THE INCIDENTS OF A SNOWY NIGHT.
There was a moment's pause, while Dick hastily tore open the silken bag
in his queue and took therefrom the miniature. Then he advanced to her,
bowing low, his hunting-cap in one hand, the portrait held out in the
other. She glanced at the miniature curiously, then uttered a low
exclamation of pleasure, her face suddenly assuming a faint but joyous
smile, and took the portrait, her fingers touching his as she did so.
"When I said I would get it back for you, in New Jersey," quoth Dick,
while she looked affectionately at the miniature, "I didn't think to
take so long a time."
She now looked from the portrait to him. "Then you are the young
gentleman who left the stage-coach, to go after the robbers?" she said,
in a tone showing that she had not recognized him at first.
Dick bowed. "I would have returned it to you in New York, but--something
hindered me." In contemplating the fine lines of her face, and the dark
lustre of her eyes, Dick heeded not the possibility that his seekers
might even now be on the porch.
"How can I thank you, sir?" she said, her look and tone having, from the
circumstances, a tenderness such as she had not before evinced to any
man. Perhaps this very exception in Dick's favor, though due to the
occasion, separated him at once and forever in her mind from all other
men, and made it natural that he, on whom she had scarcely even looked,
should acquire in an instant a first place in her thoughts.
Dick had read enough to be able to make such fine speeches as were
seriously affected and seriously taken in those days. He answered:
"By permitting me to worship you."
She looked at him a moment, at loss for a reply, but not disapprovingly.
Before she could speak, there came a loud pounding at the rear door. The
old servant, who had locked it after Dick's entrance, now returned to it
to open it again.
"I think that is a party of troops in search of me," said Dick, quietly,
to Catherine. "I came to Quebec on a secret mission for the United
Colonies, and I have been discovered."
"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Catherine, suddenly showing deep concern. "Don't
open the door, Antoine! Do you mean, sir," turning to Dick, "that, if
you were caught, you would be--"
"Hanged, probably," said Dick, seeing out of the corner of his eye that
the servant had stepped aside from the door without unlocking it.
The knock was repeated, more loudly. Catherine looked distressed and
perplexed.
"They will be let in, eventually," she said, in a whisper, "for my uncle
will hear them, and come to see what is the matter. You must hide till
they go!"
"They will search the house," replied Dick.
She stood thinking, for a few seconds. "There is one room they shall not
enter," she said. "Come!"
She went swiftly up the wide staircase, Dick following at her elbow. At
the first landing, which was visible from the front part of the hall,
she pushed back a door, whereupon Dick, obeying her look, stepped into a
chamber that had a window at the farther end, as could be known by the
faint whiteness there, and by the sound of snowflakes pelting the panes.
Dick stopped at the threshold to say, "But the servant?"
"He is faithful to me," she whispered from the landing. At that moment
the knocking again sounded, this time with angry violence. There came
from the parlor a young gentleman whom Dick, looking through the chamber
doorway and down the first flight of stairs, recognized as Catherine's
brother, and who said to the servant:
"What is that knocking, Antoine? My uncle wonders why you don't go to
the door."
"I have been busy elsewhere, Monsieur Gerard," said the old servant; and
then he could be heard turning the lock.
A moment later there came the sound of men rushing in, and then the
voice of Lieutenant Blagdon, saying, loudly and angrily:
"What the devil has come over this house, Gerard, that it opens so
easily to rebel spies, and stays closed all night against the King's
troops?"
Before the astonished Gerard could reply, another gentleman appeared
from the parlor, attracted by the noisy arrival of Blagdon and the
troops. He appeared to be about sixty, but he carried his tall figure
stiffly erect, and his eyes were bright and keen. He held a hand of
playing cards, and his face still wore a smile, which was rather that of
heartless gaiety than of kindly merriment. Behind him, in the doorway,
appeared other gentlemen and a few ladies, these last standing on their
toes to see what was the disturbance.
"What is going on, Lieutenant Blagdon?" demanded the old gentleman.
