Law followed his gaze, and his look was returned dumbly by the woman who

had played so strange a part in the late passages of his life. Never a

word with her had Law spoken regarding his plans or concerning what he

had learned from Pembroke. As to this, Mary Connynge had been afraid to

ask, nor dare ask even now.

"Besides," went on Pembroke later, as he called Law aside, "there is

something to be done--not here, but over there, in England, or in

France. Your duty is involved not only with this woman. You must find

sometime the other woman. You must see the Lady Catharine Knollys."

Law sunk his head between his hands and groaned bitterly.

"Go you rather," said he, "and spend your life for her. I choose that it

should end at once, and here."

"I have not been wont to call Mr. Law a coward," said Pembroke, simply.

"I should be a coward if I should stand aside and allow you to sacrifice

yourself; nor shall I do so," replied the other.

"They say," broke in Pierre Noir, who had been listening to the excited

harangues of first one warrior and then another, "that both warriors are

great chiefs, and that both should go together. Teganisoris insists that

only one shall be offered. This last has been almost agreed; but which

one of you 'tis to be has not yet been determined."

Dawn came through the narrow door and open roof holes of the lodge. The

rising of the sun seemed to bring conviction to the Iroquois. All at

once the savage council broke up and scattered into groups, which

hurried to different parts of the village. Presently these reappeared at

the central lodge. There sounded a concerted savage chant. A ragged

column appeared, whose head was faced toward the cataract. There were

those who bore strings of beads and strips of fur, even the prized

treasures of the tufted scalp locks, whose tresses, combed smooth, were

adorned with colored cloth and feathers.

Pierre Noir was silent; yet, as the captives looked, they needed no

advice that the sacrificial procession was now forming.

"They said," began Pierre Noir, at length, with trembling voice, turning

his eyes aside as he spoke, "that it could not be myself, that it must

be one of you, and but one. They are going to cast lots for it. It is

Teganisoris who has proposed that the lots shall be thrown by--" Pierre

Noir faltered, unwilling to go on.

"And by whom?" asked Law, quietly.

"By--by the woman--by madame!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE SACRIFICE

There was sometimes practised among the Iroquois a game which bore a

certain resemblance to the casting of dice, as the latter is known among

civilized peoples. The method of the play was simple. Two oblong

polished bones, of the bigness of a man's finger, were used as the dice.

The ends of these were ground thin and were rudely polished. One of the

dice was stained red, the other left white. The players in the game

marked out a line on the hard ground, and then each in turn cast up the

two dice into the air, throwing them from some receptacle. The game was

determined by the falling of the red bone, he who cast this colored bone

closer to the line upon the ground being declared the winner. The game

was simple, and depended much upon chance. If the red die fell flat upon

its face at a point near to the line, it was apt to lie close to the

spot where it dropped. On the other hand, did it alight upon either end,

it might bound back and fall at some little distance upon one side of

the line.

It was this game which, in horrible fashion, Teganisoris now proposed to

play. He offered to the clamoring medicine man and his ferocious

disciples one of these captives, whose death should appease not only the

offended Great Spirit, but also the unsated vengeance of the tribe. He

offered, at the same time, the spectacle of a play in which a human life

should be the stake. He used as practical executioner the woman who was

possessed by one of them, and who, in the crude notions of the savages,

was no doubt coveted by both. It must be the hand of this woman that

should cast the dice, a white one and a red one for each man, and he

whose red die fell closer to the line was winner in the grim game of

life and death.

Jean Breboeuf and Pierre Noir stood apart, and tears poured from the

eyes of both. They were hardened men, well acquainted with Indian

warfare; they had seen the writhings of tortured victims, and more than

once had faced such possibilities themselves; yet never had they seen

sight like this.

Near the two men stood Mary Connynge, the bright blood burning in her

cheeks, her eyes dry and wide open, looking from one to the other. God,

who gives to this earth the few Mary Connynges, alone knows the nature

of those elements which made her, and the character of the conflict

which now went on within her soul. Tell such a woman as Mary Connynge

that she has a rival, and she will either love the more madly the man

whom she demands as her own, or with equal madness and with greater

intensity will hate her lover with a hatred undying and unappeasable.

Mary Connynge stood, her eyes glancing from one to the other of the men

before her. She had seen them both proved brave men, strong of arm,

undaunted of heart, both gallant gentlemen. God, who makes the Mary

Connynges of this earth, only can tell whether or not there arose in the

heart of this savage woman, this woman at bay, scorned, rebuked,

mastered, this one question: Which? If Mary Connynge hated John Law, or

if she loved him--ah! how must have pulsed her heart in agony, or in

bitterness, as she took into her hand those lots which were the arbiters

of life and death!

Teganisoris looked about him and spoke a few rapid words. He caught Mary

Connynge roughly by the shoulder and pulled her forward. The two men

stood with faces set and gray in the pitiless light of morn. Their arms

were fast bound behind their backs. Eagerly the crowding savages

pressed up to them, gesticulating wildly, and peering again and again

into their faces to discover any sign of weakness. They failed. The

pride of birth, the strength of character, the sheer animal vigor of

each man stood him in stead at this ultimate trial. Each had made up his

mind to die. Each proposed, not doubting that he would be the one to

draw the fatal lot, to die as a man and a gentleman.

Teganisoris would play this game with all possible mystery and

importance. It should be told generations hence about the council fires,

how he, Teganisoris, devised this game, how he played it, how he drew it

out link by link to the last atom of its agony. There was no receptacle

at hand in which the dice could be placed. Teganisoris stooped, and

without ceremony wrenched from Mary Connynge's foot the moccasin which

covered it--the little shoe--beaded, beautiful, and now again fateful.

Sir Arthur smiled as though in actual joy.

"My friend," said he, "I have won! This might be the very slipper for

which we played at the Green Lion long ago."

Law turned upon him a face pale and solemn. "Sir," said he, "I pray God

that the issue may not be as when we last played. I pray God that the

dice may elect me and not yourself."

"You were ever lucky in the games of chance," replied Pembroke.

"Too lucky," said Law. "But the winner here is the loser, if it be

myself."

Teganisoris roughly took from Mary Connynge's hand the little bits of

bone. He cast them into the hollow of the moccasin and shook them

dramatically together, holding them high above his head. Then he lowered

them and took out from the receptacle two of the dice. He placed his

hand on Law's shoulder, signifying that his was to be the first cast.

Then he handed back the moccasin to the woman.

Mary Connynge took the shoe in her hand and stepped forward to the line

which had been drawn upon the ground. The red spots still burned upon

her cheeks; her eyes, amber, feline, still flamed hard and dry. She

still glanced rapidly from one to the other, her eye as lightly quick

and as brilliant as that of the crouched cat about to spring.

Which? Which would it be? Could she control this game? Could she elect

which man should live and which should die--this woman, scorned, abased,

mastered? Neither of these sought to read the riddle of her set face and

blazing eyes. Each as he might offered his soul to his Creator.

The hand of Mary Connynge was raised above her head. Her face was

turned once more to John Law, her master, her commander, her repudiator.

Slowly she turned the moccasin over in her hand. The white bone fell

first, the red for a moment hanging in the soft folds of the buckskin.

She shook it out. It fell with its face nearly parallel to the ground

and alighted not more than a foot from the line, rebounding scarce more

than an inch or so. Low exclamations arose from all around the thickened

circle.

"As I said, my friend," cried Sir Arthur, "I have won! The throw is

passing close for you."

Teganisoris again caught Mary Connynge by the shoulder, and dragged her

a step or so farther along the line, the two dice being left on the

ground as they had fallen. Once more, her hand arose, once more it

turned, once more the dice were cast.

The goddess of fortune still stood faithful to this bold young man who

had so often confidently assumed her friendship. His life, later to be

so intimately concerned with this same new savage country, was to be

preserved for an ultimate opportunity.

The white and the red bone fell together from the moccasin. Had it been

the white that counted, Sir Arthur had been saved, for the white bone

lay actually upon the line. The red fell almost as close, but alighted

on its end. As though impelled by some spirit of evil, it dropped upon

some little pebble or hard bit of earth, bounded into the air, fell, and

rolled quite away from the mark!

Even on that crowd of cruel savages there came a silence. Of the whites,

one scarce dared look at the other. Slowly the faces of Pembroke and Law

turned one toward the other.

"Would God I could shake you by the hand," said Pembroke. "Good by."

"As for you, dogs and worse than dogs," he cried, turning toward the red

faces about him, "mark you! where I stand the feet of the white man

shall stand forever, and crush your faces into the dirt!"

Whether or not the Iroquois understood his defiance could not be

determined. With a wild shout they pressed upon him. Borne struggling

and stumbling by the impulse of a dozen hands, Pembroke half walked and

half was carried over the distance between the village and the brink of

the chasm of Niagara.

Until then it had not been apparent what was to be the nature of his

fate, but when he looked upon the sliding floor of waters below him, and

heard beyond the thunderous voices of the cataract, Pembroke knew what

was to be his final portion.

There was, at some distance above the great falls, a spot where descent

was possible to the edge of the water. Pembroke's feet were loosened and

he was compelled to descend the narrow path. A canoe was tethered at the

shore, and the face of the young Englishman went pale as he realized

what was to be the use assigned it. Bound again hand and foot, helpless,

he was cast into this canoe. A strong arm sent the tiny craft out toward

midstream.

The hands of the great waters grasped the frail cockleshell, twisted it

about, tossed it, played with it, and claimed it irrevocably for their

own. For a few moments it was visible as it passed on down with the

resistless current of the mighty stream. Almost at the verge of the

plunge, the eyes watching from the shore saw at a distance the struggle

made by the victim. He half raised himself in the boat and threw himself

against its side. It was overset. For one instant the cold sun shone

glistening on the wet bark of the upturned craft. It was but a moment,

and then there was no dot upon the solemn flood.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EMBASSY

"Monsieur! Madame! Pierre Noir! Listen to me! I have saved you! I, Jean

Breboeuf, I have rescued you!"

So spoke Jean Breboeuf, thrusting his head within the door of the lodge

in which were the remaining prisoners of the Iroquois.

It was indeed Jean Breboeuf who, strolling beyond the outer edge of the

village, had been among the first to espy an approaching party of

visitors. Of any travelers possible, none could have been more important

to the prisoners. Too late, yet welcome even now, the embassy from New

France among the Iroquois had arrived. In an instant the village was in

an uproar.

The leader of this embassy from Quebec was one Captain Joncaire, at that

time of the French settlements, but in former years a prisoner among the

Onondagos, where he was adopted into the tribe and much respected.

Joncaire was accompanied by a priest of the Jesuit brotherhood, by a

young officer late of the regiment Carignan, and by two or three petty

Canadian officials, as well as a struggling retinue of savages picked up

on the way between Lake George and the Indian villages. He advanced now

at the head of his little party, bearing in his hand a wampum belt. He

pushed aside the young men, and demanded that he be brought to the chief

of the village. Teganisoris himself presently advanced to meet him, and

of him Joncaire demanded that there should at once be called a full

council of the tribe; with which request the chief of the Onondagos

hastened to comply.

Fully accustomed to such ceremonies, Joncaire sat in the council calmly

listening to the speeches of its orators, and at length arose for his

own reply. "Brothers," said he, "I have here"--and he drew from his

tunic a copy of the decree of Louis XIV declaring peace between the

French and the English colonies--"a talking paper. This is the will of

Onontio, whom you love and fear, and it is the will of the great father

across the water, whom Onontio loves and fears. This talking paper says

that our young men of the French colonies are no longer to go to war

against Corlaer. The hatchet has been buried by the two great fathers.

Brothers, I have come to tell you that it is time for the Iroquois also

to bury the hatchet, and to place upon it heavy stones, so that it

never again can be dug up.

"Brothers, as you know, the great canoes from across the sea are

bringing more and more white men. Look about you, and tell me where are

your fathers and your brothers and your sons? Half your fighting men are

gone; and if you turn to the West to seek out strong young men from the

other tribes, which of them will come to sit by your fires and be your

brothers? The war trails of the Nations have gone to the West as far as

the Great River. All the country has been at war. The friends of Onontio

beyond Michilimackinac have been so busy fighting that they have

forgotten to take the beaver, or if they have taken it, they have been

afraid to bring it down the water trail to us, lest the Iroquois or the

English should rob them.

