COUCHICING.
A month went after the failure of the Dutch venture, and the sachems of
the Iroquois still awaited the signal of the raft of fire. Van Vuren
had entered the fortress that morning which witnessed the loss of his
ship, and there remained at the mercy of the French, spending his days
in making friendly overtures to the commandant, avoiding La Salle--who
still refused to believe that it was not Van Vuren who had been his
cowardly attacker that distant night at the street corner in
Avignon--and anxiously inquiring for news concerning the expedition
which he had sent out to the west. The Dutchman was being punished for
his treachery by the knowledge that a sword was suspended by an
exceedingly frail thread above his head, for he strongly suspected that
the dwarf Gaudriole was cognisant of his visits to the council fire.
He was therefore afraid to approach the Indians again; but his mind was
yet occupied with its former plot of seizing the fortress with their
aid.
During that month Roussilac had not been idle. With half his men he
had harried the country to east and west, that he might find and hang
the Englishmen who had dared to occupy his territory and disgrace his
flag. He did not venture into the forests of the north, because the
Iroquois were masters there. Once the adventurers came very near to
being taken, but bravery and English luck opened a way for their
escape. They were, however, compelled to abandon their cave among the
cliffs, and flee for refuge into the district inhabited by the friendly
Cayugas; and there, a few paces from the brink of Couchicing, the Lake
of Many Winds, they built them a hiding-place surrounded by a palisade,
which they ambitiously named New Windsor. To the north they were
protected by the face of the water, to the south by the primaeval
forest; on the west the Cayugas held the land, on the east the Oneidas,
both tribes well disposed towards the English and bitterly hostile to
the French.
Finding himself again defeated, Roussilac cast about in his mind for a
sounder policy, and finally resolved to adopt Samuel de Champlain's
cunning and stir up the Algonquins anew to attack their hereditary
foes. Accordingly he despatched Gaudriole with a couple of soldiers to
the north, with a present of guns and ammunition and a message to the
chief Oskelano, praying him to descend straightway to the river, and
view for himself the majesty and power of the representatives of the
King of France. Oskelano, a treacherous and heartless rogue, snatched
at the gifts, asked greedily for more, and consented to return with the
dwarf to the fortress.
This move on the part of the commandant escaped the knowledge of the
men who were busy in their way spinning the web of England's empire,
fighting for their own existence and for supremacy at one and the same
time. At their councils figured the lord of the isles--whose
well-hidden shelter in the heart of the region of the lost waters had
never been suspected by the searching party--and his stern young son.
Since that unlooked-for meeting on the deck of the Dutch vessel the
Kentishman had come into frequent contact with the men of Berks, and
their common nationality, cause, and necessities had quickly forged a
stubborn tie between them. But the geniality of the yeomen never
succeeded in breaking down the reserve of their mysterious colleague.
When asked to recount some portion of his past history he would but
answer brusquely, and when they demanded to know his name he merely
returned his former answer, "I am a man of Kent."
During that month another provision ship, the _St. Wenceslas_ of
Marseilles, had sailed up the St. Lawrence, and so soon as she had made
fast and told the news of the world D'Archand lifted anchor and headed
for home, carrying Roussilac's despatches, and those soldiers and
settlers who, by reason of wounds or sickness, had become unfitted to
fulfil their military obligations. The French Government had taken
advantage of the dissensions which were rending England apart to send
by the _St. Wenceslas_ more emigrants into the new world--all picked
men, destined by the Government to be established, willing or
unwilling, regardless of soil or natural advantages, upon such
districts as might be considered to need strengthening, there to
survive or to become extinct. It would be their duty to form, not a
settlement capable of extension, but a military post; and they would be
sustained by supplies brought over from France by warships. It was a
weak policy, bound by the test of time to fail. The English motto was
settlement and a friendly attitude towards the natives; that of her
great colonial rival, aggrandisement and the destruction of the
aborigines.
These facts were remembered by the venturers, when they beheld the
coming of the one ship and the departure of the other, and, egotists
though they were, the truth that they could not possibly form a
settlement unaided became at last too obvious to be ignored. After
repeated deliberations they decided upon a course which was indeed the
only one open to them. The advice, that one of the party should
attempt to reach the king's loyal town of Boston by overland journey
and there beg for help, proceeded in the first instance from the man of
Kent. He explained that the province of Massachusetts was well
occupied by Englishmen of every grade--soldiers of fortune as well as
artisans, farmers, and titled scions of great houses; and, he added,
there were ships of war in Boston and Plymouth harbours. This advice
found favour in the eyes of the others, and they proceeded to draw lots
to decide which one should make the hazard. The lot fell upon Geoffrey
Viner, the youngest of the party. His seniors at once held forth
objections, grounded upon his youth and inexperience; but the boy as
stoutly held out for his privilege, until the dissentients gave way.
At noon upon the day which had been selected for the young man's
departure, the lord of the isles appeared at New Windsor to bid the
messenger farewell. Geoffrey went out with him, and they stood alone
in the shade of a hemlock, facing the lake and a white cascade which
streamed like a bridal veil over the face of the rocks. After the
Kentishman had imparted what little knowledge he had of the country to
the south, he went on to fix deeply into the mind of his listener the
importance of seeing Lord Baltimore, the Governor of New England,
personally, and of impressing the papist peer strongly with the vital
necessity of sending immediate succour to the north.
