THE CAPITULATION.
It was the fifteenth of June. The expected ships had joined Commodore Warren, and his fleet of eleven men-of-war bore into the harbor. Signals had been agreed upon between the two commanders. The brush was piled upon Green Hill ready to send its columns of flame into the air when the Dutch flag at the mast-head of Warren's ship should announce that he was ready.
Under the inspiring promise of this flag, and in the blaze of the answering signals, the troops, with drums beating and colors flying, were to rush to the assault. Archdale's opinion, that heavy guns at the lighthouse would be disastrous to their old enemy the Island Battery, had been confirmed by two Swiss deserters, and that place was now almost untenable under a galling fire. The Circular Battery, built to protect the entrance to the city, was little better than a mass of ruins, while the fire that morning from Pepperell's fascine batteries was so hot that the enemy could not stand to their guns. Land and sea trembled with the shock of the cannonade. In the midst of all this Warren came ashore. The troops were drawn up as if for parade, and the Commodore addressed them in a few spirited words which stirred their devotion to the flag under which they were fighting. Then Pepperell stepped forward and swept his keen eyes along the ranks of the men. He had a knowledge of them and an interest in them that Warren could not even understand. To the Englishman they were so many soldiers eager to uphold the honor of the British nation, and he was proud of them. But Pepperell saw the forests to be hewn, the fields to be reclaimed from the wilderness, the cities yet unbuilded. He saw the life, great, though half its greatness was not dreamed of, that was to pour in through this gate which to-day's work was to open. For, not only that fear and hatred of Popery which marked his age, but, already, that American love of liberty, to which priestcraft is so inimical, burned within him. A touch of Winkelried's fervor kindled his eye. If into his breast, and into the breasts of his comrades, the bayonets of the enemy were to be planted, yet should a way be made for his countrymen.
"Soldiers," he said, "some of you fellow-citizens, and all of you fellow-workers in a great cause, I have no fear of you. I have good reason to know your persistence, and your undaunted courage. Our mother England needs us to-day. She has not demanded this work of us, for she has thought of us as children. Shall she find us grown to brawny manhood?" A deafening cheer rolled from rank to rank to answer him. "Foes assail her, and the enemy's hand is at her throat. Have we the glorious privilege of striking it down? Yes! To-day." Again cheer on cheer burst from the ranks, and rose above the roar of the cannon. "Then, let us spring to our work with nerves of steel, and arms of iron, and hearts of oak, like our ships that outride the storm, like our trees that laugh at the gale. But, look! it is we who command the gale, for it is our cannon that thunder. The enemy's—they are faint and fainter in reply. Their gates are broken down; their walls are broken down; their hearts quake within them, for all their gallant front. My brave soldiers, remember your comrades who lie here in their graves, and carry home to their sorrowing families the news that they have not died in vain; and carry home to your rejoicing families the assurance that you have not lived in vain. For more than that homes shall be peaceful, more than that hearts shall be happy, is it that religion shall be free. But one thing let us remember: strong hearts are not boastful; not in our own might do we go forth to this battle. 'Christo duec,'—'with Christ for our leader,'—this is our courage. Our flag, whose motto ends with this, may well begin, 'Nil desperandum—'Never despair.' We never have despaired; we have known only hope, and now hope is to become a certainty. On you rests the glory of making it so. On you. The enemy is ours to-day! Louisburg is ours TO-DAY! When you look toward the fleet and see the red flag at the mast-head of the 'Superbe;' when you look toward the hill and see the three columns of smoke rise up—then in your might, in the might of Christ, your Leader, march on! Fight! Conquer! And draw breath only within the walls of Louisburg!"
In the tumult of applause that followed this appeal the commanders turned toward one another. Warren was about to go back to his ship and give the final orders for bringing the fleet into action at once; for the lengthening shadows gave warning that the day was waning, and that it was time for plan and speech to ripen into action. With a word of parting, they clasped hands briefly, and the Commodore had already turned to enter his boat, when, with his face toward the city, he suddenly stopped.
"Look!" he said to Pepperell. "Who is that?"
"A white flag, as I live!" cried the General, watching the captain in command of the advance battery, who was going forward to receive the French officer. "Yes," he continued, as Duchambou's letter was handed to him. "See! he asks time to consider terms of capitulation."
After a few hasty orders, by which truce succeeded war, the commanders were seated in Pepperell's tent, their voices seeming to themselves to ring out strangely in the silence about them. The soldiers, flushed with desire for victory, rested upon their arms in an impatient acquiescence, and Pepperell himself, who, as a commander, rejoiced in the thought that bloodshed might be prevented, yet turned martial eyes upon his companion for a moment, and said, stifling a sigh:—
"They'd have gone at it splendidly!"
