THÉRÈSE'S REVENGE.
The daylight had returned, but the sun was not yet up, and the air was
cold, when a heavy hand was laid upon the sleeping squaws, and shook
them roughly.
"What are yez doin' here? Stailin' is it ye're afther, eh?"
"Sleep here all night," was Thérèse's answer, as she slowly regained
her feet. She was stiff with cold. "No home to go to--come here."
"A shindy at home was it? Turned out of doors is it ye are? Sarves ye
right, maybe. But it's a could sleepin' place, _al_ the same, and wan
niver knows. The gates won't be opened these two hours, but ye can
come in this way. Here's an empty luggige room, where yez cuddn't do
no harm ef ye wanted."
He ushered them in, closed the door behind them, and turned the key
with a knowing wink.
"Oi'm clair of yez now, me beauties. The pollisman can do as he thinks
best when he comes on at sivin o'clock. Oi've catched them if they're
wanted, an' that's as much as they kin expect from a night watchman."
The police sergeant arrived at his appointed time. The squaws had
accepted their confinement with a contented mind, and were asleep.
Under the shelter of a roof and on a wooden floor, they could stretch
themselves at length, which was grateful after the cramped position of
the night.
Their apathetic indifference convinced the man of authority that their
tale was true; they had come on the pier while the gates were open the
evening before, and fallen asleep. It was wrong, as he assured them,
and he could take them up for it; but to what good end? he asked
himself. He was a _virtuoso_ in malefactors, and did not care to
encumber himself with a capture out of which so little credit with his
superiors could be got, as three squawks sleeping on a pier.
"Look out, now!" he said, shaking his finger at them. "I let
you off this time, but if"--another shake of his finger--"but if
ever--I--catch-you here again--you may look out for squalls."
Thérèse had lifted her head in dull indifference; but at the sound of
his voice her face changed. She looked at him. It was now long ago
since she had heard that voice before--when she was quite a girl, the
speaker quite a young man--but the occasion was a momentous one. It
was when she had been arrested by mistake instead of Fidèle. If only
it had been Fidèle indeed; and if Fidèle had been punished then as she
deserved, she would not have come back again, like the hungry ghosts
of the long forgotten dead, to push the living from their stools and
bring them to ruin.
There kindled a red coal down deep at the bottom of Thérèse's eyes
and made them glow and burn, and the surging blood rose to her
weather-beaten cheek and reddened it behind the scarce transparent;
skin the lips parted, and the white teeth glistened, and for the
moment Thérèse in her fury looked handsomer, if in an evil way, than
she had ever done in her youth. It was no apathetic face now, carven
in walnut wood, but rather the features of a snake-haired fury, as one
may see them at times in the caverns of a red-coal fire.
She laid her hand upon the sergeant as he was turning to go, after
having discharged his prisoners.
"I know you," she said, as he turned in surprise. "Remember me?"
"You? Where have I seen you? When was it?"
"Long ago--_enfante perdue_--Remember now?"
"What? You the woman that stole the child, and the nuns got off? Yes,
I remember you. You should be at the _Isle aux Noix_ now, I do
believe. Look out, as I said a little ago, or you'll go there yet,
some day. Don't you be expecting the ladies will do as much for you
next time."
"_Enfante encore perdue?_"
"To be sure. Do you know where it is?"
"_Morte_," grunted Thérèse, with a wicked flash of her eye--"ze
bones."
"Murder? Do you say it was murdered? Did you see it done? Did you do
it yourself?"
"No. Fidèle and Paul."
"Will you swear out an information. There is a reward still out. It
has not been withdrawn that ever I heard. If I get you that reward, is
it a bargain that I am to draw it for you and keep half? Is it a
bargain?"
"Bargain."
"And you will swear an information?"
"Vill swear."
"Where shall I find you?--to-morrow morning, say?"
Thérèse shook her head despondingly, and looked at her children.
"Hungry."
"Who's your buck?"
"Paul was."
"I know Paul. Has he turned you off?"
"Got Fidèle."
"Aha! That's it, is it? And you know where those bones are? Sure?"
"Svear."
"Then you'll get even with them yet, my beauty. And, stay, here's a
dollar for you. You say you're hungry, and Paul has turned you out of
doors. Be on the Lachine side of the ferry this evening. I may have to
lock you up, but you'll be well used."
That evening, at sunset, the police landed Paul and Fidèle, both
handcuffed, on the Lachine wharf, where Thérèse joined the party of
her own accord, and they all proceeded by train to Montreal. Thérèse
could not refrain from uttering one cluck of triumph as she passed her
late master and looked at his bonds, while he shot her a look of fury
and strained at his handcuffs in a way which showed it was well that
they were strong; and then all the party subsided into the stony
stillness of their ordinary demeanour.
There was nothing very striking in the first examination which
followed. Thérèse recollected having seen a small grave dug in the
back kitchen, and an empty box laid beside it. Then Fidèle had come in
and exchanged clothes with her, and then she (Thérèse) went away.
