A GHOSTLY VISION
The touch of the water brought renewed life to De Croix. This was
shown by the brighter color stealing into his cheeks, as well as by the
more careless tone that crept into his voice. The lake proved shallow
for some considerable distance off shore, and I compelled the Frenchman
to wade with me southward, and as far out as we dared venture, until we
must have reached the extreme limit of the field of massacre. Indeed,
I fully believed we had passed beyond the point where the attack had
first burst upon Captain Wells's Miamis; for I could perceive no sign
of any bodies lying opposite us against the white background of sand.
As the night drew on, squads of savages wandered over the scene of
slaughter, despoiling the stiffening corpses, and taking from the
wagons whatever might suit their fancy. Yet we were now so far removed
that we could distinguish little of their deeds, although the sound of
their voices echoed plainly enough across the water to our ears.
As time passed, the numbness that had paralyzed my brain, either from
the cruel blow that felled me or the terrible shock my nerves had
experienced, gradually passed away, and our situation became more vivid
to my mind. I thought again of all who had gone forth that morning
filled with hope and life. I had, it is true, known none of them long,
but there were many in that ill-fated company who had already grown
dear to me, and one was among them who I now knew beyond all question
was to remain in my heart forever.
I recalled the faces one by one, with some tender memory for each in
turn. I thought of the brave Captain Wells, with his swarthy face, and
Indian training, who had proved himself so truly my friend for my
father's sake; of Captain Heald, the typical bluff soldier of the
border, ready to sacrifice everything to what he deemed his duty; of
Lieutenant Helm, grave of face and calm of speech, always so thoughtful
of his sweet girl bride; and of young Ronan, loyal of heart and
impetuous of deed, whose frank manliness had so drawn me to him. And
now all these brave, true comrades were dead! Only five or six hours
ago I had spoken with them, had ridden by their side; now they lay
motionless yonder, stricken down by the basest treachery, their poor
bodies hacked and mutilated almost beyond recognition. I could
scarcely realize the awful truth; it rested upon me like some horrible
dream, from which I knew I must soon awaken.
But it was Mademoiselle,--Toinette, with the laughing eyes and roguish
face, which yet could be so tender,--whose memory held me vibrating
between constant dread and hope. Living or dead, I must know the truth
concerning her, before I felt the slightest consideration for my own
preservation. If I lived, it should be for her sake, not mine. Plan
after plan came to me as I stood there, my face barely raised above the
water level, praying for the westering sun to sink beneath the horizon.
Yet all my plans were so vague, so visionary, so filled with
difficulties and uncertainties, that at last I had nothing practical
outlined beyond a firm determination in some way to reach the Indian
camp and there learn what I could of its black secrets. I wondered
whether this rash hare-brained Frenchman would aid or hinder such a
purpose; and I glanced aside at him, curious to test the working of his
mind in such a time of trial.
"Saint Guise!" he exclaimed, marking my look, but misinterpreting it;
"the sun has gone down at last, and there seems a chill in the air
where it strikes my wet skin. It is in my thought to wade ashore,
Master Wayland, and seek food for our journey, as I can perceive no
savages near at hand."
"It will be safer if we wait here another half-hour," I answered,
almost inclined to smile at the queer figure he cut, with his long, wet
hair hanging down his shoulders. Then I added, "What journey do you
contemplate?"
He gazed at me, his face full of undisguised amazement.
"What journey? Why, Mon Dieu! to the eastward, of course! Surely you
have no wish to linger in this pleasant spot?"
"And is that the way of a French soldier?" I asked, almost angrily. "I
thought you made the journey westward, Monsieur, for the sake of one
you professed greatly to admire; and now you confess yourself willing
to leave her here to the mercy of these red wolves. Is this the way of
it?"
I spoke the words coolly, and they cut him to the quick. His face
flushed and his eyes flashed with anger; yet I faced him quietly,
though I doubt not I should have felt his hand upon me had we been
better circumstanced for struggle.
"How know you she lives?" he asked sullenly, eying the rifle I still
held across my shoulder.
"I do not know, Monsieur, except that her body is not upon the field
yonder; but I will know before I leave, or give my life in the search.
And if you really loved her as you professed to do, you would dream of
nothing less."
"Love her?" he echoed, his gaze upon the sand, now partially obscured
in the descending twilight. "_Sacre_! I truly thought I did, for the
girl certainly has beauty and wit, and wove a spell about me in
Montreal. But she has become as a wild bird out here, and is a most
perplexing vixen, laughing at my protestations, so that indeed I hardly
know whether it would be worth the risk to stay."
Hateful and selfish as these words sounded, and much as I longed to
strike the lips that uttered them so coolly, yet their utterance
brought a comfort to my heart, and I stared at the fellow, biting my
tongue to keep back the words of disgust I felt.
"So this is the measure of your French gallantry, Monsieur! I am
sincerely glad my race holds a different conception of the term. Then
you will leave me here?"
