CHAPTER XIII
WE REACH THE ISLANDS
The dawn came with an uprush of unclouded light showing burnished green leaves and dancing water. I bowed my head to the woman's hand to bid her good-morning, and I served her with meal cakes and sweet water from a maple tree. I was reckless of Pierre's eyes, though I knew them to be weasel sharp for certain sides of life. The woman answered me but scantily, and when we were embarked sat quiet in the bottom of the canoe. I forbore to look at her.
The men feared my mood that day, so paddled well. I charged them not to speak nor sing, for I would have no wasted breath, and the sombre shore, pine and tamarack and savage rock, passed before us like pictures dropping from a roll. Toward sunset I sighted a canoe full of warriors, and when we drew near I saw that they were Pottawatamies.
"Are we near your islands?" I hailed.
The men bowed toward the southwest. "The space of the star rising, and you will reach them if you travel," spoke the tallest. "You ride fast. I have seen you come like the white squall on the water."
I called again. "Does Father Nouvel tarry with you?" I cried.
I thought that they looked at the maid in the canoe. "He tarries," they answered.
I gave the signal and we slipped away. "To the shore," I commanded, and the two canoes took new vigor. The men, like stall-fed beasts, spurred themselves by the prospect of eating and idleness, and we were soon at the beach. I bent over the woman.
"Be prepared," I whispered. "I must tell the men. If I play the clown it is but to impress them, mademoiselle."
She met my glance with a look of entire understanding, and rising gave me her finger tips and stepped from the canoe. I do not know how she turned all in one instant from a sun-burned stripling to a great lady, but that was what occurred. The men, stretching themselves as they stepped to the shore, stopped and stared. I saw that I must speak quickly.
"Let the canoes alone," I said. "We will stop here but a moment. Go—all of you—and gather green twigs and young ferns, and flowers if you can find them. Then bring them to me here. Go."
The men stood as jointless as tin images. But I saw that they were not only dumfounded but afraid, so I laid my hand on my sword, to give them better cause for their stupefaction. "Go!" I shouted again, and so perverse is my nature that, though I knew well I had no cause for merriment, I swallowed hard to keep back a smile.
The woman and I stood alone while the men jerked their way like automatons from bush to tree. The chaos of their minds had numbed their muscles, and they stripped the young boughs clumsily like a herd of browsing moose. I did not look at the woman. I knew that she needed all my courtesy, but it was hard to speak to her just then.
The men wandered for perhaps five minutes, then ranged themselves before me. They bore a curious collection of grasses, mutilated tamarack boughs, and crushed brakes. They eyed my sword hilt, and looked ready for flight. Yet I was master, and they remembered it. Had I ordered them to eat the fodder that they bore, they would not have spoken, and I think that they would have endeavored to obey.
I pointed to the canoe where the woman was accustomed to sit. "Place the greens there," I said. "Make a carpet of them where the red blanket is lying. Work quickly,—then come here. No talking."
They obeyed. They dressed the canoe like a river barge on a fête day, and again they lined themselves before me. I took the woman by the hand.
"You have decked the canoe for my wedding journey," I said, and all my perverse inner merriment suddenly died. "This traveler, whom you have known as a man, is Mademoiselle Marie Starling and my promised wife. We are to be married when we reach the Pottawatamie Islands. She is your future mistress, and you may come and touch her hand and swear to serve her as faithfully as you have served me. Pierre, you may come first."
A man who has seen battle knows that the pang of a bullet can clear even a peasant's clogged brain. The churls took this blow in silence and tried to make something out of it. What they made I could not fathom, but it lifted them out of themselves, for after a moment they raised their eyes and came forward like men. I had never seen them in an equal guise; I could have grasped them by the hand had it been wise.
The woman extended her palm to them, and gave them each a word as they passed in review. She was gracious, she was smiling, yet somehow she was negligent. I was not prepared that she should be used to homage. Perhaps I had thought that this bit of vassalage would give her pleasure. She treated it like an old tale.
"Enough," I ordered. "Pierre, you may draw a portion of brandy all around and drink to the health of your mistress. Then we shall get under way."
