The Plowshare and the Sword Part 38

"Bring it out into the snow."

As Upcliff gave the order, a man crossed the brow of a western hill and floundered knee-deep towards the bay. It was Hough, and he shouted as he ran:

"The French are coming out!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

IN THE FALL OF THE SNOW.

Because the Father of Waters was frozen over and its track buried in snow, despatches from Quebec could only be conveyed by the hand of overland couriers. Winter had set in early that year, and with more than usual severity; and this was probably the reason why no messenger had lately arrived from the heights to inform the governor of Acadie as to what had taken place in and around the modest capital of New France.

The priest was not concerned by this silence. He had indeed lost much of his interest in the doings of the New World, since D'Archand had informed him of his popularity at home. He felt that he had made his advancement sure. During the weeks which followed autumn, when the maples were resigning their gorgeous vestments of red and gold, he had occupied himself in setting the affairs of his charge in order, looking to shortly receive a command to proceed to Rome, there to receive the reward of his stewards.h.i.+p. Onawa had pa.s.sed out of his memory, and with her the brave young boy whom he had smitten in the forest by Couchicing. He sent no expedition out to search the land. He had done sufficient for glory. He was not the man to waste his energies upon works of supererogation. No slip could lose him that spiritual princ.i.p.ality towards which he had pressed by word and act since the day of his ordination. As he strode through the snow the settlement seemed to shrink from him, and the trees to bow, as though foreseeing the power which was about to pa.s.s into his hands.

La Salle reached his chapel, recited vespers in the arrogant voice which made him feared, and returned to his quarters. A spirit of restlessness was over him, and when he could resist no longer he rose, and, taking his sword, lunged repeatedly at a knot in the wall, striking it full until his body began to sweat.

"No falling off," he muttered, as he examined the p.r.i.c.ks in the wood.

"No sign of weakness yet." He lowered the sword, and mechanically wiped the point in the tail of his skirt, then pa.s.sed his firm hand caressingly down the blade, murmuring, with a self-conscious smile: "I have finished my fighting. Henceforth my wrist must stiffen and my arm rust, while the power which has controlled the sword shall pa.s.s into the use of tongue and pen."

A knock fell upon the door, and in response to his reply a personal attendant entered, and with a low reverence announced:

"A messenger to speak with you, Excellency."

At the governor's word a man was ushered in, clad in furs, his beard heavy with icicles, a pair of long snow-shoes slung upon his back. He made a profound genuflection and stood with bent head awaiting permission to speak.

"Come you from the upper fortress?" asked La Salle.

"Yes, Excellency, with despatches for France and a letter for your Holiness."

La Salle put out his hand for the communication, broke the thread, unfolded the sheet, and, holding it in the lamplight, bent over to read.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, his eyes lifting. "Laroche. What means this signature?"

"The n.o.ble commandant Roussilac has been stricken with sickness,"

hesitated the messenger.

"What ails him?" asked the priest.

The man faltered, but finally gained courage to reply: "It is said, Excellency, that the n.o.ble commandant acts strangely, as a man possessed by some unholy influence."

La Salle brought the letter again to his eyes, and hurriedly scanned the ill-written lines.

"It is explained here," he said indifferently. "La tete lui a tourne.

Was never an able man," he muttered to himself. "Was ambitious, and thought himself strong enough to stand alone. 'Tis but justice." He looked across coldly, and sharply ordered the messenger to withdraw.

The emissary retired, bowing as he backed out, while La Salle ran his eyes over the remainder of the letter, muttering his comments aloud.

"Gaudriole hanged for murdering a soldier. So, so! Was but a brute.

The little Frenchwoman dead of a fit, and her daughter escaped. A weeding-out, in faith. The traitorous Dutch gone beyond capture. The English spy also escaped. The men sent after him returned afoot, and swore that they had been set upon by demons among a range of white mountains. Would have hanged the fools. The Iroquois tribes gone into winter hunting-grounds. The country altogether clear. The Algonquins still friendly. This colony is now settled to France beyond question."

