IN THE FALL OF THE SNOW.
Because the Father of Waters was frozen over and its track buried in
snow, despatches from Quebec could only be conveyed by the hand of
overland couriers. Winter had set in early that year, and with more
than usual severity; and this was probably the reason why no messenger
had lately arrived from the heights to inform the governor of Acadie as
to what had taken place in and around the modest capital of New France.
The priest was not concerned by this silence. He had indeed lost much
of his interest in the doings of the New World, since D'Archand had
informed him of his popularity at home. He felt that he had made his
advancement sure. During the weeks which followed autumn, when the
maples were resigning their gorgeous vestments of red and gold, he had
occupied himself in setting the affairs of his charge in order, looking
to shortly receive a command to proceed to Rome, there to receive the
reward of his stewardship. Onawa had passed out of his memory, and
with her the brave young boy whom he had smitten in the forest by
Couchicing. He sent no expedition out to search the land. He had done
sufficient for glory. He was not the man to waste his energies upon
works of supererogation. No slip could lose him that spiritual
principality towards which he had pressed by word and act since the day
of his ordination. As he strode through the snow the settlement seemed
to shrink from him, and the trees to bow, as though foreseeing the
power which was about to pass into his hands.
La Salle reached his chapel, recited vespers in the arrogant voice
which made him feared, and returned to his quarters. A spirit of
restlessness was over him, and when he could resist no longer he rose,
and, taking his sword, lunged repeatedly at a knot in the wall,
striking it full until his body began to sweat.
"No falling off," he muttered, as he examined the pricks in the wood.
"No sign of weakness yet." He lowered the sword, and mechanically
wiped the point in the tail of his skirt, then passed his firm hand
caressingly down the blade, murmuring, with a self-conscious smile: "I
have finished my fighting. Henceforth my wrist must stiffen and my arm
rust, while the power which has controlled the sword shall pass into
the use of tongue and pen."
A knock fell upon the door, and in response to his reply a personal
attendant entered, and with a low reverence announced:
"A messenger to speak with you, Excellency."
At the governor's word a man was ushered in, clad in furs, his beard
heavy with icicles, a pair of long snow-shoes slung upon his back. He
made a profound genuflection and stood with bent head awaiting
permission to speak.
"Come you from the upper fortress?" asked La Salle.
"Yes, Excellency, with despatches for France and a letter for your
Holiness."
La Salle put out his hand for the communication, broke the thread,
unfolded the sheet, and, holding it in the lamplight, bent over to read.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, his eyes lifting. "Laroche. What means this
signature?"
"The noble commandant Roussilac has been stricken with sickness,"
hesitated the messenger.
"What ails him?" asked the priest.
The man faltered, but finally gained courage to reply: "It is said,
Excellency, that the noble commandant acts strangely, as a man
possessed by some unholy influence."
La Salle brought the letter again to his eyes, and hurriedly scanned
the ill-written lines.
"It is explained here," he said indifferently. "La tete lui a tourne.
Was never an able man," he muttered to himself. "Was ambitious, and
thought himself strong enough to stand alone. 'Tis but justice." He
looked across coldly, and sharply ordered the messenger to withdraw.
The emissary retired, bowing as he backed out, while La Salle ran his
eyes over the remainder of the letter, muttering his comments aloud.
"Gaudriole hanged for murdering a soldier. So, so! Was but a brute.
The little Frenchwoman dead of a fit, and her daughter escaped. A
weeding-out, in faith. The traitorous Dutch gone beyond capture. The
English spy also escaped. The men sent after him returned afoot, and
swore that they had been set upon by demons among a range of white
mountains. Would have hanged the fools. The Iroquois tribes gone into
winter hunting-grounds. The country altogether clear. The Algonquins
still friendly. This colony is now settled to France beyond question."
La Salle dropped the letter, and fell into musings. Once he put his
hand to his brow, as though he could already feel a mitre pressing
there; he fingered his ring, and moved his foot, to frown when his eyes
sighted a rough boot instead of the scarlet shoe of his dreams. Then
he was awakened by a noisy rattling and a shock.
The crucifix which had hung upon the log wall--more as a sign of
profession, as the gauntlet outside the glove-maker's shop, than as a
symbol he revered--lay broken upon the floor.
The priest rose, muttering a frightened imprecation, and as he
nervously gathered up the shattered symbol his ears became opened to a
hurrying of feet over the fresh snow. All the soldiers and settlers
appeared to be rushing past afoot, shaking the ground and the walls of
his house. It was doubtless this disturbance which had detached the
crucifix from its nail. La Salle pulled a beaver cap over his forehead
and made for the outer door, and there encountered a messenger who came
to inform him that a ship's gun had been heard at sea.