"Yes," answered the Commodore; "but this is better. Only we must not give those ships time to come up, or Duchambou may change his mind, and we may have our fight on worse terms."
"I agree with you perfectly," answered Pepperell. "We will be no sticklers for trifles."
Another boat beside the Commodore's had lain rocking on the tide in the shallow water while the General was speaking to his men. At the end of his address the oars were plied vigorously, and the boat shot out from the shore. Suddenly, by tacit consent, every oar hung poised on the boat's edge, and the stalwart rowers, bending forward with upturned faces, remained motionless, their eyes fastened upon some object on shore.
"Yes, it's a white flag!" said one of them at last. "Truce? Aint we going to have a chance at the 'parley-vous?'"
A murmur of disappointment answered him.
"I do believe they've struck," said another. And the oars began to be moved again, as if the sooner their work was over the sooner the pliers would learn what they were anxious to know.
"What are you saying?" cried Mr. Royal. "What's that about truce?" he added to the man next him.
"Don't know, sir," the man answered.
"Don't you see the officer with the white flag going up to the General?" volunteered another.
"Stop!" cried Mr. Royal, decidedly. "Wait a moment. If there's a truce, I'm not going to Canso yet." The boat was almost at the side of the waiting vessel, and the men exchanged looks of impatience, although they complied at once.
"There's Col. Vaughan," said Nancy. "See! he's there beside the General, and he looks as cross as can be."
"Then you may be sure the engagement is put off," returned Elizabeth.
"I shall not leave yet. I will go back to shore," said her father, glad to return to a place which only consideration for his daughter's safety had induced him to leave at that time.
They had just stepped upon the beach again when the General came up, accompanied by Commodore Warren.
"They're going to surrender," said Pepperell to Elizabeth, as the two commanders bowed, and passed on hastily.
So Elizabeth did not go to Canso, where the hospitals had been removed. In the light of after events she felt sometimes that it might have been better if she had gone.
Two days later Pepperell marched into Louisburg, at the head of his troops. The French, who were to depart with the honors of war and to sail for France, were drawn up, as if on parade, to receive the victorious army. The colonial volunteers looked at the battered defences, which were still strong enough to have resisted them longer if a combined attack had not been threatened, and they said to one another:—
"It takes our General to capture a Gibraltar. We should all have been in our graves if we had obeyed Governor Shirley, and begun by assault."
From the window of a house overlooking the square, Elizabeth and her faithful attendant watched the whole ceremony of giving and taking formal possession of the city, the exchange of salutations between the French troops and their conquerors, and the departure of the former, with drums beating and colors flying, to embark for France under a twelve months' parole. When all was over, and she still sat there, her eyes full of proud tears at the glory of her country, a voice behind her said:—
"Do you remember the agreement we made?"
She turned, surprised, her lashes still wet.
"I didn't hear you coming," she answered. "You mean when I said I should like to be invited to walk through Louisburg?"
"Yes."
"I should be glad, by and by, if you have leisure; although I suppose that everybody will have that now."
He smiled. "If you saw Pepperell's tasks, you wouldn't think so."
"Then, I suppose that you are busy, too, and everybody else?"
"Yes. Shall I come for you at sunset?"
The words seemed to sound over and over again in Elizabeth's ears,—words, in themselves, almost ungracious, but which his tone had made to mean, "No business ranks your pleasure." Already they had returned to the courtesies of peace. She could not answer in a different spirit; she must abide by the idle words he had remembered, and go. Her work here was over. Many of her patients had been sent home, and all were well cared for now.
Sunset in the middle of June, and in that latitude, was only the burnished gate-way to a beautiful twilight that lingered as if loath to leave the land it loved. The city lay as tranquil as if no bombshell had ever burst over it, or no alien force now held possession of it. Soldiers were everywhere; but order reigned. Voices were heard, and laughter; but not even rudeness assailed the inhabitants, who, while waiting for transportation, had received a promise of protection in their shattered homes. These ventured out now, in the new immunity from cannon-balls, to examine the ruins of their city.
"We've done a good deal of damage in six weeks to a fortress that it took thirty years to build," said Archdale to Elizabeth. "There are only three whole houses left in the city." As he spoke they were passing by gaping walls and shattered gun-carriages. They walked through entire streets where the buildings, all more or less demolished, showed at every point the cruelties of war. At one place they heard voices coming from a roofless dwelling, which proved that its inmates still called it home, and clung to the poor shelter that it gave.
