CHAPTER I

E-text prepared by Al Haines

MONTLIVET

by

ALICE PRESCOTT SMITH

New York

Grosset & Dunlap

Publishers

Houghton, Mifflin and Co.

1907

TO

M. C. H. AND A. E. H.

CONTENTS

I. THE KEY

II. THE CAPTIVE

III. BEHIND THE COMMANDANT'S DOOR

IV. IN THE OTTAWA CAMP

V. A DECISION

VI. DAME OPPORTUNITY

VII. THE BEGINNING

VIII. PARTNERS

IX. WESTWARD

X. I WAKE A SLEEPER

XI. MARY STARLING

XII. A COMPACT

XIII. WE REACH THE ISLANDS

XIV. A PROVISIONAL BARGAIN

XV. I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER

XVI. THE STORM

XVII. AFTER THE STORM

XVIII. IN WHICH I USE OPPORTUNITY

XIX. IN THE MIST

XX. WHAT I FOUND

XXI. THE PIVOT

XXII. THE PRICE OF SLEEP

XXIII. I ENCOUNTER MIXED MOTIVES

XXIV. I MEET VARIOUS WELCOMES

XXV. OVER CADILLAC'S TABLE

XXVI. FROM HOUR TO HOUR

XXVII. IN COUNCIL

XXVIII. CHILDREN OF OPPORTUNITY

XXIX. I FOLLOW MY PATH

XXX. THE MEANING OF CONQUEST

XXXI. THE UNDESERVED

XXXII. I TELL THE WOMAN

XXXIII. TO US AND TO OUR CHILDREN

MONTLIVET

CHAPTER I

THE KEY

The May sun was shining on Michillimackinac, and I, Armand de

Montlivet, was walking the strip of beach in front of the French

garrison.

I did not belong to Michillimackinac. I had come in only the day

before with two canoes and four men, and I was bound for the beaver

lands further west. A halt was necessary, for the trip had been

severe, and remembering that it was necessity, and not idleness, that

held me, I was enjoying the respite. My heart was light, and since the

heart is mistress of the heels, I walked somewhat trippingly. I was on

good terms with myself at the moment. My venture was going well, and I

was glad to be alone, and breathe deep of the sweet spring air, and let

my soul grow big with the consciousness of what it would like to do.

So content was I, that I was annoyed to see La Mothe-Cadillac approach.

Yet Cadillac was important to me then. He was commandant at

Michillimackinac,--the year was 1695,--and so was in control of the

strategic point of western New France. The significance of all that he

stood for, and all that he might accomplish, filled my thought as he

swaggered toward me now, and I said to myself, somewhat complacently,

that, with all his air of importance, I had a fuller conception than he

of what lay in his palm.

He hailed me without preface. "Where do you find food for your

laughter in this forsaken country, Montlivet? I have watched you

swagger up and down with a smile on your face for the last hour. What

is the jest?"

In truth, there was no jest in me by the time he finished. My own

thought had just called him a swaggerer, and now he clapped the same

phrase back at me.

"There are more swaggerers upon this beach than I," I cried hotly, and

I felt my blood rise.

My tone was more insulting than my words, and Cadillac, too, grew red.

I saw the veins upon his neck begin to swell, and all my childish

irritation vanished.

"Come, monsieur," I hastened; "I was wrong. But I meant no harm, and

surely here is a jest fit for your laughter, that two grown men should

stand and swell at each other like turkeycocks, all because they are

drunk with the air of a May day. Come, here is my hand."

"But you said that I"--

"And what if I did?" I interrupted. I had fallen into step, and was

pacing by his side. "What is there in the term that we should hold it

in slight esteem? I swagger. What does that mean, after all, but my

acknowledgment of the presence of Dame Opportunity, and my admission

that I would like to impress her; to draw her eye in my direction.

Surely that is laudable, monsieur."

Cadillac laughed. His tempers were the ruffle of a passing breeze upon

deep water. "So you think that I swagger to meet opportunity? Well,

if I do, I get but little out of it. Sometimes I push myself near

enough to pluck at the sleeve of the dame; oftener she passes me by."

"Yet she gave you this key to an empire," I suggested. I had been

rude, and I repented it, and more than that, there was something in the

man that tempted me to offer him flattery even as I desire to give

sweets to an engaging child.

But this cajolery he swept away with a fling of his heavy arm. "The

key to an empire!" he echoed contemptuously. "They are fine words, and

the mischief is that they are true. Yet food in my stomach, and money

in my pocket, would mean more to me just now. I must speak to this

Indian. Will you wait for me, monsieur? I have business with you."

