CHAPTER III
Concealed in the branches of a wide-spreading oak, Gabriel hoped against hope to remain hidden from the Micmac trailers, now close on his heels. White men his woodcraft would enable him to elude, but Indians hardly. His very breathing seemed as if it must betray him.
Listening thus, every nerve an ear, he heard a slight sound in the deep glade beneath. To the novice it might mean anything or nothing; to his practised understanding it was the crack of a twig beneath a human foot.
Carefully he surveyed his position. The moon, though near its setting, still afforded light sufficient to betray him should its rays fall on face or hands. Then, for the first time, he perceived that, as he lay face downward on a branching limb, the hand with which he sustained himself was palely illuminated; the moon, in her swift course, had penetrated the sheltering foliage. What should he do? To move meant certain discovery. He resolved to lie still, the chances being slightly in favor of absolute stillness. Then he became aware that some one was standing beneath the tree. Now in actual fact he held his breath; for though his sight could not pierce the leaves, every other sense told him that it was an Indian. But his hopes were vain. Another moment and he knew the tree was being climbed.
As the green grasshopper clings, even after detection, blindly to the leaf that it so closely resembles, so Gabriel clung instinctively to his branch, and even when a sinewy hand grasped his ankle, made no sign. The forest-bred boy obeyed the instinct of all woodland creatures; besides, there was one hope left, faint as it was, and were he to move or speak he might lose even that.
“Wild Deer?”
“Jean Jacques?”
Wild Deer was the name by which the friendly Micmacs called him. Now for the test. Was the Indian true?
“Wild Deer, the great medicine man of your tribe is on the trail.”
“I know. What wilt thou do? Betray me to him?”
The low-breathed question and answer swept quickly back and forth.
“The red man betrays not him who is skilled as himself.”
“What wilt thou do then?”
“Let Wild Deer descend and follow his friend.”
Gliding to the ground with a noiselessness and rapidity equal to that of the Indian, Gabriel, at a sign from his companion, followed him on his sinuous track. Was he his friend? He had dwelt too long with the red men not to dread the treachery which is the inevitable consequence of centuries of savage and relentless warfare, tribe with tribe, red man with white man. Nevertheless, he pushed on; what else could he do?
The gray dawn peered beneath a veil of cloud before they paused on the edge of the forest. Gabriel’s powers were well-nigh spent; ill treatment and privation had sapped his young strength. The spot where they had halted was the last camping-ground of the Micmacs. Going to a hollow tree, Jean Jacques drew from it some strips of sun-dried beef and a few dried leaves, which Gabriel recognized as those of the coca plant, on which, when unable to obtain food, the red man makes arduous journeys, lasting for days together.
“Eat,” he said with native brevity; “then put these leaves in thy mouth and chew them as we go. The strength of the pale face will come back to him as that of the young eagle.”
Gabriel obeyed, imitating the taciturnity of the Indian. When at length, refreshed and strengthened, he arose to prosecute his attempt to reach Halifax, Jean Jacques, with a grunt, declined not only to be thanked, but to leave him.
“I too go to the new fort,” he remarked calmly.
“Thou wilt go?”
A sudden suspicion overwhelmed him. Could it be that his apparent rescue was one of the priest’s deep laid plots? That Jean Jacques, heavily bribed with French gold, was but carrying out some scheme of treachery which should involve the defenders of the fort as well as himself? The supposition was an only too plausible one, given such a man as Le Loutre and such lucre-lovers as the Micmacs. The Indian’s impervious countenance revealed nothing. To question him would be vain. Well, he must go forward and hope for the best; no other course was open to him.
Silently, at the steady Indian dog-trot, the pair pressed on. As mile after mile was covered, Gabriel’s strength seemed to renew itself, even, indeed, as that of the young eagle; hope revived within his breast, ministering to his keen vitality; and when at last the Indian paused, and kneeling, examined in ominous silence a bent twig here, a crushed blade of grass there, and finally laid his ear to the ground, Gabriel was inclined to scout Jean Jacques’ fears and his own suspicions.
“Feet have passed this way,” muttered Jean Jacques, “feet of red men, with them a white man. Let Wild Deer put his head to the ground, and he will hear them yet. But our trail they have lost. They wander, seeking it.”
Striking in the opposite direction, they proceeded cautiously. Then again the Indian stopped and listened after his manner.
