THE CHATEAU OF BEAULIEU
They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank and
running along for some distance. It was clothed in dense green forest, and
it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low shores.
"A big city will be built there some day," said the prophetic Paul.[B]
"Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?" exclaimed Tom Ross.
"Why, because it's such a good place. It's a high hill on a great river so
well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich country behind it."
But Tom Ross shook his head.
"Seems to me, Paul," he said, "that you're bitin' off a lot more'n you can
chaw. Things that are to happen a hundred years from now ain't never
happenin' fur me."
But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.
On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river began a
sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula. It was just about
dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to run the boat into
dense foliage at the margin, where not even the keenest eye could see it.
"We've got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner," said Henry,
"so I'm thinking, Jim, that you'd better not light the fire on your bricks
to-night."
"All right," replied Jim, "I don't mind restin'. I feel about ez lazy ez
Sol Hyde looks."
But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind. His was the
keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had noticed to the
southward and on the other side of the peninsula a faint, dark line
against the edge of the sunset. Few, even with an eye good enough to see
it, would have taken it for anything but a wisp of cloud, but the physical
sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it bordered upon intuition, was not
deceived.
"Sol," he said after they had eaten a little, "let's walk across this neck
of land and explore a bit."
"It's a dark night to be traveling," said Paul. But Henry only laughed.
Tom Ross may have had his suspicions, but he did not deem it worth while
to say anything. He knew that Henry and Shif'less Sol were quite competent
to achieve any task that they might be undertaking.
Henry and Sol strolled carelessly into the bush, but before they had gone
a dozen steps their whole manner changed. Each became eager and alert.
"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol. "What have you seed?"
"Smoke! the smoke of a camp fire and it's on the other side of this neck.
I think it's the camp of Alvarez. He must have been going more slowly than
we thought."
"We'll soon find out," said Shif'less Sol, as they advanced.
But the task was not as easy as they had thought. The peninsula was very
low and the greater part of it had been overflowed recently. Their feet,
no matter how lightly they stepped, sank in the mire, and when they pulled
them out again the mud emitted a sticky sigh. An owl perched in a tree,
high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and Shif'less Sol uttered a
growl.
"I wish we had the big, dry woods o' Kentucky to go through," he whispered
to Henry. "I ain't much o' a mud-crawler."
"But as we haven't got those big, dry woods," Henry whispered back, "we'll
have to crawl, creep, or walk through the mud."
It was about two miles across the neck, and as they went very slowly for
fear of making noise, it took them a full hour to reach the other side, or
to come near enough to see what might be there. Then they found that
Henry's belief, or rather intuition, was right.
They could see quite well from the dense covert. All the Spanish boats
were tied up at the shore and two or three fires had been built for the
purposes of cooking. The soldiers in their picturesque costumes lounged
about. The hum of conversation and now and then a laugh arose.
Henry soon marked Francisco Alvarez. The Spanish leader sat on a little
heap of boughs on the highest and dryest spot in the camp, and all who
approached him did so with every sign of respect--if they spoke it was hat
in hand.
The firelight fell in a red blaze across the face of Francisco Alvarez and
revealed every feature in minute detail to the keen eyes in the covert. It
was a thin, haughty face, clear-cut and cruel, but just now it's air was
that of satisfaction, as if in the opinion of Francisco Alvarez all things
were going well with his plans. Henry believed that he could guess his
thoughts. "He thinks that the Spanish are already committed against us and
that he and Braxton Wyatt with a force of Spaniards and the tribes will
yet destroy our settlements in Kentucky."
Thinking of Braxton Wyatt he looked for him and, as he looked, the
renegade came from a point near the shore toward the commander. It was
evident that Wyatt had been faring well. His frontier dress had been
partly replaced with gay Spanish garments. He now wore a cap with a
feather in it, and a velvet doublet. He, too, had a most complacent look.
Wyatt approached Alvarez and the commander courteously invited him to a
seat on the hillock near him. When he took the seat a soldier brought the
renegade a cup of wine, and he drank, first lifting the cup toward Alvarez
as if he drank a toast to the success of the alliance. There could be no
doubt about the perfect understanding of the two; and Henry's anger rose.
It was impossible to set a limit to what a ruthless and determined man
like Francisco Alvarez might do.
Wyatt rose presently after a nod to the commander and walked among the
soldiers. He seemed to have no particular object in view and his
strollings brought him near to the edge of the swampy forest.
"Perhaps he's spying about, and will come into the woods where we are,"
whispered Henry. "Maybe he has those maps and plans upon him, and it would
be a great thing to get them. I don't believe he could make a new set
soon."
"It's a risky thing to try," said Shif'less Sol, "but ef he comes in here,
an' you think it the best thing to do, I'm ready to help."
The two crouched a little lower and remained breathless. Braxton Wyatt
strolled on. He was making a sort of vague inspection of the camp, but he
was really thinking more about the great triumph that he saw ahead. Since
he had turned renegade, leaving his own white race to join the Indians, a
thing that was sometimes done, he had been stung by many defeats and he
wished a great revenge that would pour oil upon all these wounds.
