"There was a stampede of the cattle loosened from the stable. Father
Vincent fell into the empty trench. They doubtless lost sight of him
until he came out again."
"Therefore, monsieur?"
"It seemed to me as your lordship said, that this man scarce had the
bearing of a friar, until, indeed, he spoke out in denunciation, and
then his voice sounded a deeper tone than I ever heard in it before."
"Why did you not tell me this directly?"
"My lord, I had not thought it until he showed such readiness to move
toward yon fort."
"Did you examine the trench?"
"No, my lord. I hurried the friar hither at your command."
"It was the part of a prudent soldier," sneered his master, "to leave a
dark trench possibly full of La Tour's recruits, and trot a friar into
camp."
"But the sentinels are there, monsieur, and they gave no alarm."
"The sentinels are like you. They will think of giving an alarm
to-morrow sunrise, when the fort is strengthened by a new garrison. Take
a company of men, surround that trench, double the guards, send me back
that friar, and do all with such haste as I have never seen thee show in
my service yet."
"Yes, my lord."
While the officer ran among the tents, D'Aulnay walked back and forth
outside, nervously impatient to have his men gone. He whispered with a
laugh in his beard, "Charles de Menou, D'Aulnay de Charnisay, are you to
be twice beaten by a woman? If La Tour hath come back with help and
entered the fort, the siege may as well be raised to-morrow."
The cowled soldier taxed his escort in the speed he made across that
dark country separating camp and fortress.
"Go softly, good father," remonstrated one of the officers, stumbling
among stones. "The Sieur D'Aulnay meant not that we should break our
necks at this business."
But he led them with no abatement and a stern and offended mien;
wondering secretly if the real Father Vincent would by this time be able
to make some noise in the trench. Unaccountable night sounds startled
the ear. He turned to the fortress ascent while the trench yet lay
distant.
"There is an easier way, father," urged one of the men, obliged,
however, to follow him and bend to the task of climbing. The discomfort
of treading stony soil in sandals, and the sensibility of his uncovered
shins to even that soft night air, made him smile under the cowl. A
sentinel challenged them and was answered by his companions. Passing on,
they reached the wall near the gate. Here the hill sloped less abruptly
than at the towered corner. The rocky foundation of Fort St. John made
a moat impossible. Guards on the wall now challenged them, and the
muzzles of three guns looked down, distinct eyes in the lifted
torchlight, but at the sign of truce these were withdrawn.
"The Sieur D'Aulnay de Charnisay sends this friar with dispatches to the
lady of the fort," said one of the officers. "Call your lady to receive
them into her own hand. These are our orders."
"And put down a ladder," said the other officer, "that he may ascend
with them."
"We put down no ladders," answered the man leaning over the wall. "We
will call our lady, but you must yourselves find an arm long enough to
lift your dispatches to her."
During this parley, the rush of men coming from the camp began to be
heard. The guards on the wall listened, and two of them promptly trained
the cannon in that direction.
"You have come to surprise us again," taunted the third guard, leaning
over the wall; "but the Swiss is not here now!"
The soldier saw his escape was cut off, and desperately casting back his
monk's hood, he shouted upwards,--
"La Tour! La Tour! Put down the ladder--it is Edelwald!"
XVII.
AN ACADIAN PASSOVER.
At that name, down came a ladder as if shot from a catapult. Edelwald
sprung up the rounds and both of D'Aulnay's officers seized him. He had
drawn one of his long pistols and he clubbed it on their heads so that
they staggered back. The sentinels and advancing men fired on him, but
by some muscular flash he was flat upon the top of the wall, and the
cannon sprung with a roar at his enemies. They were directly in its
track, and they took to the trench. Edelwald, dragging the ladder up
after him, laughed at the state in which they must find Father Vincent.
The entire garrison rushed to the walls, and D'Aulnay's camp stirred
with the rolling of drums. Then there was a pause, and each party
waited further aggression from the other. The fort's gun had spoken but
once. Perhaps some intelligence passed from trench to camp. Presently
the unsuccessful company ventured from their breastwork and moved away,
and both sides again had rest for the night.
