SWORDCRAFT.
The path taken by La Salle ascended and brought him finally to the
crest of a hill. Here a wood of storm-beaten pines stood motionless in
the white calm of the long winter sleep. Between the dimly lighted
trees spread a narrow scar of black earth, which had been protected
from snow by the funereal boughs above. The spot was as silent and as
sad as a burying-place. It seemed to the priest that the balsamic
pines might have been planted to neutralise any noxious odours
emanating from the ground. He shivered at the thought, turned to
retrace his steps and find an outlet which might lead him to the shore;
but straightway a restraint fell upon his feet, and a thrill raced
through his body, when he perceived that the place whereon he walked
was haunted ground.
Before him stood a figure, white-faced and worn, clad in ragged
garments, a man to all outward seeming no more sentient than the pines,
for he moved not at all, nor did he speak, nor make a sign. As though
rooted and frozen, he stood across the way, showing life and feeling
only in his eyes.
"By all the saints!" the priest muttered. "'Tis but a half-starved
Englishman."
Then he shouted his ready challenge to the silent man, who passed
immediately with swift movements to the strip of bare ground, and,
halting within touch of his enemy, addressed him sternly in the Gallic
tongue:
"That you may learn, Sir Priest, with whom you have to deal, know that
before you stands Sir Thomas Iden, a squire of England and a knight of
Kent, a man moreover who has sworn to fight you fairly to the death.
Remember you that night on which you put to death a boy in the forest
beside Couchicing? That boy was my son, my only child. Sir Priest,
you and I have crossed swords before this day. I was then a better man
than now; but, with the help of my God and the spirit of my child, I
shall lay out your body in this lonely spot for the winds to howl upon,
and leave your eyes open for the crows to peck at. I pray you answer
only with your sword."
Hot words came to La Salle's tongue, but he did not utter them. He
found himself daunted by the horror of the place and the unyielding
attitude of the knight. As he brought up his renowned right arm, it
shivered and the hand was cold. But so soon as their blades met, his
fighting spirit arose and conquered the superstitious fear, and a
fierce light shone again in his eyes, and the knowledge was borne back
upon him that he was in truth the finest swordsman in the New World,
and with that he shouted out, "Have at you, heretic dog!" and attacked
with all his might.
Not a bird moved through the air, not an insect lived upon that hill
top, not an animal passed that way. The two men had the gloomy wood to
themselves. Not even a breath of wind passed to wave the pines, or
scatter into motion last autumn's rusted leaves, which spotted with red
the sable rent in the great white sheet which Nature had drawn across
the ground. The rhythm of the swords rang monotonously, as the two
weird figures drifted to and fro, from side to side of the dusky bluff,
struggling the one against the other, with life as the winner's prize.
Before the abbe spread his splendid career of power as a prince of the
Church. He had but to emerge triumphant from this last taking of the
sword to assume the dignity of his new office and realise the ambition
of his heart. While the avenger saw neither priest, nor governor, nor
fencer of renown, but merely a fellow-being who had extinguished the
light of his young son's life.
So the momentous minutes passed. When the sound of quick and furious
breathing began to pulsate around the hill, Mary Iden ascended from the
hollow, after playing her part in the avenging of her son's death, and
watched with bosom heaving rapidly every movement of her husband, sure
in her faith that he was the strongest man alive. Yet she aided him
with her counsel; and when the passion of the fight had entered also
into her she cast contempt and hatred upon La Salle, and mocked his
skill, though he was on that day the finer swordsman of the pair.
"Wait not, husband," she cried warningly. "He is more spent than you."
Sir Thomas heard and rushed out. La Salle, standing sideways, parried
the thrust with a slight motion of his iron wrist, and, rounding, took
up the attack, which ended in a feint and a lunge over the heart. His
sword glanced under the knight's arm and the point struck a fir and was
almost held.
"Perdition!" he muttered. "I must use greater caution."
For a few seconds the blades were dazzling as they darted together with
the malignity and swiftness of serpents; then La Salle feigned to
stumble, lowering his point as though he had lost his grip, an old
trick he had often employed successfully, and as the knight leaped
forward to take his opening, the priest recovered and sent the blade
into his opponent's side. Life had never appeared to him so good as at
that moment, but before his laugh had died the Englishman leaned
forward, grasping the sword and holding it firmly in his side, lunged
out, and ran the priest through the chest, after La Salle had saved his
life by throwing up his arm and deflecting the point from his heart.