"A very remarkable thing, Monsieur de St. Valier," replied Blagdon. "A
rebel spy, who was discovered at Colonel Maclean's quarters, seems to
have found a refuge in your house."
"What!" cried the old gentleman, whom Dick now understood to be
Catherine's uncle. "My house shelter a rebel! You seem to be walking in
your sleep, Lieutenant Blagdon, under the delusion of some ridiculous
dream!"
"I implied no knowledge on your part, Monsieur de St. Valier, when I
said the fellow had got into your house. We followed his track in the
snow, and though we lost it for a moment in a crowd, before the wine
shop yonder, we soon came on the same footprint, which led through the
snow to your porch. The same feet left marks of snow on the porch, to
your very door, and there are no marks leading away from it. Moreover, I
know the man, and have reason to think he would have come to this house
while in Quebec."
At this point Catherine hastened down the stairs, at first nonchalantly,
but, on approaching the foot, assuming a look of wonderment at the scene
in the hall.
"Why, what has happened, Gerard? What is it, uncle?" she asked.
"And now," cried Blagdon, excitedly, "I know the man has been here since
I left Miss de St. Valier an hour ago!" Catherine saw, as did her
brother, that Blagdon's eyes were fixed balefully on the miniature,
which she had thoughtlessly retained in her hand.
"What man?" queried Catherine, turning red.
"The man who brought you back that portrait, which you didn't have an
hour ago," cried Blagdon, half mad with jealousy. "Sure proof the man
must have entered this house since he left Colonel Maclean's quarters,
where he had been all day!"
"You are wrong, Lieutenant Blagdon," said Catherine, quietly. "Though
you didn't know it an hour ago, I have had my mother's portrait since
yesterday, as I meant to tell my uncle when I should see fit. It was
handed to Gerard in the street by a man who did not wait for any
words,--is it not so, Gerard?"
Dick, looking down from the darkness of the landing, saw Gerard bow in
confirmation, and knew that the understanding between brother and sister
was complete. He saw, also, Blagdon shake his head, with a derisively
incredulous laugh.
"If any one came in by that door," said the elder St. Valier, "the
servant should know it. You were here, Antoine. Did you admit any one?"
"Lieutenant Blagdon and the soldiers," replied Antoine.
"But Antoine could not have been minding his business," said Blagdon,
"for we had to knock several times before he let us in."
"But," put in Antoine, "the door was locked before I admitted monsieur
and the troops. Monsieur must have heard me unlock it. Does not that
show that no one could have come in before monsieur, even if I were not
at my place?"
"It shows merely that the man, after coming in, himself locked the
door," said Blagdon. "He doubtless found it unlocked when he arrived.
I'll wager Antoine will not take oath the door was locked at the time
the man must have entered."
"Well, well," said Monsieur de St. Valier, "the question can be easily
settled. I certainly don't wish to have a rebel spy lodged in my house.
Let your troops search the place, lieutenant!"
"Thank you, monsieur," said Blagdon, his eyes flashing triumph; while
Dick stepped back into the chamber from his doorway at the landing. Dick
dared not close the door after him, lest its creak or the noise of its
latch might attract the attention of the people in the hallway below.
Dick had seen that some of these guests were British officers, availing
themselves of a brief relief from duty.
"Neither Lieutenant Blagdon nor any other man shall search _my_
chamber!" said Catherine, with a pretence of that capricious
determination which a woman may show without visible reason and yet not
excite suspicion. She ascended the short flight of stairs with dignity,
and stood on the landing, her back to the door. She had the superior
sense to leave the door ajar, so that her action seemed the result, not
of solicitude regarding some person in the chamber, but of a whimsical
antagonism aroused by the manner in which Blagdon had spoken to her.