Madame La Tour stood in the fort, watching the action of her garrison
outlined against the sky. She could no longer ascend the wall by her
private stairs. Cannon shot had torn down her chimney and piled its rock
in a barricade against the door. Sentinels were changed, and the
relieved soldiers descended from the wall and returned to that great
room of the tower which had been turned into a common camp. It seemed
under strange enchantment. There was a hole beside the portrait of
Claude La Tour, and through its tunnel starlight could be seen and the
night air breathed in. The carved buffet was shattered. The usual log,
however, burned in cheer, and families had reunited in distinct nests. A
pavilion of tapestry was set up for Lady Dorinda and all her treasures,
near the stairs: the southern window of her chamber had been made a
target.
Le Rossignol sat on a table, with the four expectant children still
dancing in front of her. Was it not Pâques evening? The alarm being over
she again began her merriest tunes. Irregular life in a besieged
fortress had its fascination for the children. No bedtime laws could be
enforced where the entire household stirred. But to Shubenacadie such
turmoil was scandalous. He also lived in the hall during the day, and as
late at night as his mistress chose, but he lived a retired life,
squatted in a corner, hissing at all who passed near him. Perhaps he
pined for water whereon to spread his wings and sail. Sometimes he
quavered a plaintive remark on society as he found it, and sometimes he
stretched up his neck to its longest length, a sinuous white serpent,
and gazed wrathfully at the paneled ceiling. The firelight revealed him
at this moment a bundle of glistening satin, wrapped in sleep and his
wings from the alarms of war.
Marie stood at the hearth to receive Edelwald. He came striding from
among her soldiers, his head showing like a Roman's above the cowl. It
was dark-eyed, shapely of feature, and with a mouth and inward curve
above the chin so beautiful that their chiseled strength was always a
surprise. As he faced the lady of the fortress he stood no taller than
she did, but his contour was muscular.
After dropping on his knee to kiss her hand, he stood up to bear the
search of her eyes. They swept down his friar's dress and found it not
so strange that it should supplant her immediate inquiry,--
"Your news? My lord is well?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Is he without?"
"My lady, he is at the outpost at the head of Fundy Bay."
Her face whitened terribly. She knew what this meant. La Tour could get
no help. Nicholas Denys denied him men. There was no hope of rescue for
Fort St. John. He was waiting in the outpost for his ship to bring him
home--the home besieged by D'Aulnay. The blood returned to her face with
a rush, her mouth quivered, and she sobbed two or three times without
tears. La Tour could have taken her in his arms. But Edelwald folded his
empty arms across his breast.
"My lady, I would rather be shot than bring you this message."
"Klussman betrayed us, Edelwald! and I know I hurt men, hurt them with
my own hands, striking and shooting on the wall!"
She threw herself against the settle and shook with weeping. It was the
revolt of womanhood. The soldier hung his head. It relieved him to
declare savagely,--
"Klussman hath his pay. D'Aulnay's followers have just hanged him below
the fort."
"Hanged him! Hanged poor Klussman? Edelwald, I cannot have
Klussman--hanged!"
Le Rossignol had stopped her mandolin, and the children clustered near
Edelwald waiting for his notice. One of them now ran with the news to
her.
"Klussman is hanged," she repeated, changing her position on the table
and laying the mandolin down. "Faith, we are never satisfied with our
good. I am in a rage now because they hanged not the woman in his
stead."
Marie wiped off her tears. The black rings of sleeplessness around her
eyes emphasized her loss of color, but she was beautiful.
"How foolish doth weariness make a woman! I expected no help from
Denys--yet rested my last hope on it. You must eat, Edelwald. By your
dress and the alarm raised you have come into the fort through danger
and effort."
"My lady, if, you will permit me first to go to my room, I will find
something which sorts better with a soldier than this churchman's gown.
My buckskin, I was obliged to mutilate to make me a proper friar."
"Go, assuredly. But I know not what rubbish the cannon of D'Aulnay have
battered down in your room. The monk's frock will scarce feel lonesome
in that part of our tower now: we have had two Jesuits to lodge there
since you left."
"Did they carry away Madame Bronck? I do not see her among your women."
"She is fortunate, Edelwald. A man loved her, and traveled hither from
the Orange settlement. They were wed five days ago, and set out with the
Jesuits to Montreal."
Marie did not lift her heavy eyelids while she spoke, and anguish passed
unseen across Edelwald's face. Whoever was loved and fortunate, he stood
outside of such experience. He was young, but there was to be no wooing
for him in the world, however long war might spare him. The women of the
fort waited with their children for his notice. His stirring to turn
toward them rustled a paper under his capote.
