A dash of water awakened me. One of the Cahnuagas was leaning down,
his hideous face close to mine, his fingers wrestling with the knots
in the rawhide bonds.
"You can not lie idle, my distinguished guest," called de Veulle from
his place at the stern. "You must keep us dry."
As the rawhide strips were unwound I was able to sit up and look over
the frail bark side. We were out of sight of land, and a moderate
breeze was raising a slight swell, the crest of which occasionally
broke over our bow. In the other canoe Ta-wan-ne-ars already was at
work with a bark scoop.
The Cahnuagas were uneasy, and at times they muttered amongst
themselves; but de Veulle kept them at the paddles, working in relays
of four. It said much for his hold on the Indians that he was able
to persuade them to navigate the treacherous waters of the open lake,
a feat the savages will never attempt except under compulsion.
All of that day we were isolated on the restless surface of the huge
inland sea. Just before dusk of the second day we sighted a rocky
coast, and sheered away from it. Two nights later we passed a group
of lights to the north, and the Cahnuagas murmured "Cadaraqui."
Indeed, 'twas the French fort of that name, the key to the westerly
defenses of Canada and the St. Lawrence outlet from the lake.[1] On
the sixth day we passed out of the lake into the narrow channel of
the great river, and landed in the evening at a palisaded post on the
southern bank.
[1] Later Fort Frontenac.
So far I had been treated fairly well. My captors had shared with me
their meager fare of parched corn and jerked meat; and if I had been
compelled to bale out the canoe incessantly, it was equally true that
they had labored at the paddles night and day. It was also true that
de Veulle had made me the constant subject of his gibes and kicks and
had encouraged the Cahnuagas--and God knows they required no
encouragement--to maul me at pleasure. Yet the frailty of the canoe
had forbidden indulgence in as much roughness as they desired.
But now everything was changed. My legs were left unbound, but with
uncanny skill the savages lashed back my arms until well-nigh every
bit of circulation was stopped in them and each movement I was forced
to make became an act of torture. The one recompense for my
sufferings was that for the first time since our capture I had the
company of Ta-wan-ne-ars, and I was able to profit by his stoical
demeanor in resisting the impulse to vent my anger against de Veulle.
"Say nothing, brother," he counseled me when I panted my hate, "for
every word you say will afford him satisfaction."
"I wish I had staved in the canoe in the middle of the lake," I
exclaimed bitterly.
"Ta-wan-ne-ars, too, thought of that," he admitted. "Yet must we
have died with our tormenters, and perhaps if we wait we may escape
and live to slay them at less cost to ourselves."
"It is not likely," I answered, for my spirits were very low. "What
is this place? Where are we?"
Ta-wan-ne-ars looked around the landscape, rapidly dimming in the
twilight. We had been left in custody of the Indians on the
river-bank whilst de Veulle conversed with three white men who had
emerged from the palisades as we scrambled ashore.
"This place Ta-wan-ne-ars does not know," he replied. "Yet it is on
the river St. Lawrence, for there is no other stream of this size. I
think, brother, that de Veulle is taking us to La Vierge du Bois."
"It matters little where he takes us," I returned ill-naturedly.
"Our end is like to be the same in any case."
"At the least," said Ta-wan-ne-ars with a smile, "we shall have
solved the riddle of the Doom Trail."
"And what will that avail us?" I countered. "Joncaire told me all I
sought to know of Jagara--but he told it to a dead man."
"Not yet dead, brother," Ta-wan-ne-ars corrected me gently. "We have
still a long way to go--and we have our search."
"Which is like to lead us into the hands of ----," I said rudely.
But de Veulle and the three strange Frenchmen walked up at that
moment, and Ta-wan-ne-ars was spared the necessity of an answer.
"'Tis well," de Veulle was saying. "We will rest the night, then.
I'll lodge my prisoners in the stockade."
"And there is naught else!" asked one of the others.
"The letter to Père Hyacinthe--don't forget that."
Whereat they all four laughed with a kind of sinister mystery and
cast glances of amusement at us.
"I would I might see the Moon Feast," said another.
"Some day, if you are accepted amongst the Ga-go-sra, you may,"
returned de Veulle. "Be ready with the letter, I beg you. I must
start early with the daylight if I am to be in time for the feast."
The Cahnuagas drove us from the bank with kicks and blows of their
paddle-blades, and the white men followed leisurely, laughing now and
then as we dodged some particularly vicious attack upon our heads and
faces. As it was, when we were flung into a bare log-walled room
within the palisade we were covered with bruises. 'Twas the real
beginning of our torment.
