THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
We all turned round and then with one accord sprang to our feet The horror of what we saw held us spellbound and speechless. We did not feel the icy air, the swirl of fine snowflakes that came driving into the room, for in the doorway stood Baptiste, his honest face almost unrecognizable with hot passion, and in each hand he thrust out a ghastly, gory, red-dripping thing of hair and flesh. They were human scalps, and we knew at once from whose heads they had been torn.
“Nom de Dieu!” cried the priest. “The poor wretches!”
“Yes, Valle and Maignon!” Baptiste said thickly, grinding his teeth. “They did not get far, sir, Heaven rest their souls! But a moment ago the red devils flung these bloody trophies over the stockade—none can tell how they crept so near! It is a warning, messieurs, that we are all to be served the same way.”
“My poor voyageurs!” groaned Christopher Burley. “That they should come to such an end! Oh, this barbarous country!”
He suddenly turned sick and faint, and dropping into a chair, he sat there trembling, his face buried in his hands. Father Cleary was crossing himself and muttering piously.
“A thing like this,” cried Captain Rudstone, “is enough to turn a man into a fiend. By Heaven! Hawke, if you say the word, I’ll lead a party out against the savages!”
But the factor did not seem to hear him. He was leaning heavily on a chair, his face the hue of ashes. “My fault—my fault!” he said hoarsely. “I sent the poor fellows to their death. But God knows I believed they would get through safely!”
“We all believed that,” broke in Andrew Menzies.
“Compose yourself, sir! No blame can possibly attach to you.”
Meanwhile Baptiste had been standing in the same attitude. I sharply bade him close the door, and he did so. Then he stepped forward, tossed the reeking scalps on the table, and with a shaking hand helped himself, unbidden, to a stiff glass of rum.
“You need not have brought those hideous things here,” said I.
“I did not come for that alone, Monsieur Carew,” he replied. “I was sent with a message. The Indians intend shortly to attack. It will be well to prepare.”
“We are all ready,” exclaimed Griffith Hawke, roused from his dejection by this intelligence. “But what do you mean, my man? Why do the sentries look for an attack?”
“Sir, the Indians have been making strange signals,” Baptiste answered, “and they were seen from the loopholes and the tower creeping along the edge of the timber in force.”
“The warning is timely,” said Captain Rudstone. “If the savages are prowling about it means mischief, otherwise they would be rigging up a camp against this bitter weather. And no doubt they reckon the storm will be to their advantage, since the driving snow thickens the air.”
The rest of us were of the same mind, and to a man we thirsted for a chance to avenge the foul murder of the two voyageurs. We eagerly donned our fur coats and caps, and began to examine our weapons.
“Mr. Menzies, will you speak to the women before you go,” said the factor. “Tell them not to be alarmed if they hear firing—that there is no danger.”
“And perhaps they will take consolation from your company, Father Cleary,” he added, when Menzies had left the room.
The priest was wrapping himself in furs, and before replying he took his musket from a rack over the fireplace.
“If the women folk need me, I will not refuse,” he said quietly. “I am a man of peace first, but I can fight when occasion requires, and my choice lies that way now, Mr. Hawke.”
“Then come with us, by all means,” assented the factor.
“Nor shall I be left behind,” cried Christopher Burley, showing a spirit that I did not think was in him. “I can handle a gun, sir.”
He did not wait for permission, but borrowed a spare coat that hung on the wall and helped himself to a serviceable musket and a supply of powder and ball.
“Denzil, you had better go ahead and turn the men out,” said the factor. “We will follow shortly.”
I was eager to do this, and, accompanied by Baptiste, I hurried from the house. I thought with uneasiness, as I plodded across the inclosure, that I had seen few worse storms. The snow was falling line and thick, and a stinging, shrieking wind was already heaping it in drifts.
“The redskins will give us trouble, sir,” Baptiste said ominously.
“No doubt,” I assented sharply; “but we could beat off double their numbers. Don’t go and croak among the men, Baptiste.”