Blagdon gave some instructions, in a low voice, to an under officer. The
latter, whom Antoine accompanied in obedience to a gesture from Monsieur
de St. Valier, led four men into the rooms opening on the hall, while
Blagdon and two of the troops remained where they were, as a guard to
the great doors at the hall's either end. The searching party next went
below stairs. During these operations Monsieur de St. Valier laughed and
chatted with his guests, who stood grouped at either side of the parlor
doorway, while Gerard remained at the stair-foot, apart from the others,
watching his sister and listening for any sign from the searching
troops. These presently came empty-handed from the lower regions, and
hurried up-stairs, passing Catherine and her doorway as they went. After
several minutes they returned, disappointed of their prey. Every room
but Catherine's had now been looked through, the searchers having
doubtless been ordered by Blagdon to leave that one exempt. He had
probably hoped that the fugitive might be found elsewhere, and that his
own duty and inclination might thus be fulfilled without further direct
conflict with Catherine. He now braced himself for such contest,--a
contest doubly difficult from the fact that he was in love with her and
desired her love in return.
"Search that room!" he commanded the under officer, indicating
Catherine's.
Dick, in the darkness beyond the threshold, ran to the window at the
chamber's further end, and tried to open it; but it would not yield to
his strongest pressure. Not able in the darkness to learn how it was
fastened, he despaired of finding exit by means of it. So he returned to
his place near the open door, outside of which stood Catherine, who
dared not communicate with him in the gaze of the people below.
Meanwhile Catherine had capped Blagdon's order with the words:
"Whoever tries to enter this room must first deal with my brother and
myself!"
"Right, sister!" cried Gerard, at the foot of the stairs. "He will have
to pass over my body!"
Blagdon's men hesitated. Monsieur de St. Valier looked puzzled and
annoyed. Little as he loved his niece and nephew, it would not do,
before his guests, either to take a stand against Catherine or to risk
the possible disclosure that she was really concealing a rebel in her
chamber. So he remained silent and motionless, though manifestly ill at
ease within. The guests waited curiously for developments.
"Miss de St. Valier betrays the truth," said Blagdon. "Her unwillingness
to have the room examined shows that the man is there."
"Mlle. de St. Valier," replied Gerard, "is not accustomed to having her
chamber invaded by men!"
"She has apparently made no difficulty of admitting to it the favored
man!" cried Blagdon, in a voice evidently designed to be heard by Dick.
The lieutenant had been suddenly inspired with the thought that such a
spirited youth as Dick, being in love with the girl, would himself come
forth to resent an insult offered her. Dick, indeed, now back from the
window, heard the words, and, grasping his hunting-knife, would have
bounded to the landing; but at that instant came Catherine's prompt
reply, also uttered for his ears:
"If a man were there, Lieutenant Blagdon, he would be wiser than to be
tricked out, for your purposes, by any insult of yours!"
Dick took the hint, and stayed where he was.
"He would not have to avenge the insult," cried Gerard. "That shall be
my business. I look to you for reparation, Lieutenant Blagdon!"
"As you please," said Blagdon. "I shall have time presently. But now I
am serving the King. The rebel, I perceive, is content to leave such
matters to other hands. 'Tis what one might expect of a fellow that
hides behind petticoats. But petticoats sha'n't protect him any longer.
To that room, men,--"
But Catherine's voice rose louder than the lieutenant's, interrupting
the order. "Why, lieutenant," she cried, with pretended irony, "if a spy
were in the room, do you think he would not have escaped through the
window by this time?"
Dick knew these words also were intended for him. She was not aware he
had tried the window in vain. He held his knife the tighter, and awaited
events.
"That was meant for his hearing!" cried Blagdon. "Saunders, take Jarvis
and MacDonald outside and guard the window of that room. Make haste, or
the rascal may drop from it before you get there." The subaltern and two
men hurried out by the rear door. Blagdon, who now had four men left,
cast a quick glance at the officers visible among the guests, to see if
they were commenting on his previous negligence in not having placed
guards outside before entering the house, a negligence due to his
impatience and to his certainty that the fugitive was within. "Now, men,
you first two seize any one who attempts to interfere, and you others
follow me!"
He started for the stairs, but at the foot he encountered Gerard, who
held the way so well for a few seconds, with body and both arms, that no
one could pass him, the rear soldiers being obstructed by the scuffle
between Gerard on one side and Blagdon and one of his men on the other.