“They come,” he said, as he once more arose, “many of them. They go to the fort; but they will not go until they find Wild Deer to carry him with them. But Jean Jacques will be his guide, he shall escape them.”
At nightfall they crept beneath a pile of brush and leaves, concealing the deserted lair of a gray fox, and Gabriel, worn out now, and happy in the thought of at sunrise being free to abandon the circuitous route and making straight for the fort, but a few miles distant, soon fell asleep.
But there is many a slip, etc. It seemed to him that he had slept but five minutes when he was aroused by a flash of light in his eyes, and he opened them to find himself in the grasp of half a dozen Micmacs, behind them Le Loutre. Jean Jacques was nowhere to be seen. Speechless, he looked from one dark face to another; every one of them he knew to be unfriendly, or at least corrupted by French gold. His young heart felt nigh to bursting. So near the goal and to be thwarted thus! So near the new life, in which, in his youthful enthusiasm, he believed he could be true to the highest that was in him, true to his grandfather and Margot, vaguely but ardently hopeful that he could save them. And Jean Jacques? Had he indeed betrayed him?
It was one of those moments of discouragement in which even the falsity of an untutored savage can pierce the very soul.
“Bind him, and bring him on!” was the priest’s stern command.
Bewildered by fatigue, sick with disappointment, Gabriel offered no resistance, uttered no word. He was dragged about a mile and then dropped rudely by the embers of a camp-fire. Waving his “lambs” to a distance, Le Loutre addressed him in accents cold as steel and merciless as the hand that drives it home.
“Have I not told thee that thou canst not escape me, I, the chosen instrument of God to bring stragglers back into the fold? My duty is clear. He who will not bend must break.”
He paused, but his hearer made no sign.
“Thou knowest what is demanded of thee. This day my converts go on a friendly mission to the new fort. Must I instruct thee yet again in thy duty?”
He waited for the response that came not. Gabriel lay as if life itself were already crushed out of him; every drooping finger of his strong, right hand nerveless, hopeless. Yet must there have been something of tacit resistance in his air, for Le Loutre continued in tones of exasperation:
“Opposition will avail thee nothing, and for thy grandfather and cousin it will mean suffering and privation beyond their wildest dreams. Every Acadian is rewarded according to his loyalty to the king and to the true church. Hitherto I have spared them, but it is I alone who have the ordering of their going, and of the new home to which they journey. The gran’-père is old, Margot more tender than is the habit of Acadian maidens, yet must the church not stay her hand when the saving of souls is in the balance. She must make example, she must discipline. I am no man meting out man’s justice,” continued the fanatic, raising his hands solemnly, “but chosen of the church to execute her righteous will. This being so, thou wilt find me relentless in my duty.”
Gabriel’s benumbed senses, together with the spirit that in some natures never slumbers long, were reawakening. He found himself wondering why this autocratic priest, before whom all trembled, should find it necessary to explain his conduct to a mere boy. Then, as mental vigor returned more fully, he drew his exhausted body into a sitting posture, and said:
“M. l’Abbé commands that I shall go with these savages?”
“Converts to the true church,” interrupted Le Loutre imperiously. “Who dares call baptized Christians savages?”
“I name them according to their deeds,” continued Gabriel, with a certain manly dignity which had come to him of late. “Holy water on the brow does not change the heart.”
“It doth not!” cried the priest in the same tone. “Jean Jacques is a pervert—perverted by thyself from the true faith.”
“Yet he has played me false,” exclaimed Gabriel bitterly.
“Dull-witted boy! Knowest thou no better than that?”
Could it be? Was Jean Jacques faithful? Not only that, but free to help him again? Hope kindled once more within his breast. Then he rose to his feet and looked straight into the eyes of Le Loutre.
“ ‘M. l’Abbé commands——.’ ”
“It is the will of M. l’Abbé,” he said again, “that I should go to Halifax on this ‘friendly’ mission? The Micmacs will camp without the fort, I shall be received within, and can then learn more than I know already of its defenses and of the habits of its defenders. The Indians, being friendly, will pass in and out with me, two or three perhaps only; I am to guide them with what secrecy I may from one portion of the stronghold to another, and they in turn will pass on their knowledge to the waiting horde concealed within reach, and then at a given signal the attack is to be made, and, they and I alike familiar with the weak points of the fort and other matters, they will easily gain entrance, and put all to fire and sword? Is this the will of M. l’Abbé?”