"And what if my Lord Baltimore will not hear me, or hearing will not
believe?" asked Geoffrey anxiously.
"Give to him this ring," replied the other, drawing reluctantly from
his left hand a gold circlet set with a stone bearing a coat-of-arms.
"Bid him remember the promise made to this ring's owner one summer
night in a Kentish orchard. Bid him also recall the words of King
Henry the Sixth upon Southwark Bridge, hard by Saint Mary Overies, to
his ancestor the keeper of the privy seal, and to mine the sheriff of
Kent."
"Think you that our plans shall prosper?" the young man asked.
"Have no doubt. Believe that already we have succeeded. Persuade
yourself that the French are driven out of their fastnesses, and the
land from Acadia to Hochelaga gives allegiance to King Charles. As a
man wills so shall it be. And yet be cautious."
"Should I not bid them attack Acadia first? It is but a small colony,
and open to the water they say."
"Nay," said the other. "Let us fight with our faces to the sea. How
shall it profit us to drive our enemy inland and disperse them as a
swarm of flies which rises and settles in another spot? We must drive
them eastward to the sea, where they shall either conquer or die. I
pray you guard that ring."
As they moved away from the hemlock's shade a canoe swept over the lake
and touched the sand, and two stern-faced Cayugas lifted their paddles,
shaking the water from the blades. These brought a brace of
land-locked salmon to the beach. A young woman followed, and after her
an old man, his thick hair adorned with a bunch of feathers. These
were Shuswap and Onawa, his youngest daughter.
The lord of the isles went forward, and met his native relatives upon
the beach.
"Gitsa," cried the old man. "We greet you, Gitsa."
"Is it well, Shuswap?"
"It is the time of the wind of life, the good time," the old man
answered. "The waters are free, and the animals breed in the forest.
Where are the white men of the smooth tongue, Gitsa? Where are the men
who came to us at the council fire and said to us, 'Your enemy is our
enemy. Aid us now when we rise up against them'? Shall they return
with the wind of life?"
"The north wind came upon them and swept them away," his son-in-law
replied, employing the sachem's figurative speech. "You have something
to tell me, Shuswap?"
"There is a strange ship come to the high cliffs, a great ship from the
land of the accursed people," said the old man. "What is this that you
have told us, Gitsa? Said you not that the King of England shall send
many ships and men when the ice has gone, to drive out the men of
France and restore their own to the tribes of the Iroquois? What is
this that we see? The priest of France sends more ships, and more men
who shall kill the beasts of the forest and the fish of the waters, and
drive us back with their fire-tubes into the forests of the north where
the enemies of our race, the Algonquins, lie ever in wait. Is there a
king in England, Gitsa? Has he ships to send out? Has he men to put
into them? Have you lied to the sachems of the Iroquois?"
"Be not afraid, Shuswap," said the white man. "You shall learn whether
there be a king of England or no. But he has many enemies in the
far-away world, and these he must conquer first. Even now we are
sending a messenger to the king's country, and he shall return with
ships and men, and the French shall flee before them."
The man of Kent spoke with a heavy heart. He dared not confess what he
believed to be the truth--namely, that England was already embroiled in
civil war.
"A tribe divided against itself shall be annihilated," said the sachem
sharply, with the clairvoyant power of the primitive man. "The
remaining tribes stand by until it is exhausted, and then fall upon
that tribe, and it is known no more. Is it so with the English, Gitsa?"
"It is not so," replied the Englishman, a flush upon his tanned
features. "England stands above other nations of the world, even as
the sun is greater than all lights. She shines over the earth in her
strength. Were there no England the world would fall into decay, the
creatures who supply us with meat and fur would die, the fish would
fail in the waters, the forests would wither, there would be no rain
and no light by night or by day. The sun would turn black, the moon
would fall into the sea, the very gods would die if England were no
more. She shall take possession of this land in her own time, and
Frenchmen shall have no place in it except as subjects of our king."
The old sachem lifted his cunning eyes and said: "It is well, Gitsa.
But if it be so, why does not your king lift his hand and drive away
his enemies, or blow with his breath and destroy their ships? Surely
that would be a small thing to a king who governs the world."
"It would be a small thing in truth," replied the Englishman, smiling
in spite of his sorrow. "But the ways of the king are not our ways.
He allows his enemies to go upon their course, until a day comes when
he shall say, 'You have gone too far.' It is thus that he shows his
power."
"It is so," said the sachem gravely. "We cannot read the mind of him
who rules. One year there are many animals in the forest, and we live
in plenty. The next we starve. A small tribe overthrows a great one.
A great tribe becomes too prosperous and is plagued with pestilence.
The young men are smitten. The old live on. The wind destroys the
forest, the river breaks its own banks. The lightning strikes down the
totem-pole which we have raised for his pleasure. It is so. There is
a mystery in life. The gods destroy their own handiwork. They remove
the strong, and let the weak survive."