"My lady," he said pausing, "D'Aulnay had me in his camp and gave me
dispatches to you."
"You were there in this friar's dress?"
Marie looked sincerely the pride she took in his simple courage.
"Yes, my lady, though much against my will. I was obliged to knock down
a reverend shaveling and strip him. But the gown hath served fairly for
the trouble."
"Hath D'Aulnay many men?"
"He is well equipped."
Edelwald took the packet from his belt and gave it to her. Marie broke
the thread and sat down on the settle, spreading D'Aulnay's paper to the
firelight. She read it in silence, and handed it to Edelwald. He leaned
toward the fire and read it also.
D'Aulnay de Charnisay demanded the surrender of Fort St. John with all
its stores, ammunition, moneys and plate, and its present small
garrison. When Edelwald looked up, Marie extended her hand for the
dispatch and threw it into the fire.
"Let that be his answer," said Edelwald.
"If we surrender," spoke the lady of the fort, "we will make our own
terms."
"My lady, you will not surrender."
As she looked at Edelwald, the comfort of having him there softened the
resolute lines of her face into childlike curves. Being about the same
age she felt always a youthful comradeship with him. Her eyes again
filled.
"Edelwald, we have lost ten men."
"D'Aulnay has doubtless lost ten or twenty times as many."
"What are men to him? Cattle, which he can buy. But to us, they are
priceless. To say nothing of your rank, Edelwald, you alone are worth
more than all the armies D'Aulnay can muster."
He sheltered his face with one hand as if the fire scorched him.
"My lady, Sieur Charles would have us hold this place. Consider: it is
his last fortress except that stockade."
"You mistake him, Edelwald. He would save the garrison and let the fort
go. If he or you had not come to-night I must have died of my
troubles."
She conquered some sobbing, and asked, "How does he bear this despair,
Edelwald? for he knew it must come to this without help."
"He was heartsick with anxiety to return, my lady."
She leaned against the back of the settle.
"Do not say things to induce me to sacrifice his men for his fort."
"Do you think, my lady, that D'Aulnay would spare the garrison if he
gets possession of this fort?"
"On no other condition will he get the fort. He shall let all my brave
men go out with the honors of war."
"But if he accepts such terms--will he keep them?"
"Is not any man obliged to keep a written treaty?"
"Kings are scarce obliged to do that."
"I see what you would do," said Marie, "and I tell you it is useless.
You would frighten me with D'Aulnay into allowing you, our only
officer, and these men, our only soldiers, to ransom this fort with your
lives. It comes to that. We might hold out a few more days and end by
being at his mercy."
"Let the men themselves be spoken to," entreated Edelwald.
"They will all, like you, beg to give themselves to the holding of
Charles La Tour's property. I have balanced these matters night and day.
We must surrender, Edelwald. We must surrender to-morrow."
"My lady, I am one more man. And I will now take charge of the defense."
"And what could I say to my lord if you were killed?--you, the friend of
his house, the soldier who lately came with such hopes to Acadia. Our
fortunes do you harm enough, Edelwald. I could never face my lord again
without you and his men."
"Sieur Charles loves me well enough to trust me with his most dangerous
affairs, my lady. The keeping of this fortress shall be one of them."
"O Edelwald, go away from me now!" she cried out piteously. He dropped
his head and turned on the instant. The women met him and the children
hung to him; and that little being who was neither woman nor child so
resented the noise which they made about him as he approached her table
that she took her mandolin and swept them out of her way.
"How fares Shubenacadie?" he inquired over the claw she presented to
him.
"Shubenacadie's feathers are curdled. He hath greatly soured. Confess me
and give me thy benediction, Father Edelwald for I have sinned."
"Not since I took these orders, I hope," said Edelwald. "As a Capuchin I
am only an hour old."
"Within the hour, then, I have beaten my swan, bred a quarrel amongst
these spawn of the common soldier, and wished a woman hanged."
"A naughty list," said Edelwald.
"Yes, but lying is worse than any of these. Lying doth make the soul
sick."
"How do you know that?"
"I have tried it," said Le Rossignol. "Many a time have I tried it.
