I Cool My Adversaries' Courage
We now, having been so long delayed, gave up our purpose of a fire, and
contented ourselves with the eggs raw. I also cut some very thin
slices of the smoked and salted bacon, to eat with our black bread, for
I knew that, working as we did, we needed strong food. But Mizpah
would not touch the uncooked bacon, though its savour, I assured her,
was excellent. We had but well begun our meal, and I was stooping over
the hard loaf, when a startled exclamation from Mizpah made me look up.
Close behind us stood Grul, impatiently twisting his little white rod
with the scarlet head. His eyes were somewhat more piercing, more like
blue flame, than ordinarily, but otherwise he looked as usual. So
little mark remained upon him of the scene just enacted. Both wise and
mad! I thought.
It struck me that he was pleased with the impression he so plainly made
on us both, and for a moment he looked upon us in silence. Then
swiftly pointing his stick at us, he said sharply:--
"Fools! Do you wait here? But the hound is on the trail. Do you
dream he did not see you?"
Then he turned to go. But Mizpah was at his side instantly, catching
him by the wrist, and imploring him to tell us which way her child had
been carried.
Grul stopped and looked down upon her with austere dignity, but without
replying. Passionately Mizpah entreated him, not to be denied; and at
last, lightly but swiftly removing her fingers from his wrist, he
muttered oracularly:--
"They will take him to the sea that is within the heart of the land!
But go!" he repeated with energy, "or you will not go far!" and with
steps so smooth that they seemed not to touch the ground, he went past
the cliff foot. His gaudy mantle shone for a moment, and he was gone.
The ominous urgency of his warning rang in our ears, and we were not
slow in making our own departure.
"What does he mean by 'the sea that is within the heart of the land'?"
asked Mizpah, as we hurriedly launched the canoe.
"He means the Bras d'Or lakes," I said, "those wonderful reaches of
land-locked sea that traverse the heart of He Royale. It is a likely
enough way for the savages to go. There are villages both of Acadians
and of Indians on the island."
As we were to learn afterwards, however, Grul had told us falsely. The
child was not destined for Ile Royale. Whether the strange being
really thought he was directing us aright, or, his vanity not
permitting him to confess that he did not know, trusted to a guess with
the hope that it might prove a prophecy, I have never been able to
determine. As a matter of fact, Fate did presently so take our affairs
into her own hands, that Grul's misinformation affected the end not at
all. But his warning and his exhortation to speed we had to thank for
our escape from the perils that soon came upon us. Had we not been
thus warned, without doubt we should have been taken unawares and
perished miserably.
On the incidents of our journey for the rest of that day, and up to
something past noon of the day following, I need not particularly
dwell. Suffice to say that we accomplished prodigious things, and that
Mizpah showed incredible endurance. It was as if she saw her child
ever a little way before her, and hoped to come up with him the next
minute. When the stream became hopelessly shallow, we got out and
waded, dragging the canoe. The long portage to the head of the Pictook
waters we made in the night, the trail being a clear one, and not
overly rough. At the further end of the carry, when I set down the
canoe at the stream's edge, I could have dropped for weariness, yet
from Mizpah I heard no complaint; and her silent heroism stirred my
soul to a deepening passion of worship. Over and over I told myself
that night that I would never rest or count the cost till I had given
the child back to her arms.
Not till we had gone perhaps a mile down the Pictook did I order a
halt, thrusting the canoe into a secure hiding-place. We snatched an
hour of sleep, lying where we stepped ashore. Then, rising in the
redness of daybreak, we hurried on, eating as we journeyed. And now,
conceiving that it was necessary to keep up her strength, Mizpah ate of
the uncooked bacon; though she wore a face of great aversion as she did
so.
When, after hours of unmitigated toil, we reached the head of tide and
the spacious open reaches of the lower river, I insisted on an hour of
rest. Mizpah vowed that she was not exhausted,--but she slept
instantly, falling by the side of the canoe as she stepped out. For
myself I durst not sleep, but I rested, and watched, and sucked an egg,
and chewed strips of bacon. When we pushed off again I felt that we
must have put a good space between us and our pursuers; and as the ebb
tide was helping me I made Mizpah go on sleeping, in her place in the
bow.
"I will need your help more by and by," said I when she protested, "and
then you must have all your strength to give me!"
The river soon became a wide estuary, with arms and indentations,--a
harbour fit to hold a hundred fleets. Straight down mid-channel I
steered, the shortest course to the mouth. But by and by there sprang
up a light head-wind, delaying me.
"Wake up, comrade," I cried. "I need your good arm now, against this
breeze!"
She had slept there an hour, and she woke now with a childlike flush in
her cheeks.
"How good of you to let me sleep so," she exclaimed, turning to give me
a grateful glance. But the expression upon her face changed instantly
to one of fear, and the colour all went out.
