IN WHICH DE SANCERRE IS CONFRONTED BY A MYSTERY
Like a statue done in bronze stood Chatémuc before a
hastily-constructed hut at the rear of the log fort in which the rank
and file of the explorers lay sleeping. La Salle had chosen the sentry
as his special body-guard, for at many a critical juncture in his
long years of exploration--menaced at all times, as he had been, by a
thousand lurking perils--the daring Frenchman had tested the loyalty
and courage of this stalwart Mohican, who, for love of a white man, had
wandered many weary miles from his tribal hunting-grounds.
Within the rude but spacious hut over which the phlegmatic Indian stood
guard lay sleeping, as La Salle and de Sancerre entered the enclosure,
two men who had found rest upon heaps of leaves and grass, and whose
strangely-contrasted outlines, emphasized by the errant moonbeams
that penetrated the chinks between the logs, called attention to
the curious mixture of unrelated nationalities of which La Salle’s
expedition was made up. In one corner of the hut reclined the slender
form of the Franciscan friar, Zenobe Membré. Upon his placid, smiling
face--a countenance suggestive of religious enthusiasm even while
he slept--rested a ray of silvery light, as if the prayer that he
had uttered ere he fell asleep had transformed itself into a halo to
glorify his pillow through the night. His thin hands were crossed
upon his breast, and showed white and transparent against the gray
background of his garb.
Within the shadows at an opposite corner of the apartment lay the
lithe, muscular figure of a man whose costume made it difficult for the
observer to determine whether the wearer was a foot-soldier from the
Low Countries or a Canadian _coureur de bois_. The truth was that Henri
de Tonti’s experiences as an Italian officer in the Sicilian wars had
left their impress upon his attire as an explorer under de la Salle.
As he lay, fully dressed, in the moonlight that night he might well
have been a sculptor’s dream, representing in his outlines the martial
genius of the Old World, bringing “not peace but a sword” to the New.
A bare hand rested lovingly upon the cross-piece of his rapier, which
he had unfastened from his waist and tossed upon the dry grass of his
couch. His other hand was covered by a glove.
Before they threw themselves upon their tempting beds of leaves, La
Salle and de Sancerre stood side by side in the centre of the hut for a
moment, gazing thoughtfully at the weird tableau that their slumbering
comrades made.
“The sword and crucifix!” whispered de Sancerre, pointing from the
soldier to the priest. “Strange allies these, monsieur.”
“But one without the other were in vain! They serve together by the
will of God. Good-night, Monsieur le Comte.”
* * * * *
How long de Sancerre had slept before he was awakened by a light touch
upon his shoulder he never knew. It must have been a considerable
time, for, as he opened his reluctant eyes, he saw that the moonlight
no longer gleamed in all quarters of the hut, but dimly illumined
only one corner thereof. Inured though he was to perils of all kinds,
the Count felt a thrill of dismay as his eyes rested upon a hideous,
grinning face leering at him from the shadows close at hand. He sat up
hurriedly, uttering no sound, but fumbling in the leaves and grass for
his rapier. A glance assured him that his comrades had been undisturbed
by the intruder at his side.
“Be not afraid, señor,” whispered a voice in broken Spanish. “The
children of the moon have naught to fear from us.”
De Sancerre, to whom Spanish was like a native tongue, raised himself
upon his elbow and gazed searchingly at the misshapen hag who had
disturbed his sleep.
“I crave your pardon,” he murmured, with the air of a courtier
addressing a coquette in the Salon de Venus, while the mocking smile
that his face so often wore gleamed in the half-light. “Then I am of
the children of the moon?”
“At night ye come from out the shadows of the distant lands, ye
white-faced offspring of your Queen, the Moon. The Sun, our God, has
told us you would come. Be not afraid. We have rare gifts for you--and
loving hearts.”
The harsh, guttural voice in which the aged crone spoke these gentle
words added to the uncanny effect of her wrinkled, time-marked face,
peering at the smiling Frenchman through the gloom.
“I bring you this,” she went on, still speaking in a mongrel Spanish
patois, which de Sancerre found it difficult to interpret. “Remember
what I say. The children of the sun send greeting to their brothers of
the moon.”
She laid upon the dried grass of his bed a piece of white mulberry
bark, upon which de Sancerre’s eyes rested indifferently for an
instant. When he raised them again the hag had left his side, and he
saw her pushing her way through an opening in the tree-limbs at the
further end of the hut. For an instant her diminutive body stopped the
gap in the wooden wall. Then, from where he lay, the Frenchman could
catch a glimpse of moonbeams on the river through the opening that she
had made.
