MANON LESCAUT. AND A RAPIER-THRUST
Beverley's absence was not noticed by Hamilton until late on the
following day, and even then he scouted Helm's suggestion that the
young man was possibly carrying out his threat to disregard his parole.
"He would be quite justified in doing it; you know that very well,"
said Helm with a laugh, "and he's just the man to undertake what is
impossible. Of course, however, he'll get scalped for his trouble, and
that will cost you something, I'm happy to say."
"It's a matter of small importance," Hamilton replied; "but I'll wager
you the next toddy that he's not at the present moment a half-mile from
this spot. He may be a fool, I readily grant that he is, but even a
fool is not going to set out alone in this kind of weather to go to
where your rebel friends are probably toasting their shins by a fire of
green logs and half starving over yonder on the Mississippi."
"Joking aside, you are doubtless right. Beverley is hot-headed, and if
he could he'd get even with you devilish quick; but he hasn't left
Vincennes, I think. Miss Roussillon would keep him here if the place
were on fire!"
Hamilton laughed dryly. He had thought just what Helm was saying.
Beverley's attentions to Alice had not escaped his notice.
"Speaking of that girl," he remarked after a moment's silence, "what am
I do to do with her? There's no place to keep her, and Farnsworth
insists that she wasn't to blame." He chuckled again and added:
"It's true as gospel. He's in love with her, too. Seems to be glad she
shot him. Says he's ashamed of himself for ever suspecting her of
anything but being a genuine angel. Why, he's got as flabby as a rabbit
and mumbles like a fool!"
"Same as you or I at his age," said Helm, taking a chew of tobacco.
"She IS a pretty thing. Beverley don't know his foot from his
shoulder-blade when she's anywhere near him. Boys are boys. I'm a sort
of a boy myself."
"If she'd give up that flag he'd let her go," said Hamilton. "I hate
like the devil to confine her; it looks brutal, and makes me feel like
a tyrant."
"Have you ever happened to notice the obvious fact, Governor Hamilton,
that Alice Roussillon and Father Beret are not all the French in
Vincennes?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I don't for a moment believe that either the girl or the
priest knows a thing about where that flag is. They are both as
truthful and honorable as people ever get to be. I know them. Somebody
else got that flag from under the priest's floor. You may depend upon
that. If Miss Roussillon knew where it is she'd say so, and then dare
you to make her tell where it's hidden."
"Oh, the whole devilish town is rotten with treason; that's very clear.
There's not a loyal soul in it outside of my forces."
"Thank you for not including me among the loyalists."
"Humph, I spoke of these French people; they pretend to be true; but I
believe they are all traitors."
"You can manage them if you try. A little jolly kindness goes a long
way with 'em. _I_ had no trouble while _I_ held the town."
Hamilton bit his lip and was silent. Helm was exasperatingly good
tempered, and his jocularity was irresistible. While he was yet
speaking a guard came up followed by Jean, the hunchback, and saluting
said to Hamilton:
"The lad wants to see the young lady, sir."
Hamilton gazed quizzically at Jean, who planted himself in his habitual
attitude before him and stared up into his face with the grotesque
expression which seems to be characteristic of hunchbacks and unfledged
birds--the look of an embodied and hideous joke.
"Well, sir, what will you have?" the Governor demanded.
"I want to see Alice, if you please."
"What for?"
"I want to give her a book to read."
"Ah, indeed. Where is it? Let me see it."
Jean took from the breast of his loose jerkin a small volume, dog-eared
and mildewed, and handed it to Hamilton. Meantime he stood first on one
foot, then the other, gnawing his thumb-nail and blinking rapidly.
"Well, Helm, just look here!"
"What?"
"Manon Lescaut."
"And what's that?"
"Haven't you ever read it?"
"Read what?"
"This novel--Manon Lescaut."
"Never read a novel in my life. Never expect to."
Hamilton laughed freely at Helm's expense, then turned to Jean and gave
him back the book.
It would have been quite military, had he taken the precaution to
examine between the pages for something hidden there, but he did not.
"Go, give it to her," he said, "and tell her I send my compliments,
with great admiration of her taste in literature." He motioned the
soldier to show Jean to Alice. "It's a beastly French story," he added,
addressing Helm; "immoral enough to make a pirate blush. That's the
sort of girl Mademoiselle Roussillon is!"
