FOR LIFE OR DEATH
At the sound of Alaine’s cry Lendert set spurs to his horse and made
a dash past the on-coming rider, but there came a report of a pistol;
his hold upon the bridle loosened; he reeled slightly in his saddle;
the horse made a plunge forward, then stopped short, and in an instant
François was alongside.
“You thought to escape me, my falconet,” he cried, “but I have the
jesses ready. You do not leave my wrist again. By St. Maclovius, I
was in luck to have crossed your path when I was on my way to your
hiding-place.”
He seized her waist and attempted to drag her from her seat, but she
clung to Lendert, down whose cheek the blood was running.
“Mynheer Verplanck,” she cried, “do not die! Do not leave me to the
mercy of this man!” And she beat off with her fists the hands of the
man whose hold was tightening upon her.
For a second Lendert looked around in a dazed way, then his stunned
senses returned, and he gave the horse a cut which caused him to spring
forward, and the suddenness of the movement dragged François from his
saddle, but he clung to Alaine’s pillion, and, cat-like, scrambled up
behind her. “I also go,” he said. “To quote your favorite Scripture,
mademoiselle, ‘Whither thou goest I will go.’”
Lendert lashed at him furiously with his whip, at which François gave
a low mocking laugh. “I advise you not to attempt that, monsieur,” he
said; “you might also strike Mademoiselle Hervieu. So closely are we
united, she and I, that what touches one touches the other. Is it not
so, Mademoiselle Hervieu?”
She made him no answer, but tried to shrink away from his close
embrace, and leaning forward, asked, in a low voice, “Are you hurt,
Monsieur Verplanck?”
“But slightly,” he whispered back.
Alaine made a little exclamation, for at this instant François whipped
out his knife to cut the belt into which Lendert’s pistols were thrust.
These fell with a clatter to the ground. In one moment their owner had
pulled in his horse, but to dismount meant to leave Alaine in the hands
of her enemy, and he but gave note to the spot and rode on.
“We ride,” cried François, “to the devil, maybe, though I fancy your
horse may grow weary if the journey be long. I am not of a great
weight myself, but monsieur there is not too light, and three of us.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Yet, I do not alight while mademoiselle
rides,” he continued.
Lendert gave a slow, sleepy look over his shoulder. “The mosquito is
sometimes bad in the woods,” he remarked, confidentially, to Alaine.
“After a while we are able to rid ourselves of the pest.” And he
turned his horse around.
“Ah-h!” cried François, “I see your manœuvre, monsieur,” and with the
quickness of a monkey he unloosed Alaine’s hands from the hold and
leaped with her to the ground, crying, “Ride on, monsieur, you are well
rid of the pest, eh? He will satiate himself first, this mosquito.” And
again a pistol-shot rang out.
“Poltroon! villain!” cried Alaine. “You shoot a man when his back is
turned.”
“I use the means the good God gives me, mademoiselle. I kill to defend
myself, and who would not? I kill even you, yes, rather than that other
there possess you.”
The pistol-shot had wounded Lendert in the shoulder, but he rode back
over the ground at a gallop, was down from his horse in an instant, and
picking up his own pistols from where they had fallen, he levelled one
at François.
But without hesitation François thrust Alaine in front of him, crying,
“This is a fashion of defence employed in some of your colonies, I
hear. One Monsieur Bacon has adopted the measure in Virginia, and I
follow this excellent American custom, good Sir Avoirdupois. Elephants
are clumsy creatures, and the nimble mouse can sometimes get the better
of the large beast of the long nose.”
Lendert advanced steadily upon him, but, holding Alaine still as a
shield, François sprang behind a tree. “A game, a merry game in the
wildwood,” he cried. “Catch who can. Advance, monsieur; there are
trees enough to enable us to keep up our pastime for many hours, and
to resume it to-morrow, if we like. Yet, I fancy, Monsieur Le Gros,
you will have lost the taste for sport by that time, judging from the
amount of bloodletting I have caused you. Ah-h, mademoiselle, the toil
in the fields has given you a peasant’s strength, yet it is not worth
while to attempt escape; I am the stronger, you see.” For Alaine had
tried, by a quick jerk, to extricate herself.
For two or three moments Lendert stood silently looking at them, then
he gazed around him with a puzzled expression on his quiet heavy face.
“He is at a loss, that Monsieur Le Grand,” François whispered, leaning
forward and saying the words close to Alaine’s ear. “He will presently
leave us, since he does not care to have the sport prolonged. Did you
think, Alaine, that I did not know the way to win a secret from Marie?
Fool that she is, to be dazzled by a few paltry trinkets. I repeat, I
am seldom at a loss, and she will do better the next time. You will not
have a more vigilant guardian than Marie when she receives you into her
keeping this evening. And to-morrow we commence our journey to Canada.”