Catherine saw that this unequal contest must soon end in her brother's
being thrown down or dragged aside. She shrank at the thought that,
unless she could obtain other interposition, her own person would next
have to serve as barrier, in which case Dick would certainly appear, for
she had heard no sound of the window being opened.
"Gentlemen," she cried to the officers in the hallway, "you've heard
Lieutenant Blagdon's accusation against me. Well, if you permit, he may
enter my room to search, provided he enters alone."
"But I don't permit!" cried one of the officers, running to the side of
the staircase, whence he stepped up to the outer end of a stair and then
leaped with agility over the baluster, landing above the scrimmage at
the foot. "By gad, I won't stand idly by and see such an indignity
committed against a lady!" And he drew his sword, which, being in
uniform and ready for any sudden call to duty, he wore.
"Nor I!" came from three or four more mouths, and in a few moments every
officer present, having followed the leader's mode of passage, stood
with drawn weapon on the stairs, between Catherine and Blagdon's party.
"I say, this is not fair play!" cried one of the officers, seeing Gerard
at last held down on his back by two of the soldiers. Thereupon there
was a swift charge of the officers down the stairs, each impelled to
risk court martial by the desire to stand well in the esteem of a
beautiful woman. Those were gallant days! Men were willing to chance
anything for a grateful glance from a pair of lovely eyes,--that is to
say, some men were,--and women were content to be the kind of women for
whom men would take the chance.
The result of this movement was that Blagdon and his men were hurled
backward to the front door, and Gerard, whom the officers leaped over in
rescuing him, rose to a sitting posture and regained his breath. Blagdon
stood defeated, at a loss. There came a knock on the front door. At St.
Valier's gesture, Antoine opened it, and in walked Colonel Maclean and a
member of his staff. The colonel, who had come on invitation, to join
Monsieur de St. Valier's guests at dinner, looked around in surprise.
"Colonel," spoke up Blagdon, yet half breathless, "there is resistance
here. The spy has been tracked to this house and to that room. These
gentlemen have hindered me and my men from going to take him."
"We consider," explained one of the officers, "that Miss de St. Valier's
chamber ought not to be entered without her consent, especially when she
herself stands in the way, and when violence would have to be used
against her in order to pass."
"Hoot toot!" said the colonel. "Do you mean that the young lady refuses,
then? It must be because the matter was gone about in a way displeasing
to the sex. I'm sure she won't object to my taking just a peep inside
her nest, seeing how matters lie." Maclean did not use Scotch words save
when speaking to Scotchmen. "I didn't notice the outside of this house
guarded, when I came in," he added, turning to Blagdon.
"There are guards beneath the window of that room," replied the
lieutenant, "where 'tis certain the man is hid."
"Well," said the colonel, half playfully, "to save the lady's proper
feelings, which she has full right to indulge, I'll go alone into the
room. You'll not mind the intrusion of a gray-headed colonel, who comes
in the cause of the King and of Quebec, my dear young lady, I'm sure."
And he started up the stairs.
"Will you not take my word, colonel?" asked Catherine, in a low,
unsteady voice.
"Why, yes," he answered; "but, as a matter of form, duty requires I
should take a glimpse. You there with the lantern, and the next man,
follow me."
Maclean and the two soldiers chosen left all the others--St. Valier and
his guests, Blagdon and the two remaining privates, Maclean's staff
officer and Gerard--huddled well to the front of the hall, in that part
whence they could see the landing before Catherine's door. Catherine
suddenly disappeared into her room. "Go behind the door," she whispered
to Dick as she passed him. He did so. Maclean entered the chamber,
followed closely by his two men. By the light of the lantern, the
colonel could see that Catherine was standing before a door that had the
look of communicating with a closet in the side of the room. Her
attitude and expression were of a desperate determination to protect
that door from being entered.
"So that's where the spy is?" quoth Maclean, quickly. Dick saw the ruse,
and stood ready to profit by the one chance it gave him against ten.
"For God's sake, colonel, don't open this door!" cried Catherine. "I
give you my word, the spy is not behind it!"
