Forge In The Forest Part 10

"I am ready to ransom these prisoners of yours," said I.

The savages glanced furtively at each other, but the coppery masks of their features betrayed nothing.

"Not for ransom," said the chief, with a dogged emphasis.

I opened my eyes wide. "You astonish me!" said I.

"Then how will they profit you? If you wanted their scalps, those you might have taken at Annapolis."

At that word, revealing that I knew whence they came, I took note of a stir in the silent figure beneath the maple. I felt that her eyes were watching me from behind that sumptuous veil which her bound hands could not put aside. I went on, with a sudden sense of exaltation.

"Give me these prisoners," I urged, half pleading, half commanding. "They are useless to you except for ransom.

I will give you more than any one else will give you.

Tell me your price."

But the savage was obstinate.

"Not for ransom," he repeated, shaking his head.

"You are afraid of your priest," said I, with slow scorn. "He has told you to bring them to him. And what will you get? A pistole or two for each! But I will give you gold, good French crowns, ten times as much as you ever got before!"

As I spoke, one of the listening savages got up, his eyes a-sparkle with eagerness, and muttered something in Micmac, which I could not understand. But the chief turned upon him so angrily that he slunk back, abashed.

"Agree with me now," I said earnestly. "Then wait here till I fetch the gold, and I will deliver it into your hands before you deliver the captives."

But the chief merely turned aside with an air of settling the question, and repeated angrily:-

"I say white girls not for ransom."

I rose to my feet.

"Fools, you are," said I, "and no men, but sick women, afraid of your rascal prieSt. I offered to buy when I might have taken! Now I will take, and you will get no ransom! Unloose their bonds!"

And I pointed with my sword, while my left hand rested upon a pistol in my belt. I am a very pretty shot with my left hand.

Before the words were fairly out of my lips the four sprang at me. Stepping lightly aside, I fired the pistol full at the chief's breast, and he plunged headlong. In the next instant came a report from the edge of the underbrush, and a second savage staggered, groaned, and fell upon his knees, while Marc leaped down and rushed upon a third. The remaining one s.n.a.t.c.hed up his musket (the muskets were forgotten at the first, when I seemed to be alone), and took a hasty aim at me; but before he could pull the trigger my second pistol blazed in his face, and he dropped, while his weapon, exploding harmlessly, knocked up some mud and gra.s.s. I saw Marc chase his antagonist to the canoes at the point of his sword, and p.r.i.c.k him lightly for the more speed. But at the same instant, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the savage whom Marc's shot had brought down struggle again to his feet and swing his hatchet. With a yell I was upon him, and my sword point (the point is swifter than the edge in an emergency) went through his throat with a sobbing click. But I was just too late. The hatchet had left his hand; and the flying blade caught Marc in the shoulder. The sword dropped from his grasp, he reeled, and sat down with a shudder before I could get to his side. I paid no further heed to the remaining Indian, but was dimly conscious of him launching a canoe and paddling away in wild haste.

I lifted the dear lad into the shade, and anxiously examined the wound.

"'Tis but a flesh wound," said he, faintly; but I found that the blow had not only grievously gashed the flesh, but split the shoulder blade.

"Flesh wound!" I muttered. "You'll do no more fighting in this campaign, dear lad, unless they put it off till next spring. This shoulder will be months in mending."

"When it does mend, will my arm be the same as ever?"

he asked, somewhat tremulously. "'Tis my sword arm."

"Yes, lad, yes; you need not trouble about that," said I. "But it is a case for care."

In the meantime, I was cleansing the wound with salt water which I had brought from the river in my cap.

Now, I cast about in my mind for a bandage; and I looked at the prisoner beneath the maple. Marc first, courtesy afterwards, I thought in my heart; for I durst not leave the wound exposed with so many flies in the air.

The lady's little feet, bound cruelly, were drawn up in part beneath her dark skirt, but so that a strip of linen petticoat shone under them. I hesitated, but only for a second. Lifting the poor little feet softly to one side, with a stammered, "Your pardon, Madame, but the need is instant!" I slit off a breadth of the soft white stuff with my sword. And I was astonished to feel my face flush hotly as I did it. With strangely thrilling fingers, and the help of my sword edge, I then set free her feet, and with no more words turned hastily back to Marc, abashed as a boy.

In a few moments I had Marc's wound softly dressed, for I had some skill in this rough and ready surgery.

I could see by his contracting pupils that the hurt was beginning to agonize, but the dear lad never winced under my fingers, and I commended him heartily as a brave patient. Then placing a bundle of cool ferns under his head for a pillow, I turned to the captives, from whom there had been never a word this while.

Chapter XI.

I Fall a Willing Captive.