The horses had wandered away some little distance, and were cropping
the grass along the path. Toward first one and then the other Lendert
advanced, slipped their bridles over their heads, and led them some
little distance, where he fastened them. He next took off the deer-skin
hunting-jacket which he wore and sat down upon the ground. Alaine saw
that there was a deep red stain coloring the white shirt underneath.
She watched him with fascinated eyes. What was he about to do? From his
pocket he took his sharp hunting-knife, and, strip by strip, painfully
and laboriously, he cut thongs from the deer-skin garment. It must be a
painful operation, Alaine considered, for even the slightest movement
of the wounded shoulder must give a pang.
“Monsieur Le Gros Cochon amuses himself,” said François. “I could
compassionate him upon his lack of freedom of movement; I, too, can use
but one arm, hampered as I am by the possession of this Naomi, to whom
I have pledged myself, ‘Whither thou goest I will go.’”
“There is at least one place where monsieur cannot accompany me,”
remarked Alaine, in cutting tones, and speaking for the first time to
her captor.
“And where is that, my Mara, so bitter?”
“To heaven,” Alaine retorted.
François laughed. “Some would say otherwise, mademoiselle. I fancy
those from whom you have parted company in la belle France would
consign you to a more fiery abode, and since you refuse to conform, I
may perhaps not be misunderstood if I employ any means which will still
allow me to accompany you even to an uncomfortable place. But we will
discuss this later. There will be time enough. At present I am rather
curious to discover our large friend’s intention. It seems the work of
an imbecile to cut one’s clothes to pieces, wanting something else to
do. Perchance he wishes to take me off my guard and seeks to mislead me
by playing the fool, so that I will release you, but I hold you fast,
do I not, my falconet?”
Lendert arose to his feet. His ruddy countenance was growing strangely
white; his flaxen hair was dappled with blood and his shirt was
stiffened by the same, but in his blue eyes there was the steady look
of obstinate resolve.
“I think we may attempt to run now, mademoiselle,” said François. “He
cannot follow very fast nor very long. I regret that I cannot spare
time from my devoted attention to you to reload my pistols. I may need
them.”
“You will not find yourself very light of foot with a dead weight to
drag behind you,” vouchsafed Alaine.
“But if I lead the chase, Monsieur Le Cochon Hollandais cannot keep up
the pace for very long; he bleeds freely, the stuck pig. See, I start.”
He pushed the girl behind him, clasped her arms around his waist, and,
holding her hands in front of him, set off on a run.
But Alaine, as she felt his left hand fumble for his pistols, let
herself drop to her knees.
At this instant there came a singing, whirring sound; a slender
leather rope whizzed through the air and fell about them, tightening
around the man’s shoulders with a jerk. He was brought to a standstill;
then as the thongs enclosed him more securely his arms were forced
back by the strain, and the girl saw her opportunity. A short struggle
and she was able to make her escape. She rushed breathlessly toward
Lendert. “Monsieur Verplanck, I will help you,” she cried.
François bowed himself and fiercely tore at the slender deer-skin
thongs, and at last, running backward, was able to slacken the cord and
to wriggle himself out of its hold. A moment more and his pistol was
ready in his hand. Alaine foresaw his intention, and before he could
fire she sprang before her deliverer, who had sunk upon his knees and
was leaning heavily against a tree, all his strength gone from this
last effort. “Monsieur,” cried the girl, “it is an American custom,
you say, to use a woman as a shield. Monsieur Verplanck has proved
that it is false, and that it is but the makeshift of a coward. Yet,
because you have shown me how powerful a shield a woman can be, I stand
here.” She gave a quick glance at the fainting figure before which she
stood; then she lifted her head high and faced François. “I defy you,
monsieur,” she said.
He rushed at her blind with rage. “I will kill you before you shall
escape me!” he cried.
“Kill me if you will. I have warned you that where I go you cannot
follow. Do you think me so great a coward as to be afraid to die?” she
asked, with a mocking look in her great eyes. “Death comes to all, and
what matter when or where? Shall I be worse off in that other world
because you choose to be the means of sending me there before God wills
it so? Or shall you be better off here when I am gone, and after, when
you go to face God’s judgment of you? Take my life? You cannot; it is
God’s, who gave it, and it is for the life eternal. Kill me if you
will; you lose all if you do and I gain everything.”
Twice he lifted his pistol; twice it dropped to his side. “I will wait
till your friend is dead,” he said at last, in sinister tones. “’Twill
not be long. I will wait, mademoiselle. It is sometimes better to
endure patiently, say you Huguenots, therefore I follow your example. A
dead man needs no shield, and, also, can tell no tales.”
Alaine cast a frightened glance at the drooping figure behind her.