"Madam, I must!" said Maclean, gravely. "Your own conduct shows you have
some one concealed there. 'Tis your kind heart makes you wish to save
the life of a hunted man, but perhaps many lives of loyal subjects
depend on his capture. I beg you, stand aside, madam."
"I will not stand aside! While I have the strength, I will protect this
door!" said Catherine.
Completely deceived by her solicitude over the door behind which Dick
was not, the colonel, with as much gentleness as he could use, caught
her in his arms and drew her from before that door, she resisting and
protesting with the ejaculations, "For the sake of heaven! Take my word!
There's no one there! Believe me! Don't open, I beg!" He then threw wide
the door, and peered through the opening.
"Why!" he said, "there's a stairway here. Men, follow me down the
steps!" He strode through the newly opened doorway, the two men at his
heels. Catherine instantly flung the door shut upon them, and locked it.
"Across the landing," she whispered loudly to Dick; "window at the other
side of the house--no guards there!"
"I love you!" he whispered back, having emerged from behind his door.
"Shall we meet again?"
"God knows! Perhaps! Good night!" she said.
He seized her hand, in the darkness, and pressed it to his lips; then
dashed through the doorway, across the landing, up the little flight of
stairs at his left, into the first room ahead whose door he ran against,
then to a window, which at once gave way to the force he brought to bear
against it. He stepped out to the roof of the porch in front of the
house, slid down a corner-post, ran through the yet open gateway to
Palace Street, hastened leftward to the first intersecting street, and
turned, again leftward, into that street, which led him towards the
wall-crowned precipice that overlooked the St. Lawrence.
Meanwhile, the people in the hallway had caught the momentary view of
his figure as it leaped across the landing, but they, in their ignorance
of what had passed in Catherine's room, and in the unlikelihood of the
fugitive's eluding Maclean without any outcry or pursuit on the latter's
part, had supposed the flying apparition to be that of one of Maclean's
men, despatched by the colonel on some business to them unknown. Dick
had not remained a sufficient time in sight for his rifleman's attire to
be distinguished in the half-darkness of the landing. So they waited for
some appearance from Catherine's chamber.
Catherine remained standing in her room. Very soon a noise at its inner
door told that Maclean had returned from his false quest, which had
taken him only to an unused and bolted outer door originally designed to
give a side entrance to the room, that apartment having been formerly
devoted to the purposes of an office. She did not heed Maclean's efforts
to open the door, which she had locked on her side. These efforts soon
became extremely violent, and at last resulted in the breaking of the
door, and in the appearance of the now irate colonel, followed by his
men with the lantern.
"Why, miss," said he, "somebody locked that door behind me!"
"Yes," replied Catherine, lightly, affecting a triumphant smile of
pleased revenge; "I did! You wouldn't take my word that nobody was
behind it, and I thought I'd punish you!"
With which she left the room and went serenely down-stairs, followed by
the somewhat mystified and crestfallen colonel, who had left his two men
to make fast the broken door.
"The young lady was right. No one was there," said Maclean, gruffly, and
went immediately to Monsieur de St. Valier, who gave a deep breath of
relief and returned to the parlor, whither his guests accompanied him.
Blagdon, to be at a distance from Catherine and Gerard, who stood
talking together at the stair-foot, went with his two men to the rear of
the hall, to wait for the two who had been up-stairs with Maclean. Thus
it happened that, of the people in the hall who had seen the figure
cross the landing, none but Gerard saw the two privates reappear
presently from Catherine's room; and, as Blagdon was in no mood for
questions when those two rejoined him, the impression was not corrected
that the flying figure had been one of them. Blagdon forthwith led his
four men, with the three who had been put on guard beneath the window,
to the barracks, dismissed them, and repaired to a drinking-place.
Catherine and Gerard went back to their uncle's guests; but the sister,
bearing up against the exhaustion caused by the scene she had passed
through, showed an abstraction not entirely to be attributed to
happiness at the recovery of her mother's portrait.
