The Plowshare and the Sword Part 17

The sound of uneasy breathing arose between the groans of the wind.

After a long pause Geoffrey spoke:

"In sleep I may lose what I am holding."

"Twist it about your fingers," said a whisper.

"Still, I may lose it. You will draw it away from me when you turn."

"Lie upon it."

"My hair is also long. I am tying yours to mine."

"I had thought of that," she murmured.

Another period of silence. Then, in turning, Geoffrey's lips pressed upon the rich coil, and left it with a kiss. There came a little movement and an almost soundless whisper:

"Did you call?"

"You are not yet asleep," he reproved.

"I am watching and listening."

"I would rather you slept while I watched."

"Then I should be the guardian no longer."

"But always the angel."

The glow from without was still over the cabin where Madeleine lay wide-eyed. A spider let itself suddenly from the roof, and swung spinning in wild glee at the end of a silver streak.

"Friend," Madeleine murmured.

"I am listening," he said.

"There is a spider spinning from the cross-beam."

"Would you have me destroy it?"

"No. Oh, no! It is so happy in its life. I do not remember why I called you. I had something more to say."

"I shall not sleep until you think of it."

"Shall you go away in the morning?" she whispered suddenly.

There was no reply.

"And leave me?"

"The present is life," he reminded her.

"The thought of the future may destroy the happiness of the present."

"What would you have me do--obey my conscience or my heart?"

"Both," she sighed.

"Let us talk of it in the morning."

"Now. Oh, the spider is spinning faster--faster."

"The morning," he repeated.

"Now," she breathed. "But soft! Set your lips to this hole, and you shall find my ear."

A sound of restless movement came from Madame's room, and a grating voice: "From witchcraft, enchantment, and heresy our Lady and the holy saints protect us."

It was her lips that Madeleine placed to the hole in the wattle wall.

CHAPTER XIV.

FIRESIDE AND GROVE.

Ambition and not chance had brought La Salle thus far from the beaten track. He had made it his policy to pursue the Englishmen in that land until he should have brought about their extermination, knowing well that any success in that direction would be rewarded by the richest gift which his master Richelieu had to bestow. From Onawa he learnt of Viner's departure for the south on the day following that venture against New Windsor. The girl had discovered the young man's track and gladly accompanied the priest, pointing out the trail, which was imperceptible to his untrained eyes, and so bringing him to the grove where Geoffrey tarried in the enchanted sleep.

After Madame Labroquerie had gone to find him food, La Salle reconsidered his plans by the light of her information. It was no way of his to hide his light beneath a bushel, and the slaying of Viner in that lonely country would, he reasoned, bring him little fame. If, however, he should return to lodge the information with Roussilac, all men would know of his agency. Therefore, when Madame returned, he impressed upon her the necessity of detaining Viner for at least three days within the grove.

"'Tis easy," the little woman muttered. "I shall be courteous to the young man, and praise his face and flatter his pride. Madeleine, my daughter, shall do the rest. I warrant you he shall not stir from here till the soldiers arrive; and then, I trust, a stake shall be prepared and a goodly pile of f.a.ggots for the proper despatch of his heretic soul."

"I shall see that execution be done upon him," La Salle replied grimly.

"Now get you gone, for I would be alone."

"Your holiness will remain until the morning," Madame prayed. "I would then make my confession, and receive the peace of absolution."

"Find me here at the dawn," La Salle answered. Then, uplifting his blood-stained hand, he bestowed upon her his benediction and sent her away.

Not fifty yards distant Onawa stood as a guardian over the man she loved, staring into the night, heeding every sound in the valley, dreading the approach of some emissary from her tribe. The maid had become an outlaw. Through her treachery the boy Richard, her own flesh and blood, had come to his death. With her own hand she had slain a man friendly to all her race. In the forest beyond the river a cruel death by torture awaited her; her own father would be the first to condemn her to the fire. She was thus compelled to stand or fall beside the priest whom she had aided with that disregard for self which has ever dominated a woman's actions.

As she stood watching the firelight and the grove, dim ghosts arose and began her punishment. She seemed to hear a sound of scuffling, and to see young Richard and his great hound, Blood, wrestling together, as they had been wont to do among the pine barrens, to the roar of the wind and the lost waters. Again she heard the boyish voice, gasping and triumphant, "I have beaten him again. I am stronger than he." And as she s.h.i.+vered, there came an echo of her own former words from the line of tossing trees, "He is brave and strong. He shall make a man before he has grown."

Beside the fire La Salle slept, lulled by the wind. He knew Onawa was acting as a guard over him, else he had never dared to close his eyes.

Yet his rest became presently broken into by spiritual beings hovering around in the grove, anxious to point out his future. The chafing of boughs, the beating of leaves, the gnawing of the beavers around the philosopher's grave, with more distant sounds from the country beyond, were the media these beings employed. The disturbances pa.s.sed into his ear, which pressed upon the pallia.s.se, and entered the torpid brain to make a dream.

Through the unlighted streets of a city a way was revealed before the sleeper by means of lightning flashes. No fellow-creatures were in sight, and yet the tongues of a mult.i.tude shouted as he ran, bells clashed above, and trumpets blared below. Before him a vast square opened, empty and wind-swept, and here the shoutings of the unseen mob became terrific, here also a mountainous building rose into the clouds, and midway upon a flight of marble steps sat an old man in white, crowned with the tiara, extending a red hat towards the yelling solitude. The dreamer rushed out to seize the prize; but between the princ.i.p.ality and power, as represented by the scarlet blot rising in the gale, the silent lightning cut, and between this fire and Urbano the Eighth a figure descended, and the lightning was a sword, which his untiring arms flashed between the aspirant and his soul's desires.

"Cardinal-Archbishop!" cried the white figure. "Bought by blood!"

outcried the man in black, and his sword turned all ways in a flame of fire.