“Monsieur Verplanck,” she cried, in dread, “if I but dared to turn my
back, but yonder wretch has no conscience, and he would finish the work
he has begun. I must keep my face toward him to watch him, but I will
try to stanch your wound.” She took the kerchief from her neck, and
without exposing him to the possible attack from François, managed to
twist a tourniquet above the place which bled the most freely, after
which she arose to her feet, and stood again defiant, determined. The
eyes of her enemy were bent fixedly upon her. She closed her own and
began to sing one of the familiar psalms.
“Aux paroles que je veux dire,
Plaise toi l’oreille prester:
Et à cognoistre t’arrester,
Pourquoi, mon cœur, pense et soupire,
Souverain Sire,”
rang out the plaintive voice in the still forest. “Sovereign Sire” came
the echo. Was it an echo? Alaine’s dark eyes grew more intense as she
listened. Faintly upon the air came the second stanza of the psalm,--
“Enten à la voix très ardente,
De ma clameur, mon Dieu, mon Roy,
Veu que tant seulement à toi
Ma supplication présente
J’offre et présente.”
Nearer and nearer came the voice, and with all her heart in her singing
Alaine continued, but before she had finished the third stanza the song
ended suddenly, and her glad cry was, “Pierre! Here, Pierre, mon ami!
Praise to the good God, thou art come!” Then from the greenwood strode
Pierre Boutillier, who stopped in amazement at the sight of Alaine
standing guard over a prostrate man, while the form of François Dupont
retreated down the path into the forest beyond.
“Pierre, Pierre, hasten! I dare not move. Secure yonder man.” Alaine’s
trembling finger pointed to François.
Pierre rushed forward. François raised his pistol and half turned in
his flight, but before he was able to fire he stumbled and fell forward
on his face.
“God have mercy!” cried Alaine. “Pierre, have you killed him?”
He stooped and turned over the body of the man at his feet. “No, he
lives. It was his own pistol gave the hurt; it went off as his foot
struck the root of this tree where he fell.”
“God have mercy!” again whispered Alaine. “Then, Pierre, we have two
of them wounded. And how did you find me? And is this not a terrible
thing, all this? Have you some spirits? Monsieur Verplanck has fainted.
Is it not strange that I am not dead? I thought my last hour had come.
And you, Pierre, you are not hurt?”
He assured her that he was untouched, and then busied himself in
ministering to Lendert while Alaine poured forth her story.
“We have been scouring the woods,” Pierre told her, “and I took this
direction, and when I heard your voice I knew the good God had put my
feet upon the right path. Gerard is not far away. I think I can summon
him. We were to meet at the end of this path when the sun was noon
high. There, your friend is recovering; he opens his eyes.”
“You are better, monsieur,” said Alaine, softly, kneeling down by him.
“Now, pray you, Pierre, see to that other unfortunate. One would not
have the blood even of an enemy upon his head; but, Pierre, I advise
you to secure him that he does not move. He is possessed of the very
evil one for strategy. Yet he spared me,” she murmured. “If you find
you can restore him, go you and find Gerard, and I will wait here. I am
no longer afraid.” She raised her lovely eyes to his, and Pierre with a
swift movement caught her hands.
“I thought you dead, Alaine,” he said, brokenly. “I thought I should
see you nevermore in this world.”
Lendert lay watching them. He stirred slightly, and Alaine with a soft
flush on her cheek bent over him solicitously. “We are safe,” she
told him. “My good friend Pierre Boutillier, who has been out with a
search-party looking for me, has arrived and goes for succor.”
“And the Frenchman?” said Lendert, feebly.
“He is wounded sorely by a shot from his own pistol. He is not able to
move, and can do no one harm for some time to come. We will take you
to our home and nurse you well, monsieur.” She nodded brightly as he
shook his head. “’Tis no more than our right, since you were hurt in
my service. But for me you might now be safe and unhurt. Will you not
allow me to pay my debt? Mère Michelle is a famous nurse, and can make
you strengthening soups such as you never ate, and will have you up and
about in no time. I think you will allow it is best, M. Verplanck.
Besides,” she lowered her voice, “it would not do to let it be known
that Monsieur Bayard abides so near. I would not bring trouble upon
him and madame, his wife, and so---- No, no, it is not that Pierre and
Gerard and Papa Louis would try to do evil to one who had befriended
me, but it might be inconvenient for them to know where hides Monsieur
Bayard. Is it not so? You agree?”
“I agree,” he answered; “though I do not wish to give you the trouble
of nursing me.”
Alaine had cut away the sleeve and was carefully examining the wound.
“It is not severe, I think. You will not be very long an invalid. The
loss of blood has weakened you. I ought to go to yonder man now.”
Lendert looked at her in surprise.
“He is my enemy, yes, but one ought to do good to one’s enemy,” she
said, simply. “I will first bind up your wound with these bandages
steeped in the wine which Pierre has brought, and you will feel better.”
