WHAT I FOUND
Once in the canoe I bade Lord Starling crouch low, and I paddled
fiercely. I breathed hard not from exertion, but like a swimmer
fighting for his breath. I was submerged in waves of terror, yet I had
no name for what I feared. I learned then that there is but one real
terror in the world,--fear of the unseen. The man who feels terror of
an open foe must be a strange craven.
Lord Starling respected my mood and was silent. He sat warily,
shifting his weight to suit the plunging canoe.
"The fog chokes me," he said at length. "How large a camp have you?
Whom did you leave on guard?"
I told him.
"That should be sufficient."
"Not for a concerted attack."
"But who would make a concerted attack?"
I lengthened my stroke till the canoe quivered. "I am not sure. I
have been shadowed. I thought it was by your order. I cannot talk and
paddle, monsieur."
But I could paddle and think. And always I saw the meadow as we had
found it that first day with drifts of white butterflies over the
flowers, and the woods warm and beckoning. How would the meadow look
now?
But when we came to it I thought it looked unchanged, save that the fog
made all things sinister. We crashed through the guarding reeds, and I
let the canoe drive hard upon the sand. No one was in sight, and a
wolf was whining at the edge of the timber. I leaped to the shore.
I think that I called as I stumbled forward. I saw the ashes of a dead
fire, and a cask that had held rum lying with the sides and end knocked
in. Then I saw a dead body.
I did not hasten then. My feet crawled. The body lay sprawled and
limp with its out-stretched fingers clutching. One hand pointed toward
the woman's cabin.
I turned the corpse over. It was Simon. His scarlet head was still
dripping, but his face was untouched. I saw that he had died
despairing, and I laid him back with a prayer on my lips but with the
lust to kill in my heart.
I went through the cabins quickly but methodically. I think that I
made no sound of grief or excitement, but I knew indefinitely that Lord
Starling was following me, and that, at horribly measured intervals, he
gave short, panting groans. But I did not speak to him, nor he to me.
I spoke for the first time at the woman's cabin. I looked within and
saw that it was untouched; then I put out my arm and barred Lord
Starling's way.
"I have never stepped in here, and you shall not," I told him with my
jaws set, and I think that I struck him across the face, though of that
I have never been quite sure.
In my own lodge I found havoc. Bales had been broken open, and my
papers were thrown and trampled. Many of the papers were blood-smeared.
I examined every cabin and every bale, then went to the ashes of the
camp fire and stood still. Lord Starling followed, and I heard his
smothered groan. I took out my knife.
"I shall kill you if you make that noise again," I said.
I think that I spoke quietly, but he stepped back. I saw that he was
afraid,--afraid of losing his miserable, mistaken life,--and I laughed.
I laughed for a long time. Hearing myself laugh, I knew that it
sounded as if I were near insanity, but I was not. My head had never
been clearer.
Perhaps Lord Starling conquered his fear. He came nearer and lifted
his magnificent, compelling bulk above me.
"Listen!" he began. "We have been foes; we shall be again; but now we
are knit closer than eye and brain in a common cause. I will deal with
you with absolute truth as with my own right hand. Tell me. Tell me,
in God's mercy! What do you know? Who did this? What can we do?"
His voice was judicial, but I saw his great frame swaying like a
shambling ox. I marveled that he could show emotion. My own body felt
dead.
"The woman has been taken away," my stiff, strange voice explained.
"So far they have not harmed her."
"How do you know?"
"There are no marks of struggle. Simon resisted, and they killed him.
The other men surrendered. The Indians wanted prisoners, not scalps."
"Was it Pemaou and his Hurons?"
"Yes."
"You are sure?"
"He left a broken spear in my lodge. There was bad blood between us
once, and I broke the spear in two and tossed the pieces at him,
telling him to keep them,--to keep them, for we should meet again. I
humbled him. Now it is his jest. He is a capable Indian. He seems to
have outwitted even you, monsieur."
Because I spoke as one dead he thought I needed leading. He took me by
the arm and would have guided me gently to the canoe.
"Come, Monsieur de Montlivet, you must rouse yourself. We must start
in pursuit."
I shook him off. "Sit here where it is dry. You need your strength.
We have hours to get through here before we leave, and little to do to
help us through the time. We must wait here for Pierre."
"What do you mean? We must go at once."
"No, we wait for Pierre. It may be dusk before he returns. I sent him
over the portage yesterday with orders to explore some leagues to the
south. We must wait for him. He can tell us whether Pemaou went east
by way of the portage."
"But we lose time!"
"We gain it. If Pemaou did not go by way of the portage, he went west.