"I don't care what kind of a book she reads," blurted Helm, "she's a
fine, pure, good girl. Everybody likes her. She's the good angel of
this miserable frog-hole of a town. You'd like her yourself, if you'd
straighten up and quit burning tow in your brain all the time. You're
always so furious about something that you never have a chance to be
just to yourself, or pleasant to anybody else."
Hamilton turned fiercely on Helm, but a glimpse of the Captain's broad
good-humored face heartily smiling, dispelled his anger. There was no
ground upon which to maintain a quarrel with a person so persistently
genial and so absurdly frank. And in fact Hamilton was not half so bad
as his choleric manifestations seemed to make him out. Besides, Helm
knew just how far to go, just when to stop.
"If I had got furious at you every time there was overwhelming
provocation for it," Hamilton said, "you'd have been long since hanged
or shot. I fancy that I have shown angelic forbearance. I've given you
somewhat more than a prisoner's freedom."
"So you have, so you have," assented Helm. "I've often been surprised
at your generous partiality in my case. Let's have some hot water with
something else in it, what do you say? I won't give you any more advice
for five minutes by your watch."
"But I want some advice at once."
"What about?"
"That girl."
"Turn her loose. That's easy and reputable."
"I'll have to, I presume; but she ought to be punished."
"If you'll think less about punishment, revenge and getting even with
everybody and everything, you'll soon begin to prosper."
Hamilton winced, but smiled as one quite sure of himself.
Jean followed the soldier to a rickety log pen on the farther side of
the stockade, where he found the prisoner restlessly moving about like
a bird in a rustic cage. It had no comforts, that gloomy little room.
There was no fireplace, the roof leaked, and the only furniture
consisted of a bench to sit on and a pile of skins for bed. Alice
looked charmingly forlorn peeping out of the wraps in which she was
bundled against the cold, her hair fluffed and rimpled in shining
disorder around her face.
The guard let Jean in and closed the door, himself staying outside.
Alice was as glad to see the poor lad as if they had been parted for a
year. She hugged him and kissed his drawn little face.
"You dear, good Jean!" she murmured, "you did not forget me."
"I brought you something," he whispered, producing the book.
Alice snatched it, looked at it, and then at Jean.
"Why, what did you bring this for? you silly Jean! I didn't want this.
I don't like this book at all. It's hateful. I despise it. Take it
back."
"There's something in it for you, a paper with writing on it;
Lieutenant Beverley wrote it on there. It's shut up between the leaves
about the middle."
"Sh-s-sh! not so loud, the guard'll hear you," Alice breathlessly
whispered, her whole manner changing instantly. She was trembling, and
the color had been whisked from her face, as the flame from a candle in
a sudden draught.
She found the note and read it a dozen times without a pause, her eyes
leaping along the lines back and forth with pathetic eagerness and
concentration. Presently she sat down on the bench and covered her face
with her hands. A tremor first, then a convulsive sobbing, shook her
collapsed form. Jean regarded her with a drolly sympathetic grimace,
elevating his long chin and letting his head settle back between his
shoulders.
"Oh, Jean, Jean!" she cried at last, looking up and reaching out her
arms; "O Jean, he is gone, gone, gone!"
Jean stepped closer to her while she sobbed again like a little child.
She pulled him to her and held him tightly against her breast while she
once more read the note through blinding tears. The words were few, but
to her they bore the message of desolation and despair. A great,
haunting, hollow voice in her heart repeated them until they echoed
from vague distance to distance.
It was written with a bit of lead on the half of a mildewed fly-leaf
torn from the book:
"Dear Alice:
"I am going away. When you read this, think of me as hurrying through
the wilderness to reach our army and bring it here. Be brave, as you
always have been; be good, as you cannot help being; wait and watch for
me; love me, as I love you. I will come. Do not doubt it, I will come,
and I will crush Hamilton and his command. Courage, Alice dear;
courage, and wait for me.
"Faithfully ever,
"Beverley."
She kissed the paper with passionate fervor, pouring her tears upon it
in April showers between which the light of her eyes played almost
fiercely, so poignant was her sense of a despair which bordered upon
desperation. "Gone, gone!" It was all she could think or say. "Gone,
gone."