For a moment this strange visitation affected de Sancerre unpleasantly.
Surrounded, as their little party was, by unknown tribes with whom
the wily Spaniards had had intercourse, the words of the old crone,
cordial though they had been in their way, filled the Count with alarm.
Furthermore, the ease with which she had made an undiscovered entrance
to their hut emphasized the disquiet that he had begun to feel.
Thorough soldier as he was, this seemingly harmless invasion of his
leader’s quarters became to his mind a more menacing episode the more
he weighed it in all its bearings.
Rising noiselessly from his resting-place, de Sancerre made his way
between his sleeping comrades to the entrance to the hut. Stepping
forth into the white night, he confronted Chatémuc, who still stood
motionless in the same spot that he had occupied when La Salle and his
companion had returned from the river. The Mohican, from long service
with the explorer, had acquired a practical knowledge of the French
tongue, but, as a general rule, he made use of it only in monosyllables.
“Chatémuc,” said de Sancerre, sternly, “your eyes are heavy with the
moonlight or with sleep. You keep indifferent guard. Did you not see
an aged witch who even now stood within the hut and roused me from my
sleep?”
The tall Mohican gazed down upon the Frenchman with keen, searching
eyes, which glowed at that moment with a fire that proved him innocent
either of treason or stupidity. His stern, immobile face gave no
indication of the astonishment which the Frenchman’s accusation must
have caused him.
“There’s nothing stirring but the river and the leaves,” said Chatémuc,
with grim emphasis, turning his shapely head slowly to sweep the
landscape in all directions with eyes for which the forest had no
mysteries.
“_Ma foi_, my Chatémuc! You’re as proud and stubborn as de Groot, the
Hollander. But follow me. I’ll show you a hole that proves I dreamed no
dream.”
De Sancerre, behind whom stalked the stately Mohican, made his way
hurriedly to the further side of the hut. Pointing to an opening
between the logs, through which a small boy might have crawled, the
Count said:
“Behold, monsieur, the yawning chasm in your reputation as a sentry!
’Twould not admit an army, but it might serve for a snake.”
Chatémuc had fallen upon his knees, and was examining the aperture
and the trampled grass which led to it. Presently he arose and turned
towards the Count.
“A woman,” he muttered. “Small. Light. Old.”
“Fine woodcraft, Chatémuc! You read the blazonry that crossed the
drawbridge with great skill--after the castle has been captured. But
let it pass. No harm’s been done, save that your pride has had a fall.
And so I leave you to your watch again. If you loved me, Chatémuc,
you’d keep old women from my midnight couch. I fear my sleep is lost.”
Stealing noiselessly past the motionless forms of La Salle, the
friar, and the Italian captain, after his successful demonstration of
Chatémuc’s negligence as a sentinel, de Sancerre approached his tumbled
bed of leaves with weary step. A feeling of depression, a sudden
realization of the horrid possibilities that his environment suggested,
a sensation of impotent rebellion at the fate that had hurled him
from the very centre of seventeenth-century civilization into the
rude embrace of a horror-haunted wilderness, came suddenly upon the
vivacious Frenchman, mocking at his stoical views of life and making
of the satirical tendency of his mind a knife with which to cut himself.
“_Nom de Dieu!_” he muttered, as he gazed down upon the dry grass and
leaves of his uninviting couch, “these be fine lodgings for a Count of
Languedoc! At the worst, with Turenne, there was always Versailles at
our rear.”
At that instant his heavy eyes lighted upon the slip of white bark
which his recent caller had left with him as a token of good-will.
De Sancerre bent down and, grasping the seemingly meaningless gift,
gazed at it inquiringly. To his amazement, he made out in the
darkness what seemed to him to be a bit of writing, scratched with a
pointed instrument upon this fragment from a mulberry bush. Hastily,
stealthily, making his way to the opening through which the donor of
the gift had forced her exit, the Count leaned forward, and in the
moonlight read, with wondering eyes, the name:
_Julia de Aquilar_
It was the name of the woman for love of whom he had killed a Spaniard
and lost his native land. Instantly his mind harked back to the
confession that, but an hour or so before, he had poured into the ears
of Sieur de la Salle. Had an eavesdropper overheard his words, and, in
a spirit of mischief, sought to tease him by a trick? He rejected the
supposition at once, for the conviction came upon him, increasing a
thousandfold the consternation which he felt, that he had deliberately
refrained from mentioning the name of his inamorata to La Salle.
De Sancerre drew himself erect and stood motionless for a moment, the
most amazed and startled being in all the strange new world.