He would not dare go north, for fear of the Pottawatamies, and he would
have no object in going south. He went east or west. We can learn
from Pierre."
The man's shoulders heaved. "Your men were cowards," he muttered.
I looked at him. So a coward could despise a coward! "My men were
wise," I corrected. "With Simon killed there were only two men
left,--one, rather, for Leclerc is a nonentity. Labarthe, left alone,
was wise to surrender. He is skillful with Indians. Monsieur, tell me
of your dealings with Pemaou. Tell me your trip here. I need details."
He measured me. "You dictate, monsieur?"
I pointed to Simon's body. "That is my claim."
He gulped at that, and turned his back on the red horror to fix his
steady, critical gaze on my face. "After the massacre," he began, with
an effort, "I followed many false trails. I went to Quebec, to
Montreal. All this has nothing to do with what you wish to know. But
at Montreal I first heard rumors of an English prisoner who was being
carried westward. That sent me to Michillimackinac."
"You heard this rumor through the priests?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"I thought so. It is fortunate for the success of your somewhat
complicated plans that you are a Catholic and a Jacobite."
"Is there a slur in that remark, monsieur?"
"Not unless the facts themselves are insulting, Our priests would see
no hidden purpose in your story. They would be predisposed in favor of
a Catholic and follower of James. They would give you letters where a
commandant would not. It was good policy to go to them."
"But, monsieur, I am a Catholic!"
"Which, I repeat, is fortunate."
"Monsieur, this is wanton insult. Are you trying to pick a quarrel
with me here, here with this tragedy around us? It is a dog's trick.
I will not fight you."
Again I took out my knife. "I will not fight you here,--here with this
tragedy around us,--but I may kill you. I shall do it if you do not
tell me this story fairly. I care nothing for your life, and I need
this story. I will have it if I have to choke it out of your throat."
"I am trying to tell you the story, monsieur."
"No. You are telling me a pleasant fairy tale of a love-lorn knight
searching the wilderness for his lost mistress. A moving tale,
monsieur, but not the true one. I want the real story. The story of
the English spy who wishes to ransom his cousin, but who also treats
secretly with the Hurons,--who treats with Pemaou, monsieur. Tell me
his story."
His face did not alter. "You believe me a spy?"
"I have reason, monsieur."
Still he regarded me. "You might be right, but you are not. Monsieur,
I am a broken man. I want nothing but my cousin. If there is intrigue
around me I do not know it. I am telling you the truth."
I fought hard against the man's fascination, his splendid, ruined pomp.
"You must have a code," I burst out. "There must be something you hold
dear. Will you swear to me by the name of the woman that you have not
had secret dealings with the Hurons?"
"I swear."
"But the profile that the Huron carried!"
"Those pictures I scattered broadcast. You will find them among the
Algonquins, and the Ottawas of the upper river. My cousin has a
distinctive profile. I offered rewards for news of any one--man or
woman--who looked like the face that I had drawn."
I put out my hand. "I hope that I have wronged you, monsieur."
He bowed and touched my fingers. His own were icy, yet he shivered at
the chill of mine. "Pemaou would not dare harm the woman. Monsieur de
Montlivet, you know Indians. Surely Pemaou would not dare?"
I gripped my knife. "No man knows Indians! Where did you see Pemaou
first?"
"At Michillimackinac. When I reached there and learned that the
prisoner had gone with you I sent interpreters through the camps with
offers of reward for news of your whereabouts. Pemaou came. He said
he could locate you and I took him as guide."
"He selected his own escort?"
"Yes."
"And you traveled slowly?"
"Very slowly."
I fingered my pipe and bit hard at its stem. "Pemaou has played
carefully. He had the woman captured and brought to camp. The time
was not ripe for him to use her, so he let me carry her away. But he
has had me shadowed. You played well into his hands, for you furnished
blankets and provisions. He had no intention of letting you find us.
We are equal dupes. I see that I wronged you, monsieur."
He looked down, his breath laboring. I could look at him now without
recoil, for a common humiliation bound us. We were white and we had
been tricked by a savage. We sat in heavy silence.
At last Starling spoke dully. "Why did Pemaou wait so long?"
I gripped my knife the closer. "That we shall learn when we learn what
he has done with the woman."
He looked up with his jaw shaking. "Monsieur, we must make haste."
But I shook my head. "Monsieur, no. We must await Pierre."
The fog was withdrawing. It was noon, and I rose and made ready a
grave for Simon. I chose a spot under a pine where I had seen the
woman sit, and I dug deep as my crude implements would permit. Then I
piled stones on the mound. The Englishman helped me, and together we
said a prayer. We did not comment till our work was over. Then
Starling looked down at the mound.