But she was spared the necessity of giving attention to François,
for Pierre and Gerard were soon with him. Alaine threw herself into
Gerard’s arms. “My brother,” she cried, “I am here! Is it not wonderful
that I am here? And you have been all night seeking me. I am thankful
that you have found me; you do not know how thankful I am that Pierre
came at that moment. You did not receive my message, for you have not
been at home, and for that I am also thankful. All is well, very well,
save that M. Verplanck is suffering for his defence of me. As for that
other, he is punished for his wickedness. M. Verplanck does not deserve
punishment, and yet he has it.”
“We all deserve punishment,” said Pierre, solemnly.
“That may be,” returned Alaine, “but for me, I do not wish to say why
one should suffer for his good deeds. No doubt the good God knows, but
still I say if M. Verplanck suffers it may be for his good, but not
because he deserves punishment. For what should he, Pierre, when he has
but defended me?”
Pierre shook his head. “I cannot say, Alaine.”
“And you, Gerard, is it punishment, think you?”
Gerard laughed. “To stop here in the forest to discuss a theological
question when two suffering men are to be removed to a more comfortable
place seems unnecessary. If you and Pierre must debate let it be on
the way home. If your friend there can ride let him mount his horse,
and I will take the other steed and bear the more injured one upon it.
You and Pierre can walk, unless Pierre would prefer to be guard for M.
Dupont.”
But here Lendert interposed. “Why cannot Mlle. Mercier travel with me
the same as before, on my horse?”
Alaine looked at Lendert and then at Pierre. “I will walk till I am
tired,” she gave her decision, “and then, M. Verplanck, I will ride.”
The tedious journey came to an end when the little hamlet of New
Rochelle was reached that afternoon. Papa Louis was overtaken before
they had come to the edge of the woods. “A pretty plot for a romance,”
he exclaimed, after clasping Alaine and kissing her on each cheek;
“a lost ward returning with four attendant knights, and some of them
wounded in the fray? Who are these, my daughter?”
“These, Papa Louis? Ah, it is a long story! I will walk with you and
tell you my romance, as you call it; a strange one, indeed. Captured by
Indians, rescued by yonder gentleman, wrested from him by the other, so
sorely hurt. Am I not the heroine of a romance? Yet it has been a sad
time for me, and I would rather the humdrum of every day so I be safe
with you and Mère Michelle.”
“And for what was it all?” asked Papa Louis, knitting his brows as
Alaine went into the particulars of her experience.
“That I cannot altogether tell. I half doubt M. Dupont’s words, though
he acts the distracted lover, he who has seen me but two or three
times.”
Papa Louis shook his head. “It will be for Michelle to unravel it. She
is very acute, is my Michelle, and though she has not the learning
from books, she has a penetration unexcelled. She is distracted, the
poor one; she one moment thinks you destroyed by wolves, the next
drowned in the waters of the sound, and again she declares you have
been carried away by savages. She has not slept, neither has she eaten
a mouthful. As for the neighbors, they have sent out search-parties
in all directions. The news of your return must be given and the
signal-fire lighted.”
And, indeed, there was a great running to doors and windows and a great
bustle in the street when the little procession wended its way through
the village. Mère Michelle, weeping, fell on Alaine’s neck. “She that
was lost is found! Helas! my Alainette, how I have grieved for thee! On
my knees all night, save when I watched from the window, prying into
the darkness for a torch-light which might tell of your safe return.”
But here the good woman’s attention was distracted by the sight of the
two patients. Gerard and Pierre bore the unconscious François into the
house and laid him on one of the beds, and Papa Louis assisted Lendert
with much show of concern. Lendert protested, but was made to occupy
the other bed, and this strange situation brought a grim smile to
Pierre’s lips.
Michelle, running from one to the other, directing, exclaiming,
rejoicing, grieving, had her hands full. “Heat me a kettle of water,
Louis. Ah, mon cœur, but he is badly hurt, this wicked one. Thank
heaven! you escaped, my Alaine. Yet see your best silk gown, a rag, a
fringe, and your buckles gone from your shoes, which are fit only for
burning, so skinned and torn are they, and where will you get another
pair? Alas! you come back poorer than you went. A stoup of wine,
Gerard, for this gentleman grows faint. He is of good stuff, for he has
not flinched, and his shoulder must be very painful. Steep the bandages
well, Gerard. Art better, monsieur? There, I think we must keep you
very quiet. The other is of no weight. I could lift him myself, but
he is the color of wax. He is not fit to die, the miserable, and we
must save him for God knows what, yet we cannot let even an enemy go
directly to burn in hell, as he surely would.”
The eyes of the sufferer opened slowly; they caught sight of Alaine.
“Whither thou goest,” the white lips murmured, and Alaine, bravely
as she had endured everything else, now burst into tears, and sobbed
inconsolably upon Papa Louis’s shoulder.