I bowed, and resumed my walk. "The key to an empire!" I said my own

words over, and could have blushed for their tone of bombast. They

were true, but they sounded false, I looked at my surroundings, and

marveled that a situation that was of real dignity could wear so mean a

garb. The sandy cove where I stood was on the mainland, and sheltered

four settlements. Behind lay the forest; in front stretched Lake

Huron, a waterway that was our only link with the men and nations we

had left behind. The settlements were contiguous in body, but even my

twenty-four hours' acquaintance had shown me that they were leagues

apart in mind. There were a French fort, a Jesuit convent, a village

of Ottawas, and, barred by the aristocracy of a palisade, a village of

Hurons. The scale of precedence was plain to read. The huts of the

savages were wattled, interlaced of poles and bark; the French

buildings were of wood, but roofed with rough cedar; the only houses

with board roofs were those of the Jesuits. In later times when I

found Father Carheil hard to understand, I used to say to myself that

he was not to be held too strictly to account for his contradictions,

for though one learns to think great thoughts in the wilderness, it is

not done easily when there is sawed lumber to shut away the sky.

Cadillac came back to me in a few moments. He had lost his swelling

port, and was frowning with thought. "I saw you in the Huron camp,

Montlivet," he said. "Do you understand their speech?"

Now this was a question that I thought it as well to put by. "Would

you call it speech?" I demurred. "It sounded more like snarling."

"Then you do understand it?"

I kicked at the dogs at my feet. "Frowns are a common language. I

could understand them, at least. The camp is restless. Are they

hungry?"

Cadillac shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly. But it is not hunger that

sagamité or maize cakes can reach. Would a taste of Iroquois broth put

them in better condition, do you think?"

I turned away somewhat sickened. "It is a savage remedy," I broke out.

"And a good cook will catch his hare before he talks of putting it in

the pot. Where is your Iroquois hare, Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac?"

The commandant shook his head. "My hare is still at large," he

confessed. "Though just now---- Come, Monsieur de Montlivet, let us

to plain speech. We are talking as slantingly as savages. I have a

Huron messenger at my quarters. Come with me, and interpret."

"A messenger from your own camp?"

"Is it my own camp?" he queried soberly. "I do not know. I have

reason to think that many of my Hurons are ripe for English bribes,--or

even for the Iroquois. It is a strange menagerie that I rule over

here, and the Hurons are the foxes,--when they are not trying to be

lions. You say that their camp is restless. I do not speak their

language, but I can tell you more. They are in two factions. Those

who follow old Kondiaronk, the Rat, are fairly loyal, but the faction

under the Baron would sell us to the English for the price of a cask of

rum. Truly our scalps sit lightly on our heads here in this garrison."

I hesitated. I did not like this situation, and prudence whispered

that I had best cut the conversation here, and make my way as swiftly

as possible to the west. But curiosity urged me to one more question.

I asked it with my lips pursing to a whistle, that I might seem

indifferent. "Is the messenger from the Baron?"

Cadillac nodded contentedly. "So you have decided to help me," he

said, with a smile that read my indecision perfectly, and I felt, with

a rush of blood to my face, much less sure of myself, and more respect

for him. "I wish that I had inducements to keep you here," he went on,

"for I hear from Montreal that you have wonderful command of Indian

dialects. But I will take what you are willing to give, and be

thankful. As to this messenger,--this is the tale. Some months ago a

small band of Hurons left here for the south. Hunting, or war, or

diplomacy, how shall I say what was their errand? But I mistrust them,

for they are followers of the Baron. They returned this morning, and

are in camp on the island. Their sending a messenger in advance looks

as if they had a prisoner, and so desired to be welcomed in state. If

the prisoner should be an Iroquois"----

Now certain tales were fresh in my ears, and so I did not like the

implication of the unfinished sentence, and hastened to cover it. "It

is a favorable sign, monsieur, that the messenger came to you first."

"How do I know that he came to me first? He came to me--yes. But

because a snake slips out of one hole, can you swear that he has not

been in another? Will you go to him now?"

There was no door open for escape, and the matter was not important

enough for me to be willing to force one. "If you wish," I agreed.

Cadillac looked relieved. "Good! You will find the messenger at my

quarters. I shall let you go alone, for I can make nothing of the

man's speech, and he smells somewhat rancid for a close acquaintance.

When you are through, you will find me here."

I bowed, and made my way to his quarters. I knew as I opened his door

that I might be entering more than appeared upon the surface, but the

excitement of the game was worth the hazard,--even the hazard of a

possible delay,--and I pushed the door wide, and went in.

The Huron was sitting in the middle of the floor, handling his calumet

with some ostentation. The Hurons were but the remnant of a race, for

Iroquois butchery had reduced them in numbers and in spirit, but even

in their exile they preserved a splendor of carriage that made the

Ottawas, who camped beside them here, seem but a poor and shuffling

people. This man was a comely specimen, and he was decked to do honor

to the moment. His blanket was clean, and his head freshly shaved

except for a bristling ridge that ran, like a cock's comb, across his

crown, and that dripped sunflower oil over his shoulders.