"I wonder why he was killed? The others surrendered."
I shrugged a trifle bitterly. "He loved the woman. It was not her
fault. I doubt that she knew it, and she could not help it. But it
cost him his life, for it made him attempt to carry a forlorn hope.
And she never even knew. It is suicide to love a woman hopelessly,
monsieur."
It was hideous when we went back to our seats by the ashes. The sun
had come out hot and nauseating, and the flies buzzed horribly. We
tried to crowd down food, but we could not swallow. We sat and chewed
on our despairing thoughts, and hate that was a compound of physical
faintness and sick uncertainty rose between us.
The Englishman took a miniature from his pocket and handed it to me.
"She gave it to me herself," he said. "With laughter and with kisses,
monsieur."
I tried to wave the picture away, but I had not strength to resist
looking. It was no profile that I saw. The brown eyes looked full in
mine; merry eyes, challenging, fun-crowded, innocent. There were no
sombre shadows there. There was spirit in plenty, but no sorrow.
White shoulders rose from clouds of pink gauze, and the hair was
powdered and pearl-wreathed and piled high in a coronet. It was not
the face of the woman that I knew. I said so, and returned the
portrait to the Englishman.
He could not resist baiting me. "You do not like it, monsieur?"
I shook my head. "It is nothing to me. It is the face of a laughing,
trusting, untouched girl. I have never seen her."
"You say that you married her."
"Monsieur, this is a girl. I married a woman, a woman matured by
tragedy. The eyes that are laughing in this portrait are wiser now.
They have seen the depths of a man's treachery. But they have not lost
their spirit, no, nor their tenderness, monsieur. You will find little
that you recognize in the woman who is now my wife."
He kept his composure. "You use the word 'wife' very glibly," he said,
with a yawn. "Do you use it when the lady is within hearing, as you do
now?"
"She is my wife."
He laughed, for he saw he had drawn blood. "Your wife in name,
perhaps,--I grant you that,--but not in fact. Do you think me blind
that I should not see the two cabins. And you said that you had never
crossed the threshold of the woman's room. I see that I shall find my
cousin the maiden that I left her, monsieur."
I kept my lips closed. He had indeed drawn blood. I could not answer.
He leaned forward and tapped a significant forefinger on my knee.
"Remember, she has kissed me, monsieur. She has kissed me often of her
own will."
And then my spirit did return. "That does not concern me."
He lifted his great lip. "You are indulgent."
The flies buzzed odiously. The Englishman was gloating over me, his
great head craned forward like a buzzard's. My brain took fire.
"I am not indulgent," I said slowly, with my throat dry. "I am wise.
She has kissed you, yes. I have no doubt that she has kissed you many
times, casually, lightly, indifferently. She brushed the plumage of
her falcon in the same way. You are welcome to the memory of those
kisses, my lord. You may have more like them in the future, and I
shall not say you nay. They mean nothing."
He scowled at me. "What do you know of her kisses?" he said under his
breath.
I looked him in the eye. "I know this. There is but one kiss that
means anything from a woman, and she gives it, if she is the right kind
of a woman, to but one man in her life. For the rest,--I value them no
more than the brush of her finger-tips. Tell me, have you felt her
lips pressed to yours till her breath and her soul were one with you?
Tell me that. Answer, I say."
I had let the cord of reason and decency slip. I rose, and I think
that the hate in my face must have been wolfish, for the man drew back.
He tried to look contemptuous, but I saw fear in his eyes. Fear and
something more,--a sudden pain and longing. The emotion that
heretofore he had kept well in hand trapped him for the moment. I was
answered. The woman might never be mine, but she had never been his,
either. I turned away. I was triumphant, but I loathed myself. I was
sick with the situation, and the man who had brought me to it.
"You may keep your kisses, monsieur," I said savagely. "You may keep
them. But if you mention them to me again I shall throttle you where
you stand."
The Englishman had felt the revulsion, and he showed no resentment of
my heat. He heaved himself up in the hot, horrible sunshine and rubbed
his hands as if washing them free.
"We are curs," he said quietly.
I could not say nay. "We must eat," I cautioned; "we must eat, and
keep ourselves sane. If we can get through this day without murder or
worse, we shall have work to do from now on that will serve to keep our
heads clear. Pierre will be coming soon now."
Starling was regarding me keenly. "You lose your temper, and therefore
you should be easy to read," he said reflectively. "But you are not.
You evidently married my cousin for convenience. I can understand the
situation. But you stand by your bargain well. You have the honor of
your name somewhat sensitively at heart. But if you had not married
her---- If there were no compulsion, no outside reason--tell me, would
you marry her now?"
But that I left unanswered.