Pierre's portions were always ample, and the western red was dulling by the time we were again afloat. I did not paddle, but seated myself beside the woman on the crushed leaves and watched in inactivity and silence while the starlight came. As the dusk deepened we slipped by strange islands, but I held the canoes straight in advance till a limestone headland rose white out of the blurred, violet water. The star shine showed a deep bay and wavering lights among the trees. I touched the woman's shoulder.
"The largest of the Pottawatamie Islands," I explained. "I have had maps. Pray God we may find what we seek."
The canoes bumped and slid upward on the sand, and I left the men on guard, and taking the woman's hand led her toward the lights. A rabble of dogs trooped upon us and gave tongue, and black shapes, arrow-laden, clustered out of the wigwams.
"Peca," I cried, in greeting, and again, "Where is your chief? Where is Onanguissé?"
A French voice answered, "Who calls?" The mat that hung before the entrance of the nearest lodge was pulled aside, and smoke and red light flared out of the opening. I saw the black robe of a priest!
"Father Nouvel, Father Nouvel!" I cried like a schoolboy. "You are indeed here!"
The priest stooped to pass through the skin-draped opening, and came peering into the starlight.
"Who calls Father Nouvel?" he demanded in a mellow voice, rich in intonations. "What, an Indian woman, monsieur! Who are you? What means this?"
I led the woman forward. "Father Nouvel, this is Mademoiselle Starling, an Englishwoman who was captured by the Indians. We have traveled fast and far to find you. Can you marry us at once?"
It was badly done. I had jumbled my speech without wit or address, like a peasant dragging his milkmaid before the village curé. The woman may have felt my clumsiness. She dropped my hand, and curtsied deeply to the father, and he, staring, checked the hand that he had raised to extend to her, and bowed deeply in turn. It was a meeting, not of priest and refugee, but of a man and woman who had known the world. Father Nouvel was very old and his skin was wrinkled ivory, but at this moment he wore his cassock as if it were a doublet slashed with gold. His command was an entreaty.
"Come nearer, daughter. I wish to see your face."
She followed him close to the flaring light that poured from the wigwam, and he looked at her as unsparingly as if she were a portrait of paint and oil.
"I have never seen you," he decided. "Yet the name Starling,—it is unusual, and it brings troubling memories to my mind."
The woman deliberated a moment. She was indeed a woman with wit that did not need mine, and I felt it to be so, and I stood at one side, and thought out my own conclusions. She looked up. "At Meudon?" she suggested to the priest.
He smote his palms together. "I am old," he mourned. "Else I could never have forgotten. At Meudon, of course. It was at a meeting of Jacobites. An exile named Starling—he was a commanding man, my daughter—was their leader. How did you know?"
She stood there in her Indian dress of skins with a forest around her and talked of courts.
"I remembered that you were in Paris three years ago," she explained, "and that our king—yes, our king, Father Nouvel, although a king in exile—talked sometimes with you. There was often one of your order at the meetings at Meudon."
The father looked at her. "I could almost think that age and loneliness have undone my mind," he said slowly. "You talk of kings and courtiers. Who are you?"
I waited, perhaps more eagerly than the priest himself, for her reply. None came. I thought she gave a flitting look toward me, and so I shrugged my shoulders and thrust myself again into the priest's thought.
"If we were kings, courtiers, and Jacobites all in one," I said as airily as might be in view of my aching muscles, "the titles would yet clink dully as leaden coins, travel-worn as we are. Can you marry us this evening, Father Nouvel?"
He looked at me keenly, not altogether pleased. "And you are"—he asked.
"Armand de Montlivet, from Montreal."
He relaxed somewhat. "I have heard of you. No, I cannot marry you to-night. I will find a lodge for this demoiselle, and we will talk of this to-morrow. Come now and let me bring you to the chief," and with a beckoning of the hand he led the way into the lodge behind him.
We followed closely. The lodge was large, and was roofed and floored with rush mats. The smoke hung in a cloud over our heads, but the air around us was sufficiently clear for us to see,—though with some rubbing of the eyes. An aged Indian sat close to the blaze, and Father Nouvel walked over to him.
"Onanguissé," he said, "two strangers lift the mat before your door,—strangers with white faces. Do you bid them take broth and shelter?"