Le Loutre looked back at him consideringly. Keen-sighted, as he was, he scarce knew what to make of this boy. Then he said:
“You swear it in the name of the Holy Mother of God?”
“I promise nothing,” said Gabriel steadily.
“Then,” cried the priest with a sudden burst of fury, “remember this: If thou dost play the traitor——”
“He can be no traitor,” Gabriel interposed, with a calm which compelled a hearing, “who gives no promise, except that if it be within his power he will defeat the plot laid.”
“No matter what thou art,” burst forth Le Loutre again, “thou art false to the faith in which thou hast been reared. But forget not that thy course will be watched, and that if my commands are not obeyed thy grandfather and cousin will pay the forfeit—yes, with their very lives. Dost hear me?”
Gabriel, pale before, whitened now to the lips. But he kept his steadfast eyes on the priest’s face as he replied:
“I hear, M. l’Abbé.”
The blue waves of the harbor of Chebucto leaped gayly landward before the strong south wind. On the wooden ramparts of Halifax the sentinels kept watch, specks of scarlet betwixt the blue of sea and sky, moving, automaton-like, on their appointed rounds. But the automatons possessed eyes, nevertheless, and those directed north were riveted on a band of Indians who, since sunrise, had been busy getting into camp about half a mile from the post.
The British colony at Halifax was now, counting those within and without its walls, over three thousand strong, and though the settlers without had been sorely harassed by Indians—whom the governor was beginning at last to suspect were set on by the French, despite the peace nominally existing between the two nations—they continued to thrive and increase. The Indians at present camping so near were soon recognized as Micmacs, who had made a solemn treaty with the British the previous year, consequently their appearance created but slight interest.
In his own simple apartments the “brave, sensible young man, of great temper and good nature,” was writing, with what for him was unusual irascibility, a letter to the Bishop of Quebec. But his patience had been sorely tried. “Was it you,” he wrote, “who sent Le Loutre as a missionary to the Micmacs? And is it for their good that he excites these wretches to practise their cruelties against those who have shown them every kindness? The conduct of the priests of Acadia has been such that by command of his majesty I have published an order declaring that if any one of them presumes to exercise his functions without my express permission he shall be dealt with according to the laws of England.”
Having finished his letter he gave orders that the French priest, Girard, should be invited to a final audience. Obedient to the summons, an elderly man, of strong and gentle countenance, made his appearance. Bidding him be seated, Cornwallis addressed him courteously in French.
“M. le Curé,” he began, “you know that you are one of very few who have been required to take the oath to do nothing contrary to the interests of the country I serve. Is not that so?”
The priest bent his head with quiet dignity.
“I believe now that of you it was not necessary to exact it.”
“Pardon, M. le Gouverneur, of me it was not exacted. I rendered it.”
“Pardon, M. le Curé, you are in the right. I owe you an apology.”
“Monsieur has nothing for which to make amends. He is all honor and generosity.”
Cornwallis bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, then continued:
“There are many, however, of whom it would be as well for these simple Acadians as for helpless English settlers that the oath of allegiance to my king were demanded. This Abbé Le Loutre, for example, he is a very firebrand. Nay, rather a wolf in sheep’s clothing, working havoc in the poor, silly flock. Know you him, M. le Curé?”
The priest lowered his eyes.
“M. le Gouverneur,” he replied in a constrained tone, “it is contrary to the habit of my order to say of our superior, He is wrong or he is right.”
“Once more, pardon!” cried the younger man frankly. “I made an error. Tell me, M. Girard, on your return to Cobequid, what course will you pursue?”
“In accordance with my oath, M. le Gouverneur, I shall inform M. Longueuil that I can make no effort to prevent my people from submitting to you, according to their own desires.”
“And what, think you, your governor will reply?”
“I know not, monsieur, but it is probable that I shall be compelled to retire from my position.”
The two men, of different creed and antagonistic blood, looked each other full in the face. Then, with manifestations of mutual respect, clasped hands.
“Adieu, M. le Curé.”
“Adieu, M. le Gouverneur. The saints have you in their holy keeping, and bring you to the shelter of the true fold.”
But as Girard turned to go, Cornwallis spoke again:
“M. Girard, there is a lad here, half Acadian, half British, know you aught of him?”
“Gabriel—ah, the hard name! I cannot call it.”
“Yet did the name and he that originally bore it sail once with your own conquering William from the land of your birth. Champernowne—it is a Norman name—and you, you yourself come from la belle Normandie, is it not so, M. le Curé?”
