elds of dried buffalo skin. I tried one of the skin s.h.i.+elds and found it like iron. It would turn a hatchet.

Cadillac's bugler sounded the call and we started. The late sun was unclouded and warm, and the smell of paint and breath and unwashed bodies filled my lungs. The stench was hot and brutish in my nostrils, and it was the smell of war.

So long as daylight lasted we moved with some regularity in spite of the rough ground. Then, knowing we were drawing nearer the Senecas, we began to slip from tree to tree. The Indians did this like phantoms, and the French troops imitated. Three hundred men went through the forest, and sometimes a twig cracked. There was no other sound. We went for some time. We heard owls hoot around us, and knew they might be watch cries. Still we went on. We went till I felt the ground rise steadily under my groping feet. The Seneca stronghold was on an eminence. I gave the signal to drop where we were and wait for day.

We melted into the shadows, and lay rigid while the stars looked down.

The savage next me slept. His war club lay by his side and I felt of it in the dark. It was made of a deer's horn, shaped like a cutla.s.s; it had a large ball at the end. The ball was heavy and jagged, and would crush a skull.

There were hundreds of such clubs. In a few hours they would be in use. And the woman was in camp.

My right arm was free from the sling and I dug my hands together. I could feel the blood running in my palms, and I checked myself. If I injured my hands how could I save the woman?

But nothing could save the woman.

I had given commands to spare all whites and to torture no one. But Pierre was right. I was a fool to have pretended, even to myself, that I thought the savages listened.

A fool can do harm enough, but a cowardly, soft-hearted man is the most dangerous of knaves. I might have killed Pemaou when I threw the spear at him; I might have killed him the night before my wedding in the Pottawatamie camp. I had withheld my hand because it was disagreeable to me to kill. And now the woman's life was to pay the forfeit of my lax softness. I rolled in my agony, and bit the ground till my mouth was full of leaf mould.

A planet swung from one tree-top to the next. What lay behind it? She would know soon. But I could not follow her where she was going. I should live. I knew that. When Death is courted he will not strike.

I had seen that in battle.

That first morning when she had come to me with the sunrise,--when she had drifted to me, bound and singing,--I had called to her to have no fear, that no harm should come to her. And she had trusted me.

She had a little hollow in her brown throat where I had watched the breath flutter. I had never touched it.

I could thank G.o.d for her, for one thing. She had refused my kiss.

I saw the planet again, tipping another tree-top. I understood its remoteness; in my agony I was part of it. What were men, countries, empires! I felt the insignificance of life, of suffering. What did it matter if these Indians died! Why should we not all die? I crawled to my knees. I would give the signal to retreat. I would give it now.

Let the ma.s.sacre come.