The Road to Paris Part 14

"Yes," replied Catherine, lightly, affecting a triumphant smile of pleased revenge; "I did! You wouldn't take my word that n.o.body was behind it, and I thought I'd punish you!"

With which she left the room and went serenely down-stairs, followed by the somewhat mystified and crestfallen colonel, who had left his two men to make fast the broken door.

"The young lady was right. No one was there," said Maclean, gruffly, and went immediately to Monsieur de St. Valier, who gave a deep breath of relief and returned to the parlor, whither his guests accompanied him.

Blagdon, to be at a distance from Catherine and Gerard, who stood talking together at the stair-foot, went with his two men to the rear of the hall, to wait for the two who had been up-stairs with Maclean. Thus it happened that, of the people in the hall who had seen the figure cross the landing, none but Gerard saw the two privates reappear presently from Catherine's room; and, as Blagdon was in no mood for questions when those two rejoined him, the impression was not corrected that the flying figure had been one of them. Blagdon forthwith led his four men, with the three who had been put on guard beneath the window, to the barracks, dismissed them, and repaired to a drinking-place.

Catherine and Gerard went back to their uncle's guests; but the sister, bearing up against the exhaustion caused by the scene she had pa.s.sed through, showed an abstraction not entirely to be attributed to happiness at the recovery of her mother's portrait.

d.i.c.k plodded on through the snow, past near and distant churches, monasteries, seminaries, gardens, fine houses, and mean houses, keeping a frequent lookout behind him, and up and down what streets he crossed, and came eventually to the low rampart near the grand battery, from which the precipice fell steeply to the narrow strip of the lower town that lay between the cliff's base and the St. Lawrence.

This rampart, which could avail mainly to s.h.i.+eld the batteries that commanded the s.h.i.+pping in the St. Lawrence, was easy of ascent from the inside, as it could not be expected that any one would attempt leaving the upper town by the almost perpendicular precipice of more than two hundred feet. Yet such was the wild intention that d.i.c.k had formed. The attempt, on the part of a fugitive, seemed the more preposterous for the fact that, should he accomplish the almost impossible feat of safely descending the cliff, he would but find himself in the lower town, which was defended at either end and closely guarded along its river edge,--unless, indeed, he should traverse the face of the cliff diagonally, so as to arrive at the base outside the southern barrier of the lower town. As all the world knows, the walls of Quebec encircled the upper town on its high promontory, while the lower town, lying against that promontory's foot, needed no other defence on one side than the promontory itself. It was neither practicable nor necessary that a wall should run down the promontory's side; hence a man, finding himself on the steep declivity between the upper and the lower town, had a way of exit open to him, provided he could traverse obliquely the face of the cliff and could avoid observation from above or below. This way of escape recommended itself to d.i.c.k because the city gates would by this time be watched for him, and because it would bring him directly to the place where Arnold's man would be waiting to receive the report that was to have been brought by Mere Frappeur in her boat.

d.i.c.k knew the rampart overlooking the St. Lawrence would be the least guarded, as the British force was too small for the proper manning of the many and large defences. Slinking at a distance past the right flank of the grand battery, whose overworked sentries were s.h.i.+vering in the snow, he found a place where a platform enabled him to mount easily the rampart. Across this rampart he crawled, on hands and knees, making out through the falling flakes a single sentry who paced several rods away.

Looking over the outer edge of the rampart, his head turned giddy, for a moment, at sight of the precipice falling sheer almost three hundred feet to the narrow fringe of houses and the gloomy river below.

But he chose a spot where there was ample footing at the rampart's base, turned about, backed from the rampart, hung for a moment by his fingers, and dropped to the chosen place, his fall softened by what snow had lodged there. He immediately turned his face towards his distant destination, and peered through the flake-filled darkness for what projections and indentations of the cliff might serve his progress. He thanked his stars for the evidence soon afforded him that his adopted mode of escape was within possibility, perilous though it might be; and then for the falling snow, which s.h.i.+elded him from sight, and for the snow already fallen, which now and then helped him to adhere to the cliff, for the irregularities of the precipice were such that the snow's lodgment had endured here and there on its steep face. These irregularities gave him footing, and so enabled him to proceed.

Many times he slipped, tearing his clothes and sc.r.a.ping his skin, but each time he kept his wits and availed himself of the first stopping-place that offered. The descent was a work of hours, so cautiously did he have to proceed, so carefully to pick out his next footing, so often to rest and regain his breath. At last he pa.s.sed above the blockhouse and battery which together const.i.tuted the inner barrier of this end of the lower town. In the light from the blockhouse he could see a sentry pacing from the cliff's foot towards the wharf by the swift river.

Some minutes more of effort brought d.i.c.k past the top of a stockade, which formed the outer barrier. The exultation of success almost intoxicated him. He let himself slide down what remained of the cliff, heedless alike of the sharp projections and of the Canadian militia housed behind the stockade. As he stood, at last, in the narrow way between river and cliff, restraining an impulse to shout with glee, he took the two sheets of paper, containing his report, from beneath his hunting-s.h.i.+rt, and started forward, loudly whistling "Molly, my Treasure."