"Brothers, a great peace is now declared. Onontio, the father of all the

red men, has taken the promises of his children, the Hurons, the

Algonquins, the Miamis, the Illini, the Outagamies, the Ojibways, all

those peoples who live to the west, that they will follow the war trail

no more. Next summer there will be a great council. Onontio and Corlaer

have agreed to call the tribes to meet at the Mountain in the St.

Lawrence. Onontio says to you that he will give you back your prisoners,

and now he demands that you in return give back those whom you may have

with you. This is his will; and if you fail him, you know how heavy is

his hand.

"Brothers, I see that you have prisoners here, white prisoners. These

must be given up to us. I will take them with me when I return. For your

Indian captives, it is the will of Onontio that you bring them all to

the Great Peace in the summer, and that you then, all of you, help to

dig the great hill under which the hatchet is going to be buried. Then

once more our rivers will not be red, and will look more like water. The

sun will not shine red, but will look as the sun should look. The sky

will again be blue. Our women and our children will no longer be afraid,

and you Iroquois can go to sleep in your houses and not dread the arms

of the French. Brothers, I have spoken. Peace is good."

Teganisoris replied in the same strain as that chosen by Joncaire,

assuring him that he was his brother; that his heart went out to him;

that the Iroquois loved the French; and that if they had gone to war

with them, it was but because the young men of Corlaer had closed their

eyes so that they could not see the truth. "As to these prisoners," said

he, "take them with you. We do not want them with us, for we fear they

may bring us harm. Our medicine man counseled us to offer up one of

these prisoners as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. We did so. Now our

medicine man has a bad dream. He says that the white men are going to

come and tear down our houses and trample our fields. When the time

comes for the peace, the Iroquois will be at the Mountain. Brother, we

will bury the hatchet, and bury it so deep that henceforth none may ever

again dig it up."

"It is well," said Joncaire, abruptly. "My brothers are wise. Now let

the council end, for my path is long and I must travel back to Onontio

at once."

Joncaire knew well enough the fickle nature of these savages, who might

upon the morrow demand another council and perhaps arrive at different

conclusions. Hearing there were no white prisoners in the villages

farther to the west, he resolved to set forth at once upon the return

with those now at hand. Hurrying, therefore, as soon as might be, to

their leader, he urged him to make ready forthwith for the journey back

to the St. Lawrence.

"Unless I much mistake, Monsieur," said he to Law, "you are that same

gentleman who so set all Quebec by the ears last winter. My faith! The

regiment Carignan had cause to rejoice when you left for up river, even

though you took with you half the ready coin of the settlement. Yet come

you once more to meet the gentlemen of France, and I doubt not they

will be glad as ever to stake you high, as may be in this

poverty-stricken region. You have been far to the westward, I doubt not.

You were, perhaps, made prisoner somewhere below the Straits."

"Far below; among the tribe of the Illini, in the valley of the

Messasebe."

"You tell me so! I had thought no white man left in that valley for this

season. And madame--this child--surely 'twas the first white infant born

in the great valley."

"And the most unfortunate."

"Nay, how can you say that, since you have come more than half a

thousand miles and are all safe and sound to-day? Glad enough we shall

be to have you and madame with us for the winter, if, indeed, it be not

for longer dwelling. I can not take you now to the English settlements,

since I must back to the governor with the news. Yet dull enough you

would find these Dutch of the Hudson, and worse yet the blue-nosed

psalmodists of New England. Much better for you and your good lady are

the gayer capitals of New France, or _la belle France_ itself, that

older France. Monsieur, how infinitely more fit for a gentleman of

spirit is France than your dull England and its Dutch king! Either New

France or Old France, let me advise you; and as to that new West, let

me counsel that you wait until after the Big Peace. And, in speaking,

your friend, Du Mesne, your lieutenant, the _coureur_--his fate, I

suppose, one need not ask. He was killed--where?"

Law recounted the division of his party just previous to the Iroquois

attack, and added his concern lest Du Mesne should return to the former

station during the spring and find but its ruins, with no news of the

fate of his friends.

"Oh, as to that--'twould be but the old story of the _voyageurs_," said

Joncaire. "They are used enough to journeying a thousand miles or so, to

find the trail end in a heap of ashes, and to the tune of a scalp dance.

Fear not for your lieutenant, for, believe me, he has fended for himself

if there has been need. Yet I would warrant you, now that this word for

the peace has gone out, we shall see your friend Du Mesne as big as life

at the Mountain next summer, knowing as much of your history as you

yourself do, and quite counting upon meeting you with us on the St.

Lawrence, and madame as well. As to that, methinks madame will be better

with us on the St. Lawrence than on the savage Messasebe. We have none

too many dames among us, and I need not state, what monsieur's eyes have

told him every morning--that a fairer never set foot from ship from

over seas. Witness my lieutenant yonder, Raoul de Ligny! He is thus soon

all devotion! Mother of God! but we are well met here, in this

wilderness, among the savages. _Voilà_, Monsieur! We take you again

captive, and 'tis madame enslaves us all!"

There had indeed ensued conversation between the young French officer

above named and Mary Connynge; yet prompt as might have been the former

with gallant attentions to so fair a captive, it could not have been

said that he was allowed the first advances. Mary Connynge, even after a

month of starving foot travel and another month of anxiety at the

Iroquois villages, had lost neither her rounded body, her brilliance of

eye and color, nor her subtle magnetism of personality. It had taken

stronger head than that of Raoul de Ligny to withstand even her slight

request. How, then, as to Mary Connynge supplicating, entreating,

craving of him protection?

"Ah, you brave Frenchmen," said she to De Ligny, advancing to him as he

stood apart, twisting his mustaches and not unmindful of this very

possibility of a conversation with the captive. "You brave Frenchmen,

how can we thank you for our salvation? It was all so horrible!"

"It is our duty to save all, Madame," rejoined De Ligny; "our happiness

unspeakable to save such as Madame. I swear by my sword, I had as soon

expected to find an angel with the Iroquois as to meet there Madame!

Quebec--all Quebec has told me who Madame was and is. And I am your

slave."

"Oh, sir, could you but mean that!" and there was turned upon him the

full power of a gaze which few men had ever been able to withstand. The

blood of De Ligny tingled as he bowed and replied.

"If Madame could but demand one proof."

Mary Connynge stepped closer to him. "Hush!" she said. "Speak low! Do

not let it seem that we are interested. Keep your own counsel. Can you

do this?"

The eyes of the young officer gleamed. He was bold enough to respond.

This his temptress noted.

He nodded.

"You see that man--the tall one, John Law? Listen! It is from him I ask

you to save me. Oh, sir, there is my captivity!"

"What! Your husband?"

"He is not my husband."

"_Mais_--a thousand pardons. The child--your pardon."

"Pish! 'Tis the child of an Indian woman."

"Oh!" The blood again came to the young gallant's forehead.

"Listen, I tell you! I have been scarce better than a prisoner in this

man's hands. He has abused me, threatened me, would have beaten me--"

"Madame--Mademoiselle!"

"'Tis true. We have been far in the West, and I could not escape. Good

Providence has now brought my rescue--and you, Monsieur! Oh! tell me

that it has brought me safety, and also a friend--that it has brought me

you!"

With every pulse a-tingle, every vein afire, what could the young

gallant do? What but yield, but promise, but swear, but rage?

"Hush!" said Mary Connynge, her own eyes gleaming. "Wait! The time will

come. So soon as we reach the settlements, I leave him, and forever!

Then--" Their hands met swiftly. "He has abandoned me," murmured Mary

Connynge. "He has not spoken to me for weeks, other than words of 'Yes,'

or 'No,' 'Do this,' or 'Do that!' Wait! Wait! How soon shall we be at

Montréal?"

"Less than a month. 'Twill seem an age, I swear!"

"Madam," interrupted Law, "pardon, but Monsieur Joncaire bids us be

ready. Come, help me arrange the packs for our journey. Perhaps

Lieutenant de Ligny--for so I think they name you, sir--will pardon us,

and will consent to resume his conversation later."

"Assuredly," said De Ligny. "I shall wait, Monsieur."

"So, Madam," said Law to Mary Connynge, as they at last found themselves

alone in the lodge, arranging their few belongings for transport, "we

are at last to regain the settlements, and for a time, at least, must

forego our home in the farther West. In time--"

"Oh, in time! What mean you?"

"Why, we may return."

"Never! I have had my fill of savaging. That we are left alive is mighty

merciful. To go thither again--never!"

"And if I go?"

"As you like."

"Meaning, Madam--?"

"What you like."

Law seated himself on the corded pack, bringing the tips of his fingers

together.

"Then my late sweetheart has somewhat changed her fancy?"

"I have no fancy left. What I was once to you I shall not recall more

than I can avoid in my own mind. As to what you heard from that lying

man, Sir Arthur--"

"Listen! Stop! Neither must you insult the dead nor the absent. I have

never told you what I learned from Sir Arthur, though it was enough to

set me well distraught."

"I doubt not that he told you 'twas I who befooled Lady Catharine; that

'twas I who took the letter which you sent--"

"Stay! No. He told me not so much as that. But he and you together have

told me enough to show me that I was the basest wretch on earth, the

most gullible, the most unspeakably false and cruel. How could I have

doubted the faith of Lady Catharine--how, but for you? Oh, Mary

Connynge, Mary Connynge! Would God a man were so fashioned he might

better withstand the argument of soft flesh and shining eyes! I admit, I

believed the disloyal one, and doubted her who was loyalty itself."

"And you would go back into the wilderness with one who was as false as

you say."

"Never!" replied John Law, swiftly. "'Tis as you yourself say. 'Tis all

over. Hell itself hath followed me. Now let it all go, one with the

other, little with big. I did not forget, nor should I though I tried

again. Back to Europe, back to the gaming tables, to the wheels and

cards I go again, and plunge into it madder than ever did man before.

Let us see if chance can bring John Law anything worse than what he has

already known. But, Madam, doubt not. So long as you claim my

protection, here or anywhere on earth--in the West, in France, in

England--it is yours; for I pay for my folly like a man, be assured of

that. The child is ours, and it must be considered. But once let me find

you in unfaithfulness--once let me know that you resign me--then John

Law is free! I shall sometime see Catharine Knollys again. I shall give

her my heart's anguish, and I shall have her heart's scorn in return.

And then, Mary Connynge, the cards, dice, perhaps drink--perhaps gold,

and the end. Madam, remember! And now come!"

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT PEACE

Of the long and bitter journey from the Iroquois towns to Lake St.

George, down the Richelieu and thence through the deep snows of the

Canadian winter, it boots little to make mention; neither to tell of

that devotion of Raoul de Ligny to the newly-rescued lady, already

reputed in camp rumor to be of noble English family.

"That _sous-lieutenant_; he is _tête montée_ regarding madame," said

Pierre Noir one evening to Jean Breboeuf. "As to that--well, you know

Monsieur L'as. Pouf! So much for yon monkey, _par comparaison_."

"He is a great _capitaine_, Monsieur L'as," said Jean Breboeuf. "Never a

better went beyond the Straits."

"But very sad of late."

"Oh, _oui_, since the death of his friend, Monsieur _le Capitaine_

Pembroke--may Mary aid his spirit!"

"Monsieur L'as goes not on the trail again," said Pierre Noir. "At

least not while this look is in his eye."

"The more the loss, Pierre Noir; but some day the woods will call to him

again. I know not how long it may be, yet some day Mother Messasebe will

raise her finger and beckon to Monsieur L'as, and say: 'Come, my son!'

'Tis thus, as you know, Pierre Noir."

Yet at length the straggling settlements at Montréal were reached, and

here, after the fashion of the frontier, some sort of _ménage_ was

inaugurated for Law and his party. Here they lived through the rest of

the winter and through the long, slow spring.