La Salle dropped the letter, and fell into musings. Once he put his hand to his brow, as though he could already feel a mitre pressing there; he fingered his ring, and moved his foot, to frown when his eyes sighted a rough boot instead of the scarlet shoe of his dreams. Then he was awakened by a noisy rattling and a shock.

The crucifix which had hung upon the log wall--more as a sign of profession, as the gauntlet outside the glove-maker's shop, than as a symbol he revered--lay broken upon the floor.

The priest rose, muttering a frightened imprecation, and as he nervously gathered up the shattered symbol his ears became opened to a hurrying of feet over the fresh snow. All the soldiers and settlers appeared to be rus.h.i.+ng past afoot, shaking the ground and the walls of his house. It was doubtless this disturbance which had detached the crucifix from its nail. La Salle pulled a beaver cap over his forehead and made for the outer door, and there encountered a messenger who came to inform him that a s.h.i.+p's gun had been heard at sea.

"Bid them fire the beacon," said La Salle.

"It has been done, Excellency. There is not a breath over the water.

But the snow pours down."

The priest's official bodyguard awaited him; and when he appeared every man saluted and fell into place, and so accompanied him to the cliff, where a huge fire was making the sky scarlet. This fire was a centre towards which all the settlers were hastening like flies towards a lantern. The coming of a s.h.i.+p from the Old World, with supplies, fresh faces, and news of friends, was a red-letter day in the monotonous calendar of their lives. The white figures hurried through the night like an inferno of chattering ghosts.

"She shall not be in till morning light," quoth a wiseacre. "There are rocks, see you, in the gulf, and her master shall run no risk after escaping the perils of the ocean."

"Will wager to-day's haul of fish that she lies up here before three hours are gone," cried another.

"And I my fis.h.i.+ng-net that we shall not see her before day," retorted the confident first speaker.

"That net is mine. Didst not hear the gun?"

"Sounds carry far through the winter air."

"The snow m.u.f.fles. She is scarce a mile out."

"Ah, that is indeed a fire! The light of it shall reach far out at sea."

The excitable folk laughed loudly whenever a fresh load of wood was flung upon the flames, and carried away by their feelings danced an ambulatory ballet in the red mist, a dance, like the Prosperity of the Arms of France to be given before Richelieu a few months later, not altogether without political significance. These settlers danced to the tune of their song; and their songs were Success to the s.h.i.+ps of France and Destruction to the English. While these revels lasted no one observed a soldier hurrying up behind, with a woman at his side.

The woman was Onawa, breathing quickly as though she had been running at the top of her speed.

"Yonder stands his Holiness," said the man, stopping to point out La Salle surrounded by his little band of attendants.

Onawa abandoned her guide and rushed out, maddened and witless with her foolish pa.s.sion, until she reached the side of the man she loved and was warmed by his dark eyes, which yet flashed angrily upon her, as he turned to shake off the parasite, ejaculating:

"Whom have we here?"

"It is I," she cried wildly in French, having at length acquired some little knowledge of that language. "Let me speak." More she would have said, but her store of the language failed in the time of need.

"Uncover her face," ordered La Salle. "Take her into the firelight that we may see with whom we have to deal."

"Let me speak to you here," prayed the girl, drawing back into the snow-lit gloom; but she was seized and dragged upward close to the dancing ring, and rough hands drew the covering from her face.

"Tete de mort!" exclaimed La Salle, and started back when he recognised the face that had once been handsome set towards him in the wild firelight, fearfully branded, the nostrils slit, the ears cropped, a letter seared upon each cheek. "Cover that horror, and drive her out lest she bewitch us."

"Hear me," the unhappy girl moaned, holding out her hands in an agony of supplication. "Yonder your enemy cover the sh.o.r.e. Many men and a s.h.i.+p held in the ice." She panted forth the syllables in the best French she could muster, throwing out her hands along the eastern sh.o.r.e.