THE CAPTIVE
I woke the next morning, saying, "I must keep out of this," and I knew
that I had said it in my slumber. It is pitiful that a man should be
so infirm of will that he need cosset his resolution in this fashion,
and I kicked the dogs from the door of my cabin, and went out to meet
the world in a bad humor.
It was a still world in the great sky and water spaces, but a noisy one
upon the shore. Early as it was--the night dusk was still
lingering--the kettles were simmering, and the Indians decked for a
holiday. The sense of approaching action was powder to my nostrils,
and added to my spleen; so though I went down upon the beach, and
joined Cadillac and his officers, I was but surly company, and soon
turned my back upon them, to stare off at the lake.
It was a breezeless morning, and the lake was without ripple. It lay
like one of the metal mirrors that we sell the Indians, a lustreless
gray sheet that threw back twisted pictures. I looked off at the east,
and thought of the dull leagues that lay behind me, and the uncounted
ones before, and I realized that the morning air was cold, and that I
hated the dark, secret water that led through this strange land. Yet,
even as I scowled at it, the disk of the sun climbed over the island's
rim, and laid a shining pathway through the gray,--a pathway that ended
at my feet.
I felt my pulse quicken. After all, it was a fair world, and the air,
though keen, was a cordial. I let my gaze travel up that shining,
glimmering track, and while I looked it was suddenly flecked with
canoes. Long and brown, they swung down toward me like strong-winged
birds upheld by the path of the sunrise.
I looked back at the Indians. They, too, had seen the canoes, but they
made no sound of welcome. Bedizened and wolf-eyed, they stood in
formal ranks as attentive as children at a pantomime. In a moment the
canoes took clearer shape, and the shine of the paddles could be seen
as the flat of the blades slanted toward the light. The men at the
paddles were indistinguishable, crouching shapes, but their prisoner
was standing. He stood in the foremost canoe, and as his figure was
outlined against the sun I saw that he was rigid as a mummy. I turned
to Cadillac. To see a white man bound! I could feel the thongs eating
into my own flesh.
"They have bound the Englishman!" I protested. "Let us hope that they
are not daring enough--or crazed enough--to make him sing to grace
their triumph."
But he laughed at my tone. "What does it matter?" he shrugged. "These
wards of mine--my happy family--must have their fête in their own
fashion, or they will ask that I pay the piper. Well, whatever they
do, the prisoner is in our hands, and it will be long before he escapes
them. Yes, listen,--oh, the play-acting dogs!--they are making him
sing now."
He had a keen ear, for, even to my forest-trained sense, the sound came
but faintly. The crowd hushed its breathing, and the air was
unwholesomely still. A dog yelped, and an Indian silenced it with a
kick. Each paddle-stroke threw the canoes into sharper relief, and we
could distinguish lank arms, and streaming hair. The prisoner's voice
echoed as clear as if he were in some great playhouse, and were singing
to gain the plaudits of a friendly throng.
I felt my blood tingling in my fingers' ends. It was a brave song,
bravely sung. I could not understand the English words, but the sound
was rollicking with defiance. It was a glove thrown in our faces; the
challenge of a brave man to a cowardly foe.
"The plucky beggar!" I said half aloud, and I set my teeth hard.
But Cadillac was nudging my elbow. "You said that the prisoner was a
man of importance," he accused, with a perplexed frown. "But, listen!
He has the voice of a boy."
I was greedy to hear, so, with a wave of the hand, I shook Cadillac
away. But, in truth, I was disturbed. The tones were certainly boyish.
The canoes came within bowshot, and the hush that held the camp
suddenly broke like the release of pent waters. There were yells and
stamping, the smash of tom-toms, and a scattering salvo of musketry.
It was a united roar that shut out from our consciousness the thought
of the calm sky and the silent water.
The canoes had come as unswervingly as arrows, and the one that held
the prisoner landed at my feet. I looked up, and met his eyes, and I
swept my hat from my head.
"You are among friends," I called, not knowing that I did so.
It was a foolish speech, since the prisoner could not understand; but I
suppose that my tone was kind, for it apparently gave him courage. At
least, a flush that might have been the color of returning hope rose in
his cheeks. I was relieved at his appearance, for he was not the
little lad that his song had made me fear. He was slim and beardless,
but there were sorrow and understanding in his look that could not come
with childhood. For the rest, he was dark and gaunt from exposure and
privation. His rough woolen suit, leather-lined, hung loosely on him,
but he wore it with a jauntiness that matched the bravado of his song.
Cadillac came forward in welcome. He was always an orator that the
Indians themselves envied, and now his rhetoric was as unhampered as
though he thought that the prisoner was following each flowing
syllable. As he unbound the stiffened arms--they were pitifully thin
and small, I thought--he called all mythology to witness his deep
regret that this indignity should have been offered to his brother of
the white race. I followed him and listened, storing away metaphors
even as I carried beads in my cargo. I should need all the eloquence
at my command before the close of the summer, and my own tongue was
always too direct of speech.
Cadillac felt me at his elbow, and when he saw my listening face he
stopped to give me a slow wink. "Will monsieur turn pupil to learn
swaggering?" he asked, with an upward cock of the eye. "I had thought
him too old for a school."
I bowed, and hated myself for my lagging wits that would not furnish a
retort. "Never too old to sit at your feet," I assured him, and I went
away knowing that I had been slow, and that the honors were with him,
but knowing, also, that somehow I liked the man, and that I should
drink his health when I opened my next tierce of canary.
I went to find my men, and it was time that I bestirred myself.