"Bid them fire the beacon," said La Salle.
"It has been done, Excellency. There is not a breath over the water.
But the snow pours down."
The priest's official bodyguard awaited him; and when he appeared every
man saluted and fell into place, and so accompanied him to the cliff,
where a huge fire was making the sky scarlet. This fire was a centre
towards which all the settlers were hastening like flies towards a
lantern. The coming of a ship from the Old World, with supplies, fresh
faces, and news of friends, was a red-letter day in the monotonous
calendar of their lives. The white figures hurried through the night
like an inferno of chattering ghosts.
"She shall not be in till morning light," quoth a wiseacre. "There are
rocks, see you, in the gulf, and her master shall run no risk after
escaping the perils of the ocean."
"Will wager to-day's haul of fish that she lies up here before three
hours are gone," cried another.
"And I my fishing-net that we shall not see her before day," retorted
the confident first speaker.
"That net is mine. Didst not hear the gun?"
"Sounds carry far through the winter air."
"The snow muffles. She is scarce a mile out."
"Ah, that is indeed a fire! The light of it shall reach far out at
sea."
The excitable folk laughed loudly whenever a fresh load of wood was
flung upon the flames, and carried away by their feelings danced an
ambulatory ballet in the red mist, a dance, like the Prosperity of the
Arms of France to be given before Richelieu a few months later, not
altogether without political significance. These settlers danced to
the tune of their song; and their songs were Success to the Ships of
France and Destruction to the English. While these revels lasted no
one observed a soldier hurrying up behind, with a woman at his side.
The woman was Onawa, breathing quickly as though she had been running
at the top of her speed.
"Yonder stands his Holiness," said the man, stopping to point out La
Salle surrounded by his little band of attendants.
Onawa abandoned her guide and rushed out, maddened and witless with her
foolish passion, until she reached the side of the man she loved and
was warmed by his dark eyes, which yet flashed angrily upon her, as he
turned to shake off the parasite, ejaculating:
"Whom have we here?"
"It is I," she cried wildly in French, having at length acquired some
little knowledge of that language. "Let me speak." More she would
have said, but her store of the language failed in the time of need.
"Uncover her face," ordered La Salle. "Take her into the firelight
that we may see with whom we have to deal."
"Let me speak to you here," prayed the girl, drawing back into the
snow-lit gloom; but she was seized and dragged upward close to the
dancing ring, and rough hands drew the covering from her face.
"Tete de mort!" exclaimed La Salle, and started back when he recognised
the face that had once been handsome set towards him in the wild
firelight, fearfully branded, the nostrils slit, the ears cropped, a
letter seared upon each cheek. "Cover that horror, and drive her out
lest she bewitch us."
"Hear me," the unhappy girl moaned, holding out her hands in an agony
of supplication. "Yonder your enemy cover the shore. Many men and a
ship held in the ice." She panted forth the syllables in the best
French she could muster, throwing out her hands along the eastern shore.
La Salle's expression altered as he turned to his subordinates with the
old fighting passion in his eye and heart.
"My men," he said, "this woman is but an Indian, but she is
trustworthy, I know. An English vessel has been cast ashore, and the
sailors seek to make shelter. What say you? Shall we warm our blood
and relieve this tedious time of waiting by venturing out to
exterminate the vermin?"
"Should we not first send out a spy?" suggested an old officer.
"It is well thought on. Choose you a man, and bid him take this woman
for a guide. Let him stab her if she prove false. Do you gather
together our fighters," went on the priest, turning to another, "and
bid them make ready to sally out immediately."
"Shall you venture yourself, Excellency?"
"Shall I not!" cried La Salle, his hot blood afire for one more fight
and one more triumph. "I fear we shall find but poor sport, but such
as it is I shall take my share. Break up yonder circle of madmen, and
order them to make ready. Hasten, so that we may have our hunt, and be
ready to receive the ship when she sails out of the fog."
"I go not," cried Onawa, furiously resisting the soldiers who would
have forced her away. She broke from them, ran to La Salle, and fell
upon her knees, panting: "I go with you, that I may fight with you, and
die for you."
"The woman has yet to learn a soldier's discipline," said La Salle
coldly. "Secure a rope round her, and if she prove obstinate let her
feel the end of it."
Onawa flung herself forward to grasp his feet, but two soldiers stepped
out and dragged her away.
"Now, my brave comrades! To arms!" shouted the fighting priest.