Suddenly, from over the top of the stockade, a shot was fired. d.i.c.k felt a sting, in the vicinity of the bayonet-wound received at Bunker Hill, and fell forward on his hands and knees. A gate in the stockade was thrown open, and two soldiers strode forth, lowering their faces to avoid the falling snow. At the same moment, a tall form sprang out from the shadow of a broken rock in front of d.i.c.k, completed the whistled pa.s.sage of music suddenly cut off by d.i.c.k's fall, and said:

"Ye're nae woman in a boat, but ye're a braw whistler, and I'll tak'

your papers!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WAS THE MAN SENT BY ARNOLD."]

It was the man sent by Arnold,--old Tom MacAlister.

"Take them, Tom, and away with them quick, for G.o.d's sake!" cried d.i.c.k, handing them to him.

"But ye're hurt, lad!" cried Tom, thrusting the papers deep into an inner pocket.

"The devil I am!" lied d.i.c.k. "Only slipped on the snow. You save those papers, or all my work will go for naught! I'll get my wind and follow!

Go, Tom! The papers first, don't you understand? I'll have my breath before those fellows can nab me!" And d.i.c.k raised one knee, as if already about to rise.

"Vera weel, lad!" said old Tom, compliantly, and plunged forward to round the point of Cape Diamond and follow the sh.o.r.e up the river. The sight of his gaunt figure, swiftly receding in the snow and night, between river and cliffs, was the last glimpse d.i.c.k had of Tom, the piper's son, for many a long day.

d.i.c.k was not entirely sure he might not indeed elude the two soldiers from the stockade, and overtake Tom. He got up and found he could proceed limpingly. But the soldiers, only a few yards from him when he rose, shortened the intervening distance so speedily that d.i.c.k saw they must catch him in a few seconds. He made to grasp his hunting-knife. It was gone, having been displaced from his belt at some contact with the cliff in his descent.

The idea of capture now became intolerable to him. A kind of madness arose in him, making him determined, at any cost, not to fall into the hands of the two enemies at his heels. When he felt himself almost within grasp of the foremost, he wheeled aside, and plunged head foremost into the swift, icy current of the St. Lawrence. While the water gurgled in his ears, he jubilantly pictured to himself the two men standing baffled on the sh.o.r.e and cursing the luck that had robbed them of their prey.

Soon rising to the surface, d.i.c.k struck out at random, using both arms and the unwounded leg. Whither would this swim in the dark lead him? He scarcely cared, now that he had accomplished his two missions; his one wish was that it should not diminish his triumph by delivering him up eventually to the foe. All at once something black loomed up before him,--a vessel whose lights he had not taken to be so near, and whose size he could not immediately make out.

As he turned to swim away from it, he heard a voice call out immediately over him, "Man in the river!" He pulled away, but with a constantly weakening stroke. He heard other cries, became vaguely aware that a boat was being sent after him, and presently, when strength and sense were about deserting him, he felt himself caught by the back of his hunting-s.h.i.+rt and drawn, by several hands, from the water to the boat.

He was too little conscious to answer the few questions that were asked him on the way back to the vessel. But as they landed him on the deck, he experienced a return of consciousness and of power to plan. He knew the vessel was a British one, but its people must be unacquainted with his face; hence he dared raise one last, desperate hope of completing his escape. As he stood on the deck, surrounded by the crew that had brought him from the water, he was approached by two officers, one of whom ordered him to stand forward, while the other remained a little aloof in dignified immovability.

"I beg you will put me ash.o.r.e, sir," said d.i.c.k, somewhat excitedly, to the officer who had addressed him. "I had just left the stockade yonder, on a mission for Colonel Maclean. I fell in with a reconnoitring party of rebels, and escaped by taking to the river. May I be landed immediately on the other sh.o.r.e, to go on my mission without delay?"

"What papers have you, to show for this account of yourself?" demanded the officer, scrutinizing d.i.c.k.

"I had Colonel Maclean's pa.s.s in my hand when I was attacked," said d.i.c.k, with no outward falter; "but I must have let it go in the river. I had no other papers; the message I carry is a verbal one."

"A message? To whom?"

"To General Carleton," said d.i.c.k, on the moment's invention.

"Why, this is fortunate," said the officer, turning to the motionless gentleman. "General Carleton, this man says he has a verbal message for you."

d.i.c.k stood, for a moment, speechless and staring; then, yielding all at once to the fatigues of the night, sank in a senseless heap to the deck.

CHAPTER X.

"BY FLOOD AND FIELD."

The silent officer was indeed Sir Guy Carleton, governor of Canada, who had eluded the captors of Montreal by disguising himself as a Canadian voyager and helping six peasants to row him in a small boat with m.u.f.fled oars to Three Rivers, where he had boarded the vessel for Quebec. He now ordered d.i.c.k held below, while the vessel proceeded to a mooring-place.