License was in order, and the revel assaulted eyes, ears, and nose,
till a white man was wise if he forsook his dignity, and ran like a fox
to cover. The air was surfeiting with the steam of food. Dog-meat
bubbled in great caldrons, and maize cakes crackled on hot stones. A
bear had been brought in, and was being hacked in pieces to add to the
broth. The women did this, and as I passed them they stopped, with
their hands dripping red, and shook their wampum necklaces at me, and
pointed meaningly toward a neighboring hut, where I had been told that
rum could be bought if you were discreet in choosing your occasion. I
tossed them a handful of small coins, and warned them in Huron that if
they molested my men I should report them to the commandant. I felt
yet more haste to see my canoes under way.
I was plunging on in this fashion when Father Carheil plucked at my
sleeve. "Do you think you are running from the Iroquois?" he grumbled,
and he pushed his irritable, brilliant face close to mine. It was an
old face, lined and withered, and the hair above it was scanty and
gray, but never have I met a look that showed more fire and
unconquerable will. "The commandant wishes you," he went on. "He
asked me to fetch you. I should not have complied--it is I who should
ask services of him--but I wished to speak to you on my own account.
Monsieur, do you know these men that you have in your employ?"
I nodded. "As well as I know my own heart. They are my habitants."
"Your habitants! Then you have a seigniory? Why do you not stay there
as the king wishes?"
I shook my head at him. "We use large words in this new land, father.
Yes, I have a seigniory. That is, I own some barren acres near
Montreal that I can occupy only at risk of my scalp. As to the king, I
think he wishes me to trade,--at least I carry his license to that
effect. But what are my men doing?"
The Jesuit's thin old hands clutched each other. "They are turning
this place into a Sodom," he said passionately. "They are drinking and
carousing with the Indian women. You traders are our ruin. But we
will shut you out of the country yet. Mark my words. Those
twenty-five licenses will be revoked before the season ends, and you
will have to find other excuses to bring your rabble here to debauch
our missions."
In view of what I had just seen, I felt impatient. "You do my handful
of stolid peasants too much honor," I said dryly. "They would need
more wit and ingenuity than I have ever seen in them to be able to
teach outlawry to anything that they find here. But I am looking for
them now. You will pardon me if I hasten."
But his hand pulled at me. "Is one of your men lipped like a
bull-moose and red as Rufus?"
"Pierre Boudin to the life," I chuckled. "What deviltry is he at now?"
The priest's face lost its flame. He looked suddenly the old man worn
out in the service of a savage people. "He is with an Ottawa girl," he
said sadly; "a girl the Indians call Singing Arrow for her wit and her
laughter. She is not a convert, but she is a good girl. I wish you
would get your man away."
I felt shame for my man and myself. "I will go at once," I promised
soberly. "I will be westward bound by afternoon."
The old priest looked at me with friendly eyes. "There will be trouble
before sundown," he said gravely. "If you wish to get away, go
quickly, or you may not go at all. Now you must report to the
commandant."
But I had turned my face the other way. "Not till I have found
Pierre," I returned.
I had no summer stroll before me. Pierre, Anak that he was, was as
lost as a leaf in a whirlpool, and though I had quick eyes, and
shoulders that could force a passage for me in a crowd, I could see no
sign of his oriole crest of red head in all the bobbing multitude of
blackbirds. Instead I stumbled upon Cadillac.
He linked his arm in mine. "Do you know," he said abruptly, "the
prisoner has spirit and to spare. He may be a man of importance after
all."
I answered like a fool. "I think not. He is dressed like a yeoman."
Cadillac put me at arm's length, and puffed his cheeks with silent
laughter. "Plumage, eh? Are you willing to be judged by your own?" He
stopped to let his glance rest on my shabby gear. "Truly it must be a
long year since you fronted a mirror, or you would not be so
complacent. No, monsieur, the prisoner is a gentleman. No yeoman ever
carried his head with such a poise. But who is he? I would give all
the pistoles in my pocket--though, in faith, they're few enough--if I
could understand English. But you may be able to help me. Go speak to
the prisoner in Huron. He must have picked up something of the Indian
speech in his trip here."
This was my opportunity. "Monsieur," I said, "I should like an
understanding. Remember how little all this can mean to me,--a
trader,--and do not think me churlish if I try to keep myself free from
this intrigue. I will go to the prisoner now, if you wish; but, that
done, I beg you to hold me excused of any further service in this
matter."
Cadillac looked me over, and now his glance went, not to my doublet,
but to the man within. "A trader!" he said curtly. "A trader carrying
contraband brandy. A good commandant would send you back where you
belong. No, no, monsieur, wait! I am not threatening you. Though you
know as well as I that the thumb-screws are rather convenient to my
hand should I care to use them. But there should be no necessity for
that. Montlivet, I hardly understand your reluctance in the matter of
this Englishman. We should be one in this affair, whatever our private
concerns. Even Black Gown and I--and the world says we are not
lovers--are working together. Why do you draw back?"
I could not meet him with less than the truth. "You have stated the
reason, monsieur. My private concerns,--they seem large to me, and I
fear to jeopard them by becoming entangled here. I regret this. You
have shown me great clemency in the matter of the brandy,--though if
you had confiscated it I should still have pushed on,--and for that,
and for your own sake, monsieur, I should be glad to serve you."
He looked at my outstretched palm, and laid his own upon it. "'T is
fairly spoken," he said slowly, "and I think you mean it." Then he
grew peevish. "A pest on this country!" he cried. "We are all kings
in disguise, and have a monarchy hidden in our hats. And what does it
amount to? No bread, no wine, no thanks; a dog's life and a jackal's
death,--and all to hold some leagues of barren land for his
petticoat-ridden majesty at Versailles. Oh, why not say it? We can
tell the truth here without losing our heads."
"The king's arm"--I began.
"Is long," he interrupted. "Yet, in truth, your face is longer. Are
you so eager to be gone? Well, get you to the prisoner, and, my hand
on it, I shall ask for nothing more."