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 passionately, 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 compassion. Then, ere I could prevent, she amazed me by snatching my hand and pressing it to her lips. But she spoke no word of thanks. Drawing my hand gently away, in great embarrassment, 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, God 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.
"I know," she said, "I don't deserve that you should let me go near him. But—I think—I think he would want me to, sir! See, he wants me! Oh, let me!" And I perceived that Marc's eyes had opened. They saw no one but the maid, and his left hand reached out to her.
"Oh, well!" said I, grimly. And thereafter it seemed to me that the lad got on with less air than men are accustomed to need when they would make recovery from a swoon.
I turned to Mizpah Hanford; and I wondered what sort of eyes were in Marc's head, that he should see Prudence when Mizpah was by. Before I could speak, Mizpah began to make excuses for her sister. With heroic fortitude she choked back her own grief, and controlled her voice with a brave simplicity. Coming from her lips, these broken excuses seemed sufficient—though to this day I question whether I ought to have relented so readily. She pleaded, and I listened, and was content to listen so long as she would continue to plead. But there was little I clearly remember. At last, however, these words, with which she concluded, aroused me:—
"How could we any longer refuse to believe," she urged, "when the good priest confessed to us plainly, after much questioning, that it was Monsieur Marc de Mer who had sent the savages to steal us, and had told them just the place to find us, and the hour? The savages had told us the same thing at first, taunting us with it when we threatened them with Marc's vengeance. You see, Monsieur, they had plainly been informed by some one of our little retreat at the riverside, and of the hour at which we were wont to frequent it. Yet we repudiated the tale with horror. Then yesterday, when the good priest told us the same thing, with a reluctance which showed his horror of it, what could we do but believe? Though it did seem to us that if Marc were false there could be no one true. The priest believed it. He was kind and pitiful, and tried to get the savages to set us free. He talked most earnestly, most vehemently to them; but it was in their own barbarous language, and of course we could not understand. He told us at last that he could do nothing at the time, but that he would exert himself to the utmost to get us out of their hands by and by. Then he went away. And then—"
"And then, Madame," said I, "your little one was taken from you at his orders!"
"Why, what do you mean, Monsieur?" she gasped, her great sea-coloured eyes opening wide with fresh terror. "At his orders? By the orders of that kind priest?"
"Of what appearance was he?" I inquired, in return.
"Oh," she cried breathlessly, "he was square yet spare of figure, dark-skinned almost as Marc, with a very wide lower face, thin, thin lips, and remarkably light eyes set close together,—a strange, strong face that might look very cruel if he were angry. He looked angry once when he was arguing with the Indians."
"You have excellently described our bitterest foe, and yours, Madame," said I, smiling. "The wicked Abbé La Garne, the pastor and master of these poor tools of his whom I would fain have spared, but could not." And I pointed to the bodies of the three dead savages, where they lay sprawling in various pathetic awkwardnesses of posture.
She looked, seemed to think of them for the first time, shivered, and turned away her pitiful eyes.
"Those poor wretches," I continued, "were sent by this kind priest to capture you. He knew when and where to find you, because he had played the eavesdropper when Marc and I were talking of you."
"Oh," she cried, clenching her white hands desperately, "can there be a priest so vile?"
"Ay, and this which you have heard is but a part of his villany. We have but lately baulked him in a plot whereby he had nearly got Marc hanged. This, Madame, I promise myself the honour of relating to you by and by; but now we must get the poor lad removed to some sort of house and comfort."
"And, oh," cried this poor mother, in a voice of piercing anguish and amazement, as if she could not yet wholly realize it,—"my boy, my boy! He is in the power of such a monster!"
"Be of good heart, I beseech you," said I, with a kind of passion in my voice. "I will find him, I swear I will bring him back to you. I will wait only so long as to see my own boy in safe hands!"
Again that look of trust was turned upon me, thrilling me with invincible resolve.
"Oh, I trust you, Monsieur!" she cried. Then pressing both hands to her eyes with a pathetic gesture, and thrusting back her hair—"I knew you, somehow, for the Seigneur de Briart," she went on, "as soon as I heard you demanding our release. And I immediately felt a great hope that you would set us free and save Philip. I suppose it is from Marc that I have learned such confidence, Monsieur!"
I bowed, awkward and glad, and without a pretty word to repay her with,—I who have some name in Quebec for well-turned compliment. But before this woman, who was young enough to be my daughter, I was like a green boy.
"You are too kind," I stammered. "It will be my great ambition to justify your good opinion of me."
Then I turned away to launch a canoe.
While I busied myself getting the canoe ready, and spreading ferns in the bottom of it for Marc to lie on, Mizpah walked up and down in a kind of violent speechlessness, as it were, twisting her long white hands, but no more giving voice to her grief and her anxiety. Once she sat down abruptly under the maple tree, and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook, but not a sound of sob or moan came to my ears. My heart ached at the sight. I determined that I would give her work to do, such as would compel some attention on her part.
As soon as the canoe was ready I asked:
"Can you paddle, Madame?"
She nodded an affirmative, her voice seeming to have gone from her.
"Very well," said I, "then you will take the bow paddle, will you not?"
"Yes, indeed!" she found voice to cry, with an eagerness which I took to signify that she thought by paddling hard to find her child the sooner. But the manner in which she picked up the paddle, and took her place, and held the canoe, showed me she was no novice in the art of canoeing. I now went to lift Marc and carry him to the canoe.
"Let me help you," pleaded Prudence, springing up from beside him. "He must be so heavy!" Whereat I laughed.
"I can walk, I am sure, Father," said Marc, faintly, "if you put me on my feet and steady me."
"I doubt it, lad," said I, "and 'tis hardly worth while wasting your little strength in the attempt. Now, Prudence," I went on, turning to the girl, "I want you to get in there in front of the middle bar, and make a comfortable place for this man's head,—if you don't mind taking a live traitor's head in your lap!"
At this the poor girl's face flushed scarlet, as she quickly seated herself in the canoe; and her lips trembled so that my heart smote me for the jest.
"Forgive me, child. I meant it not as a taunt, but merely as a poor jest," I hastened to explain. "Your sister has told me all, and you were scarce to blame. Now, take the lad and make him as comfortable as a man with a shattered shoulder can hope to be." And I laid Marc gently down so that he could slip his long legs under the bar. He straightway closed his eyes from sheer weakness; but he could feel his maid bend her blushing face over his, and his expression was a strangely mingled one of suffering and content.
Taking my place in the stern of the canoe, I pushed out. The tide was just beginning to ebb. There was no wind. The shores were green and fair on either hand. My dear lad, though sore hurt, was happy in the sweet tenderness of his lily maid. As for me, I looked perhaps overmuch at the radiant head of Mizpah, at the lithe vigorous swaying of her long arms, the play of her gracious shoulders as she paddled strenuously. I felt that it was good to be in this canoe, all of us together, floating softly down to the little village beside the Canard's mouth.