Dick plodded on through the snow, past near and distant churches,
monasteries, seminaries, gardens, fine houses, and mean houses, keeping
a frequent lookout behind him, and up and down what streets he crossed,
and came eventually to the low rampart near the grand battery, from
which the precipice fell steeply to the narrow strip of the lower town
that lay between the cliff's base and the St. Lawrence.
This rampart, which could avail mainly to shield the batteries that
commanded the shipping in the St. Lawrence, was easy of ascent from the
inside, as it could not be expected that any one would attempt leaving
the upper town by the almost perpendicular precipice of more than two
hundred feet. Yet such was the wild intention that Dick had formed. The
attempt, on the part of a fugitive, seemed the more preposterous for the
fact that, should he accomplish the almost impossible feat of safely
descending the cliff, he would but find himself in the lower town, which
was defended at either end and closely guarded along its river
edge,--unless, indeed, he should traverse the face of the cliff
diagonally, so as to arrive at the base outside the southern barrier of
the lower town. As all the world knows, the walls of Quebec encircled
the upper town on its high promontory, while the lower town, lying
against that promontory's foot, needed no other defence on one side than
the promontory itself. It was neither practicable nor necessary that a
wall should run down the promontory's side; hence a man, finding himself
on the steep declivity between the upper and the lower town, had a way
of exit open to him, provided he could traverse obliquely the face of
the cliff and could avoid observation from above or below. This way of
escape recommended itself to Dick because the city gates would by this
time be watched for him, and because it would bring him directly to the
place where Arnold's man would be waiting to receive the report that was
to have been brought by Mere Frappeur in her boat.
Dick knew the rampart overlooking the St. Lawrence would be the least
guarded, as the British force was too small for the proper manning of
the many and large defences. Slinking at a distance past the right flank
of the grand battery, whose overworked sentries were shivering in the
snow, he found a place where a platform enabled him to mount easily the
rampart. Across this rampart he crawled, on hands and knees, making out
through the falling flakes a single sentry who paced several rods away.
Looking over the outer edge of the rampart, his head turned giddy, for a
moment, at sight of the precipice falling sheer almost three hundred
feet to the narrow fringe of houses and the gloomy river below.
But he chose a spot where there was ample footing at the rampart's base,
turned about, backed from the rampart, hung for a moment by his fingers,
and dropped to the chosen place, his fall softened by what snow had
lodged there. He immediately turned his face towards his distant
destination, and peered through the flake-filled darkness for what
projections and indentations of the cliff might serve his progress. He
thanked his stars for the evidence soon afforded him that his adopted
mode of escape was within possibility, perilous though it might be; and
then for the falling snow, which shielded him from sight, and for the
snow already fallen, which now and then helped him to adhere to the
cliff, for the irregularities of the precipice were such that the snow's
lodgment had endured here and there on its steep face. These
irregularities gave him footing, and so enabled him to proceed.
Many times he slipped, tearing his clothes and scraping his skin, but
each time he kept his wits and availed himself of the first
stopping-place that offered. The descent was a work of hours, so
cautiously did he have to proceed, so carefully to pick out his next
footing, so often to rest and regain his breath. At last he passed above
the blockhouse and battery which together constituted the inner barrier
of this end of the lower town. In the light from the blockhouse he could
see a sentry pacing from the cliff's foot towards the wharf by the swift
river.
Some minutes more of effort brought Dick past the top of a stockade,
which formed the outer barrier. The exultation of success almost
intoxicated him. He let himself slide down what remained of the cliff,
heedless alike of the sharp projections and of the Canadian militia
housed behind the stockade. As he stood, at last, in the narrow way
between river and cliff, restraining an impulse to shout with glee, he
took the two sheets of paper, containing his report, from beneath his
hunting-shirt, and started forward, loudly whistling "Molly, my
Treasure."
Suddenly, from over the top of the stockade, a shot was fired. Dick felt
a sting, in the vicinity of the bayonet-wound received at Bunker Hill,
and fell forward on his hands and knees. A gate in the stockade was
thrown open, and two soldiers strode forth, lowering their faces to
avoid the falling snow. At the same moment, a tall form sprang out from
the shadow of a broken rock in front of Dick, completed the whistled
passage of music suddenly cut off by Dick's fall, and said:
"Ye're nae woman in a boat, but ye're a braw whistler, and I'll tak'
your papers!"