And then set on again the heats of summer, and there came apace the time

agreed upon, in the month of August, for the widely heralded assembling

of the tribes for the Great Peace; one of the most picturesque, as it

was one of the most remarkable and significant meetings of widely

diverse human beings, that ever took place within the ken of history.

They came, these savages, now first owning the strength of the invading

white men, from all the far and unknown corners of the Western

wilderness. They came afoot, and with little trains of dogs, in single

canoes, in little groups and growing flotillas and vast fleets of

canoes, pushing on and on, down stream, following the tide of the furs

down this pathway of more than a thousand miles. The Iroquois, for once

mindful of a promise, came in a compact fleet, a hundred canoes strong,

and they stalked about the island for days, naked, stark, gigantic,

contemptuous of white and red men, of friend and foe alike. The

scattered Algonquins, whose villages had been razed by these same savage

warriors, came down by scores out of the Northern woods, along little,

unknown streams, and over paths with which none but themselves were

acquainted. From the North, group joined group, and village added itself

to village, until a vast body of people had assembled, whose numbers

would have been hard to estimate, and who proved difficult enough to

accommodate. Yet from the farther West, adding their numbers to those

already gathered, came the fleets of the driven Hurons, and the

Ojibways, and the Miamis, and the Outagamies, and the Ottawas, the

Menominies and the Mascoutins--even the Illini, late objects of the

wrath of the Five Nations. The whole Western wilderness poured forth its

savage population, till all the shores of the St. Lawrence seemed one

vast aboriginal encampment. These massed at the rendezvous about the

puny settlement of Montréal in such numbers that, in comparison, the

white population seemed insignificant. Then, had there been a Pontiac or

a Tecumseh, had there been one leader of the tribes able to teach the

strength of unity, the white settlements of upper America had indeed

been utterly destroyed. Naught but ancient tribal jealousies held the

savages apart.

With these tribesmen were many prisoners, captives taken in raids all

along the thin and straggling frontier; farmers and artisans, peasants

and soldiers, women raped from the farms of the Richelieu _censitaires_,

and wood-rangers now grown savage as their captors and loth to leave the

wild life into which they had so naturally grown. It was the first

reflex of the wave, and even now the bits of flotsam and jetsam of wild

life were fain to cling to the Western shore whither they had been

carried by the advancing flood. This was the meeting of the ebb with the

sea that sent it forward, the meeting of civilized and savage; and

strange enough was the nature of those confluent tides. Whether the red

men were yielding to civilization, or the whites all turning

savage--this question might well have arisen to an observer of this

tremendous spectacle. The wigwams of the different tribes and clans and

families were grouped apart, scattered along all the narrow shore back

of the great hill, and over the Convent gardens; and among these

stalked the native French, clad in coarse cloth of blue, with gaudy belt

and buckskins, and cap of fur and moccasins of hide, mingling

fraternally with their tufted and bepainted visitors, as well as with

those rangers, both envied and hated, the savage _coureurs de bois_ of

the far Northern fur trade; men bearded, silent, stern, clad in

breech-clout and leggings like any savage, as silent, as stoical, as

hardy on the trail as on the narrow thwart of the canoe.

Savage feastings, riotings and drunkenness, and long debaucheries came

with the Great Peace, when once the word had gone out that the fur trade

was to be resumed. Henceforth there was to be peace. The French were no

longer to raid the little cabins along the Kennebec and the Penobscot.

The river Richelieu was to be no longer a red war trail. The English

were no longer to offer arms and blankets for the beaver, belonging by

right of prior discovery to those who offered French brandy and French

beads. The Iroquois were no longer to pursue a timid foe across the

great prairies of the valley of the Messasebe. The Ojibways were not to

ambush the scattered parties of the Iroquois. The unambitious colonists

of New England and New York were to be left to till their stony farms in

quiet. Meantime, the fur trade, wasteful, licentious, unprofitable, was

to extend onward and outward in all the marches of the West. From one

end of the Great River of the West to the other the insignia of France

and of France's king were to be erected, and France's posts were to hold

all the ancient trails. Even at the mouth of the Great River,

forestalling these sullen English and these sluggish English colonists,

far to the south in the somber forests and miasmatic marshes, there was

to be established one more ruling point for the arms of Louis the Grand.

It was a great game this, for which the continent of America was in

preparation. It was a mighty thing, this gathering of the Great Peace,

this time when colonists and their king were seeing the first breaking

of the wave on the shore of an empire alluring, wonderful, unparalleled.

Into this wild rabble of savages and citizens, of priest and soldier and

_coureur_, Law's friends, Pierre Noir and Jean Breboeuf, swiftly

disappeared, naturally, fitly and unavoidably. "The West is calling to

us, Monsieur," said Pierre Noir one morning, as he stood looking out

across the river. "I hear once more the spirits of the Messasebe.

Monsieur, will you come?"

Law shook his head. Yet two days later, as he stood at that very point,

there came to him the silent feet of two _coureurs_ instead of one. Once

more he heard in his ear the question: "Monsieur L'as, will you come?"

At this voice he started. In an instant his arms were about the neck of

Du Mesne, and tears were falling from the eyes of both in the welcome of

that brotherhood which is admitted only by those who have known together

arms and danger and hardship, the touch of the hard ground and the sight

of the wide blue sky.

"Du Mesne, my friend!"

"Monsieur L'as!"

"It is as though you came from the depths of the sea, Du Mesne!" said

Law.

"And as though you yourself arose from the grave, Monsieur!"

"How did you know--?"

"Why, easily. You do not yet understand the ways of the wilderness,

where news travels as fast as in the cities. You were hardly below the

foot of Michiganon before runners from the Illini had spread the news

along the Chicaqua, where I was then in camp. For the rest, the runners

brought also news of the Big Peace. I reasoned that the Iroquois would

not dare to destroy their captives, that in time the agents of the

Government would receive the captives of the Iroquois--that these

captives would naturally come to the settlements on the St. Lawrence,

since it was the French against whom the Iroquois had been at war; that

having come to Montréal, you would naturally remain here for a time. The

rest was easy. I fared on to the Straits this spring, and then on down

the Lakes. I have sold our furs, and am now ready to account to you with

a sum quite as much as we should have expected.

"Now, Monsieur," and Du Mesne stretched out his arm again, pointing to

the down-coming flood of the St. Lawrence, "Monsieur, will you come? I

see not the St. Lawrence, but the Messasebe. I can hear the voices

calling!"

Law dashed his hand across his eyes and turned his head away. "Not yet,

Du Mesne," said he. "I do not know. Not yet. I must first go across the

waters. Perhaps sometime--I can not tell. But this, my comrades, my

brothers, I do know; that never, until the last sod lies on my grave,

will I forget the Messasebe, or forget you. Go back, if you will, my

brothers; but at night, when you sit by your fireside, think of me, as I

shall think of you, there in the great valley. My friends, it is the

heart of the world!"

"But, Monsieur--"

"There, Du Mesne--I would not talk to-day. At another time. Brothers,

adieu!"

"Adieu, my brother," said the _coureur_, his own emotion showing in his

eyes; and their hands met again.

"Monsieur is cast down," said Du Mesne to Pierre Noir later, as they

reached the beach. "Now, what think you?

"Usually, as you know, Pierre, it is a question of some woman. It

reminds me, Wabana was remiss enough when I left her among the Illini

with you. Now, God bless my heart, I find her--how think you? With her

crucifix lost, cooking for a dirty Ojibway!"

"Mary Mother!" said Pierre Noir, "if it be a matter of a woman--well,

God help us all! At least 'tis something that will take Monsieur L'as

over seas again."

"'Tis mostly a woman," mused Du Mesne; "but this passeth my wit."

"True, they pass the wit of all. Now, did I ever tell thee about the

mission girl at Michilimackinac--but stay! That for another time. They

tell me that our comrade, Greysolon du L'hut, is expected in to-morrow

with a party from the far end of Superior. Come, let us have the news."

"_Tous les printemps,

Tant des nouvelles_,"

hummed Du Mesne, as he flung his arm above the shoulder of the other;

and the two so disappeared adown the beach.

Dully, apathetically, Law lived on his life here at Montréal for yet a

time, at the edge of that wilderness which had proved all else but Eden.

Near to him, though in these guarded times guest by necessity of the

good sisters of the Convent, dwelt Mary Connynge. And as for these two,

it might be said that each but bided the time. To her Law might as well

have been one of the corded Sulpician priests; and she to him, for all

he liked, one of the nuns of the Convent garden. What did it all mean;

where was it all to end? he asked himself a thousand times; and a

thousand times his mind failed him of any answer. He waited, watching

the great encampment disappear, first slowly, then swiftly and suddenly,

so that in a night the last of the lodges had gone and the last canoe

had left the shore. There remained only the hurrying flood of the St.

Lawrence, coming from the West.

The autumn came on. Early in November the ships would leave for France.

Yet before the beginning of November there came swiftly and sharply the

settlement of the questions which racked Law's mind. One morning Mary

Connynge was missing from the Convent, nor could any of the sisters, nor

the mother superior, explain how or when she had departed!

Yet, had there been close observers, there might have been seen a boat

dropping down the river on the early morning of that day. And at Quebec

there was later reported in the books of the intendant the shipping,

upon the good bark Dauphine, of Lieutenant Raoul de Ligny, sometime

officer of the regiment Carignan, formerly stationed in New France; with

him a lady recently from Montréal, known very well to Lieutenant de

Ligny and his family; and to be in his care _en voyage_ to France; the

name of said lady illegible upon the records, the spelling apparently

not having suited the clerk who wrote it, and then forgot it in the

press of other things.

Certain of the governor's household, as well as two or three _habitants_

from the lower town, witnessed the arrival of this lady, who came down

from Montréal. They saw her take boat for the bark Dauphine, one of the

last ships to go down the river that fall. Yes, it was easily to be

established. Dark, with singular, brown eyes, _petite_, yet not over

small, of good figure--assuredly so much could be said; for obviously

the king, kindly as he might feel toward the colony of New France, could

not send out, among the young women supplied to the colonists as wives,

very many such demoiselles as this; otherwise assuredly all France

would have followed the king's ships to the St. Lawrence.

John Law, a grave and saddened man, yet one now no longer lacking in

decision, stood alone one day at the parapet of the great rock of

Quebec, gazing down the broad expanse of the stream below. He was alone

except for a little child, a child too young to know her mother, had

death or disaster at that time removed the mother. Law took the little

one up in his arms and gazed hard upon the upturned face.

"Catharine!" he said to himself. "Catharine! Catharine!"

"Pardon, Monsieur," said a voice at his elbow. "Surely I have seen you

before this?"

Law turned. Joncaire, the ambassador of peace, stood by, smiling and

extending his hand.

"Naturally, I could never forget you," said Law.

"Monsieur looks at the shipping," said Joncaire, smiling. "Surely he

would not be leaving New France, after so luckily escaping the worst of

her dangers?"

"Life might be the same for me over there as here," replied Law. "As for

my luck, I must declare myself the most unfortunate man on earth."

"Your wife, perhaps, is ill?"

"Pardon, I have none."

"Pardon, in turn, Monsieur--but, you see--the child?"

"It is the child of a savage woman," said Law.

Joncaire pulled aside the infant's hood. He gave no sign, and a nice

indifference sat in his query: "_Une belle sauvage_?"

"_Belle sauvage_!"

BOOK III

FRANCE

CHAPTER I

THE GRAND MONARQUE

On a great bed of state, satin draped, flanked with ancient tapestries,

piled sickeningly soft with heaps of pillows, there lay a thin, withered

little man--old, old and very feeble. His face was shrunken and drawn

with pain; his eyes, once bright, were dulled; his brow, formerly

imperious, had lost its arrogance. Under the coverings which, in the

unrest of illness, he now pulled high about his face, now tossed

restlessly aside, his figure lay, an elongated, shapeless blot, scarce

showing beneath the silks. One limb, twitched and drawn up convulsively,

told of a definite seat of pain. The hands, thin and wasted, lay out

upon the coverlets; and the thumbs were creeping, creeping ever more

insistently, under the cover of the fingers, telling that the battle for

life was lost, that the surrender had been made.