A bad nature grows worse with failure. Seeking to injure his former people
and failing at every turn, Braxton Wyatt hated them more and more all the
time. His wrath was particularly directed against the five who had been
such great instruments in sending his careful plans astray. His scheme
with the Indian league had failed chiefly through them, but he felt that
he could now come with a Spanish force that would prove irresistible. That
was why he glowed with internal warmth and pride. The settlements would be
destroyed and he, in fact, would be the destroyer.
Braxton Wyatt entered the edge of the woods, still occupied with the cruel
triumph that was to be his. He did not notice that the foliage was
gradually shutting out the firelight. Presently he saw, or believed that
he saw, a shadowy but terrible figure. It was the figure of the one whom
he dreaded most on earth.
It was but a glimpse of a form, seen through the bushes, but Wyatt's blood
turned cold in every vein. He uttered a half-choked cry, and running back
through the bushes, sprang into the firelight. Two or three Spanish
soldiers looked at him in amazement, but he was not a coward, and he had
pride of a kind. As soon as he leaped back into the firelight he felt that
he had made a fool of himself. Henry Ware could not have been there--he
and his comrades had been left behind long ago. Coming suddenly out of his
thoughts, he had been deceived in the dark by a bush and imagination had
done the rest. Yes, it was only fancy!
"A rattlesnake! I nearly trod on him," he said in broken Spanish words
that he had picked up, and then walked in as careless a manner as he could
assume toward the mound where Francisco Alvarez sat. But he could not
wholly control himself--the shock had been too great--and his body yet
trembled. He did not know it, but the pallor of his face showed through
the tan, and Alvarez noticed it.
"You have had a fright, Señor Wyatt," he said in his precise, cold
English. "What is it?"
"Not a fright," replied Wyatt in tones that he sought to make indifferent,
"but a start. I nearly trod on a rattlesnake that lay coiled ready to
strike, and I got away just in time."
The Spaniard regarded him with a penetrating look, but the chilly blue
eyes expressed nothing. Yet Francisco Alvarez thought that a bold woodsman
like Braxton Wyatt would not show so much fear after a harmless passage
with any kind of a snake.
"Do you think the five, the party that you said were so much to be
dreaded, are still following us?" he asked presently.
The pallor showed again for a moment through the tan in Braxton Wyatt's
face, but he answered again as carelessly as he could:
"It may be. I hate them, but I do not deny that they are bold and
resourceful. They have a good boat, and they may follow; but what harm
could they do?"
"As I told you, they might go before Bernardo Galvez, our Governor General
at New Orleans, and spoil the pretty plan that you and I have formed.
Galvez is--as he calls himself--a Liberal. He would help these rebels and
fight England. How can a Spaniard lend himself to the cause of Republican
rebels and injure monarchy? Cannot he foresee, cannot he look ahead a
little and tell what rebel success means? It would in the end be as great
a blow to Spain as to England. If Kaintock is permitted to grow she will
threaten Louisiana. These men in their buckskins are daring and dangerous
and we must attend to them!"
The Spaniard clenched his hands in anger, and the blue light of his eyes
was singularly cruel.
"Galvez is a fool," he continued. "He is not allowing the English to trade
at New Orleans, but he is giving the American rebels full chance. He his
allowed one, Pollock, Oliver Pollock, to establish a base there. This
Pollock has formed a company of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston
merchants, and they are sending arms and ammunition in fleets of canoes up
the Mississippi and then up the Ohio to Fort Pitt, where they are unloaded
and then taken eastward by land for the use of the rebels. A fleet of
these canoes is to start about the time we arrive in New Orleans."
"We might meet it," suggested Braxton Wyatt, "and say that it attacked
us."
The Spaniard smiled.
"The idea is not bad," he said, "and it could be done. We could sink their
whole fleet of canoes with the pretty little cannon that we carry, and we
could prove that they began the attack. But I do not choose to run the
risk of compromising myself just yet. There is a more glorious enterprise
afoot. Hark you, Señor Wyatt."
Braxton Wyatt leaned forward and listened attentively. Francisco Alvarez
had drank of wine that evening, and his blood was warm. He, too, dreamed
a great dream.
"You are a man of discretion and you have helped me. I speak to you as one
devoted to my cause. If you should but breathe what I say to another I
would first swear that it was a lie, and then deliver you to these five
gentlemen, former friends of yours, who would tear you in pieces."
Braxton Wyatt shivered again, and the Spaniard, seeing the shiver, laughed
and was convinced.
"Why should I betray you?" said the renegade. "I have no motive to do so
and every possible motive to keep faith."
"I know it," replied Alvarez, "and that is why I speak. It is to your
interest to be faithful to me and when my enterprise succeeds, as it
certainly will, you shall have your proper share of the reward. Bernardo
Galvez, as you know, is the Governor General of Louisiana, and his father
is the Viceroy of Mexico. They are powerful, very powerful, and I am only
a commander of troops under the son, but I, too, am powerful. My family is
one of the first in Spain. It sits upon the very steps of the throne and
more than once royal blood has entered our veins. I was a favorite at the
court and I have many friends there. The King might be persuaded that
Bernardo Galvez is not a fit representative of the royal interests in
Louisiana."