Jean took the offending novel back home with him, hidden under his
jerkin; but Beverley's note lay upon Alice's heart, a sweet comfort and
a crushing weight, when an hour later Hamilton sent for her and she was
taken before him. Her face was stained with tears and she looked
pitifully distressed and disheveled; yet despite all this her beauty
asserted itself with subtle force.
Hamilton felt ashamed looking at her, but put on sternness and spoke
without apparent sympathy:
"Miss Roussillon, you came near committing a great crime. As it is, you
have done badly enough; but I wish not to be unreasonably severe. I
hope you are sorry for your act, and feel like doing better hereafter."
She was trembling, but her eyes looked steadily straight into his. They
were eyes of baby innocence, yet they irradiated a strong womanly
spirit just touched with the old perverse, mischievous light which she
could neither banish nor control. When she did not make reply, Hamilton
continued:
"You may go home now, and I shall expect to have no more trouble on
your account." He made a gesture indicative of dismissal; then, as she
turned from him, he added, somewhat raising his voice:
"And further, Miss Roussillon, that flag you took from here must
positively be returned. See that it is done."
She lifted her head high and walked away, not deigning to give him a
word.
"Humph! what do you think now of your fine young lady?" he demanded,
turning to Helm with a sneering curl of his mouth. "She gives thanks
copiously for a kindness, don't you think?"
"Poor girl, she was scared nearly out of her life," said Helm. "She got
away from you, like a wounded bird from a snare. I never saw a face
more pitiful than hers."
"Much pity she needs, and greatly like a wounded bird she acts, I must
say; but good riddance if she'll keep her place hereafter. I despise
myself when I have to be hard with a woman, especially a pretty one.
That girl's a saucy and fascinating minx, and as dangerous as twenty
men. I'll keep a watch on her movements from this on, and if she gets
into mischief again I'll transport her to Detroit, or give her away to
the Indians, She must stop her high-handed foolishness."
Helm saw that Hamilton was talking mere wind, VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL,
and he furthermore felt that his babbling signified no harm to Alice;
but Hamilton surprised him presently by saying:
"I have just learned that Lieutenant Beverley is actually gone. Did you
know of his departure?"
"What are you saying, sir?"
Helm jumped to his feet, not angry, but excited.
"Keep cool, you need not answer if you prefer silence or evasion. You
may want to go yourself soon."
Helm burst out laughing, but quickly growing serious said:
"Has Beverley been such a driveling fool as that? Are you in earnest?"
"He killed two of my scouts, wounded another, and crossed the Wabash in
their canoe. He is going straight towards Kaskaskia."
"The idiot! Hurrah for him! If you catch your hare you may roast him,
but catch him first, Governor!"
"You'll joke out of the other corner of your mouth, Captain Helm, if I
find out that you gave him aid or countenance in breaking his parole."
"Aid or countenance! I never saw him after he walked out of this room.
You gave him a devil of a sight more aid and countenance than I did.
What are you talking about! Broke his parole! He did no such thing. He
returned it to you fairly, as you well know. He told you he was going."
"Well, I've sent twenty of my swiftest Indians after him to bring him
back. I'll let you see him shot. That ought to please you."
"They'll never get him, Governor. I'll bet high on him against your
twenty scalp-lifters any day. Fitzhugh Beverley is the best Indian
fighter, Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton excepted, in the American
colonies."
On her way home Alice met Father Beret, who turned and walked beside
her. He was so overjoyed at her release that he could scarcely speak;
but held her hand and stroked it gently while she told him her story.
It was beginning to rain, a steady, cold shower, when they reached the
house, and for many days and nights thereafter the downfall continued
almost incessantly.
"Dear child," said Father Beret, stopping at the gate and looking
beseechingly into Alice's face, "you must stay at home now--stay in the
house--it will be horribly dangerous for you to pass about in the
village after your--after what has happened."
"Do not fear, Father, I will be careful. Aren't you coming in? I'll
find you a cake and a glass of wine."
"No, child, not now."
"Then good-bye, good-bye," she said, turning from him to run into the
house. "Come soon, I shall be so lonesome."