It was a death-bed, this great bed of state; a death-bed situated in the

heart of the greatest temple of desire ever built in all the world. He

who had been master there, who had set in order those miles of stately

columns, those seas of glittering gilt and crystal, he who had been

magician, builder, creator, perverter, debaser--he, Louis of France, the

Grand Monarque, now lay suffering like any ordinary human being, like

any common man.

Last night the four and twenty violins, under the king's command, had

shrilled their chorus, as had been their wont for years while the master

dined. This morning the cordon of drums and hautboys had pealed their

high and martial music. Useless. The one or the other music fell upon

ears too dull to hear. The formal tribute to the central soul for a time

continued of its own inertia; for a time royalty had still its worship;

yet the custom was but a lagging one. The musicians grimaced and made

what discord they liked, openly, insolently, scorning this weak and

withered figure on the silken bed. The cordon of the white and blue

guards of the Household still swept about the vast pleasure grounds of

this fairy temple; yet the officers left their posts and conversed one

with the other. Musicians and guards, spectators and populace, all were

waiting, waiting until the end should come. Farther out and beyond,

where the peaked roofs of Paris rose, back of that line which this

imperious mind had decreed should not be passed by the dwellings of

Paris, which must not come too near this temple of luxury, nor disturb

the king while he enjoyed himself--back of the perfunctorily loyal

guards of the Household, there reached the ragged, shapeless masses of

the people of Paris and of France, waiting, smiling, as some animal

licking its chops in expectation of some satisfying thing. They were

waiting for news of the death of this shrunken man, this creature once

so full of arrogant lust, then so full of somber repentance, now so full

of the very taste of death.

On the great tapestry that hung above the head of the curtained bed

shone the double sun of Louis the Grand, which had meant death and

devastation to so much of Europe. It blazed, mimicking the glory that

was gone; but toward it there was raised no sword nor scepter more in

vow or exaltation. The race was run, the sun was sinking to its setting.

Nothing but a man--a weary, worn-out, dying man--was Louis, the Grand

Monarque, king for seventy-two years of France, almost king of Europe.

This death-bed lay in the center of a land oppressed, ground down,

impoverished. The hearts and lives of thousands were in these

colonnades. The people had paid for their king. They had fed him fat and

kept him full of loves. In return, he had trampled the people into the

very dust. He had robbed even their ancient nobles of honors and

consideration. Blackened, ruined, a vast graveyard, a monumental

starving-ground, France lay about his death-bed, and its people were but

waiting with grim impatience for their king to die. What France might do

in the future was unknown; yet it was unthinkable that aught could be

worse than this glorious reign of Louis, the Grand Monarque, this

crumbling clod, this resolving excrescence, this phosphorescent,

disintegrating fungus of a diseased life and time.

Seventy-two years a king; thirty years a libertine; twenty years a

repentant. Son, grandson, great-grandson, all gone, as though to leave

not one of that once haughty breed. For France no hope at all; and for

the house of Bourbon, all the hope there might be in the life of a

little boy, sullen, tiny, timid. Far over in Paris, busy about his games

and his loves, a jesting, long-curled gallant, the Duke of Orléans,

nephew of this king, was holding a court of his own. And from this court

which might be, back to the court which was, but which might not be

long, swung back and forth the fawning creatures of the former court.

This was the central picture of France, and Paris, and of the New World

on this day of the year 1715.

In the room about the bed of state, uncertain groups of watchers

whispered noisily. The five physicians, who had tried first one remedy

and then another; the rustic physician whose nostrum had kept life

within the king for some unexpected days; the ladies who had waited upon

the relatives of the king; some of the relatives themselves; Villeroy,

guardian of the young king soon to be; the bastard, and the wife of that

bastard, who hoped for the king's shoes; the mistress of his earlier

years, for many years his wife--Maintenon, that peerless hypocrite of

all the years--all these passed, and hesitated, and looked, waiting, as

did the hungry crowds in Paris toward the Seine, until the double sun

should set, and the crawling thumbs at last should find their shelter.

The Grand Monarque was losing the only time in all his life when he

might have learned human wisdom.

"Madame!" whispered the dry lips, faintly.

She who was addressed as madame, this woman Maintenon, pious murderer,

unrivaled hypocrite, unspeakably self-contained dissembler, the woman

who lost for France an empire greater than all France, stepped now to

the bed-side of the dying monarch, inclining her head to hear what he

might have to say. Was Maintenon, the outcast, the widow, the wife of

the king, at last to be made ruler of the Church in France? Was she to

govern in the household of the king even after the king had departed?

The woman bent over the dying man, the covetousness of her soul showing

in her eyes, struggle as she might to retain her habitual and

unparalleled self-control.

The dying man muttered uneasily. His mind was clouded, his eyes saw

other things. He turned back to earlier days, when life was bright, when

he, Louis, as a young man, had lived and loved as any other.

"Louise," he murmured. "Louise! Forgive! Meet me--Louise--dear one. Meet

me yonder--"

An icy pallor swept across the face of the arch hypocrite who bent over

him. Into her soul there sank like a knife this consciousness of the

undying power of a real love. La Vallière, the love of the youth of

Louis, La Vallière, the beautiful, and sweet, and womanly, dead and gone

these long years since, but still loved and now triumphant--she it was

whom Louis now remembered.

Maintenon turned from the bed-side. She stood, an aged and unhappy

woman, old, gray and haggard, not success but failure written upon every

lineament. For one instant she stood, her hands clenched, slow anger

breaking through the mask which, for a quarter of a century, she had so

successfully worn.

"Bah!" she cried. "Bah! 'Tis a pretty rendezvous this king would set

for me!" And then she swept from the room, raged for a time apart, and

so took leave of life and of ambition.

At length even the last energies of the once stubborn will gave way. The

last gasp of the failing breath was drawn. The herald at the window

announced to the waiting multitude that Louis the Fourteenth was no

more.

"Long live the king!" exclaimed the multitude. They hailed the new

monarch with mockery; but laughter, and sincere joy and feasting were

the testimonials of their emotions at the death of the king but now

departed.

On the next day a cheap, tawdry and unimposing procession wended its way

through the back streets of Paris, its leader seeking to escape even the

edges of the mob, lest the people should fall upon the somber little

pageant and rend it into fragments. This was the funeral cortège of

Louis, the Grand Monarque, Louis the lustful, Louis the bigot, Louis the

ignorant, Louis the unhappy. They hurried him to his resting-place,

these last servitors, and then hastened back to the palaces to join

their hearts and voices to the rising wave of joy which swept across all

France at the death of this beloved ruler.

Now it happened that, as the funeral procession of the king was

hurrying through the side streets near the confines of the old city of

Paris, there encountered it, entering from the great highway which led

from the east up to the city gates, the carriage of a gentleman who

might, apparently with justice, have laid some claim to consequence. It

had its guards and coachmen, and was attended by two riders in livery,

who kept it company along the narrow streets. This equipage met the head

of the hurrying funeral cortège, and found occasion for a moment to

pause. Thus there passed, the one going to his grave, the other to his

goal, the two men with whom the France of that day was most intimately

concerned.

There came from the window of the coach the voice of one inquiring the

reason of the halt, and there might have been seen through the upper

portion of the vehicle's door the face of the owner of the carriage. He

seemed a man of imposing presence, with face open and handsome, and an

eye bright, bold and full of intelligence. His garb was rich and

elegant, his air well contained and dignified.

"Guillaume," he called out, "what is it that detains us?"

"It is nothing, Monsieur L'as," was the reply, "They tell me it is but

the funeral of the king."

"_Eh bien_!" replied Law, turning to one who sat beside him in the

coach. "Nothing! 'Tis nothing but the funeral of the king!"

CHAPTER II

EVER SAID SHE NAY

The coach proceeded steadily on its way, passing in toward that quarter

where the high-piled, peaked roofs and jagged spires betokened ancient

Paris. On every hand arose confused sounds from the streets, now filled

with a populace merry as though some pleasant carnival were just

beginning. Shopkeeper called across to his neighbor, tradesman gossiped

with gallant. Even the stolid faces of the plodding peasants, fresh past

the gate-tax and bound for the markets to seek what little there

remained after giving to the king, bore an unwonted look, as though hope

might yet succeed to their surprise.

"Ohé! Marie," called one stout dame to another, who stood smiling in her

doorway near by. "See the fine coach coming. That is the sort you and I

shall have one of these days, now that the king is dead. God bless the

new king, and may he die young! A plague to all kings, Marie. And now

come and sit with my man and me, for we've a bottle left, and while it

lasts we drink freedom from all kings!"

"You speak words of gold, Suzanne," was the reply. "Surely I will drink

with you, and wish a pleasant and speedy death to kings."

"But now, Marie," said the other, argumentatively, "as to my good duke

regent, that is otherwise. It goes about that he will change all things.

One is to amuse one's self now and then, and not to work forever for the

taxes and the conscription. Long live the regent, then, say I!"

"Yes, and let us hope that regents never turn to kings. There are to be

new days here in France. We people, aye, my faith! We people, so they

say, are to be considered. True, we shall have carriages one day, Marie,

like that of my Lord who passes."

John Law and his companions heard broken bits of such speech as this as

they passed on.

"Ah, they talk," replied he at last, turning toward his companions, "and

this is talk which means something. Within the year we shall see Paris

upside down. These people are ready for any new thing. But"--and his

face lost some of its gravity--"the streets are none too safe to-day, my

Lady. Therefore you must forgive me if I do not set you down, but keep

you prisoner until you reach your own gates. 'Tis not your fault that

your carriage broke down on the road from Marly; and as for my brother

Will and myself, we can not forego a good fortune which enables us at

last to destroy a certain long-standing debt of a carriage ride given

us, once upon a time, by the Lady Catharine Knollys."

"At least, then, we shall be well acquit on both sides," replied the

soft voice of the woman. "I may, perhaps, be an unwilling prisoner for

so short a time."

"Madam, I would God it might be forever!"

It was the same John Law of old who made this impetuous reply, and

indeed he seemed scarce changed by the passing of these few years of

time. It was the audacious youth of the English highway who now looked

at her with grave face, yet with eyes that shone.

Some years had indeed passed since Law, turning his back upon the appeal

of the wide New World, had again set foot upon the shores of England,

from which his departure had been so singular. Driven by the goads of

remorse, it had been his first thought to seek out the Lady Catharine

Knollys; and so intent had he been on this quest, that he learned almost

without emotion of the king's pardon which had been entered, discharging

him of further penalty of the law of England. Meeting Lady Catharine, he

learned, as have others since and before him, that a human soul may

have laws inflexible; that the iron bars of a woman's resolve may bar

one out, even as prison doors may bar him in. He found the Lady

Catharine unshakeable in her resolve not to see him or speak with him.

Whereat he raged, expostulated by post, waited, waylaid, and so at

length gained an interview, which taught him many things.

He found the Lady Catharine Knollys changed from a light-hearted girl to

a maiden tall, grave, reserved and sad, offering no reproaches,

listening to no protestations. Told of Sir Arthur Pembroke's horrible

death, she wept with tears which his survivor envied. Told at length of

the little child, she sat wide-eyed and silent. Approached with words of

remorse, with expostulations, promises, she shrank back in absolute

horror, trembling, so that in very pity the wretched young man left her

and found his way out into a world suddenly grown old and gray.

After this dismissal, Law for many months saw nothing, heard nothing of

this woman whom he had wronged, even as he received no sign from the

woman who had forsaken him over seas. He remained away as long as might

be, until his violent nature, geyser-like, gathered inner storm and fury

by repression, and broke away in wild eruption.

Once more he sought the presence of the woman whose face haunted his

soul, and once more he met ice and adamant stronger than his own fires.

Beaten, he fled from London and from England, seeking still, after the

ancient and ineffective fashion of man, to forget, though he himself had

confessed the lesson that man can not escape himself, but takes his own

hell with him wherever he goes.