The old chief nodded. He had lacked curiosity to look out at us while we had stood talking before his door, and now he scarcely lifted his eyes.
"Is the Huron with them?" he asked the priest.
I pushed forward. "What Huron?" I demanded, in the Pottawatamie speech.
The chief stirred somewhat at hearing me use his language. "A Huron is in the woods," he said indifferently. "Every one must live, thieves as well as others, but I do not like it that he stole our squashes. When a Huron comes, you will soon see the French."
I would have asked questions, for I craved more news, but before the words could form, since I am slow, the woman spoke.
"Nadouk!" she exclaimed. "I understand that word. It means Huron.
Are the Hurons pursuing us?"
Her woman's voice echoed oddly in that smoke-grimed place. Onanguissé looked up. I have lived among Indians, and know some sides of their nature, but I am never prepared for what they may do. The old chief stared and then rose. "A white thrush!" he said, and he looked at Father Nouvel for explanation.
"They come to be married," the priest hastened. "Have you an empty lodge for the maiden?"
Onanguissé listened, then walked to the woman, and looked at her as he would study a blurred trail in the forest. She bore his scrutiny well, and he grunted approval. Now that he had risen he was impressive. He was tall, and had that curious, loose-jointed suppleness that, I have heard women say, comes only from gentle blood. As he stood beside Father Nouvel it came to me that the two men were somewhat kin. One face was patrician and the other savage, but they were both old men who bore their years with wisdom and kept the salt of humor close at hand. The chief turned to me.
"To marry? It is the moon of flowers, and the birds are mating. It is well. The white thrush shall sleep in my lodge to-night. I will go elsewhere. Come," and pointing to the door, he would have driven the priest and myself outside without more words.
I glanced around. The lodge was unexpectedly neat, and though I dreaded to leave the woman in the smoke, I knew it was unwise to protest. Would she be willing to stay? She was often ruled by impulse, and it would be like her to clamor for the clean starlight. I told her, in short phrase, what the chief had said. "And I beg you to show as little repugnance as possible," I added.
She listened without showing me her eyes,—which were always the only index I had to what was in her mind.
"Thank the chief for his hospitality," she rejoined, and she looked toward Onanguissé, and bowed with a pretty gesture of acceptance. Then she walked over to me.
"When you thought me a man," she said hurriedly, and in a tone so low that only I could hear, "you trusted somewhat to my judgment,—even though you saw me fail. When you found me a woman, you trusted less, and since—since you arranged to marry me, you have assumed that I would fail you at every turn. Ours is a crooked road, monsieur, and there are many turns ahead. If you burden your mind so heavily with me you cannot attend to what is your real concern. Trust me more. Think less about me. I will show no irritation, no initiative, and I will follow where you point. I should like to think that you would rest to-night,—rest care free. I wish you good-night, monsieur."
She had spoken with a hurry of low-toned words that left me no opening, and now she turned away before my tongue was ready to serve my mind. She bowed us to the door, and the rush mat fell between us. I watched the old chief stalk away and wondered what was in his mind.
"Is this the first white woman he has seen?" I asked the priest.
Father Nouvel smiled reflectively at the retreating back. "Oh, no," he replied. "He has been in Quebec. He is the chief you must have heard quoted, who vaunted that God had made three great men,—La Salle, Frontenac, and himself. He is a crafty man and able. You see that he never squanders strength nor words. No, monsieur, you must not follow me." He stopped to lay a hand on my shoulder. "Take heed, my son. Ox that you look to be for endurance, there are yet lines under your eyes. I will not talk to you to-night. Sleep well. I take it for granted that you prefer to sleep as I do, under the stars." And putting out his thin, ivory hand in blessing, he went away.
But I was not ready for sleep. I went to the canoes, sent the men to rest, and found food which I carried to the woman, and left, with a whispered word, outside her door. Then I ate some parched corn, and lighting my pipe, lay down to take counsel of what had befallen me. I lay at some distance from the woman's lodge, but not so far but that I could see the rush mat that hung before it. The Indians watched me, but kept at a distance. I saw that Onanguissé had given commands.
