MAKERS OF EMPIRE.
As the days passed, and Van Vuren's attitude of diffident friendliness
remained unaltered, Roussilac's suspicions began to leave him; and even
La Salle modified his former opinions when he again walked abroad and
discovered that out of the seventy-five fighting men who made up the
military complement of the Dutch man-of-war, no less than thirty had
been sent out upon a hunting expedition in the western forests. These,
and other circumstances, tended to impress the minds of the French
officers that their ally was acting in good faith; thus the commandant
relaxed his vigilance, and Van Vuren was permitted to go upon his way
unwatched. The Dutchman came seldom to the fortress, because he feared
a second meeting with La Salle; but he frequently stole under cover of
night into the forest to the north, where the Cayugas had their camp,
little guessing that these visits were known, not indeed to the French,
but to a company of five Englishmen, who had been thrown upon the coast
to the west of the settlement of Acadie during a storm of the previous
October, and had wintered in a cave among the rugged cliffs some little
distance beyond the falls of Montmorenci, believing themselves to be
the sole representatives of their country in all that land.
These men--the sole survivors of an expedition which had set forth with
the object of establishing a small colony in the north--wasted no time
in repining over their ill-fortune, or considering the hopeless nature
of their position. They engaged themselves in mastering the topography
of the fortress and ascertaining the strength of its garrison; they
watched the river, and noted the coming and going of each ship; they
made themselves friendly with the Iroquois, and from Shuswap, the chief
of the Cayugas, a man who loved the English, they obtained from time to
time much information of value. It was one of their number, Jeremiah
Hough the Puritan, who had followed Van Vuren to the Indian camp-fire;
and when he discovered that the Dutchman was indeed faithless to his
allies and was endeavouring to stir up the Iroquois to strike a blow
against the French position, he returned with the tidings to his
comrades, and the little council of five sat for a long night and
discussed this Dutch policy with the cool shrewdness of their race.
As a result of their debate, one of the little band was deputed each
night to lie concealed upon the shore and watch the Dutch ship. Simon
Penfold, the leader, a spare, grey man of two score years and ten, but
hard and hale as any oak in his home meadows, played spy on the first
night; Jesse Woodfield, a yeoman scarce thirty years of age, did duty
on the second, and handsome young Geoffrey Viner, the boy of the party,
beloved by his comrades for the sake of his long fair hair and comely
face, kept watch on the third. On the fourth night the task devolved
upon George Flower, a middle-aged, sad-featured man, the captain's
faithful friend since the days of boyhood; and the next night found
stern Hough the Puritan lying among the willows above the shingle, with
his cold eyes fixed upon a single star of light which marked the
position of the Dutch ship.
These five men, who made up the little company of Englishmen venturing
into the French colony, were yeomen of Berks, farmers of the valleys
and fields watered by the Thames, men of good repute, who had been
driven to leave their native shore and seek another home in the wide
new world through the oppression of the agents of the greedy English
king.
The man who had discovered Van Vuren's plans had indeed delayed his
flight too long. Scarred and lined as were the faces of Flower and
Penfold, their features had at least escaped the terrible mutilation
which had been inflicted upon Hough as an outward and visible sign of
the royal displeasure. His ears had been cropped close to the skull,
his nostrils slit, his cheeks branded, as a penalty for having stoutly
refused to supply any portion of the necessities of King Charles,
according to the demand of the most honourable Court of Star Chamber.
The strong black hair which spread thickly over the Puritan's face, yet
without hiding the trail of the branding iron and the primings of the
executioner's knife, added a terrible touch to his dehumanised
appearance.
It was on the fifth night after the watch had been appointed that Van
Vuren played for his big stake. From a safe shelter among the willows,
Hough observed a small fire upon the shore, and two men, one of whom
appeared to be a native, watching beside the flames. Presently he
heard a voice hailing softly from the darkness which overhung the
river, and soon a black hulk loomed beside the shore.
Hough counted six men as they disembarked one by one, he saw the boat
drawn up, and the beacon fire extinguished. That fire was still
hissing under the water which had been thrown upon it when the Puritan
crawled out of the thicket of red willow, and stood, leaning forward,
listening attentively. When the sound of footfalls died away, he
scaled the cliff behind, ran over the flat to the little river of
Montmorenci, which was flecked with foam and shivering as it neared its
long straight plunge, pulled a canoe from beneath the bushes, and shot
across that dangerous passage as though it had been no whit more
formidable than some sluggish reach of his native Thames. Had he
dropped his paddle, death would have been inevitable; had he allowed
himself to drift beyond a certain point the current would have dragged
him down to the white bar of foam which marked a phosphorescent line
across the darkness beyond.