On the veranda she suddenly stopped, running her fingers about her neck
and into her bosom.
"Oh, Father, Father Beret, I've lost my locket!" she cried. "See if I
dropped it there."
She went back to the gate, searching the ground with her eyes. Of
course she did not find the locket. It was miles and miles away close
to the heart of her lover. If she could but have known this, it would
have comforted her. Beverley had intended to leave it with Jean, but in
his haste and excitement he forgot; writing the note distracted his
attention; and so he bore Alice's picture on his breast and in his
heart while pursuing his long and perilous journey.
Four of Hamilton's scouts came upon Beverley twenty miles south of
Vincennes, but having the advantage of them, he killed two almost
immediately, and after a running fight, the other two attempted escape
in a canoe on the Wabash. Here, firing from a bluff, he wounded a
third. Both then plunged head-foremost into the water, and by keeping
below the surface, got away. The adventure gave Beverley new spirit and
self-reliance; he felt that he could accomplish anything necessary to
his undertaking. In the captured pirogue he crossed the river, and, to
make his trail hard to find, sent the little craft adrift down the
current.
Then alone, in the dead of winter, he took his bearings and struck
across the dreary, houseless plain toward St. Louis.
As soon as Hamilton's discomfited scouts reported to him, he sent
Long-Hair with twenty picked savages, armed and supplied for continuous
and rapid marching, in pursuit of Beverley. There was a large reward
for bringing him in alive, a smaller one for his scalp.
When Alice heard of all this, her buoyant and happy nature seemed
entirely to desert her for a time. She was proud to find out that
Beverley had shown himself brave and capable; it touched her love of
heroism; but she knew too much about Indian warfare to hope that he
could hold his own against Long-Hair, the wiliest and boldest of
scalp-hunters, and twenty of the most experienced braves in Hamilton's
forces. He would almost certainly be killed and scalped, or captured
and brought back to be shot or hanged in Vincennes. The thought chilled
and curdled her blood.
Both Helm and Father Beret tried to encourage and comfort her by
representing the probabilities in the fairest light.
"It's like hunting for a needle in a haystack, going out to find a man
in that wilderness," said Helm with optimistic cheerfulness; "and
besides Beverley is no easy dose for twenty red niggers to take. I've
seen him tried at worse odds than that, and he got out with a whole
skin, too. Don't you fret about him, Miss Roussillon."
Little help came to her from attempts of this sort. She might brighten
up for a while, but the dark dread, and the terrible gnawing at her
heart, the sinking and despairing in her soul, could not be cured.
What added immeasurably to her distress was the attention of
Farnsworth, whose wound troubled him but a short time. He seemed to
have had a revelation and a change of spirit since the unfortunate
rencounter and the subsequent nursing at Alice's hands. He was grave,
earnest, kindly, evidently striving to play a gentle and honorable
part. She could feel that he carried a load of regret, that he wanted
to pay a full price in good for the evil that he had done; his sturdy
English heart was righting itself nobly, yet she but half understood
him, until his actions and words began to betray his love; and then she
hated him unreasonably. Realizing this, Farnsworth bore himself more
like a faithful dog than in the manner hitherto habitual to him. He
simply shadowed Alice and would not be rebuffed.
There can be nothing more painful to a finely sympathetic nature than
regret for having done a kindness. Alice experienced this to the
fullest degree. She had nursed Farnsworth but a little while, yet it
was a while of sweet influence. Her tender woman nature felt the
blessedness of doing good to her enemy lying helpless in her house and
hurt by her own hand. But now she hated the man, and with all her soul
she was sorry that she had been kind to him; for out of her kindness he
had drawn the spell of a love under which he lived a new life, and all
for her. Yet deep down in her consciousness the pity and the pathos of
the thing hovered gloomily and would not be driven out.
The rain in mid-winter gave every prospect a sad, cold, sodden gray
appearance. The ground was soaked, little rills ran in the narrow
streets, the small streams became great rivers, the Wabash overflowed
its banks and made a sea of all the lowlands on either side. It was
hard on the poor dwellers in the thatched and mostly floorless cabins,
for the grass roofs gradually let the water through and puddles formed
on the ground inside. Fuel was distant and had to be hauled in the
pouring rain; provisions were scarce and hunting almost impossible.