Scarce half an hour ago I told her forlorn old highness that the fort
was surely taken this time, and I think she hath buried herself in her
chest."
"Edelwald," said a voice from the tapestried pavilion. Lady Dorinda's
head and hand appeared, with the curtains drawn behind them.
As the soldier bent to his service upon the hand of the old maid of
honor, she exclaimed whimsically,--
"What, Edelwald! Are our fortunes at such ebb that you are taking to a
Romish cloister?"
"No cloister for me. Your ladyship sees only a cover which I think of
rendering to its owner again. He may not have a second capote in the
world, being friar extraordinary to D'Aulnay de Charnisay, who is
notable for seizing other men's goods."
"Edelwald, you bring ill news?"
"There was none other to bring."
"Is Charles La Tour then in such straits that we are to have no relief
in this fortress?"
"We can look for nothing, Lady Dorinda."
"Thou seest now, Edelwald, how France requites his service. If he had
listened to his father he might to-day be second to none in Acadia, with
men and wealth in abundance."
"Yet, your ladyship, we love our France!"
"Oh, you do put me out of patience! But the discomforts and perils of
this siege have scarce left me any. We are walled together here like
sheep."
"It is trying, your ladyship, but if we succeed in keeping the butcher
out we may do better presently."
Marie sent her woman for writing tools, and was busy with them when
Edelwald returned in his ordinary rich dark dress. She made him a place
beside her on the settle, and submitted the paper to his eye. The women
and children listened. They knew their situation was desperate.
Whispering together they decided with their lady that she would do best
to save her soldiers and sacrifice the fort.
Edelwald read the terms she intended to demand, and then looked aside at
the beautiful and tender woman who had borne the hardships of war. She
should do anything she wished. It was worth while to surrender if
surrendering decreased her care. All Acadia was nothing when weighed
against her peace of mind. He felt his rage mounting against Charles La
Tour for leaving her exposed in this frontier post, the instrument of
her lord's ambition and political feud. In Edelwald's silent and
unguessed warfare with his secret, he had this one small half hour's
truce. Marie sat under his eyes in firelight, depending on the comfort
of his presence. Rapture opened its sensitive flower and life
culminated for him. Unconscious of it, she wrote down his suggestions,
bending her head seriously to the task.
Edelwald himself finally made a draft of the paper for D'Aulnay. The
weary men had thrown themselves down to sleep, and heard no colloquy.
But presently the cook was aroused from among them and bid to set out
such a feast as he had never before made in Fort St. John.
"Use of our best supplies," directed Marie. "To-morrow we may give up
all we have remaining to the enemy. We will eat a great supper together
this Pâques night."
The cook took an assistant and labored well. Kettles and pans multiplied
on coals raked out for their service. Marie had the men bring such doors
as remained from the barracks and lay them from table to table, making
one long board for her household; and this the women dressed in the best
linen of the house. They set on plate which had been in La Tour's
family for generations. Every accumulation of prosperity was brought out
for this final use. The tunnel in the wall was stopped with blankets,
and wax candles were lighted everywhere. Odors of festivity filled the
children with eagerness. It was like the new year when there was always
merry-making in the hall, yet it was also like a religious ceremony. The
men rose from their pallets and set aside screens, and the news was
spread when sentinels were changed.
Marie called Zélie up to her ruined apartment, and standing amidst stone
and plaster, was dressed in her most magnificent gown and jewels. She
appeared on the stairs in the royal blackness of velvet whitened by
laces and sparkling with points of tinted fire. Edelwald led her to the
head of the long board, and she directed her people to range themselves
down its length in the order of their families.
"My men," said Madame La Tour to each party in turn as they were
relieved on the walls to sit down at the table below her, "we are
holding a passover supper this Pâques night because it may be our last
night in Fort St. John. You all understand how Sieur de la Tour hath
fared. We are reduced to the last straits. Yet not to the last straits,
my men, if we can keep you. With such followers your lord can make some
stand elsewhere. D'Aulnay has proposed a surrender. I refused his terms,
and have set down others, which will sacrifice the fort but save the
garrison. Edelwald, our only officer, is against surrender, because he,
like yourselves, would give the greater for the less, which I cannot
allow."