The quarters were quite deserted, tidings of the expected attack having emptied them, and I found all the inmates of the fort—save those on duty—assembled near the northeast tower. These included the few Indian employees, who were to be fully trusted. I made a quick round of the loopholes, and learned that all was now quiet, and that no signals or movement had been observed for several minutes. When I returned Griffith Hawke and his little party had arrived, and I communicated the state of affairs to them.
“It is the calm before the storm,” remarked Captain Rudstone. “I’ll wager anything you like the savages are going to rush us.”
We waited five minutes, standing about in scattered group, and listening for some warning from the watch tower. It was the eve of the factor’s wedding—a fact that I recalled with bitter irony as I noted him posted alertly in the pelting snow, musket in hand, expecting shortly to be plunged in the thick of a bloody fray. Far across in the distance a gleam of light twinkled in the window of Flora’s room. What were her thoughts?
A hand tapped me on the shoulder; I turned and saw Christopher Burley.
“It is worse than a London fog, this cold,” he said, with chattering teeth. “I seem to feel it in my bones. How long will we wait, Mr. Carew?”
“That is hard to tell,” I replied. “If you are freezing, go indoors.”
I think he would have taken me at my word, but I had hardly spoken when the brooding silence was shattered by a cry from the watch-tower:
“Look sharp! They are coming on two sides! To the loopholes!”
Here and there a shout was heard, but for the most part the warning was received with a grim calmness that spoke well for the fighting temper of our men. The next instant the air was full of Indian war-whoops—and a more blood-curdling and fearful sound I have yet to hear. Then the savages fired a continuous volley, and the bullets came rattling like sleet against the stockade; some entered at the loopholes, and a cry arose that a half-breed was down.
At the first—such trivial things will a man do at critical times—my attention was taken by Christopher Burley. Elevating his musket in air, he pulled the trigger, and was flat on his back before you could count two. I helped him to rise, and he began to rub his shoulder ruefully.
“It was too heavy a charge,” he said. “Did I kill any one?”
“It’s a mercy you didn’t,” I replied.
I gave him a word or two of instruction, but did not wait to see how far his pluck would carry him. I left him in the act of reloading, and sped to a loophole near the gates, which faced eastward.
The east and north sides were the ones chosen for the assault, and here a good third of our men had already posted themselves. They, and the marksmen in the corner tower were firing steadily. The fusillade, blending with Indian yells and volleys, made an indescribable din. I took a hasty glance without. Through the driving snow, I saw a horde of warriors dashing swiftly forward. There must have been a hundred in sight on that one side, and I knew that we were in for hot work if as many were attacking from the north.
On they rushed, and now some dropped craftily behind lopped-off trunks of trees which were sprinkled plentifully about the clearing. Others sought shelter from the wind-blown heaps of snow, but the greater part made for the stockade. The powder smoke would hide them for an instant, and then I would see them a dozen feet nearer.
The patter of bullets close to my head warned me of the danger I was in, and stirred me to action. I thrust out my musket and fired. I looked in time to see an Indian fling up his arms and fall; right and left of him dark blotches stained the snow. I reloaded, and fired again, shouting with excitement.
To the north and east, and where the tower rose between, was one blaze and crackle of muskets. Smoke hid the snow and savage yells drowned the shrieking of the wind. In spite of the terrific fire, the redskins poured on. A ball sang by my ear, and another sent a shower of splintered wood into my very face. Close on my right a man was shot through the chest; farther to the left I saw a half-breed stagger and fall.
“Steady, men!” rang out the factor’s voice. “Stand firm and make every shot tell!”
I poked my musket through the loophole and pulled trigger. It was next to impossible to miss, so near was the foremost line of savages. I was reloading in frantic haste, when the stockade in front of me creaked and rattled. Above the top rose the heads and shoulders of three painted warriors, and the next instant, with shrill cries, they had leaped into the inclosure.