Many people, especially children, were taken ill with colds and fever.
Alice found some relief from her trouble in going from cabin to cabin
and waiting upon the sufferers; but even here Farnsworth could not be
got rid of; he followed her night and day. Never was a good soldier,
for he was that from head to foot, more lovelorn and love-docile. The
maiden had completely subdued the man.
About this time, deep in a rainy and pitch-black night, Gaspard
Roussillon came home. He tapped on the door again and again. Alice
heard, but she hesitated to speak or move. Was she growing cowardly?
Her heart beat like a drum. There was but one person in all the world
that she could think of--it was not M. Roussillon. Ah, no, she had
well-nigh forgotten her gigantic foster father.
"It is I, ma cherie, it is Gaspard, my love, open the door," came in a
booming half-whisper from without. "Alice, Jean, it is your Papa
Roussillon, my dears. Let me in."
Alice was at the door in a minute, unbarring it. M. Roussillon entered,
armed to the teeth, the water dribbling from his buckskin clothes.
"Pouf!" he exclaimed, "my throat is like dust." His thoughts were
diving into the stores under the floor. "I am famished. Dear children,
dear little ones! They are glad to see papa! Where is your mama?"
He had Alice in his arms and Jean clung to his legs. Madame Roussillon,
to be sure of no mistake, lighted a lamp with a brand that smoldered on
the hearth and held it up, then, satisfied as to her husband's
identity, set it on a shelf and flung herself into the affectionate
group with clumsy abandon, making a great noise.
"Oh, my dear Gaspard!" she cried as she lunged forward. "Gaspard,
Gaspard!" Her voice fairly lifted the roof; her great weight, hurled
with such force, overturned everybody, and all of them tumbled in a
heap, the rotund and solid dame sitting on top.
"Ouf! not so impetuous, my dear," puffed M. Roussillon, freeing himself
from her unpleasant pressure and scrambling to his feet. "Really you
must have fared well in my absence, Madame, you are much heavier." He
laughed and lifted her up as if she had been a child, kissing her
resonantly.
His gun had fallen with a great clatter. He took it from the floor and
examined it to see if it had been injured, then set it in a corner.
"I am afraid we have been making too much noise," said Alice, speaking
very low. "There is a patrol guard every night now. If they should hear
you--"
"Shh!" whispered M. Roussillon, "we will be very still. Alice, is there
something to eat and a drop of wine handy? I have come many miles; I am
tired, hungry, thirsty,--ziff!"
Alice brought some cold roast venison, a loaf, and a bottle of claret.
These she set before him on a little table.
"Ah, this is comfort," he said after he had gulped a full cup. "Have
you all been well?"
Then he began to tell where he had been, what he had seen, and the many
things he had done. A Frenchman must babble while he eats and drinks. A
little wine makes him eloquent. He talks with his hands, shoulders,
eyes. Madame Roussillon, Alice and Jean, wrapped in furs, huddled
around him to hear. He was very entertaining, and they forgot the
patrol until a noise startled them. It was the low of a cow. They
laughed and the master of the house softened his voice.
M. Roussillon had been the guest of a great Indian chieftain, who was
called the "Gate of the Wabash," because he controlled the river. The
chief was an old acquaintance and treated him well.
"But I wanted to see you all," Gaspard said. "I was afraid something
might have happened to you. So I came back just to peep in. I can't
stay, of course; Hamilton would kill me as if I were a wolf. I can
remain but an hour and then slip out of town again before daylight
conies. The rain and darkness are my friends."
He had seen Simon Kenton, who said he had been in the neighborhood of
Vincennes acting as a scout and spy for Clark. Presently and quite
casually he added:
"And I saw Lieutenant Beverley, too. I suppose you know that he has
escaped from Hamilton, and--" Here a big mouthful of venison interfered.
Alice leaned toward him white and breathless, her heart standing still.
Then the door, which had been left unbarred, was flung open and, along
with a great rush of wind and rain, the patrol guard, five in number,
sprang in.