Rejected, as he was now, by the new ministry of England, none the less

every capital of Europe came presently to know John Law, gambler,

student and financier. Before every ruler on the continent he laid his

system of financial revolution, and one by one they smiled, or shrugged,

or scoffed at him. Baffled once more in his dearest purpose, he took

again to play, play in such colossal and audacious form as never yet had

been seen even in the gayest courts of a time when gaming was a vice to

be called national. No hazard was too great for him, no success and no

reverse sufficiently keen to cause him any apparent concern. There was

no risk sharp enough to deaden the gnawing in his soul, no excitement

strong enough to wipe away from his mind the black panorama of his past.

He won princely fortunes and cast them away again. With the figure and

the air of a prince, he gained greater reputation than any prince of

Europe. Upon him were spent the blandishments of the fairest women of

his time. Yet not this, not all this, served to steady his energies, now

unbalanced, speeding without guidance. The gold, heaped high on the

tables, was not enough to stupefy his mind, not enough though he doubled

and trebled it, though he cast great golden markers to spare him trouble

in the counting of his winnings. Still student, still mathematician, he

sought at Amsterdam, at Paris, at Vienna, all new theories which offered

in the science of banking and finance, even as at the same time he

delved still further into the mysteries of recurrences and chance.

In this latter such was his success that losers made complaint, unjust

but effectual, to the king, so that Law was obliged to leave Paris for a

time. He had dwelt long enough in Paris, this double-natured man, this

student and creator, this gambler and gallant, to win the friendship of

Philippe of Orléans, later to be regent of France; and gay enough had

been the life they two had led--so gay, so intimate, that Philippe gave

promise that, should he ever hold in his own hands the Government of

France, he would end Law's banishment and give to him the opportunity he

sought, of proving those theories of finance which constituted the

absorbing ambition of his life.

Meantime Law, ever restless, had passed from one capital of Europe to

another, dragging with him from hotel to hotel the young child whose

life had been cast in such feverish and unnatural surroundings. He

continued to challenge every hazard, fearless, reckless, contemptuous,

and withal wretched, as one must be who, after years of effort, found

that he could not banish from his mind the pictures of a dark-floored

prison, and of a knife-stab in the dark, and of raging, awful waters,

and of a girl beautiful, though with sealed lips and heart of ice. From

time to time, as was well known, Law returned to England. He heard of

the Lady Catharine Knollys, as might easily be done in London; heard of

her as a young woman kind of heart, soft of speech, with tenderness for

every little suffering thing; a beautiful young woman, whose admirers

listed scores; but who never yet, even according to the eagerest gossip

of the capital, had found a suitor to whom she gave word or thought of

love.

So now at last the arrogant selfishness of his heart began to yield. His

heart was broken before it might soften, but soften at last it did. And

so he built up in his soul the image of a grave, sweet saint, kindly and

gentle-voiced, unapproachable, not to be profaned. To this image--ah,

which of us has not had such a shrine!--he brought in secret the homage

of his life, his confessions, his despairs, his hopes, his resolutions;

guiding thereby all his life, as well as poor mortal man may do, failing

ever of his own standards, as all men do, yet harking ever back to that

secret sibyl, reckoning all things from her, for her, by her.

There came at length one chastened hour when they met in calmness, when

there was no longer talk of love between them, when he stood before her

as though indeed at the altar of some marble deity. Always her answer

had been that the past had been a mistake; that she had professed to

love a man, not knowing what that man was; that she had suffered, but

that it was better so, since it had brought understanding. Now, in this

calmer time, she begged of him knowledge of this child, regretting the

wandering life which had been its portion, saying that for Mary Connynge

she no longer felt horror and hatred. Thus it was that in a hasty moment

Law had impulsively begged her to assume some sort of tutelage over that

unfortunate child. It was to his own amazement that he heard Lady

Catharine Knollys consent, stipulating that the child should be placed

in a Paris convent for two years, and that for two years John Law should

see neither his daughter nor herself. Obedient as a child himself he had

promised.

"Now, go away," she then had said to him. "Go your own way. Drink,

dice, game, and waste the talents God hath given you. You have made ruin

enough for all of us. I would only that it may not run so far as to

another generation."

So both had kept their promises; and now the two years were done, years

spent by Law more manfully than any of his life. His fortune he had

gathered together, amounting to more than a million livres. He had sent

once more for his brother Will, and thus the two had lived for some time

in company in lower Europe, the elder brother still curious as ever in

his abstruse theories of banking and finance--theories then new, now

outlived in great part, though fit to be called a portion of the great

foundation of the commercial system of the world. It was a wiser and

soberer and riper John Law, this man who had but recently received a

summons from Philippe of Orléans to be present in Paris, for that the

king was dying, and that all France, France the bankrupt and distracted,

was on the brink of sudden and perhaps fateful change.

With a quick revival of all his Highland superstition, Law hailed now as

happy harbinger the fact that, upon his entry into Paris, the city once

more of his hopes, he had met in such fashion this lady of his dreams,

even at such time as the seal of silence was lifted from his lips. It

was no wonder that his eye gleamed, that his voice took on the old

vibrant tone, that every gesture, in thought or in spite of thought,

assumed the tender deference of the lover.

It was a fair woman, this chance guest of the highway whom he now

accosted--bronze-haired, blue-eyed, soft of voice, queenly of mien,

gentle, calm and truly lovable. Oh, what waste that those arms should

hold nothing, that lips such as those should know no kisses, that eyes

like those should never swim in love! What robbery! What crime! And this

man, thief of this woman's life, felt his heart pinch again in the old,

sharp anguish of remorse, bitterest because unavailing.

For the Lady Catharine herself there had been also many changes. The

death of her brother, the Earl of Banbury, had wrought many shifts in

the circumstances of a house apparently pursued by unkind fate. Left

practically alone and caring little for the life of London, even after

there had worn away the chill of suspicion which followed upon the

popular knowledge of her connection with the escape of Law from London,

Lady Catharine Knollys turned to a life and world suddenly grown vague

and empty. Travel upon the continent with friends, occasional visits to

the old family house in England, long sojourns in this or the other

city--such had been her life, quiet, sweet, reproachless and

unreproaching. For the present she had taken an hôtel in the older part

of Paris, in connection with her friend, the Countess of Warrington,

sometime connected with the embassy of that Lord Stair who was later to

act as spy for England in Paris, now so soon to know tumultuous scenes.

With these scenes, as time was soon to prove, there was to be most

intimately connected this very man who, now bending forward attentively,

now listening respectfully, and ever gazing directly and ardently, heard

naught of plots or plans, cared naught for the Paris which lay about,

saw naught but the beautiful face before him, felt naught but some deep,

compelling thrill in every heart-string which now reaching sweet accord

in spite of fate, in spite of the past, in spite of all, went singing on

in a deep melody of joy. This was she, the idol, the deity. Let the

world wag. It was a moment yet ere paradise must end!

"Madam, I would God it might be forever!" said Law again. The old

stubborn nature was showing once more, but under it something deeper,

softer, tenderer.

A sudden panic fear called at the heart of her to whom he spoke. Two

rosy spots shone in her cheeks, and as she gazed, her eyes showed the

veiled softening of woman's gentleness. There fell a silence.

"Madam, I could feel that this were Sadler's Wells over again," said Law

a moment later.

But now the carriage had arrived at the destination named by Lady

Catharine. Law sprang out, hat in hand, and assisted Lady Catharine to

the curb. A passing flower girl, gaily offering her wares, paused as the

carriage drew up. Law turned quickly and caught from her as many roses

as his hand could grasp, handing her in return half as much coin as her

smaller palm could hold. He turned to the Lady Catharine, and bowed with

that grace which was the talk of a world of gallants. In his hand he

extended a flower.

"Madam, as before!" he said.

There was a sob in his voice. Their eyes met fairly, unmasked as they

had not been for years. Tears came into the man's eyes, the first that

had ever sat there; tears for the past, tears for that sweetness which

once might have been.

"'Tis for the king! They weep for the king!" sang out the hard voice of

the flower girl, ironically, as she skipped away. "Ohé, for the king,

for the king!"

"Nay, for the queen!" said John Law, as he gazed into the eyes of

Catharine Knollys.

CHAPTER III

SEARCH THOU MY HEART

"Only believe me, Lady Catharine, and I shall do everything I promised

years ago--I shall lay all France at your feet. But if you deny me thus

always, I shall make all France a mockery."

"Monsieur is fresh from the South of France," replied the Lady Catharine

Knollys. "Has Gascon wine perhaps put Gascon speech into his mouth?"

"Oh, laugh if you like," exclaimed Law, rising and pacing across the

great room in which these two had met. "Laugh and mock, but we shall

see!"

"Granted that Mr. Law is well within his customary modesty," replied

Lady Catharine, "and granted even that Mr. Law has all France in the

hollow of his hand to-day, to do with as he likes, I must confess I see

not why France should suffer because I myself have found it difficult to

endorse Mr. Law's personal code of morals."

It was the third day after Law's entry into Paris, and the first time

for more than two long years that he found himself alone with the Lady

Catharine Knollys. His eagerness might have excused his impetuous and

boastful speech.

As for the Lady Catharine, that one swift, electric moment at the street

curb had well-nigh undone more than two years of resolve. She had heard

herself, as it were in a dream, promising that this man might come. She

had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed,

afraid. Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept

ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so

long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control. It was

self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this

woman's fence of speech with him. "Surely," argued she with herself, "if

love once dies, then it is dead forever, and can never be revived.

Surely," she insisted to herself, "my love is dead. Then--ah, but then

was it dead? Can my heart grow again?" asked the Lady Catharine of

herself, tremblingly. This was that which gave her pause. It was this

also which gave to her cheek its brighter color, to her eye a softer

gleam; and to her speech this covering shield of badinage.

Yet all her defenses were in a way to be fairly beaten down by the

intentness of the other. All things he put aside or overrode, and would

speak but of himself and herself, of his plans, his opportunities, and

of how these were concerned with himself and with her.

"There are those who judge not so harshly as yourself, Madam," resumed

Law. "His Grace the regent is good enough to believe that my studies

have gone deeper than the green cloth of the gaming table. Now, I tell

you, my time has come--my day at last is here. I tell you that I shall

prove to you everything which I said to you long ago, back there in old

England. I shall prove to you that I have not been altogether an idler

and a trifler. I shall bring to you, as I promised you long ago, all the

wealth, all the distinction--"

"But such speech is needless, Mr. Law," came the reply. "I have all the

wealth I need, nor do I crave distinction, save of my own selection."

"But you do not dream! This is a day unparalleled. There will be such

changes here as never yet were known. Within a week you shall hear of my

name in Paris. Within a month you shall hear of it beyond the gates of

Paris. Within a year you shall hear nothing else in Europe!"

"As I hear nothing else here now, Monsieur?"

Like a horse restless under the snaffle, the man shook his head, but

went on. "If you should be offered wealth more than any woman of Paris,

if you had precedence over the proudest peers of France--would these

things have no weight with you?"

"You know they would not."

Law cast himself restlessly upon a seat across the room from her. "I

think I do," said he, dejectedly. "At times you drive me to my wit's

end. What then, Madam, would avail?"

"Why, nothing, so far as the past is to be reviewed for you and me. Yet,

I should say that, if there were two here speaking as you and I, and if

they two had no such past as we--then I could fancy that woman saying to

her friend, 'Have you indeed done all that lay within you to do?'"

"Is it not enough--?"

"There is nothing, sir, that is enough for a woman, but all!"

"I have given you all."

"All that you have left--after yourself."

"Sharp, sharp indeed are your words, my Lady. And they are most sharp

because they come with justice."

"Oh," broke out the woman, "one may use sharp words who has been scorned

for her own false friend! You would give me all, Mr. Law, but you must

remember that it is only what remains after that--that--"

"But would you, could you, have cared had there been no 'that'? Had I

done all that lay in me to do, could you then have given me your

confidence, and could you have thought me worthy of it?"

"Oh, 'if!'"