“It is true, monsieur. But this boy, I have heard of him from the curé at Port Royal. He is a good boy, though, alas, no longer of our faith.”
“He is to be trusted?”
“So I have been assured, monsieur.”
Meanwhile another scene was being enacted under the eastern rampart. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Gabriel, I baptize thee.”
The brief ceremony was at an end, and the few witnesses departed.
Feeling somehow encouraged by this open profession of his inward convictions to thread the difficult maze that lay before him, Gabriel joined the New England minister at his frugal meal, and then at his advice betook himself to an upper chamber to rest his weary body. But rest to aching heart and tired brain would not come. In whom should he confide? What should he do? Even his knowledge of the English tongue was limited, though it fitted readily to his own, and he felt that he would soon be master of it. Of but one thing was he certain; come what would, he must now cast in his lot with his father’s race. There were ways by which he could earn his bread—he, active and vigorous and accustomed to labor. And the colonists, they would need defenders; he could handle a musket with the best, and endure long marches. Then, with a groan he turned his face to the wall. Margot—the grandfather! Like a knife turning in his heart the harrowing dread would not be stilled. Nothing could be done, no revelation of intended treachery made, until these two were beyond the reach of Le Loutre and his terrible threats. And the days would slip past as the hours were slipping now. Could, would, the English governor help them? Then slowly, like swallows sailing circlewise ever nearer and nearer their resting place, his revolving thoughts settled down upon their nest. Yes, there was one hope. He sprang from the bed and was out of the house in less time than it takes to write the words.
“M. Girard, M. Girard,” he said to himself as he hastened along. But when he arrived at the priest’s lodging, he was informed that M. le Curé had started two hours before for Cobequid.
The woman of the house, mother herself of stalwart sons, felt her heart stir in pity for this splendid-looking youth, with the “air noble” and the sad face. She was a former parishioner of M. Girard, an Acadian come hither from Cobequid.
“But see,” she said, following him out of the door, “M. le Curé was to tarry awhile at the Indian camp. Maybe he is still there.”
With a word of thanks Gabriel hastened away. Yet back to the Indian camp, that nest of traitors. There was, however, no help for it. In any case he would have to return to the camp at nightfall, for he was closely watched, and his plans were not yet ripe for defying his dusky guardians, two or three of whom on the morrow expected to be conducted within the walls of Halifax. To obtain private speech with the curé would no doubt be difficult, but it must be done. Fortune favored him. As he skirted the low hills to the eastward of the camp, watching his opportunity, he beheld a man in priestly garb, escorted by some Cobequid Acadians, who had voluntarily visited Halifax to take the new oath of allegiance, making his way across the levels in the direction of the forest. Girard’s adieu to Le Loutre’s “lambs” was, then, made. Weary and spent as he was, Gabriel put forth his last remaining strength and ran swiftly forward to intercept the party. He accomplished his object, and standing respectfully before the priest returned his gentle greeting.
“And who art thou, my son?”
“My name, mon père, is Gabriel, grandson of Pierre Grétin, habitan of Port Royal.”
A long-drawn “Ah!” escaped M. Girard’s lips. Then taking the boy by the arm he led him out of earshot, and seating himself on a small hillock, said kindly:
“Rest, my son. The sun is yet some hours high, and thou art weary, and hast a tale to tell.”
“Oh, mon père!” cried Gabriel, then stopped, unable to proceed.
This son of a mixed race could be steadfast as well as brave, but that intense vitality which sends the warm life-blood coursing through the veins like a torrent instead of as a calm and sluggish stream, even while acting as a spur to noble endeavor and keeping the heart forever young, exacts also its penalties. Now that the moment had arrived on which all his hopes hung, Gabriel was past speech. He lay face downward on the short turf, struggling with a burst of passionate tears that would not be repressed.
“Weep, my son, weep,” said the kind old man, laying his hand on the fair head, “thou hast endured much, and thou art but a lad. Moreover, thou hast this day solemnly abjured thy mother’s faith. I reproach thee not, but for a youth such as thou, thou didst take upon thyself a grave responsibility.”
But Gabriel was pulling himself together, and presently he sat up and shook the curls back from his eyes.
“Mon père,” he said, still clinging to the old loved title familiar to him from earliest childhood, “that I know; I considered long; and forget not that the faith to which I have turned was the faith of my father. But it is not of myself I would speak, it is of those dearer to me than life.”