"My lady," spoke Glaud Burge, a sturdy grizzled man, rising to speak for
the first squad, "we have been talking of this matter together, and we
think Edelwald is right. The fort is hard beset, and it is true there
are fewer of us than at first, but we may hold out somehow and keep the
walls around us. We have no stomach to strike flag to D'Aulnay de
Charnisay."
"My lady," spoke Jean le Prince, the youngest man in the fortress, who
was appointed to speak for the second squad when their turn came to sit
down at the table, "we also think Edelwald is right in counseling you
not to give up Fort St. John. We say nothing of D'Aulnay's hanging
Klussman, for Klussman deserved it. But we would rather be shot down man
by man than go out by the grace of D'Aulnay."
She answered both squads,--
"Do not argue against surrender, my men. We can look for no help. The
fort must go in a few more days anyhow, and by capitulating we can make
terms. My lord can build other forts, but where will he find other
followers like you? You will march out not by the grace of D'Aulnay but
with the honors of war. Now speak of it no more, and let us make this a
festival."
So they made it a festival. With guards coming and going constantly,
every man took the pleasure of the hall while the walls were kept.
Such a night was never before celebrated in Fort St. John. A heavier
race might have touched the sadness underlying such gayety; or have
fathomed moonlight to that terrible burden of the elm-tree down the
slope. But this French garrison lent themselves heartily to the hour,
enjoying without past or future. Stories were told of the New World and
of France, tales of persecuted Huguenots, legends which their fathers
had handed down to them, and traditions picked up among the Indians.
Edelwald took the dwarf's mandolin and stood up among them singing the
songs they loved, the high and courageous songs, loving songs, and songs
of faith. Lady Dorinda, having shut her curtain for the night, declined
to take any part in this household festivity, though she contributed
some unheard sighs and groans of annoyance during its progress. A
phlegmatic woman, fond of her ease, could hardly keep her tranquillity,
besieged by cannon in the daytime, and by chattering and laughter, the
cracking of nuts and the thump of soldiers' feet half the night.
But Shubenacadie came out of his corner and lifted his wings for battle.
Le Rossignol first soothed him and then betrayed him into shoes of birch
bark which she carried in her pocket for the purpose of making
Shubenacadie dance. Shubenacadie began to dance in a wild untutored trot
most laughable to see. He varied his paddling on the flags by sallies
with bill and wings against the dear mistress who made him a spectacle;
and finally at Marie's word he was relieved, and waddled back to his
corner to eat and doze and mutter swan talk against such orgies in Fort
St. John. The children had long fallen asleep with rapturous fatigue,
when Marie stood up and made her people follow her in a prayer. The
waxlights were then put out, screens divided the camp, and quiet
followed.
Of all nights in Le Rossignol's life this one seemed least likely to be
chosen as her occasion for a flight. The walls were strictly guarded,
and at midnight the moon spread its ghostly day over all visible earth.
Besides, if the fortress was to be surrendered, there was immediate
prospect of a voyage for all the household.
The dwarf's world was near the ground, to which the thinking of the tall
men and women around her scarcely stooped. But she seized on and weighed
and tried their thoughts, arriving at shrewd issues. Nobody had asked
her advice about the capitulation. Without asking anybody's advice she
decided that the Hollandais Van Corlaer and the Jesuit priest Father
Jogues would be wholesome checks upon D'Aulnay de Charnisay when her
lady opened the fort to him. The weather must have prevented Van Corlaer
from getting beyond the sound of cannon, and neither he nor the priest
could indifferently leave the lady of St. John to her fate, and Madame
Antonia would refuse to do it. Le Rossignol believed the party that had
set out early in the week must be encamped not far away.
Edelwald mounted a bastion with the sentinels. That weird light of the
moon which seems the faded and forgotten ghost of day, rested
everywhere. The shadow of the tower fell inward, and also partly covered
the front wall. This enchanted land of night cooled Edelwald. He threw
his arms upward with a passionate gesture to which the soldiers had
become accustomed in their experience of the young chevalier.
"What is that?" exclaimed the man nearest him, for there was disturbance
in the opposite bastion. Edelwald moved at once across the interval of
wall and found the sentinels in that bastion divided between laughter
and superstitious awe.
"She's out again," said one.
"Who is out?" demanded Edelwald.
"The little swan-riding witch."
"You have not let the dwarf scale this wall? If she could do that
unobserved, my men, we are lax."