Plunging again into the forest, he proceeded in the same headlong
fashion, bearing to the right, always descending, until he struck a
path through the interlacing trees, and finally reached rock-land and a
cave cunningly concealed behind a screen of willow.
He whistled softly, and when his signal was answered pushed inward,
drawing away a sheet of canvas which had been stretched across the
entry to imprison more effectually the light. A fire burnt within, the
smoke escaping from a shaft two hundred feet above; and round this fire
were grouped his four companions, who started up with eager faces when
the Puritan made his entry.
"Good news, I wot," cried old Penfold. "'Tis spoken already by your
eyes, friend Hough."
"My eyes lie not," the Puritan answered. "Comrades, the Dutch have
shown their hand. If we strike at once we shall assuredly kill their
plan, and may perchance seize their leader."
In a few words he disclosed what he had seen.
"They go to hold council with the sachems," said Penfold, adding
thoughtfully, "There will be no light until the dawn."
"Let us lie in wait for them beside their boat," the Puritan advised.
"Nay, let us fall upon them in the forest," cried Wood field.
"Not so," answered the leader. "A man cannot use his sword for the
bush and the splintered growth from the pines."
"An Iroquois guide will accompany them," said Flower.
"The boat! the boat!" shouted young Viner. "That is the place."
"Peace, lads," cried Penfold, stroking his beard. "Let us discuss with
reason. Why has this Dutch vessel made her way up the river?
Roussilac would tell us that she has come to strengthen the hands of
the French. Is it so? I trow not. It has ever been the policy of the
Dutch to dissemble. Holland intends to keep the English from this
coast if she may. Surely she desires also to drive out the French, in
order that she may make herself mistress of the North American land.
She is eager to make colonies, and she knows full well that the
fortress may easily be defended once it be captured."
"She is, then, a privateer," exclaimed Hough.
"Not so. She is commissioned by the Government of the Netherlands to
seize North America. The French are only a handful here. England has
no fleet. Now is the crafty Dutchman's opportunity. Look upon this,
my lads."
Penfold pulled a flaming stick from the fire and walked across the
cave. He stopped where the side sloped as smoothly as a wall, and held
the torch above his head, pointing to a map of the American colonies
traced upon the wall of silica by charcoal. The design was roughly and
incorrectly made; rivers were placed where mountains should have shown,
and the scale was entirely inaccurate; but politically it was correct.
"See!" cried the leader, passing a finger through Chesapeake Bay, and
laying his hand lovingly upon the province of Virginia. "There lies
the fairest of England's colonies. Here, mark you, flows the Potomac,
and here to the north behold the province of Maryland. What country
lies back in the beyond we do not know, because the Mohawks are masters
there; but pass north along the coast and we reach New England, the
provinces of Connecticut and Massachusetts, with the king's towns of
Boston and Plymouth. Between lie our enemies."
He passed his fingers across the words written on the wall, "New
Netherlands," while the four men murmured behind.
"Did the Hollanders acquire their colonies in fair fight?" demanded
Penfold, returning to the fire.
He flung down the brand, and as the sparks showered upward he went on,
"I say it was through deceit. During the glorious reign of our
Elizabeth, of blessed memory, our men of Devon, our Grenville, our
Drake, our Hawkins smoked out the Spaniards, and wrested these colonies
of the new world from the King of Spain in fair fight. Fair do I say?
Ay, surely one tight English ship was ever a match for three popish
galleons. But mark you how the jackals followed the lion, even as
travellers from the Indies tell us they follow to take of that which
the lion shall leave. Where the land was free, where there was no
tyranny of the church to dread, mark you how the Dutch jackals crept
in, to find a home and found a colony under the protection of the
golden lions of England."
"Come, old Simon," broke in Woodfield. "Enough of talk."
"Ay, ay. Put out the fire, my lads. Rub out yon map. We have a plan
which, with God's help, shall perchance furnish us with better quarters
than this poor hole in the rock."
Young Geoffrey stepped back, spat upon the white wall where the words
"New Netherlands" appeared, and obliterated the Dutch colonies with the
flat of his hand.
"Let the map now stand!" he cried, and the others gathered round the
boy whom they loved, clashing their swords, and taking courage from the
thoughtless prophecy which was in God's good time to be fulfilled.
Then the Englishmen went on their way through the dark night.