The half-breed interrupted: "Yes, I know, a Pagan fattening--" here he
smiled, and looked at his thin hands--"fattening for the shambles of the
damned, as you have said from the pulpit, Reverend Ezra Badgley. But you
will permit me--a sinner as you say--to speak to you like this while you
sit down and eat. I regret to disturb you, but you will sit, eh?"
Pierre's tone was smooth and low, almost deferential, and his eyes, wide
open now, and hot with some hidden purpose, were fixed compellingly on
the man. The missionary sat, and, having recovered slightly, fumbled
with a knife and fork. A napkin was still beneath his greasy chin. He
did not take it away.
Pierre then spoke slowly: "Yes, it is a scandal concerning a sinner--and
a Pagan. . . . Will you permit me to light a cigarette? Thank you
. . . . You have said many harsh things about me: well, as you see,
I am amiable. I lived at Fort Anne before you came. They call me Pretty
Pierre. Why is my cheek so? Because I drink no wine; I eat not much.
Pardon, pork like that on your plate--no! no! I do not take green tea
as there in your cup; I do not love women, one or many. Again, pardon,
I say."
The other drew his brows together with an attempt at pious frowning and
indignation; but there was a cold, sneering smile now turned upon him,
and it changed the frown to anxiety, and made his lips twitch, and the
food he had eaten grow heavy within him.
"I come to the scandal slowly. The woman? She was a young girl
travelling from the far East, to search for a man who had--spoiled her.
She was found by me and another. Ah, you start so! . . . Will you
not listen? . . . Well, she died to-night."
Here the missionary gasped, and caught with both hands at the table.
"But before she died she gave two things into my hands: a packet of
letters--a man is a fool to write such letters--and a small bottle of
poison--laudanum, old-fashioned but sure. The letters were from the man
at Fort Anne--the man, you hear! The other was for her death, if he
would not take her to his arms again. Women are mad when they love.
And so she came to Fort Anne, but not in time. The scandal is great,
because the man is holy--sit down!"
The half-breed said the last two words sharply, but not loudly. They
both sat down slowly again, looking each other in the eyes. Then Pierre
drew from his pocket a small bottle and a packet of letters, and held
them before him. "I have this to say: there are citizens of Fort Anne
who stand for justice more than law; who have no love for the ways of
St. Anthony. There is a Pagan, too, an outlaw, who knows when it is
time to give blow for blow with the holy man. Well, we understand each
other, 'hein?'"
The elusive, sinister look in the missionary's face was etched in strong
lines now. A dogged sullenness hung about his lips. He noticed that one
hand only of Pretty Pierre was occupied with the relics of the dead girl;
the other was free to act suddenly on a hip pocket. "What do you want
me to do?" he said, not whiningly, for beneath the selfish flesh and
shallow outworks there were the elements of a warrior--all pulpy now,
but they were there.
"This," was the reply: "for you to make one more outlaw at Fort Anne by
drinking what is in this bottle--sit down, quick, by God!" He placed the
bottle within reach of the other. "Then you shall have these letters;
and there is the fire. After? Well, you will have a great sleep, the
good people will find you, they will bury you, weeping much, and no one
knows here but me. Refuse that, and there is the other, the Law--ah,
the poor girl was so very young!--and the wild Justice which is sometimes
quicker than Law. Well? well?"
The missionary sat as if paralysed, his face all grey, his eyes fixed on
the half-breed. "Are you man or devil?" he groaned at length.
With a slight, fantastic gesture Pierre replied: "It was said that a
devil entered into me at birth, but that was mere scandal--'peut-etre.'
You shall think as you will."
There was silence. The sullenness about the missionary's lips became
charged with a contempt more animal than human. The Reverend Ezra
Badgley knew that the man before him was absolute in his determination,
and that the Pagans of Fort Anne would show him little mercy, while his
flock would leave him to his fate. He looked at the bottle. The silence
grew, so that the ticking of the watch in the missionary's pocket could
be heard plainly, having for its background of sound the continuous swish
of the river. Pretty Pierre's eyes were never taken off the other, whose
gaze, again, was fixed upon the bottle with a terrible fascination. An
hour, two hours, passed. The fire burned lower. It was midnight; and
now the watch no longer ticked; it had fulfilled its day's work. The
missionary shuddered slightly at this. He looked up to see the resolute
gloom of the half-breed's eyes, and that sneering smile, fixed upon him
still. Then he turned once more to the bottle. . . . His heavy hand
moved slowly towards it. His stubby fingers perspired and showed sickly
in the light. . . . They closed about the bottle. Then suddenly he
raised it, and drained it at a draught. He sighed once heavily and as if
a great inward pain was over. Rising he took the letters silently pushed
towards him, and dropped them into the fire. He went to the window,
raised it, and threw the bottle into the river. The cork was left:
Pierre pointed to it. He took it up with a strange smile and thrust it
into the coals. Then he sat down by the table, leaning his arms upon it,
his eyes staring painfully before him, and the forgotten napkin still
about his neck. Soon the eyes closed, and, with a moan on his lips, his
head dropped forward on his arms. . . . Pierre rose, and, looking at
the figure soon to be breathless as the baked meats about it, said:
"'Bien,' he was not all coward. No."
Then he turned and went out into the night.