"Yes, 'if!' 'If,' and 'as though,' and 'in that case'--these are all we

have to console us in this life. But, sweet one--"

"Sir, such words I have forbidden," said Lady Catharine, the blood for

one cause or another mounting again into her cheek.

"You torture me!" broke out Law.

"As much as you have me? Is it so much as that, Mr. Law?"

He rose and stood apart, his head falling in despair. "As I have done

this thing, so may God punish me!" said he. "I was not fit, and am not.

Yet I was bold enough to hope that there could be some atonement, some

thing--if my suffering--"

"There are things, Mr. Law, for which no suffering atones. But why cause

suffering longer for us both? You come again and again. Could you not

leave me for a time untroubled?"

"How can I?" blazed the man, his forehead furrowed up into a frown, the

moist beads on his brow proving his own intentness. "I can not! I can

not! That is all I know. Ask me not why. I can not; that is all."

"Sir," said Lady Catharine, "this seems to me no less than terrible."

"It is indeed no less than terrible. Yet I must come and come again,

bound some day to be heard, not for what I am, but for what I might be.

'Tis not justice I would have, dear heart, but mercy, a woman's mercy!"

"And you would bully me to agree with you, as I said, in regard to your

own excellent code of morals, Mr. Law?"

"You evade, like any woman, but if you will, even have it so. At least

there is to be this battle between us all our lives. I will be loved,

Lady Catharine! I must be loved by you! Look in my heart. Search beneath

this man that you and others see. Find me my own fellow, that other self

better than I, who cries out always thus. Look! 'Tis not for me as I am.

No man deserves aught for himself. But find in my heart, Lady Catharine,

that other self, the man I might have been! Dear heart, I beseech you,

look!"

Impulsively, he even tore apart the front of his coat, as though indeed

to invite such scrutiny. He stood before her, trembling, choking. The

passion of his speech caused the color again to rush to the Lady

Catharine's face. For a moment her bosom rose and fell tumultuously,

deep answering as of old unto deep, in the ancient, wondrous way.

"Is it the part of manhood to persecute a woman, Mr. Law?" she asked,

her own uncertitude now showing in her tone.

"I do not know," he answered.

Lady Catharine looked at him curiously.

"Do you love me, Mr. Law?" she asked, directly.

"I have no answer."

"Did you love that other woman?"

It took all his courage to reply. "I am not fit to answer," said he.

"And you would love me, too, for a time and in a way?"

"I will not answer. I will not trifle."

"And I am to think Mr. Law better than himself, better than other men;

since you say no man dare ask actual justice?"

"Worse than other men, and yet a man. A man--my God! Lady Catharine--a

man unworthy, yet a man seized fatally of that love which neither life

nor death can alter!"

As one fascinated, Lady Catharine sat looking at him. "Then," said she,

"any man may say to any woman--Mr. Law says to me--'I have cared for

such, and so many other women to the extent, let us say, of so many

pounds sterling. But I love you to the extent of twice as many pounds,

shillings and pence?' Is that the dole we women may expect, Mr. Law?"

"Have back your own words!" he cried. "Nothing is enough but all! And as

God witnesseth in this hour, I have loved you with all my heart-beats,

with all my prayers. I call upon you now, in the name of that love I

know you once bore me--"

Upon the face of the Lady Catharine there blazed the red mark of the

shame of Knollys. Covering her face with her hands, she suddenly bent

forward, and from her lips there broke a sob of pain.

In a flash Law was at her side, kneeling, seeking to draw away her

fingers with hands that trembled as much as her own.

"Do not! Do not!" he cried. "I am not worth it! It shall be as you like.

Let me go away forever. This I can not endure!"

"Ah, John Law, John Law!" murmured Catharine Knollys, "why did you break

my heart!"

CHAPTER IV

THE REGENT'S PROMISE

"Tell me, then, Monsieur L'as, of this new America. I would fain have

some information at first hand. There was rumor, I know not how exact,

that you once traveled in those regions."

Thus spake his Grace Philippe, Duke of Orléans, regent of France, now,

in effect, ruler of France. It was the audience which had been arranged

for John Law, that opportunity for which he had waited all his life.

Before him now, as he stood in the great council chamber, facing this

man whose ambitions ended where his own began--at the convivial board

and at the gaming table--he saw the path which led to the success that

he had craved so long. He, Law of Lauriston, sometime adventurer and

gambler, was now playing his last and greatest game.

"Your Grace," said he, "there be many who might better than I tell you

of that America."

"There are many who should be able, and many who do," replied the

regent. "By the body of the Lord! we get nothing but information

regarding these provinces of New France, and each advice is worse than

the one preceding it. The gist of it all is that my Lord Governor and my

very good intendant can never agree, save upon one point or so. They

want more money, and they want more soldiers--ah, yes, to be sure, they

also want more women, though we sent them out a ship load of choice

beauties not more than a six-month ago. But tell me, Monsieur L'as, is

it indeed true that you have traveled in America?"

"For a short time."

"I have heard nothing regarding you from the intendant at Quebec."

"Your Grace was not at that time caring for intendants. 'Twas many years

ago, and I was not well known at Quebec by my own name."

"_Eh bien_? Some adventure, then, perhaps? A woman at the bottom of it,

I warrant."

"Your Grace is right."

"'Twas like you, for a fellow of good zest. May God bless all fair

dames. And as to what you found in thus following--or was it in

fleeing--your divinity?"

"I found many things. For one, that this America is the greatest country

of the world. Neither England nor France is to be compared with it."

The regent fell back in his chair and laughed heartily.

"Monsieur, you are indeed, as I have ever found you, of most excellent

wit. You please me enormously."

"But, your Grace, I am entirely serious."

"Oh, come, spoil not so good a jest by qualifying, I beseech you!

England or France, indeed--ah, Monsieur L'as, Monsieur L'as!"

"Your own city of New Orléans, Sire, will lie at the gate of a realm

greater than all France. Your Grace will hand to the young king, when he

shall come of age, a realm excellently worth the ownership of any king."

"You say rich. In what way?" asked the regent. "We have not had so much

of returns after all. Look at Crozat? Look at--"

"Oh fie, Crozat! Your Grace, he solved not the first problem of real

commerce. He never dreamed the real richness of America."

Philippe sat thoughtful, his finger tips together. "Why have we not

heard of these things?" said he.

"Because of men like Crozat, of men like your governors and intendants

at Quebec. Because, your Grace, as you know very well, of the same

reason which sent me once from Paris, and kept me so long from laying

before you these very plans of which I now would speak."

"And that cause?"

"Maintenon."

"Oh, ah! Indeed--that is to say--"

"Louis would hear naught of me, of course. Maintenon took care that he

should find I was but heretic."

"As for myself," said Philippe the regent, "heretic or not heretic makes

but small figure. 'Twill take France a century to overcome her late

surfeit of religion. For us, 'tis most a question of how to keep the

king in the saddle and France underneath."

"Precisely, your Grace."

"Frankly, Monsieur L'as, I take it fittest now not so much to ponder

over new worlds as over how to keep in touch with this Old World yet

awhile. France has danced, though for years she danced to the tune of

Louis clad in black. Now France must pay for the music. My faith, I like

not the look of things. This joyful France to-day is a hideous thing.

These people laugh! I had sooner see a lion grin. Now to govern those

given us by Providence to govern," and the regent smiled grimly at the

ancient fiction, "it is most meet that the governed should produce

somewhat of funds in order that they may be governed."

"Yes, and the error has been in going too far," said Law. "These people

have been taxed beyond the taxation point. Now they laugh."

"Yes; and by God, Monsieur L'as, when France laughs, beware!"

"Your Grace admits that France has no further resources."

"Assuredly."

"Then tax New France!" cried Law, his hand coming down hard upon the

table, his eyes shining. "Mortgage where the security doubles every

year, where the soil itself is security for wealth greater than all

Europe ever owned."

"Oh, very well, Monsieur; though later I must ask you to explain."

"You admit that no more money can be forced from the people of France."

"Ask the farmers of the taxes. Ask Chamillard of the Treasury. My faith,

look out of the window! Listen! Do I not tell you that France is

laughing?"

"Very well. Let us also laugh. Let us all laugh together. There is money

in France, more money in Europe. I assure you these people can be

brought to give you cheerfully all they have."

"It sounds well, Monsieur L'as, but let me ask you how?"

"France is bankrupt--this is brutal, but none the less true. France must

repudiate her obligations unless something be swiftly done. It is not

noble to repudiate, your Grace. Yet, if we cancel and not repudiate, if

we can obtain the gold of France, of Europe--"

"Body of God! but you speak large, my friend."

"Not so large. All subjects shrink as we come close to them by study.

'Tis easy to see that France has not money enough for her own business.

If we had more money in France, we should have more production, and if

we had more production, we might have taxes. Thereby we might have

somewhat in our treasury wherewith to keep the king in the saddle, and

not under foot."

"Then, if I follow you," said Philippe, leaning slightly forward and

again placing his finger tips judicially together, "you would coin

greater amounts of money. Then, I would ask you, where would you get

your gold for the coinage?"

"It is not gold I would coin," said Law, "but credit."

"The kingdom hath been run on credit for these many years."

"No, 'tis not that kind of credit that I mean. I mean the credit which

comes of confidence. It is fate, necessity, which demands a new system.

The world has grown too much for every man to put his sixpence into the

other man's hand, and carry away in a basket what he buys. We are no

longer savages, to barter beads for hides. Yet we were as savages, did

we not come to realize that this insufficient coin must be replaced in

the evolution of affairs, just as barter has long ago been, replaced."

"And by what?"

"As I said, by credit."

"Do not annoy me by things too deep, but rather suggest some definite

plan, if that may be."

"First of all, then, as I said to you years ago, we need a bank, a bank

in which all the people of France shall have absolute confidence."

"You would, then, wish a charter of some sort?"

"Only provided your Grace shall please. I have of my own funds a half

million livres or more. This I would put into a bank of general nature,

if your Grace shall please. That should be some small guarantee of my

good faith in these plans."

"Monsieur L'as would seem to have followed play to his good fortune."

"Never to so good fortune as when first I met your Grace," replied Law.

"I have given to games of chance the severest thought and study. Just

as much more have I given thought and study to this enterprise which I

propose now to lay before you."

"And you ask the patent of the Crown for your bank?"

"It were better if the institution received that open endorsement."

A slow frown settled upon the face of the other. "That is, at the

beginning, impossible, Monsieur L'as," said the regent. "It is you who

must prove these things which you propose."

"Let it be so, then," said Law, with conviction. "I make no doubt I

shall obtain subscriptions for the shares. Remember my words. Within a

few months you shall see trebled the energies of France. Money is the

only thing which we have not in France. Why, your Grace, suppose the

collectors of taxes in the South of France succeed in raising the king's

levies. That specie must come by wheeled vehicle all the way to Paris.

Consider what loss of time is there, and consider what hindrance to the

trade of the provinces from which so much specie is taken bodily, and to

which it can return later only a little at a time. Is it any wonder that

usury is eating up France? There is not money enough--it is the one

priceless thing; by which I mean only that there is not belief, not

confidence, not credit enough in France. Now, given a bank which holds

the confidence of the people, and I promise the king his taxes, even as

I promise to abolish usury. You shall see money at work, money begetting

money, and that begetting trade, and that producing comfort, and comfort

making easier the collection of the king's taxes."

"By heaven! you begin to make it somewhat more plain to me."

"One thing I beg you to observe most carefully, your Grace," said Law,

"nor must it ever be forgotten in our understanding. The shares of this

bank must have a fixed value in regard to the coin of the realm. There

must be no altering of the value of our coin. Grant that the coin does

not fluctuate, and I promise you that my bank _actions_, notes of the

chief bank of Paris, shall soon be found better than gold or silver in

the eyes of France. Moreover, given a greater safety to foreign gold,

and I promise you that too shall pour into Paris in such fashion as has

never yet been seen. Moreover, the people will follow their coin. Paris

will be the greatest capital of Europe. This I promise you I can do."

"In effect," said the regent, smiling, "you promise me that you can

build a new Paris, a new world! Yet much of this I can in part believe

and understand. Let that be as it may. The immediate truth is that

something must be done, and done at once."