"Oh, look behind us!" she gasped. I had not indeed waited for her
words. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught sight of a large canoe,
with four savages paddling furiously. The one glimpse was enough.
"Now, comrade, work!" said I. "But steady! not too hard! This is a
long chase, remember!" and I bent mightily to the paddle.
Our pursuers were a good half-mile behind; and had we not been already
wearied, I believe we could have held our own with them all day. Our
canoe was light and swift, Mizpah paddled rarely, and for myself, I
have never yet been beaten, by red man or white, in a fair canoe-race.
But as it was, I felt that we must win by stratagem, if the saints
should so favour us as to let us win at all. Half a mile ahead, on our
right, was a high point. Behind it, as I knew, was a winding estuary
of several branches, each the debouchement of a small stream. It was
an excellent place in which to evade pursuers. I steered for the high
point.
As we darted behind its shelter, a backward glance told me that our
enemies had not gained upon us. The moment we were hidden from their
view I put across to the other side of the channel, ran the canoe
behind a jutting boulder, and leapt out. Not till we were concealed,
canoe and all, behind a safe screen of rocks and underbrush, did Mizpah
ask my purpose, though she plainly marvelled that I should hide so
close to the entrance.
"A poor and something public hiding-place is often the most secret,"
said I. "The Indians know that up this water there are a score of
turns, and backwaters, and brook-mouths, wherein we might long evade
them. As soon as they saw us turn in here, they doubtless concluded
that the water was well known to me, and that I would hope to baffle
them in the inner labyrinths and escape up one of the streams. They
will never dream of us stopping here."
"I see!" she exclaimed eagerly. "When they have passed in to look for
us, we will slip out, and push on." It was haste she thought of rather
than escape. No moment passed, I think, when her whole will, her whole
being, were not focussed upon the finding of the child. And the more I
realized the intensity of her love and her pain, the more I marvelled
at the heroic self-control which forbade her to waste her strength in
tears and wailings. The conclusion at which she had now arrived, as to
my plan, was one I had not thought of, and I considered it before
replying.
"No," said I, presently; "that is not quite my purpose, though I
confess it is a good one. But, comrade, this is a safe ambush! They
must pass within close gunshot of us!"
"Oh," she cried, paling, and clasping her hands, "_must_ there be more
blood? But yes, they bring it on themselves," she went on with a
sudden fierceness, flushing again, and her mouth growing cruel. "They
would keep us from finding him. Their blood be on their own heads!"
"I am glad you think of that," said I. "They would have no mercy for
us if they should take us now. But indeed, if it will please you to
have it so, we need not shoot them down. We can treat them to such a
medicine as they had before of me, sink their canoe, and leave them
like drowned rats on the other shore."
"Yes," said Mizpah, quietly; "if that will do as well, it will please
me much better."
And so it was agreed. A very few minutes later the canoe appeared,
rounding into the estuary. The savages scanned both shores minutely,
but rather from the habit of caution than from any thought that we
might have gone to land. If, however, I had not taken care to make my
landing behind a boulder, those keen eyes would have marked some
splashed spots on the shingle, and we would have been discovered.
But no such evil fortune came about. The four paddles flashed onward
swiftly. The four fierce, painted and feathered heads thrust forward
angrily, expecting to overtake us in one of the inner reaches. I took
up Mizpah's musket (which was loaded with slugs, while my own carried a
bullet, in case I should be called upon for a long and delicate shot),
and waited until the canoe was just a little more than abreast of us.
Then, aiming at the waterline, just in front of the bow paddle, I fired.
The effect was instant and complete. The savage in the bow threw up
his paddle with a scream and sprang overboard. He was doubtless
wounded, and feared a second shot. We saw him swimming lustily toward
the opposite shore. The others paddled desperately in the same
direction, but before they had gone half-way the canoe was so deep in
the water that she moved like a log. Then they, too, seized with the
fear of a second shot, sprang overboard. By this time I had the musket
reloaded.
"If they get the canoe ashore, with their weapons aboard her," said I,
"they will soon get her patched up, and we will have it all to do over
again. Here goes for another try, whatever heads may be in the way!"
Mizpah averted her face, but made no protest, and I fired at the stern
of the canoe, which was directly toward me. A swimmer's head, close
by, went down; and in a minute more the canoe did likewise. Three
feathered heads remained in sight; and presently three dark figures
dragged themselves ashore--one of them limping badly--and plunged into
the woods.
"Without canoe or guns," said I, "they are fairly harmless for a
while." But Mizpah, as we re-embarked and headed again for the sea,
said nothing. I think that in her bosom, at this time, womanly
compassion was striving, and at some disadvantage, with the
vindictiveness of outraged motherhood. I think--and I loved her the
better for it--she was glad I had killed one more of her child's
enemies; but I think, too, she was filled with shame at her gladness.