"Leave you? _Sacre_! how could I ever hope to find my way alone
through the wilderness? 'T would be impossible. Yet why should we
stay here? What can you and I hope to accomplish in so mad a search
amid all these savages? You speak harsh words,--words that under other
conditions I should make you answer for with the sword; but what is the
good of it all? You know I am no coward; I can fight if there be need;
yet to my mind no help can reach Toinette through us, while to remain
here longer is no less than suicide."
I saw he was in earnest, and I felt there was much truth in his words,
however little they affected my own determination.
"As you please, Monsieur," I answered coldly, turning from him and
slowly wading ashore. "With me 't is not matter for argument. I seek
Mademoiselle. You are at perfect liberty either to accompany me or to
hunt for safety elsewhere, as you wish."
I never so much as glanced behind, as I went up the beach, now shrouded
in the swift-descending night; but I was aware that he kept but a step
behind me. Once I heard him swear; but there was no more speaking
between us, until, in the darkness, I stumbled and partially fell over
a dead body outstretched upon the sand.
"A Miami, judging from the fringe of his leggings," I said briefly,
from my knees. "One of the advance guard, no doubt, brought down in
flight. 'T is good luck, though, De Croix, for the fellow has retained
his rifle. Perchance if you be well armed also, it may yield you fresh
courage."
"_Parbleu_! 'tis not courage I lack," he returned, with something of
his old-time spirit, "but I hate greatly to yield up a chance for life
on so mad an errand. More, Master Wayland, had this firearm been in my
hands when you flouted me in the water yonder, your words should not
have been so easily passed over."
The stars gave me a dim view of him, and there was a look in his face
that caused me to feel it would be best to have our trouble settled
fully, and without delay.
"Monsieur," I said sternly, laying my hand upon his shoulder, and
compelling him to front me fairly, "I for one am going into danger
where I shall require every resource in order to preserve my life and
be of service to others. I have already told you that I care not
whether you accompany me or no. But this I say: we part here, or else
you journey with me willingly, and with no more veiled threats or side
looks of treachery."
"I meant no harm."
"Then act the part of a man, Monsieur, and cease your grumbling. The
very life of Mademoiselle may hang upon our venture; and if you ever
interfere or obstruct my purpose, I will kill you as I would a dog.
You understand that, Monsieur de Croix; now, will you go or stay?"
He looked about him into the lonely, desolate shadows, and I could see
him shrug his shoulders.
"I go with you, of course. _Sacre_! but I have small choice in the
matter; 't would be certain death otherwise, for I know not east from
west in this blind waste of sand."
I turned abruptly from him, and strode forward across the sand-ridge
out into the short prairie grass beyond, shaping my course westward by
the stars. However revengeful the Frenchman might feel at my plain
speaking, I felt no hesitancy in trusting him to follow, as his life
depended upon my guidance through the wilderness.
My mind by this time was fairly settled upon our first movement. The
only spot that gave promise of a safe survey of the Indian camp, where
doubtless such prisoners as there were would be held, I felt sure would
be found amid the shadows of the west bank of that southerly stream
along which the lodges were set up. From that vantage point, if from
any, I should be able to judge how best to proceed on the perilous
mission of rescue.
While we were feeling our way forward through the darkness, a great
burst of flame soared high into the northern sky, the red light
radiating far abroad over the prairie, until even our creeping figures
cast faint shadows on the level plain.
"Saint Guise! They have set fire to the Fort!" exclaimed De Croix,
halting and gazing anxiously northward.
"Ay, either to that or to the agency building," I answered. "It was
not there I expected to find the prisoners, but rather hidden among
those black lodges yonder whence all the shouting comes. 'T is
torture, De Croix, which has so aroused those devils; and it will soon
enough prove our turn to entertain them, if we linger long within this
glare."
"You have a plan, then?"
"Only a partial one at present,--'t is to put the safeguard of the
river between us and those yelling fiends. Beyond that it will all be
the guidance of God."
The stream proved to be a narrow one, and the current was not swift.
We crossed it easily enough, without wetting our stock of powder, and
found the western bank somewhat darkened by the numerous groups of
small stunted trees that lined it. I moved with extreme caution now,
for each step brought us in closer proximity to those infuriated
tribesmen who were holding mad carnival in the midst of their lodges.
I felt sure that our pathway along the western shore was clear, for the
most astute chief among them would hardly look for the approach of
enemies from that quarter; but I was enough of a frontiersman not to
neglect any ordinary precautions, and so we crept like snakes along at
the water's edge, under the shadow of the bank, until much of the wild
scene in the village opposite was revealed to our searching eyes.
It was a mad saturnalia, half light, half shadow, amid which the fierce
figures of the painted warriors passed and repassed in drunken frenzy,
making night hideous with savage clamor and frenzied gesticulations. I
would have crept on farther, seeking a place for crossing unobserved,
had not De Croix suddenly grasped me by the leg. As I turned, the play
of the flames from across the water struck upon his white face, and I
could read thereon a terror that held him motionless.