They fell apart, gulping the keen air for a taste of new life. The
watcher advanced, her brown face ghastly, but her husband put out his
hand and motioned her back.
"Away, Mary. There is life in me yet."
Unwillingly she retired, and a flush of pride crossed her face when her
husband staggered across the snow, his eyes still clear and fierce. La
Salle, no whit less dauntless, came up also and stood swaying like one
of the trees behind.
"You are brave, Englishman, and a worthy foe," he gasped. "We have
shed each other's blood. Let us now cry hold and part."
"There can be no truce between you and me," came the deep reply. "This
fight is to the death."
"Life has its pleasures," urged La Salle.
"Of such you deprived my son."
"Your blood be upon your own head!"
Again their swords clashed. No signs of weakening yet upon either
drawn face. The balance swayed neither to the one side nor to the
other.
Again the watcher started out, appealing to her husband. It would be
an easy matter to attack La Salle from the rear; to trip his foot with
a stick; to blind him by a handful of snow. But the knight would not
hear her; and even threatened when she made as though she would disobey.
The priest listened for the tramp of feet and the call of voices. He
would then have called the meanest settler in Acadie his brother.
Shoutings came to him from the bay, the roar of the ship's gun, and the
splitting of the ice. He groaned and cursed the folly which had driven
him into this snare.
Courage revived when he scored by a clever stroke; but again his
triumph was short-lived. The knight answered by driving his point hard
into the open side. Darkness dropped upon their eyes. They reeled
like drunken men, fighting the air, feeling for each other, falling
body to body, and pushing apart with a convulsive shudder.
"Where are you?" gasped the abbe.
"Here," moaned the Englishman, striking towards the voice.
"It is enough," said La Salle, the voice gurgling in his throat.
"Flesh and blood can endure no more. Put up your sword."
"Only in your heart."
They held at each other with one hand while fighting with the other. A
wound on one side was answered by a wound on the other. It appeared as
though neither had another drop of blood to shed, not a muscle left
unspent, nor a breath to come. The chill of the winter was in the soul
of each, and it was also the chill of death. They crawled at each
other like torn beasts, upon hands and knees.
"You are spent," pulsated La Salle.
"My sword has gone through you twice."
"Husband, bid me strike him," implored the watcher. "He is scarce able
to lift his arm."
"Back, woman," panted the dying man.
Once more they stood upon their feet, and again their points were
raised, but now against bodies which had lost all consciousness, save
the ruling passion of ambition in the one and vengeance in the other.
"Down!" snarled the abbe, knowing not it was the last word which his
tongue should utter; and, closing with his enemy, threw his remaining
life into one lunge.
The sword left his hand for ever. By a glimmer of light through the
red darkness he saw the body of the knight stretched black along that
ghastly carpet; he saw the woman running forth with a great cry to
raise it by the shoulders. Then night fell upon the victor as he
stumbled on among the trees, with a small sane voice of consciousness
singing in his departing soul: "You have fought your last fight. You
shall win the red hat yet."
So he was found by his defeated soldiers, feeling his way from pine to
pine, leaving in his wake two dotted lines more ruby-red than the
cardinal's soutane. They bound up his wounds as best they could, and,
raising him upon their shoulders, bore the dead weight of unconscious
matter into Acadie.
At noon the ship came to the landing-stage. During the excitement
which accompanied and followed her arrival even the governor became
forgotten. A cadaverous priest was the first to step ashore, casting
around him glances of intolerable pride. Others were quick to follow,
and soon it became noised abroad that Roussilac was to be recalled and
that Pope Urbano had need of La Salle the priest. Even such momentous
matters were put aside by the settlers in their anxiety to hear tidings
of home and friends.
In the meantime the pale-faced priest had set forth for the governor's
abode, muttering imprecations upon the bitter country in which it had
become his evil lot to settle.
"His Excellency?" he inquired shortly at the door; and the seneschal,
awed by his morose manner, merely made a reverence and pointed as he
said: "He lies within, Holiness."
More he would have said, but the nuncio passed on quickly and entered
the room, holding forth a missive tied with scarlet thread, calling in
a jealous voice:
"Your Excellency! A letter from Rome. A call for your return."
La Salle was lying along the bed. The messenger came nearer.
"Awake, your Excellency! His Holiness Pope Urbano sends to you----"
There the strange priest stopped at beholding a broken crucifix beneath
the sleeper's right hand; and a sneering smile curved his lips, and he
shrugged his thin shoulders, as he callously observed:
"Methinks his Holiness has sent in vain."