In the morning our arms were untied and we were given a mess of
half-cooked Indian meal. Then the rawhides were rebound, and we set
forth upon a trail that led from the river southeastward into the
forest. A Cahnuaga walked behind each of us, tomahawk in hand. De
Veulle himself brought up the rear, his musket always ready.
I prefer not to think of that day. The heat of early Summer was in
the air, and although it was cooler in the forest than in the open, a
host of insects attacked us; and with our hands bound, we could not
fight them off. Ta-wan-ne-ars had the thick hide of his race, and
they bothered him less than they did me; but we were both in agony by
the time we made camp and the smoke-smudge kindled by our guards in
self-protection gave us temporary relief.
The next day was much the same. If we hesitated in our pace or
staggered, the savage nearest to us used the flat of his tomahawk or
his musket-butt. Ta-wan-ne-ars walked before me in the column, and
the sight of his indifference, his disdainful air toward all the
slights put upon him, maintained my courage when otherwise it must
have yielded.
On the third day, shortly after noon, I was astonished to hear
faintly, but very distinctly, a bell ringing in the forest. And I
remembered the words of the Cahnuaga who had been last of his
brethren to die in that fight in the glade on the Great Trail--
"A building with a tower and a bell that rings."
"La Vierge du Bois welcomes you," hailed de Veulle from behind us.
"The bell rings you in. Ah, there will be bright eyes and flushed
cheeks at sight of you!"
He laughed in a pleasant, melodious way.
"White cheeks to flush for you, Ormerod, and red cheeks to grow
duskier for our friend the chief here! What a fluttering of hearts
there will be!"
Could I have wrenched my hands free I would have snatched a tomahawk
from the Cahnuaga before me. But I did what Ta-wan-ne-ars did--held
my head straight and walked as if I had not heard. Something told me
the Seneca suffered as much as I.
We did not hear the bell again; but in mid-afternoon the forest ended
upon the banks of a little river, and in the distance a wooden tower
showed through the trees. As we drew nearer other buildings
appeared, arranged in irregular fashion about a clearing. One of
pretentious size stood by itself inside a palisade.
Cahnuagas, including women and children, swarmed along the trail with
guttural cries. A big, red-headed man stepped from a building which
was evidently a storehouse. 'Twas Bolling, and with a yell of
delight he snatched a block of wood from the ground and hurled it at
my head.
"Curse me, 'tis the renegade and his red shadow!" he shouted. "We
are in great luck! Do but wait until Tom knows you are here, my
friend. The stake awaits you!"
He walked beside us, rubbing his hands together in high glee, and
discoursing with seemingly expert knowledge on the precise character
of the various kinds of torment we should undergo. From time to time
he would break off to call upon the Cahnuagas for confirmation or new
ideas, and they never failed to support him. Once in a while he
kicked us or beat us with the nearest stick he could reach.
His attentions drew a considerable crowd; and so when we entered the
single rude street of the settlement 'twas to find the whole
population awaiting us. The gate in the stockade around the big
house was open, and with a thrill I realized that a swirl of color
there meant Marjory. Murray's stately figure I identified at a
distance.
I think she did not know me at first. There was no reason why she
should. My leather garments were rent and torn, my hair was tangled
and matted with briers and thorns from the underbrush, my face was
scratched and bleeding. I was thin and gaunt, and I might not walk
upright, although I tried, for the rawhide thongs bowed my shoulders.
But Murray knew me instantly, and a flare of exultation lighted his
face. Behind him, too, stood the animal-shape of Tom, long arms
almost trailing on the ground; and the negro's yellow eyes seemed to
expand with tigerish satisfaction.
De Veulle halted us directly in front of the gate.
"An old acquaintance has consented to visit us," he said.
And with a shock of grief I saw comprehension dawn in Marjory's face.
But she did not flush crimson, as de Veulle had prophesied. She
blenched white. I knew by that she had been long enough at La Vierge
du Bois to appreciate the temper of its inhabitants.
"I seem to recollect the tall Indian beside our friend, likewise,"
observed Murray.
"'Tis his companion of the interview at Cawston's in New York,"
rejoined de Veulle. "What, Mistress Marjory, you have not forgotten
the rash youth who was always threatening or badgering us?"
Her lips moved mechanically, but 'twas a minute before she could
force her voice to obey.
"I remember," she said.
Murray took snuff precisely and addressed himself to me.
"Master Juggins, Master Juggins--oh, I beg your pardon! I keep
confusing your names. Master Ormerod, then--did I not warn you to
leave the Doom Trail alone?"