THE lady whose feet I had freed had risen so far as to rest crouching against the gnarled trunk of the maple tree. The glorious abundance of her hair she had shaken back, revealing a white face chiselled like a Madonna's, a mouth somewhat large, with lips curved pa.s.sionately, and great sea-coloured eyes which gazed upon me from dark circles of pain. But the face was drawn now with that wordless and tearless anguish which makes all utterance seem futile, -- the anguish of a mother whose child has been torn from her arms and carried she knows not whither. Her hands lay in her lap, tight bound; and I noted their long, white slenderness. I felt as if I should go on my knees to serve her -- I who had but just now served her with such scant courtesy as it shamed my soul to think on.

As I bent low to loose her hands, I sought in my mind for phrases of apology that might show at the same time my necessity and my contrition. But lifting my eyes for an instant to hers, I was pierced with a sense of the anguish which was rending her heart, and straightway I forgot all nice phrases.

What I said -- the words coming from my lips abruptly -- was this: "I will find him! I will save him! Be comforted, Madame! He shall be restored to you!"

In great, simple matters, how little explanation seems needed. She asked not who I was, how I knew, whom I would save, how it was to be done; and I thrill proudly even now to think how my mere word convinced her. The tense lines of her face yielded suddenly, and she broke into a shaking storm of tears, moaning faintly over and over -- "Philip! -- Oh, my Philip! -- Oh, my boy!" I watched her with a great compa.s.sion. Then, ere I could prevent, she amazed me by s.n.a.t.c.hing my hand and pressing it to her lips. But she spoke no word of thanks. Drawing my hand gently away, in great embarra.s.sment, I repeated: "Believe me, oh, believe me, Madame; I _will_ save the little one." Then I went to release the other captive, whom I had well-nigh forgotten the while.

This lily maid of Marc's, this Prudence, I found in a white tremour of amazement and inquiry. From where she sat in her bonds, made fast to her tree, she could see nothing of what went on, but she could hear everything, and knew she had been rescued. It was a fair, frank, childlike face she raised to mine as I smiled down upon her, swiftly and gently severing her bonds; and I laid a hand softly on that rich hair which Marc had praised, being right glad he loved so sweet a maid as this.

I forgot that I must have seemed to her in this act a shade familiar, my fatherly forty years not showing in my face. So, indeed, it was for an instant, I think; for she coloured maidenly. But seeing the great kindness in my eyes, the thought was gone. Her own eyes filled with tears, and she sprang up and clung to me, sobbing, like a child just awakened in the night from a bad dream.

"Oh," she panted, "are they gone? did you kill them?

how good you are! Oh, G.o.d will reward you for being so good to us!" And she trembled so she would certainly have fallen if I had not held her close.

"You are safe now, dear," said I, soothing her, quite forgetting that she knew me not as I knew her, and that, if she gave the matter any heed at all, my speech must have puzzled her sorely. "But come with me!" And I led her to where Marc lay in the shade.

The dear lad's face had gone even whiter than when I left him, and I saw that he had swooned.

"The pain and shock have overcome him!" I exclaimed, dropping on my knees to remove the pillow of ferns from under his head. As I did so, I heard the girl catch her breath sharply, with a sort of moan, and glancing up, I saw her face all drawn with misery. While I looked in some surprise, she suddenly threw herself down, and crushed his face in her bosom, quite shutting off the air, which he, being in a faint, greatly needed. I was about to protest, when her words stopped me.

"Marc, Marc," she moaned, "why did you betray us? Oh, why did you betray us so cruelly? But oh, I love you even if you _were_ a traitor. Now you are dead" (she had not heard me, evidently, saying he had swooned), "now you are dead I may love you, no matter what you did. Oh, my love, why did you, why did you?" And while I listened in bewilderment, she sprang to her feet, and her blue eyes blazed upon me fiercely.

"You killed him!" she hissed at me across his body.

This I remembered afterwards. At the moment I only knew that she was calling the lad a traitor. That I was well tired of.

"Madame!" said I, sternly. "Do not presume so far as to touch him again."

It was her turn to look astonished now. Her eyes faltered from my angry face to Marc's, and back again in a kind of helplessness.

"Oh, you do well to accuse him," I went on, bitterly, -- perhaps not very relevantly. "You shall not dishonour him by touching him, you, who can believe vile lies of the loyal gentleman who loves you, and has, it may be, given his life for the girl who now insults him."

The girl's face was now in such a confusion of distress that I almost, but not quite, pitied her. Ere she could find words to reply, however, her sister was at her side, catching her hands, murmuring at her ear.

"Why, Prudence, child," she said, "don't you see it all? Didn't you see it all? How splendidly Marc saved us" (I blessed the tact which led her to put the first credit on Marc) -- "Marc and this most brave and gallant gentleman? It was one of the savages who struck Marc down, before my eyes, as he was fighting to save us. That dreadful story was a lie, Prudence; don't you see?"

The maid saw clearly enough, and with a mighty gladness. She was for throwing herself down again beside the lad to cover his face with kisses -- and shut off the air which he so needed. But I thrust her aside. She had believed Marc a traitor. Marc might forgive her when he could think for himself. I was in no mind to.

She looked at me with unutterable reproach, her eyes filling and running over, but she drew back submissively.