He passed on, an erect figure, in spite of his age, and treading firmly.
Onawa, a silent listener to their talk, stepped out. She was good to
look upon, with her wealth of black hair, her large eyes, her rounded
face, the cheeks and lips lightly touched with paint, her slim muscular
figure. She could run against any man, and aim an arrow with the
sureness of any forester of Nottingham. But she was headstrong, as
changeable as water, and the Englishman did not trust her.
"Where have you been, Onawa?" he said.
"I have come from the camp with my father," she replied. "Where have
you left your son? They say, among the tribes, that he grows into a
great warrior. They say also that he carries wood and draws water and
cuts up the deer which he has killed. Our young men despise a woman's
work."
"I have taught him the duty of helping his mother," came the reply.
"In my country a man lives for his mother or his wife, and her good
favour is his glory."
The girl hesitated, a frown crossing her forehead. "Why are the French
so beautiful, so bold-looking?" she asked suddenly.
"That they may captivate the minds and eyes of women who are weak."
"They are better to look at than Englishmen. They do not wear old
garments marked with dirt. They do not let the hair upon their faces
grow down their bodies. They do not talk deep in their throats. They
are not serious. I love to hear them talk, to see them move. They
walk like men who own the world."
"I have warned you against them," he said earnestly. "They are the
natural enemies of your people. Consider! What Frenchman has ever
married into your tribe and settled down among you?"
The girl laughed scornfully, and turned to go, grasping her long hair
in her hand.
"You hide from them because you know that they are better men than
you," she taunted. "It was a Frenchman who first came Jo our country
from the other world. Perhaps there was no England in those days. The
sun loves to shine upon Frenchmen. The English live in the mists. You
have taken my sister for wife, but I--I, Onawa, daughter of Shuswap,
would marry a Frenchman."
"Never shall I wish you a harder fate," retorted the calm man; and
having thus spoken he turned aside towards the tiny English settlement
to greet his friends and join again his son.
It was the first hour of night when Viner started upon his great
journey. The forest was white with a moon, and sparks of phosphorus
darted across the falls. When the wooden bars were drawn out of their
sockets and the five men emerged from the palisade, the monotonous
chirping of frogs ceased abruptly, and a great calm ensued.
In single file they passed along the dark trail, the wet bush sweeping
their legs, the branches locked overhead. They rounded the red fires
which marked the camping-ground of the Oneidas; they smelt the acrid
smoke, and dimly sighted many a brown lean-to; the dogs jumped out
barking. They passed, the lights disappeared, the silence closed down.
Presently the trail divided; the branch to the left leading to the
river, that to the right bearing inland to the lakes, rivers, and
hunting-grounds known only to the Indians.
"Get you back now," said Viner, halting at the parting of the ways.
"We are already in the country of the enemy. Bid me here God-speed."
There they clasped hands, and in the act of farewell Flower slipped
into Viner's hand a little black stone marked with a vein of chalk.
"Keep it, lad," he muttered. "One spring when I was near drowning in
the Thames by being held in the weeds I caught this stone from the
river-bed. Methinks it has protected me from ill. May that same
fortune be on you, and more added to it, in the work which lies before
you."
A ray of moonlight fell through an opening in the trees, and whitened
the five keen faces.
"Superstition made never a soldier of any man," muttered the stern
voice of the Puritan. "Fling that idolatry to the bush, Geoffrey, and
go your way, trusting rather in the Lord with a psalm upon your lips."
"It is but a reminder of home for the lad," protested Flower gently.
"We have each other. But in the solitudes what shall he have?"
"'Tis but a stone from our river, friend Hough," said Geoffrey timidly.
"I thank you, neighbour," he added.
"Fare you well," said old Penfold sadly. "We shall lack you sore."
They turned away, and instantly became lost from the man who was going
south, because the trail bent sharply. The little band of adventurers,
now reduced to four, walked slowly and sorrowfully towards New Windsor,
until they came out upon the lake, and heard the beavers gnawing the
rushes, and the wind splashing the fresh water up the beach.
"What has come to our nightingales?" said Penfold suddenly. "I like
not this silence."
The frogs about the palisade were songless, and the sign was ominous.
At their leader's hasty remark the others came to a stand, and scanned
the prospect keenly, until silently and abruptly the ghost-like shape
of a woman rose between them and the moon.
"'Tis but the girl Onawa, daughter of Shuswap," muttered Woodfield
reassuringly; but there was a suspicion in his mind which prompted him
to add, "What does she here?"
Even while he put the question Hough cried out, and pointed with a wild
gesture, feeling that same moment for his sword. Gazing in the
direction which he indicated with a quivering hand, his brethren saw
before them the palisade, but not as they had left it. The wooden bars
had been set back into their sockets, as though to forebode the
occupation of their enclosure by an enemy.
"Stay!" called Onawa haughtily, when the men approached her at a run.
"Your tepee has passed from you into the power of the king."
"There is only one king," cried old Penfold. Then he shouted at her,
for all the land to hear, "What king?"
"King Louis," said the girl defiantly.