Then briefly he narrated the events that had occurred, his forced abandonment of his grandfather and cousin, their desolate and helpless condition, and the abbé’s threats should he fail in the task demanded of him.
“And this task I cannot and will not fulfill,” concluded Gabriel firmly; “then should I be traitor indeed.”
M. Girard’s face had grown very sad. The conduct of Le Loutre had caused him and many another gentle-hearted priest much sorrow. Yet he was the superior; his authority could not be questioned. He remained silent for a while; then spoke, not without hesitation.
“My son,” he said, “there is a way, but even that way is not without difficulties. Thy cousin—Margot—our Acadian youth are often householders at thine age. Yes, I know, those of English blood are more backward in such matters, but there must be true affection betwixt you, and for thy wife she is altogether suitable. Thus thou couldst protect her and the gran’-père also. The saints forbid that I should encourage a union betwixt a heretic and a daughter of the church were there any other way, and did I not hope much from her influence. Wives have brought erring husbands back to the true fold ere now, and thou art scarce experienced enough to have embraced for reasons that will endure another faith. It was resentment, not conviction, that led thee astray.
“Among the Acadians protected by the fort the followers of the Holy Catholic Church dwell in peace, ministered to by priests who have taken the oath of allegiance to the English king. There, with Margot for thy wife, thou wilt return to the true faith.”
The good old priest, pleased with the future his imagination had created, rambled on. But after the first Gabriel hardly heard him. Margot his wife! The hot blood flamed to cheek and brow, then the flash faded, leaving him paler than before. Who was it that dared thus to handle the sweet familiar affection, from whose leaves the delicate bud, destined in the fullness of time to expand into the radiant flower of a strong man’s love, peeped forth so timidly that he himself had not yet ventured to do more than glance at it and then avert his eyes? When had he first known that those cool, green leaves held for him such a pearl of price? It was at his last parting from Margot, when forced to flee and leave those so helpless and so dear to the mercy of Le Loutre. The remembrance of this parting had never left him, despite danger, suffering, dread, not for one little hour. But that any one should speak of that of which he had never yet spoken to himself! Gradually, however, the sense of shock, of desecration, faded; and when after a long and patient waiting M. Girard addressed him almost in the very words once used by the abbé, but with very different intention, his answer this time was prompt and decisive.
“Mon fils, art thou boy or man?”
“I am a man, mon père.”
“Well, think on what I have said.”
The priest gathered up his skirts and arose.
“But, Margot, mon père? Her desires may be quite other——”
Gabriel’s cheeks were hot again. He faltered in his speech. The old man looked him up and down. Yes, he was a goodly youth. A queer little smile flickered on the priest’s thin-lipped mouth, but all he said was:
“My son, these things arrange themselves.”
He turned to go. Gabriel stood where he had left him, dreamy-eyed and quiet. Then, with a start he came to himself. He was allowing M. Girard to go, and nothing was settled. This was no time for dreams impossible of immediate fulfillment; there was work to be done, and that quickly. With one bound he had overtaken the priest and laid his hand on his arm.
“But soon—in a day, two days—the abbé will know me disobedient here,” he cried. “I cannot go to Port Royal, neither can the gran’-père endure the toilsome journey hither. O mon père, advise, counsel me.”
The priest paused, irresolute.
“My son, in this matter of the fort I cannot advise thee. For the gran’-père and the little Margot I will give them what protection I may. M. l’Abbé visits Cobequid on matters concerning the oath I have taken, and I will represent to him that thou art one whom to drive is vain, but that thou canst be led. Put thy faith in the Holy Mother, mon fils, she will intercede for thee and thine. Ah, I had forgotten, thou art no longer of the faith. Adieu, then, poor youth.”
With a cold chill at his heart, and a sense of desolation such as never in his young life he had felt before, Gabriel watched the figure of him who represented his last hope disappear into the now darkening shades of the forest.
But sometimes it happens that hope is never so near us as when we deem her fled. As Gabriel slowly bent his steps toward the settlement by the way that he had come, a dusky form glided out from the hills and confronted him.
“I have sought Wild Deer long,” said a well-known voice, “and at last I find him.”
“Jean Jacques.”
“It is he. But say not that Jean Jacques was faithless to the paleface boy. He was not. Let Wild Deer clasp hands with the Micmac, and all may yet be well.”