I had so much to work out in my mind that I thought sleep would come slowly, but I remember nothing from the moment when I bolstered my head in my arms till I found the moon shining in my face. It had been starlight when I went to sleep, I remembered, and I raised my eyelids warily. A wild life teaches the dullest to know when he has been wakened by some one watching him. And I knew it now.
The world was white light and thick shadow. Wigwams, dogs, stumps, trees, sleeping Indians, I counted them in turn. Then I saw more. A pine tree near me had too thick a trunk. That was what I had expected. I let my eyes travel cautiously upward till they met the shining points of eyes watching me.
I lay and looked, and the eyes looked in return. I did not dare glance away and the Indian would not, so we stared like basilisks. It was not an heroic position, and having a white man's love for open action, I had to argue with myself to keep from letting my sword whistle. But fighting with savages is not open nor heroic. It is tedious, oblique, often uninteresting, and frequently fatal. I was unwilling to lose my head just then. So I lay still. If this were the Huron, he was probably merely reconnoitring, as I had reason to believe he had done several times before. His game interested me, for he seemed to work unnecessarily hard for meagre returns, and Indians are seldom spendthrifts of endeavor. I could accomplish nothing by capturing him, for I should learn nothing. There was ostensible peace between the Huron nation and myself. I would let him work out his plans till he did something that I could lay hold of. Yet I would not look away. I had grown very curious to see his face.
I do not know how it would have ended, or whether dawn would have found us still staring like barnyard cats, for chance, and a dog, suddenly settled the matter. The dog, a forlorn, flea-driven cur, snuffed the fresh trail, followed it to the tree, and snarled out a shout of protest. He snarled but once. The Indian drew his knife, stooped, and I heard the sound of tearing hide and spouting blood. It was only a dog, but I cursed myself for not having been quicker.
And so I sat up. I was forced to shift my eyes for an instant in order to pick up my musket, which, secure in a friendly camp, I had dropped at a careless arm's length from me on the ground. When I looked again the Indian was gone. I went to the tree. The Indian had had but an instant, but he had secured himself out of reach of my eyesight; had faded into the background as a partridge screens itself behind mottled leaves. If I followed him, a knife would be slipped out at me from behind stump or tree trunk, and the dog might not have burial alone.
I went to the dog and stirred him with my sword point. He was a noisome heap, but I knew that I must overcome my repugnance and bury him, or I should have to explain the whole tale to the camp at dawn. And explanation would take time and was not necessary. The Huron was following me, and had no quarrel with the Pottawatamies. When I departed on the morrow he would undoubtedly retie his sandals and continue the voyage. A wife and a ghost! Two traveling guests I had not reckoned with in planning this expedition. I shrugged, and stooped to spit the dog upon my sword, when I saw a skin pouch lying blood-bathed at the creature's side. It was a bag such as savages wear around their necks, and the Indian had probably let it fall when he stooped to kill the dog.
I seized it, careless of the smearing of my fingers, and took it to the moonlight. It was made of the softest of dressed doeskin, and embroidered in red porcupine quills with the figure of a beaver squatting on a rounded lodge. I had seen that design before. It was the totem sign of the house of the Baron, and this bag had hung from Pemaou's neck that day when he danced between me and the sunset and flung the war spear at my heart.
I felt myself grow keenly awake and alive. So it was Pemaou who was following. Well, I had told him that we should meet again. I untied the strings of the bag and turned its contents into my handkerchief. There was an amulet in the form of a beaver's paw, a twist of tobacco, a flint, a tin looking-glass, and a folded sheet of birch bark. I stopped a moment. Should I look further? It was wartime and I was dealing with a savage. I unfolded the bark and pressed it open in my palm. There, boldly drawn in crayon, was a head in profile; it was the profile of the woman who lay in the lodge, and whose mat-hung door I was guarding. Yes, it was her profile, and it was one that no man could forget, though when I speak of a straight nose and an oddly rounded chin, they are but words to fit a thousand faces.
I refolded the bark, put it in my pocket, and buried the dog. Then I sat down before the woman's wigwam. I had one point to work on in my speculations. No Indian would draw a head in profile, for he would be superstitious about creating half of a person. I slept no more that night.