"Obviously."

"Our public debt is twenty-six hundred millions of livres. Its annual

interest is eighty millions of livres. We can not pay this interest

alone, not to speak of the principal. Obviously, as you say, the matter

admits of no delay. Your bank--why, by heaven, let us have your bank!

What can we do without your bank? Lastly, how quickly can we have it?"

"Sire, you make me the happiest man in all the world!"

"The advantage is quite otherwise, sir. But my head already swims with

figures. Now let us set the rest aside until to-morrow. Meantime, I must

confess to you, my dear friend, there is somewhat else that sits upon my

mind."

A change came upon the demeanor of his Grace the regent. Laying aside

the dignity of the ruler with the questions of state, he became again

more nearly that Philippe of Orléans, known by his friends as gay, care

free and full of _camaraderie_.

"Your Grace, could I be of the least personal service, I should be too

happy," said Law.

"Well, then, I must admit to you that this is a question of a diamond."

"Oh, a diamond?"

"The greatest diamond in the world. Indeed, there is none other like it,

and never will be. This Jew hounds me to death, holding up the thing

before mine eyes. Even Saint Simon, that priggish little duke of ours,

tells me that France should have this stone, that it is a dignity which

should not be allowed to pass away from her. But how can France,

bankrupt as she is, afford a little trifle which costs three million

francs? Three million francs, when we can not pay eighty millions annual

interest on our debts!"

"'Tis as you say, somewhat expensive," said Law.

"Naturally, for I say to you that this stone had never parallel in the

history of the world. It seems that this overseer in the Golconda mines

got possession of it in some fashion, and escaped to Europe, hiding the

stone about his person. It has been shown in different parts of Europe,

but no one yet has been able to meet the price of this extortioner who

owns it."

"And yet, as Saint Simon says, there is no dignity too great for the

throne of France."

"Yet, meantime, the king will have no use for it for several years to

come. There is the Sancy stone--"

"And, as your Grace remembers, this new stone would look excellent well

upon a woman?" said Law. He gazed, calm and unsmiling, directly into the

eyes of Philippe of Orléans.

"Monsieur L'as, you have the second sight!" cried the latter,

unblushingly. "You have genius. May God strike me blind if ever I have

seen a keener mind than thine!"

"All warm blood is akin," replied John Law. "This stone is perhaps for

your Grace's best beloved?"

"Eh--ah--which? As you know--"

"Ah! Perhaps for La Parabère. Richly enough she deserves it."

"Ah, Monsieur L'as, even your mind is at fault now," cried the regent,

shaking his finger exultingly. "I covet this new stone, not for Parabère

nor for any one of those dear friends whom you might name, and whom you

may upon occasion have met at some of my little suppers. It is for

another, whose name or nature you can not guess."

"Not that mysterious beauty of whom rumor goes about this week, the

woman rated surpassing fair, who has lately come into the acquaintance

of your Grace, and whom your Grace has concealed as jealously as though

he feared to lose her by some highway robbery?"

"It is the same, I must admit!"

Law remained thoughtful for a time. "I make no doubt that the Hebrew

would take two million francs for this stone," said he.

"Perhaps, but two millions is the same as three millions," said

Philippe. "The question is, where to get two millions."

"As your Grace has said, I have been somewhat fortunate at play,"

replied Law, "but I must say that this sum is beyond me, and that both

the diamond and the bank I can not compass. Yet, your Grace has at

disposal the crown jewels of France. Now, beauty is the sovereign of all

sovereigns, as Philippe of Orléans must own. To beauty belongs the use

of these crown jewels. Place them as security, and borrow the two

millions. For myself, I shall take pride in advancing the interest on

the sum for a certain time, until such occasion as the treasury may

afford the price of this trinket. In a short time it will be able to do

so, I promise your Grace; indeed able to buy a dozen such stones, and

take no thought of the matter."

"Monsieur L'as, do you actually believe these things?"

"I know them."

"And you can secure for me this gem?"

"Assuredly. We shall have it. Let it be called the 'Regent's Diamond,'

after your Grace of Orléans. And when the king shall one day wear it,

let us hope that he will place it as fitly as I am sure your Grace will

do, on the brow of beauty--even though it be beauty unknown, and kept

concealed under princely prerogative!"

"Ah! You are too keen, Monsieur L'as, too keen to see my new discovery.

Not for a little time shall I take the risk of introducing this fair

friend to one so dangerous as yourself; but one of these times, my very

good friend, if you can secure for me this diamond, you shall come to a

very little supper, and see where for a time I shall place this gem, as

you say, on the brow of beauty. For the sake of Monsieur L'as, head

magician of France my mysterious alien shall then unmask."

"And then I am to have my bank?"

"Good God, yes, a thousand banks!"

"It is agreed?"

"It is agreed."

CHAPTER V

A DAY OF MIRACLES

The regent of France kept his promise to Law, and the latter in turn

fulfilled his prophecy to the regent. Moreover, he swiftly went far

toward verifying his boast to the Lady Catharine Knollys; for in less

than a month his name was indeed on every tongue in Paris. The Banque

Générale de L'as et Compagnie was seized upon by the public, debtor and

creditor alike, as the one new thing, and hence as the only salvation.

As ever, it pleased Paris to be mystified. In some way the rumor spread

about that Monsieur L'as was _philosophique_; that the Banque Générale

was founded upon "philosophy." It was catch-word sufficient for the

time.

"_Vive_ Jean L'as, _le philosophe_--Monsieur L'as, he who has saved

France!" So rang the cry of the shallow-witted people of an age splendid

even in its contradictions. And meantime the new bank, crudely

experimental as it was, flourished as though its master spirit had

indeed in his possession the philosopher's stone, turning all things to

gold.

One day, shortly after the beginning of that brilliantly spectacular

series of events destined so soon to make Paris the Mecca of the world,

there sat at table, in a little, obscure _cabaret_ of the gay city, a

group of persons who seemed to have chosen that spot for purposes of

privacy. Yet privacy was difficult where all the curious passers-by

stared in amaze at the great coach near the door, half filling the

narrow and unclean street--a vehicle bearing the arms of no less a

person than that august and unscrupulous representative of the French

nobility, the Prince de Conti. No less a person than the prince himself,

thin-faced, aquiline and haughty, sat at this table, looking about him

like any common criminal to note whether his speech might be overheard.

Next to him sat a hook-nosed Jew from Austria, Fraslin by name, one of

many of his kind gathered so quickly within the last few weeks in Paris,

even as the scent of carrion fetches ravens to the feast. Another of the

party was a man of middle age, of handsome, calm, patrician features and

an unruffled mien--that De la Chaise, nephew of the confessor of Louis

the Grand, who was later to represent the young king in the provinces of

Louisiana.

Near by the latter, and indeed the central figure of this gathering, was

one less distinguished than either of the above, evidently neither of

churchly ancestry nor civic distinction--Henri Varenne, sometime clerk

for the noted Paris Frères, farmers of the national revenues. Varenne,

now serving but as clerk in the new bank of L'as et Compagnie, could

have been called a man of no great standing; yet it was he whose

presence had called hither these others to this unusual meeting. In

point of fact, Varenne was a spy, a spy chosen by the jealous Paris

Frères, to learn what he might of the internal mechanism of this new and

startling institution which had sprung into such sudden prominence.

"As to the bank of these brothers L'as," said the Prince de Conti,

rapping out emphasis with his sword hilt on the table, "it surely has

much to commend it. Here is one of its notes, and witness what it says.

'The bank promises to pay to the bearer at sight the sum of fifty livres

in coin of the weight and standard of this day.' That is to say, of this

date which it bears. Following these, are the words 'value received.'

Now, my notary tells me that these words make this absolutely safe, so

that I know what it means in coin to me at this day, or a year from now.

Is it not so, Monsieur Fraslin?"

The Jew reached out his hand, took the note, and peered over it in close

scrutiny.

"'Tis no wonder, Monsieur le Prince," said he, presently, "that orders

have been given by the Government to receive this note without discount

for the payment of the general taxes. Upon my reputation, I must say to

you that these notes will pass current better than your uncertain coin.

The specie of the king has been changed twice in value by the king's

orders. Yet this bases itself upon a specie value which is not subject

to any change. Therein lies its own value."

"It is indeed true," broke in Varenne. "Not a day goes by at this new

bank but persons come to us and demand our notes rather than coin of the

realm of France."

"Yes, yes," broke in the prince, "we are agreed as to all this, but

there is much talk about further plans of this Monsieur L'as. He has the

ear of his Grace the regent, surely. Now, sir, tell us what you know of

these future affairs."

"The rumor is, as I understand it," answered Varenne, "that he is to

take over control of the Company of the West--to succeed, in short, to

the shoes of Anthony Crozat. There come curious stories of this province

of Louisiana."

"Of course," resumed the prince, with easy wisdom, "we all of us know of

the voyage of L'Huillier, who, with his four ships, went up this great

river Messasebe, and who, as is well known, found that river of Blue

Earth, described by early writers as abounding in gold and gems."

"Aye, and there comes the strange part of it, and this is what I would

lay before your Lordships, as bearing upon the value of the shares of

this new bank, since it is taking over the charter of the Company of the

West. It is news not yet known upon the street. The story goes that the

half has not been told of the wealth of these provinces.

"Now, as you say, L'Huillier had with him four ships, and it is well

known that his gentlemen had with them certain ladies of distinction,

among these a mysterious dame reported to have earlier traveled in

portions of New France. The name of this mysterious female is not known,

save that she is reported to have been a good friend of a

_sous-lieutenant_ of the regiment Carignan, sometime dweller at Quebec

and Montréal, and who later became a lieutenant under L'Huillier. It is

said that this same mysterious fair, having returned from America and

having cast aside her lieutenant, has come under protection of no less a

person than his Grace Philippe of Orléans, the regent. Now, as you know,

the bank is the best friend of the regent, and this mysterious dame, as

we are advised by servants of his Grace's household, hath told his Grace

such stories of the wealth of the Messasebe that he has secretly and

quickly made over the control of the trade of those provinces to this

new bank. There is story also that his Grace himself will not lack

profit in this movement!"

The hand of Conti smote hard upon the table. "By heaven! it were strange

thing," said he, "if this foreign traveler should prove the same

mysterious beauty Philippe is reported to have kept in hiding. My faith,

is it indeed true that we are come upon a time of miracles?"

"Listen!" broke in again Varenne, his ardor overcoming his

obsequiousness. "These are some of the tales brought back--and reported

privately, I can assure you, gentlemen, now for the first time and to

yourselves. The people of this country are said to be clad in beauteous

raiment, made of skins, of grasses, and of the barks of trees. Their

ornaments are made of pure, yellow gold, and of precious gems which they

pick up from the banks of the streams, as common as pebbles here in

France. The climate is such that all things grow in the most unrivaled

fruitfulness. There is neither too much sun nor too much rain. The lakes

and rivers are vast and beautiful, and the forests are filled with

myriads of strange and sweet-voiced birds. 'Tis said that the dream of

Ponce de Leon hath been realized, and that not only one, but scores of

fountains of youth have been discovered in this great valley. The people

are said never to grow old. Their personal beauty is of surpassing

nature, and their disposition easy and complaisant to the last degree--"

"My faith, say on!" broke in De la Chaise. "'Tis surely a story of

paradise which you recount."

"But, listen, gentlemen! The story goes yet farther. As to mines of gold

and silver, 'twas matter of report that such mines are common in all the

valley of the Messasebe. Indeed the whole surface of the earth, in some

parts, is covered with lumps of gold, so that the natives care nothing

for it. The bottoms of the streams, the beaches of the lakes, carry as

many particles of gold as they have pebbles and little stones. As for

silver, none take note of it. 'Tis used as building stone."

"In the name of Jehovah, is there support for these wonders you have

spoken?" broke in Fraslin the Jew, his eyes shining with suppressed

excitement.

