Not far away the moonlight, falling in soft radiance between the trees, had thrown upon a rough grave, newly-made, the shadow of a cross.
CHAPTER XXVII
IN WHICH ST. EUSTACE IS KIND TO DE SANCERRE
Overlooking the waters of the great river, as they met and mingled with the waves of a lonely sea, stood a wooden column beside a wooden cross. Almost hidden by the shadow of the pompous pillar, the cross, unmarked by hand of man, made no open claim to power, but awaited patiently the outcome of the years. Upon the column had been inscribed the words:
Louis le Grand, Roy de France et de Navarre, règne; le Neuvième Avril, 1682.
Now and then the King’s Column would appear to hold converse with the Cross of Christ, for it was a weary vigil which they kept, and the lofty pillar, haughtily displaying the arms of France, was forced, from very loneliness, to recognize the humble emblem at its base.
Through long, sunny days and soft, moonlit nights the salt breeze from the sea heard the royal column boasting to the lowly cross. By virtue of the legend upon its breast, said the King’s Pillar, a great monarch had gained a vast domain. Savannas, forests, prairies, deserts, rivers, lakes, and mountains, forming a gigantic province, had become, through a word uttered by a great explorer, the property of him whose name the wooden column bore. Through all the oncoming ages, the King’s Pillar asserted, Louis le Grand, Roy de France et de Navarre, and his posterity, would own the fair lands through which a mighty river and its tributaries flowed. It was not to be wondered at that the stately column grew vain with the grandeur of its mission upon earth, and even garrulous at times, as it described to the insignificant cross the splendor of the dreams which a glowing future vouchsafed to it.
The Cross of Christ would listen in silence to the mouthing of the Royal Claimant, gazing further into the future, with a clearer vision than the proud pillar, whose words were those of men blinded by the intoxication of transient power. The unpretentious cross could well afford to indulge in the luxury of silence. Since it had first become a symbol of the power which is begotten by the teachings of humility and love, it had heard, a thousand times, the boastful words of monarchs swollen with the glory of ephemeral success. It had seen emperors and kings seizing lands and peoples to hold them in subjection until time should be no more. But the centuries had come and gone, and the banners of earthly kings, rising and falling, had pressed onward and been driven back. Only the cross, emblem of peace on earth and good will to men, had, through those same ages, steadily enlarged the dominion over which its gentle rule prevailed. Carried forward often by fanatics and made to serve the ends of cruel hearts, it was, in spite of all the errors of its followers, slowly but surely receiving the earth for its heritage and mankind as the reward of its benignity.
One afternoon, late in the month of May, a man, pale, dejected, moving with the heavy step of one who had undergone great bodily fatigue, led a maiden, upon whose white face lay the shadow of a weariness against which youth could not prevail, toward the King’s Column. Removing his bonnet from a head grown gray from recent hardships, the man, releasing the girl’s hand, bent a knee before the proud emblem of his sovereign. At the same moment the maiden knelt down before the cross, and, weeping softly, breathed a prayer to a Mother whose Son had died for men.
Presently the girl arose and, followed by him who had paid his tribute to the fleeting power of kings, skirted the royal column, and seated herself upon a mound of sand from which she could sweep, with her dark, mournful eyes, the expanse of a gulf new to the keel of ships. Stretching before her as if it knew no bounds lay a great water, an awful waste of sun-kissed, dancing waves, whose glittering splendor brought no solace to her heavy heart.
“It is a mystery which I cannot fathom,” said de Sancerre, mournfully, throwing himself down by Doña Julia’s side and gazing up at her sad, sweet face with eyes heavy from a disappointment which had crushed, for the time being, the fond hopes which had inspired him through long days of labor and nights of wakeful vigilance. “The good faith of the stern, upright de la Salle I cannot doubt. He would jeopardize his life, and all his mighty projects, to rescue a comrade to whom his word was pledged. We must have passed him somewhere in the twilight of the dawn or when I used the sunset’s glow too long.”