M. Roussillon reached his gun with one hand, with the other swung a
tremendous blow as he leaped against the intruders. Madame Roussillon
blew out the light. No cave in the depth of earth was ever darker than
that room. The patrolmen could not see one another or know what to do;
but M. Roussillon laid about him with the strength of a giant. His
blows sounded as if they smashed bones. Men fell heavily thumping on
the floor where he rushed along. Some one fired a pistol and by its
flash they all saw him; but instantly the darkness closed again, and
before they could get their bearings he was out and gone, his great
hulking form making its way easily over familiar ground where his
would-be captors could have proceeded but slowly, even with a light to
guide them. There was furious cursing among the patrolmen as they
tumbled about in the room, the unhurt ones trampling their prostrate
companions and striking wildly at each other in their blindness and
confusion. At last one of them bethought him to open a dark lantern
with which the night guards were furnished. Its flame was fluttering
and gave forth a pale red light that danced weirdly on the floors and
walls.
Alice had snatched down one of her rapiers when the guards first
entered. They now saw her facing them with her slender blade leveled,
her back to the wall, her eyes shining dangerously. Madame Roussillon
had fled into the adjoining room. Jean had also disappeared. The
officer, a subaltern, in charge of the guard, seeing Alice, and not
quickly able to make out that it was a woman thus defying him, crossed
swords with her. There was small space for action; moreover the officer
being not in the least a swordsman, played awkwardly, and quick as a
flash his point was down. The rapier entered just below his thread with
a dull chucking stab. He leaped backward, feeling at the same time a
pair of arms clasp his legs. It was Jean, and the Lieutenant, thus
unexpectedly tangled, fell to the floor, breaking but not extinguishing
the guard's lantern as he went down. The little remaining oil spread
and flamed up brilliantly, as if eager for conflagration, sputtering
along the uneven boards.
"Kill that devil!" cried the Lieutenant, in a strangling voice, while
trying to regain his feet. "Shoot! Bayonet!"
In his pain, rage and haste, he inadvertently set his hand in the midst
of the blazing oil, which clung to the flesh with a seething grip.
"Hell!" he screamed, "fire, fire!"
Two or three bayonets were leveled upon Alice. Some one kicked Jean
clean across the room, and he lay there curled up in his hairy
night-wrap looking like an enormous porcupine.
At this point a new performer came upon the stage, a dark-robed thing,
so active that its outlines changed elusively, giving it no
recognizable features. It might have been the devil himself, or some
terrible unknown wild animal clad somewhat to resemble a man, so far as
the startled guards could make out. It clawed right and left, hurled
one of them against the wall, dashed another through the door into
Madame Roussillon's room, where the good woman was wailing at the top
of her voice, and felled a third with a stroke like that of a bear's
paw.
Consternation was at high tide when Farnsworth, who always slept with
an ear open, reached Roussillon place and quickly quieted things. He
was troubled beyond expression when he found out the true state of the
affair, for there was nothing that he could do but arrest Alice and
take her to Hamilton. It made his heart sink. He would have thought
little of ordering a file of soldiers to shoot a man under the same
conditions; but to subject her again to the Governor's stern
cruelty--how could he do it? This time there would be no hope for her.
Alice stood before him flushed, disheveled, defiant, sword in hand,
beautiful and terrible as an angel. The black figure, man or devil, had
disappeared as strangely as it had come. The sub-Lieutenant was having
his slight wound bandaged. Men were raging and cursing under their
breath, rubbing their bruised heads and limbs.
"Alice--Mademoiselle Roussillon, I am so sorry for this," said Captain
Farnsworth. "It is painful, terrible--"
He could not go on, but stood before her unmanned. In the feeble light
his face was wan and his hurt shoulder, still in bandages, drooped
perceptibly.
"I surrender to you," she presently said in French, extending the hilt
of her rapier to him. "I had to defend myself when attacked by your
Lieutenant there. If an officer finds it necessary to set upon a girl
with his sword, may not the girl guard her life if she can?"
She was short of breath, so that her voice palpitated with a touching
plangency that shook the man's heart.
Farnsworth accepted the sword; he could do nothing less. His duty
admitted of no doubtful consideration; yet he hesitated, feeling around
in his mind for a phrase with which to evade the inevitable.
"It will be safer for you at the fort, Mademoiselle; let me take you
there."