[Illustration: "IT WAS THE MAN SENT BY ARNOLD."]
It was the man sent by Arnold,--old Tom MacAlister.
"Take them, Tom, and away with them quick, for God's sake!" cried Dick,
handing them to him.
"But ye're hurt, lad!" cried Tom, thrusting the papers deep into an
inner pocket.
"The devil I am!" lied Dick. "Only slipped on the snow. You save those
papers, or all my work will go for naught! I'll get my wind and follow!
Go, Tom! The papers first, don't you understand? I'll have my breath
before those fellows can nab me!" And Dick raised one knee, as if
already about to rise.
"Vera weel, lad!" said old Tom, compliantly, and plunged forward to
round the point of Cape Diamond and follow the shore up the river. The
sight of his gaunt figure, swiftly receding in the snow and night,
between river and cliffs, was the last glimpse Dick had of Tom, the
piper's son, for many a long day.
Dick was not entirely sure he might not indeed elude the two soldiers
from the stockade, and overtake Tom. He got up and found he could
proceed limpingly. But the soldiers, only a few yards from him when he
rose, shortened the intervening distance so speedily that Dick saw they
must catch him in a few seconds. He made to grasp his hunting-knife. It
was gone, having been displaced from his belt at some contact with the
cliff in his descent.
The idea of capture now became intolerable to him. A kind of madness
arose in him, making him determined, at any cost, not to fall into the
hands of the two enemies at his heels. When he felt himself almost
within grasp of the foremost, he wheeled aside, and plunged head
foremost into the swift, icy current of the St. Lawrence. While the
water gurgled in his ears, he jubilantly pictured to himself the two men
standing baffled on the shore and cursing the luck that had robbed them
of their prey.
Soon rising to the surface, Dick struck out at random, using both arms
and the unwounded leg. Whither would this swim in the dark lead him? He
scarcely cared, now that he had accomplished his two missions; his one
wish was that it should not diminish his triumph by delivering him up
eventually to the foe. All at once something black loomed up before
him,--a vessel whose lights he had not taken to be so near, and whose
size he could not immediately make out.
As he turned to swim away from it, he heard a voice call out immediately
over him, "Man in the river!" He pulled away, but with a constantly
weakening stroke. He heard other cries, became vaguely aware that a
boat was being sent after him, and presently, when strength and sense
were about deserting him, he felt himself caught by the back of his
hunting-shirt and drawn, by several hands, from the water to the boat.
He was too little conscious to answer the few questions that were asked
him on the way back to the vessel. But as they landed him on the deck,
he experienced a return of consciousness and of power to plan. He knew
the vessel was a British one, but its people must be unacquainted with
his face; hence he dared raise one last, desperate hope of completing
his escape. As he stood on the deck, surrounded by the crew that had
brought him from the water, he was approached by two officers, one of
whom ordered him to stand forward, while the other remained a little
aloof in dignified immovability.
"I beg you will put me ashore, sir," said Dick, somewhat excitedly, to
the officer who had addressed him. "I had just left the stockade yonder,
on a mission for Colonel Maclean. I fell in with a reconnoitring party
of rebels, and escaped by taking to the river. May I be landed
immediately on the other shore, to go on my mission without delay?"
"What papers have you, to show for this account of yourself?" demanded
the officer, scrutinizing Dick.
"I had Colonel Maclean's pass in my hand when I was attacked," said
Dick, with no outward falter; "but I must have let it go in the river. I
had no other papers; the message I carry is a verbal one."
"A message? To whom?"
"To General Carleton," said Dick, on the moment's invention.
"Why, this is fortunate," said the officer, turning to the motionless
gentleman. "General Carleton, this man says he has a verbal message for
you."
Dick stood, for a moment, speechless and staring; then, yielding all at
once to the fatigues of the night, sank in a senseless heap to the
deck.