The captain of the vessel, on being hailed by a guard-boat from the _Lizard_ frigate, announced the arrival of General Carleton, and, in the ensuing exchange of news, spoke of the man just found in the river. The guard-boat officer replied that the man must be a Virginia rifleman who had escaped that evening from the _Adamant_, on which vessel this rifleman and another, both captured in the suburbs of Quebec, had been placed with the rebels taken September 24th while attempting a night attack on Montreal. d.i.c.k fulfilled, in his attire, the description of the escaped Virginian, and was held on Carleton's vessel when the governor landed, the captain being ordered to hold him for identification by Mr. Brooke Watson, in whose charge the rebel prisoners now on the _Adamant_ had been put. As the governor intended that the _Adamant_ should sail the next day with its prisoners, he caused Mr.

Watson to be summoned from his tavern for the purpose of viewing the new captive that night. The governor then hastened to the upper town, to confer with his lieutenant and with Colonel Maclean, and, in the discussion of important affairs, forgot about d.i.c.k; while Maclean, on his side, had now other matters for thought than the fugitive spy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Watson, the same eminent merchant who afterwards became lord mayor of London, going rather grumpily from inn comforts to the vessel, in the snow-storm, stumbled down the hatchway, and beheld d.i.c.k while the latter lay unconscious in a hammock, the whole upper side of his face concealed by straggling hair. Desirous of getting speedily back to his lodgings, and glad that his quota of prisoners might be restored to its full number, the honest merchant cast a brief glance at d.i.c.k in the dim light, unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced him to be the missing rascal, and stumbled back up the stairs to the deck.

Thus, through no kindness of intention on the part of his enemies, d.i.c.k escaped the fate of a spy, and was a.s.signed to that of a rebel under arms. The next day, having slept well and having had his new wound cared for by a surgeon, who p.r.o.nounced it trivial, d.i.c.k was put aboard the _Adamant_, handcuffed, by a guard of soldiers that had in the meantime received Mr. Watson's orders concerning him, and thrust into a dark apartment, which was already crowded with shackled prisoners, whose rec.u.mbent bodies took up most of the floor. d.i.c.k knew not what disposition was to be made of him, nor that the _Adamant_, already about to set sail with its prisoners and with Governor Carleton's despatches, was bound for England.

"So the minions of tyranny have dragged you back to the den!" rang out a bold, virile voice, from the inner darkness, and presently a stalwart, erect figure strode forth, stepping easily over the legs of the reclining prisoners and planting each foot firmly as it fell. The speaker was evidently able, from recent habit, to see fairly well in the darkness. Coming close to d.i.c.k, he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, "By the everlasting, 'tis another man! Brother, I took you first for a comrade who broke the tyrant's chain yesterday. They removed him from this cage, to doctor him, for the filthy air had made him sick; but he broke away and plunged into the river, in the snow-storm. Or else the guard who brought our supper is a liar. Have you heard anything of his fate?"

"No, sir," said d.i.c.k, wondering what personage was this whose style of speech was so oratorical, and whose spirit remained so high in this miserable hole. "I am a newcomer here. I am Richard Wetheral, of Hendricks's company of riflemen, from the county of c.u.mberland, province of Pennsylvania."

"I welcome you to my acquaintance," replied the other, heartily, thrusting forth his manacled hands and grasping d.i.c.k's. "I am Colonel Ethan Allen."

"What! The captor of Ticonderoga?" cried d.i.c.k, remembering how in the camp at Cambridge the news of that bold feat of a May morning had been celebrated, and how the name of the Green Mountain leader had become an every-day word in the colonial army.

"Fortune threw that prize in my way," said the other, with a modesty so unmistakably pretended that the affectation could only amuse, not offend. "Fortune was not so kind at Montreal, as you may have heard," he added, dismally.

"I had heard of your--your bad luck at Montreal," said d.i.c.k, leaning against the oaken wall of the enclosure, "but I little expected the honor of meeting you in these circ.u.mstances."

"Yet in these circ.u.mstances we have been--in this very den, indeed--since ever the army appeared yonder at Point Levi."

"And where were you before that?" asked d.i.c.k, eager to hear the story of so famous a hero from the hero's own lips.

"Why," said the colonel, "we were in more places than one, you may be sure. After our--bad luck, which was all because I was outrageously out-numbered and not concerted with, I surrendered, on the promise of honorable terms, and we were led into the town to be interviewed by their commandant, General Prescott, G.o.d--bless him! When he asked me whether I was that Colonel Allen who took Ticonderoga, and I told him I was the very man, he went into a rage and shook his cane over my head and called me a rebel and several worse names; and when he ordered us put in irons and sent on board the _Gaspee_ schooner, he swore I should wear a halter at Tyburn. From the _Gaspee_ I wrote him a letter, telling him of the notorious friends.h.i.+p and generosity with which I had treated the officers I took at Ticonderoga, but he paid no attention to my letter."

"You have the satisfaction of knowing," put in d.i.c.k, "that General Montgomery has captured Montreal and taken Prescott prisoner."