"For Christ's sake, let us go!" he urged, in an agonized whisper, "See
what those demons are about to do! I fear not battle, Wayland, as you
know; but the scene yonder unmans me."
It is hard for me to describe now what then I saw. The entire centre
of the great encampment was brightly lit by a huge blazing fire, around
which hundreds of Indians were gathered, leaping and shouting in their
frenzy, while above the noise of their discordant voices we could
distinguish the flat notes of the wooden drum, the dull pounding of
which reminded me of the solemn tolling of a funeral bell. What
atrocities had been going on, I know not; but as we gazed across at
them in shuddering horror, forth from the entrance of a lodge a dozen
painted warriors drove a white man, stripped to the waist, his hands
bound behind him. As he stumbled forward, a bevy of squaws lashed him
with corded whips. I caught one glimpse of his face in the light of
the flames; it was that of a young soldier I recalled having seen the
evening before within the Fort, playing a violin. He was a brave lad,
and although his face was pale and drawn by suffering, he fronted the
crazed mob that buffeted him with no sign of fear, his eyes roving
about as if still seeking some possible avenue of escape. Once he
sprang suddenly aside, tripping a giant brave who grasped him, and
disappeared amid the lodges, only to be dragged forth a moment later
and pushed forward, horribly beaten with clubs at every step.
On a sudden, that shrieking, undulating crowd fell away, and we could
see the young man standing alone, bound to a stake, his body leaning
forward as if held to its erect posture merely by the bonds. The limp
drooping of his head made me think him already unconscious, possibly
dead from some chance fatal blow; but as the flames burst out in a roar
at his feet, and shot up, red and glaring, to his waist, he gave
utterance to one terrible cry of agony, and it seemed to me I gazed
fairly into his tortured eyes and could read their pitiful appeal.
Twice I raised my rifle, the sight upon his heart,--but durst not fire.
No consideration of my own peril held back the pressure of the
trigger,--'twas the remembrance of Mademoiselle. It was beyond my
strength of will to withstand such strain long.
"Come," I groaned to De Croix, my hands pressed tightly over my eyes to
shut out the sight, "it will craze us both to stay here longer, nor
dare we aid the poor fellow even by a shot."
He lay face downward on the soft mud of the bank, and I had to shake
him before he so much as moved. We crept on together, until we came
out through the thick bushes into the open prairie, and faced each
other, our lips white and our bodies shaking with the horror of what we
had just seen.
"Mon Dieu!" he faltered, "'twill forever haunt me."
"It has greatly undone me," I answered, striving to control my voice,
for I felt the necessity of coolness if I hoped to command him; "but if
we would save her from meeting a like fate, we must remain men."
"Then, for God's sake, find some spot where I may rest for an hour," he
urged. "My brain seems reeling, and I fear it will give way it I
remain in sight or sound of such horrors."
In spite of all I had seen, it was still my desire to creep in among
the deserted lodges while darkness shrouded the outermost of them; but
I felt that some safe hiding-place must first be found for my
companion. To attempt to take him with me while in such a nervous
state would be only to invite disaster.
"De Croix," I asked, "know you if the Indians have destroyed the house
that stood by the fork of the north river, where the settler Ouilmette
lived?"
"I marked it through Lieutenant Helm's field-glass yesterday. 'T is
partially burned, yet the walls still stand."
"Then 't will serve us most excellently to hide in, for there will be
naught left within likely to attract marauders. Think you that you
could find it through the night?"
He looked at me, and it was easy to see his nerves were on edge.
"Alone?" he gasped brokenly. "My God, no!"
There was seemingly no way out of it, for it would have been little
short of murder to leave him alone on that black prairie, nor would
harsh words have greatly mended matters. We were fully an hour at it,
creeping cautiously along behind the scattered bushes until we passed
the forks and swam the river's northerly branch. The action did him
good, and greatly helped to steady my own nerves, as the uproar of the
savages died steadily away behind us.
At last we came out upon a slight knoll, and found ourselves close
beside the low charred walls of what remained of Ouilmette's log-cabin.
'T was a most gloomy and desolate spot, but quiet enough, with never
the rustle of a leaf to awake the night, or startle us.
"Have you got back your nerve, Monsieur?" I asked, as we paused before
the dark outline, "or must I also help you to explore within?"
"'T is not shadows that terrify me," he answered, no doubt thoroughly
ashamed of his weakness, and eager to make amends; "nor is it likely
that anything to affright me greatly is behind these walls."
I lay prone in the grass at the corner of the cabin, my eyes fixed upon
the distant Indian village, where I could yet plainly distinguish
numberless black figures dodging about between me and the flames; while
further to the east, the greater blaze of the Fort buildings lighted
up, in a wide arc, the deserted prairie. I gave little consideration
to De Croix's exploit,--indeed, I had almost forgotten it, when
suddenly the fellow sprang backward out of the open door, a cry of wild
terror upon his lips, and his hands outstretched as it to ward off some
unearthly vision.
"Mon Dieu!" he sobbed hoarsely, falling upon his knees. "'T was the
face of Marie!"