Neither Fidèle nor the baby had been seen afterwards. She herself had
been taken up and accused of stealing the child, but it had been shown
that she had not left Caughnawaga on the day of the kidnapping, and
she had been acquitted. After that Paul had taken her as his squaw,
and they had lived together ever since. A fortnight ago Fidèle had
returned, and since then she had suffered much ill-usage, and finally
been turned out of doors.
The evidence seemed sufficient, but in court it would need as
corroboration the finding of the bones; therefore, there was a remand,
and two days later the prisoners were brought before the magistrate
again. The persons sent to dig under the floor had found a box, which
was produced, and a thrill of hushed excitement ran through the court
room; the male prisoner, even, threw aside his sullen stolidity,
turned to the constable in charge, and spoke a few words. The
constable conveyed the message to the Crown attorney, who addressed
the magistrate, and he forthwith appointed counsel for the defence,
leaning back in his chair, and allowing the young _avocat_ a few
minutes to converse with his client. The lawyer listened to Paul,
shook his head, raised his hand in remonstrance, and spoke soothingly;
but the red man's anger, having once found voice, grew fiercer and
more determined every moment. He shook out his long straight hair as a
furious animal will toss his mane, and gnashed his teeth, while his
usually dull eyes blazed like living coals. He put aside the arguments
and remonstrances of his adviser with a gesture of impatience, and,
looking to the magistrate, rose to his feet. The advocate, seeing that
his client was impracticable, preferred to take the work upon himself,
and addressed the bench.
He told "that, in spite of all which he could say, the prisoner--the
male one--while disclaiming art and part in the crime of murder, was
resolved to claim from the court that he should not stand his trial
alone, or in company only with the ignorant squaw who sat at his side.
Whatever had taken place--and here, in tribute to his own professional
credit, he must be permitted to say that it was sorely against his
wish and advice that he was now driven to admit that anything _had_
taken place, and he would have defied the learned counsel opposite to
prove that there had, and more, to bring it home to these much-injured
Indians--it was but right that the instigator should be brought to
stand his trial by the side of his instruments, and he claimed of the
court to permit the prisoner Paul to swear an information against
Ralph Herkimer, financier, broker, banker,"--"and bankrupt," some one
muttered--"for conspiring with and suborning, and inciting by promise
of gain, the prisoner Paul to steal, kidnap, abduct, and make away
with the infant daughter of George Selby, professor of music, in the
city of Montreal." He told "how the said Herkimer had continued to pay
an annual stipend or pension to the said Paul during many years, till,
on pressing the said Paul to make away with the said child, Paul had
declared that he could not, and the said stipend or pension had ceased
to be paid from that day forward."
It was with enhanced interest that, when this had been settled, and a
warrant ordered to issue for Herkimer's apprehension, the box was
placed on the table, and the lid ordered to be removed.
His worship, the magistrate, arranged his spectacles on his nose, the
county attorney compressed his lips to steady his nerves, lest the
sight of horror to be disclosed should disturb his delicate
sensibilities; and, then, as the lid came away, there appeared--what
might once have been a lock of hay! Time and mildew had done much to
destroy it, the shaking it had undergone since it was disturbed had
contributed yet more towards returning it to its primal condition of
dust; but hay it was, most surely, though even as they looked it
seemed crumbling away under the light and the freer air. The finders
had identified the box. It was manifestly the one referred to by the
chief witness. But where were the bones? Where any evidence of murder?
Not a morsel was there of bone, or even a lock of hair.
The magistrate shrugged his shoulders. He was a disinterested party,
and could appreciate without alloy of personal feeling the humour of
his court holding inquest upon an empty box. The Crown prosecutor bit
his lip, infinitely disconcerted, and the sergeant of police looked
foolish. There was still the charge of kidnapping, however, that was
sworn to by the chief witness, whose evidence, after all, was
confirmed by the box. It was a grave, a box, and a live baby which she
had seen, and she had not said that she saw the murder. The male
prisoner's own statement and confession, after being warned, was also
in evidence against him. His counsel turned and looked at him, as much
as to say, "I told you so; but you _would_ speak out, notwithstanding
my advice. Now, take the consequence."
Paul was more surprised than anybody at the discovery of emptiness
within the box. His jaw actually dropped in amazement, notwithstanding
the natural rigidity of his facial muscles. He might have got off, it
almost seemed; but then there would have been no information laid
against Herkimer, and ever since the day he had been dismissed with
contumely from his office before all those sniggering clerks, his
fingers had been itching to be at the man's throat, and only prudence
had restrained them. Fidèle's face remained unchanged, for, naturally,
she was not surprised; but there came a twinkle of childish humour
into her face to see how all those arrogant whites had been fooled by
a poor squaw.
Thérèse was disappointed, but not more than her experiences as a squaw
had long taught her to bear. The down-trodden are not much crushed
when an expectation gives way. Her foes, it was true, were not to be
tried for their lives, but they were still to be locked up, and
punished in some sort later on, while she herself, an indispensable
witness, would be well cared for till all was settled.