He handed me his calumet, and we smoked for the time required by

ceremony, then he rose, and drew two beaver skins from the folds of his

blanket.

"The sun has smiled upon us," he said, with a certain sedate pomposity

which, like the black crest on his head, might be ludicrous in itself,

but seemed fitting enough in him. "I speak for my people who are in

camp upon the island. We have been upon strange rivers, and over

mountains where the very name of Frenchman is unknown. Yet we have

returned, and we come to you at once, as the partridge to her young.

We are glad to see a Frenchman's face again. We confirm what we have

said by giving these beavers."

I smoked for a moment, then leaned over and kicked the skins into the

corner. "Why these words?" I asked, with a slow shrug. "Does the leg

thank the arm for its service? Does the mouth give flatteries and

presents to the tongue? We of Michillimackinac are all of one body.

My brother must be drunk with the bad rum of the English traders, that

he should come to me in this way. No, if my brother has anything to

say, let him think it aloud without ceremony, as if speaking to his own

heart. Let him save his beavers till he goes to treat with strangers."

There was a long silence. The Huron wrapped his blanket closer, and

looked at me, while I stared back as unwinkingly. His face was a mask,

but I thought--as I have thought before and since when at the council

fire--that there was amusement in the very blankness of his gaze, and

that my effort to outdo him at his own mummery somewhat taxed his

gravity. When he spoke at last he told his story concisely.

A half hour later, I went in search of Cadillac. He heard my step on

the crunching gravel, and when I was still rods away, he laid his

finger on his lips for silence. I went to him rather resentfully, for

I had had no mind to shout my news in the street of the settlement, and

I thought that he was acting like a child. But he took no notice of my

pique, and clapped me on the shoulder as if we were pot-companions.

"Hush, man," he whispered fretfully. "Your look is fairly shouting the

news abroad. No need to keep your tongue sealed, when you carry such a

tell-tale face. So they have an Iroquois?"

I dropped my shoulder away from under his hand. "If that is the news

that you say I shouted, no harm is done,--save to my honor. No, they

have no Iroquois."

Cadillac stopped. "No Iroquois!" he echoed heavily.

"No, monsieur. They have an Englishman."

It was as if I had struck him. He stepped back, and his face grew dull

red.

"A spy?"

I shook my head. I could feel my blood pumping hard, but I answered by

rote. "Not by the Huron's story."

The commandant snapped his fingers. "That for his story! As idle as

wind in the grass!" he snorted. "But what did he say?"

I grew as laconic as the Huron. "That they left here as a hunting

party," I said categorically.

"That they soon joined a war party of Algonquins, and went with them to

the English frontier. I could make little of his geography, but I

infer that they went in the direction of Boston,--though not so far.

There the Algonquins fell upon a village, where they scalped and burned

to their fill. He says that the Hurons remained neutral, and this

prisoner, he maintains, is theirs by purchase. They bought him from

the Algonquins for two white dressed deerskins, and they have treated

him well. They have found him a man of spirit and importance, and they

ask that you make a suitable feast in honor of what they have done.

The Huron is waiting for your answer."

Cadillac had listened nodding, and his reply was ready. "Tell him that

they must bring the prisoner to-morrow early,--soon after daybreak.

Tell him that Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac knows his part, and that

the kettles shall be full of dog-meat, and the young men painted and

ready for the dancing." He spoke rapidly, his hand on his sword, and

his great shoulders lifted as if eager to meet their new burden. He

turned to me with a smile that would have conquered enmity in a wolf.

"This is great news, Montlivet. I could almost ask you to drink the

health of the Baron, and all his scurvy, seditious crew. For, look

you, even if the Englishman is a spy, and the Hurons have brought him

here to make a secret treaty, why, he is in our hands, and Boston is a

continent away. He will have opportunity to learn some French before

he goes back to his codfish friends. What say you, monsieur?"

I laughed rather ruefully. I saw that the game was to be exciting, and

I had never been backward at a sport. Yet I knew that I must turn my

face from it.

"What do I say?" I repeated. "Nothing, monsieur, but that I am a

trader, not a diplomat, and that to-morrow I must be on my way to the

west. I will take your answer to the Huron. Monsieur, I hope you will

sleep long and sweetly to-night. You will need a clear head to-morrow."

Cadillac looked at me, and wagged his head. "Good-day to you, trader,"

he said, with one of his noiseless laughs. "How well you must sleep

who have no thought beyond your beaver skins,--even though you do carry

brandy and muskets hidden in your cargo. Never mind, never mind. Keep

your secrets. Only see that Father Carheil does not smell your brandy,

or I may be forced to send you back to Montreal."