"Take care!" cried Stephen, drawing her back suddenly. And as he spoke, a stone from the high wall lost the balance it had precariously kept, and fell almost at her feet. "We will walk in the middle of the street," he said, and they went on again, she leaning lightly on the arm he offered her through the ways rough and often obstructed. It all seemed like nothing else that had ever been with them, or ever would be with them again. The city, wrecked by the storm that had raged against it, lay in the stillness of hopelessness, and the moon that rose before the twilight had begun to fade made the calmness appear deeper in sight of the destruction that had brought death. It seemed to Elizabeth like Archdale's own life.
"Do you know where Mr. Royal is?" he asked.
"I am not anxious about him," she answered, with a smile. "He is well provided for in every way at General Pepperell's banquet." She stopped suddenly, and turned to Stephen. "That is where you ought to be, too," she said; "and you are here on account of my thoughtless speech."
"Not so at all," he answered, with decision. "To be walking here with you is what I like best."
She understood that her knowledge of his suffering and her sympathy made this very natural. That evening for the first time they spoke of Katie. He said that it seemed strange to him that the thought of her had so little power over him.
"It will all come back with the old life," she answered; "that seems broken now, but we shall take it up again."
"Where we left it?" he asked.
"I think so," she answered him.
He said nothing, for he did not himself understand what it was that moved him so, and why he should be so eager to deny what must be true. Only one thing was clear to him: that nothing must break the peace of this evening. This was real in the midst of so much that seemed unreal, and beautiful in the midst of confusion. They went on for a time in a mood that Archdale dreaded to break in upon. But there was something that he must tell her, lest she should learn it in a still harder way.
"I have news," he began at last, reluctantly.
"News?" she cried. "From home? About any one there? Not bad?"
"Yes, bad, but not from home at all. News that I wish you need never hear; but this cannot be helped; and I know all that can be known about the matter. Shall I tell you?"
"Yes," she answered, faintly.
"It is about Edmonson."
"I thought so."
"And Harwin."
"Yes. They"—
"They fought," he finished,—"yes. I don't know how they managed it, nor how Harwin could leave the fleet, but in some way he did." The speaker paused.
"Well?" she said, tremulously, after a silence.
"Harwin was killed." Archdale felt her hand tighten its grasp. "And Edmonson," he added. Suddenly she drew away from him, and looked at him searchingly, her breath coming unevenly.
"What!" she gasped. "Both! Both of them! Two deaths! How could it be? Tell me what you mean."
"That is what I mean. It is true. Edmonson, you remember, willed, at last, to recover, and he did so rapidly, that is, he was well enough to go about, though not to report for duty. How he and Harwin arranged matters, or met in the lonely spot in which they were found, I can't explain,—nobody can. Evidently, it was a duel, and it appears to have been without seconds, to make the matter more secret. Each must have given the other his death, for they were found—But I need not tell you all this."
"Yes, tell me how you are sure that they both—died in the duel."
"Edmonson must have given the death-wound first, for it seemed as if Harwin, in an expiring agony, had sprung upon him and stabbed him to the heart, as he fell himself." Elizabeth stood motionless, her face turned away and one hand over her eyes. "The news was brought to the General yesterday morning, and he sent me over to investigate," added Archdale after a pause, in which he had studied her with the utmost attention.
Suddenly she turned quite away from him with a low moan. "It is terrible, terrible!" she said under her breath. "And I—I—Oh, take me back to the house!"
As Archdale obeyed, they went on without speaking, she no longer holding his arm, but shrinking into herself as if she would have liked to be invisible altogether.
"I think," she said at last, slowly, "that I ought to have been willing to go to Canso. Perhaps I could have prevented the meeting by having them watched, or in some way. Of course I can't tell. But I ought not to have been selfish, and ask to stay here."
She had almost reached the house as she said this.
"You, selfish!" he cried.
But he fancied that she did not hear him, for she only repeated: "I ought not to have been so selfish," and after a moment, as she stepped upon the threshold, added, "Thank you; but I should not have gone if I had known. Good-night."
He was alone in the moonlight; in a mood greatly at variance with the tranquil sky that he stood looking into vaguely. Was Elizabeth suffering only because she was connected, though so innocently, with this dreadful thing? Was this all? It must be. And yet,—and yet people could love where they despised,—there was Katie.
Then he saw that not only sympathy for Elizabeth had made him speak, but the desire to see how Edmonson's death affected her. Well, after all, he had not seen anything clearly, and he was neither proud of himself, nor happy, as he walked away.