"Assuredly. Yet I am telling not half of the news which came to my

knowledge this very morning--the story is said to have emanated from the

Palais Royal itself, and therefore, no doubt, is to be traced to this

same unknown queen of the Messasebe. She reports, so it is said, that

beyond the country where L'Huillier secured his cargo of blue earth,

there is a land where grows a most peculiar plant. The meadows and

fields are covered with it, and it is said that the dews of night, which

gather within the petals of these flowers, become, in the course of a

single day, nothing less than a solid diamond stone! From this in time

the leaves drop down, leaving the diamond exposed there, shining and

radiant."

"Ah, bah!" broke in Fraslin the Jew. "Why believe such babblings? We all

know that the diamond is a product not of the vegetable but of the

mineral world!"

"So have we known many things," stoutly replied Varenne, "only to find

ourselves frequently mistaken. Now for my part, a diamond is a diamond,

be it born in a flower or broken from a rock. And as for the excellence

of these stones, 'tis rumored that the lady hath abundant proof. 'Tis no

wonder that the natives of the valley of the Messasebe robe themselves

in silks, and that they deck themselves carelessly with precious stones,

as would a peasant of ours with a chain of daisy blossoms. Now, if there

be such wealth as this, is it not easy to see the profit of a bank which

controls the trade with such a province? True, there have been some

discoveries in this valley, but nothing thorough. 'Tis but recent the

thing hath been done thorough."

The Prince de Conti sat back in his chair and drew a long breath. "If

these things be true," said he, "then this Monsieur L'as is not so bad a

leader to follow."

"But listen!" exclaimed Varenne once more. "I have not even yet told you

the most important thing, and this is rumor which perhaps your Grace has

caught. 'Tis whispered that the bank of the brothers L'as is within a

fortnight to be changed."

"What is that?" queried Fraslin quickly. "'Tis not to be abandoned?"

"By no means. Abandoned would be quite the improper word. 'Tis to be

improved, expanded, increased, magnified! My Lords, there is the

opportunity of a life-time for every one of us here!"

"Say on, man, say on!" commanded the prince, the covetousness of his

soul shining in his eyes as he leaned forward.

"I mean to say this," and the spy lowered his voice as he looked

anxiously about. "The regent hath taken a fancy to be chief owner

himself of an enterprise so profitable. In fine, the Banque Générale is

to become the Banque Royale. His Majesty of France, represented by his

Grace the regent, is to become the head banker of France and Europe!

Monsieur L'as is to be retained as director-general of this Banque

Royale. There are to be branches fixed in different cities of the realm,

at Lyons, at Tours, at Amiens, at Rochelle, at Orléans--in fact, all

France is to go upon a different footing."

The glances of the Prince de Conti and the Austrian met each other. The

Jew drew a long breath as he sat back in his chair, his hands grasping

at the edge of the table. Try as he might, he scarce could keep his chin

from trembling. He licked out his tongue to moisten his lips.

"There is so much," resumed Varenne, "that 'tis hard to tell it all. But

you must know that this Banque Royale will be still more powerful than

the old one. There will be incorporated with it, not only the Company of

the West, but also the General Company of the Indies, as you know, the

most considerable mercantile enterprise of France. Now listen! Within

the first year the Banque Royale will issue one thousand million livres

in notes. This embodiment of the Compagnie Générale of the Indies will

warrant, as I know by the secret plans of the bank, the issue of notes

amounting to two billion livres. Therefore, as Monsieur de la Chaise

signifies, he who is lucky enough to-day to own a few _actions_ of the

Banque Royale, or even the old _actions_ of Monsieur L'as' bank, which

will be redeemed by its successor, is in a way to gain greater sums than

were ever seen on the face of any investment from the beginning of the

world until to-day! Now, as I was about to ask of you, Monsieur

Fraslin--"

The speaker turned in his chair to where Fraslin had been but a moment

before. The chair was empty.

"Our friend stepped to the door but on the instant," said De la Chaise.

"He is perhaps--"

"That he has," cried Varenne. "He is the first of us to profit! Monsieur

le Prince, in virtue of what I have said to you, if you could favor me

with an advance of a few hundred louis, I could assure my family of

independence. Monsieur le Prince! Monsieur le Prince--"

Monsieur le Prince, however, was not so far behind the Austrian! Varenne

followed him, tugging at his coat, but Conti shook him off, sprang into

his carriage and was away.

"To the Place Vendôme!" he cried to his coachman, "and hasten!"

De la Chaise, aristocratic, handsome and thick-witted, remained alone at

the table, wondering what was the cause of this sudden commotion.

Varenne re-appeared at the door wringing his hands.

"What is it, my friend?" asked De la Chaise. "Why all this haste? Why

this confusion?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Varenne, bitterly, "except that every minute of

this day is worth a million francs. Man, do you know?"--and in his

frenzy he caught De la Chaise by the collar and half shook him out of

his usual calm--"man, can you not see that Jean L'as has brought

revolution into Paris? Oh! This L'as, this devil of a L'as! A thousand

louis, my friend, a hundred, ten--give me but ten louis, and I will make

you rich! A day of miracles is here!"

CHAPTER VI

THE GREATEST NEED

There sprang now with incredible swiftness upward and outward an Aladdin

edifice of illusion. It was as though indeed this genius who had waved

his wand and bidden this fairy palace of chimera to arise, had used for

his material the intangible, iridescent film of bubbles, light as air.

Wider and wider spread the balloon of phantasm. Higher and higher it

floated, on it fixed the eyes of France. And France laughed, and asked

that yet other bubbles should be blown.

All France was mad, and to its madness there was joined that of all

Europe. The population of Paris doubled. The prices of labor and

commodities trebled in a day. There was now none willing to be called

artisan. Every man was broker in stocks. Bubbles, bubbles, dreams,

fantasies--these were the things all carried in their hands and in their

hearts. These made the object of their desire, of their pursuit

unimaginably passionate and frenzied.

With a leap from the somberness of the reign of Louis, all France went

to the extreme of levity. Costumes changed. Manners, but late devout,

grew debonair. Morals, once lax, now grew yet more lax. The blaze and

tinsel, the music and the rouge, the wine, the flowing, uncounted

gold--all Paris might have been called a golden brothel of delirious

delight, tenanted by a people utterly gone mad.

It was a house made of bubbles. Its domes were of bubbles. Its roof was

of bubbles, and its walls. Its windows were of that nacreous film. Even

its foundations had naught in them more substantial than an evanescent

dream of gauze-like web, frail as the spider's house upon the dew-hung

grasses.

Yet as to this latter, there should be somewhat of qualification. The

wizard who created this fairy structure saw it swiftly grow beyond its

original plan, saw unforeseen results spring from those causes which

were first well within his comprehension.

Berated by later generations as an adventurer, a schemer, a charlatan,

Law originally deserved anything but such a verdict of his public.

Dishonest he was not, insincere he never was; and as a student of

fundamentals, he was in advance of his age, which is ever to be

accursed. His method was but the forerunner of the modern commercial

system, which is of itself to-day but a tougher faith bubble, as may be

seen in all the changing cycles of finance and trade. His bank was but

a portion of a nobler dream. His system was but one vast belief, one

glorious hope.

The Company of the West--this it was that made John Law's heart throb.

America--its trade--its future! John Law, dead now and gone--he was the

colossal pioneer! He saw in his dreams what we see to-day in reality;

and no bubble of all the frenzied Paris streets equaled this splendid

dream of a renewed and revived humanity that is a fact to-day.

But there came to this dreamer and doer, at the very door of his

success, that which arrested him even upon his entering in. There came

the preliminary blow which in a flash his far-seeing mind knew was to

mean ultimate ruin. In a word, the loose principles of a dissolute man

were to ruin France, and with it one who had once saved France from

ruin.

Philippe of Orléans found it ever difficult to say no to a friend, and

more so if that friend were a woman; and of the latter sort, none had

more than he. Men and women alike, these could all see only this

abundance of money made of paper. What, then, was to prevent the regent,

all powerful, from printing more and yet more of it, and giving it to

his friends? The regent did so. Never were mistresses better paid than

those of Philippe of Orléans, receiving in effect faithlessness in

return for insincerity.

Philippe of Orléans could not see why, since credit based on specie made

possible a great volume of accepted notes, a credit based on all France

might not warrant an indefinite issue of such notes. He offered his

director-general all the concessions which the crown could give, all the

revenue-producing elements of France--in effect, all France itself, as

security. In return he asked but the small privilege of printing for

himself as much money as he chose and whenever he saw fit!

The notes of the private bank of Law were an absolute promise to pay a

certain and definite sum, not a changeable or indefinite sum; and Law

made it a part of his published creed that any banker was worthy of

death who issued notes without having the specie wherewith to pay them.

He insisted that the payment should mean specie in the value of the day

on which the note was issued. This item the regent liked little, as

being too irksome for his temper. Was it not of record how Louis, the

Grand Monarque, had twice made certain millions for himself by the

simple process of changing the value of the coin? Dicing, drinking,

amorous Philippe, easy-going, shallow-thinking, truly wert thou better

fitted for a throne than for a banker's chair!

The royal bank, which the regent himself hastened to foster when he saw

the profits of the first private bank of circulation and discount France

had ever known, issued notes against which Law entered immediately his

firm protest. He saw that their tenor spelled ruin for the whole system

of finance which, at such labor, he had erected. These notes promised to

pay, for instance, fifty livres "in silver coin," not "in coin of the

weight and standard of this day," as had the honester notes of Law's

bank. That is to say, the notes meant nothing sure and nothing definite.

They might be money for a time, but not forever; and this the

director-general was too shrewd a man not to know.

"But under this issue you shall have all France," said the regent to him

one day, as they renewed their discussion yet again upon this scheme.

"You shall have the farming of the taxes. I will give you all the

foreign trade as monopoly, if you like--will give you the mint--will

give you, in effect, as I have said, all France. But, Monsieur my

director-general, I must have money. It is for that purpose that I

appoint you director-general--because I find you the most remarkable man

in all the world."

"Your Grace," said Law, "print your notes thus, and print them to such

extent as you wish, and France is again worse than bankrupt! Then,

indeed, you have worse than repudiated the debts of France."

"Ah bah! _mon drôle_! You are ill to-day. You have a _migraine_,

perhaps? What folly for you to speak thus. France hath swiftly grown so

strong that she can never again be ruined. What ails my magician, my

Prince of Golconda, this morning? France bankrupt! Even were it so, does

that relieve me of this begging of De Prie, of Parabère, and all the

others? My God, Monsieur L'as, they are like leeches! They think me made

of money."

"And your Grace thinks France made of money."

"Nay; I only think my director-general is made of money, or can make it

as he likes."

And this was ever the end of Law's reproaches and his expostulations.

This, then, was to be the end of his glorious enterprises, thought he,

as he sat one morning, staring out of the window when left alone. This

sordid love for money for its own sake--this was to be the limit of an

ambition which dealt in theories, in men, in nations, and not in livres

and louis d'or! Law smiled bitterly. For an instant he was not the

confident man of action and of affairs, not the man claiming with

assurance the perpetual protection of good fortune. He sat there, alone,

feeling nothing but the great human craving for sympathy and trust. A

line of carriages swept back across the street at his window, and

streams of nobles besought entrance at his door. And the man who had

called out all these, the man for whose friendship all Europe

clamored--that man sat with aching heart, longing, craving, begging now

of fortune only the one thing--a friend!

At last he arose, his face showing lean and haggard. He passed into

another room.

"Will," said he, "I am at a place where I am dizzy and need a hand. You

know what hand it means for me. Can you go--will you take her, as you

did once before for me, a message? I can not go. I can not venture into

her presence. Will you go? Tell her it is the last time! Tell her it is

the last!"

CHAPTER VII

THE MIRACLE UNWROUGHT

"You do not know my brother, Lady Catharine."

Thus spoke Will Law, who had been admitted but a half hour since at the

great door of the private hotel where dwelt the Lady Catharine Knollys.

"'Twould seem, then, 'tis by no fault of his," replied Lady Catharine,

hotly.

"And is that not well? There are many in Paris who would fain change

places with you, Lady Catharine."