Francisco Alvarez leaned a little forward and his blue eyes, usually so
chill, sparkled now with fire. He was speaking of what lay next to his
heart. Braxton Wyatt, full of shrewdness and perception, understood at
once.
"Bernardo Galvez might give way as Governor General of Louisiana," said
the renegade, "to be succeeded by a better man, one who had the real
interests of Spain at heart, one who would refuse to give the slightest
aid to rebels, rebels who would strike against a throne!"
The Spaniard looked pleased.
"I see that you are a man of penetration, Señor Wyatt," he said, "and I am
fortunate in having you as a lieutenant. You have divined my thought. I
work, not for the interests of a man whose name has been mentioned by
neither of us, but for the true interests of Spain and the divine right of
kings. What is this miserable Kaintock which is springing up? We will
crush it out as you would have crushed the rattlesnake! The people of New
Orleans and Louisiana hate rebels! Why should they not? It is the rebels
who in time will take Louisiana from us if they can, not England."
Braxton Wyatt smiled. He was delighted to the very center of his cunning
heart. His plans and those of Alvarez marched well together. Each
strengthened the other.
"I am with you to the end," he said.
"The end will be a glorious triumph," said the Spaniard in emphatic tones.
Meanwhile Henry and Shif'less Sol still lay in the thicket. Their project
to seize Braxton Wyatt and strip him of the maps and plans had been
defeated. Henry knew that the renegade had caught a glimpse of him in the
dusk and among the thick bushes and he expected an immediate alarm. But
when Wyatt raised none, he and Sol lingered. They saw the renegade go to
the Spaniard's side on the little mound, and they saw the two talk long
and earnestly, but, of course, they could not understand a word of what
was said.
"They look mighty pleased with one another," whispered Shif'less Sol, "so
it's bound to mean that they're up to the worst sort o' mischief."
"Yes," replied Henry, "and that mischief is sure to be aimed at our
people."
They waited about a half hour longer and then picked their way back
through the marsh to their own side of the peninsula.
It was now very late and Paul and Jim Hart were sound asleep in the boat,
but Tom Ross was keeping vigilant guard.
"Wuz it them?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Henry. "They're camped on the other side of this neck, and
Braxton Wyatt is still with them. There's big mischief afoot and we've got
to keep on following, waiting our chance, which, I think, will come."
They did not start until noon the next day, in order to give the Spaniards
a longer lead, and they rounded the neck of land very slowly lest they run
into a trap. But when the river lay straight before them again they beheld
nothing. They passed the point where the Spaniards had camped and saw the
dead coals of their fires, but they did not stop, continuing instead
their steady progress down stream.
It now grew hot upon the water. They had come many hundreds of miles since
the start, and they were in a warmer climate. The character of the
vegetation was changing. The cypress and the magnolia became frequent on
the banks, and now and then they saw great, drooping live oaks. The soil
seemed to grow softer and the water was more deeply permeated with mud.
Although the flood was gone, the river spread out in places to a vast
width, and even at its narrowest it was a gigantic stream. Other great,
lazy rivers poured in their volume from east and west. Narrow, deep
inlets, half-hidden in vegetation, extended from either side. There were
bayous, although the five had not yet heard the name, and many of them
swarmed with fish.
The warm air was heavy and languorous and now Shif'less Sol confessed.
"I'm gittin' too much o' it, even fur a lazy man," he said. "'Pears to me
I'm always wantin' to sleep. Now, I like about sixteen hours sleepin' out
o' the twenty-four, but when it comes to keepin' awake jest long enough to
eat three meals a day I ain't in favor o' it."
"It must be a rich country, though," said Tom Ross. "No wonder them
Spaniards want to keep it."
That day they passed at some distance three canoes containing Indians, but
the canoes showed no wish to come near and investigate. Henry said that
the Indians in them looked sprawling and dirty, unlike the alert,
clean-limbed natives of the North.
"They probably belong," said Paul, "to the Natchez tribe who were beaten
into submission long ago by the French, and who doubtless lack energy
anyhow."
The Indian canoes went lazily on, and soon were lost to sight. Now a
serious problem arose. They were approaching the settled parts of
Louisiana. It is true, it was only the thinnest fringe of white people
extending along either shore of the river a short distance above New
Orleans, but they were coming to a region in which they would be noticed,
and they might have to explain their presence before they wished to do so.
Nor had they found any opportunity to capture Braxton Wyatt and his maps
and plans. Nevertheless, they hung so closely on the trail of Alvarez that
every night and morning they could see the smoke of his camp fire.
They stopped one evening in a cove of the river, sheltered by great
mournful cypresses, and Henry and Shif'less Sol went out again to
scrutinize the Spanish camp. They returned before midnight with unusual
news. Alvarez with his whole force had turned from the Mississippi and had
gone up a bayou about four miles. There he had landed some of his small
cannon and stores at a rude wharf, and showed all the signs of making a
stay, but whether short or long they could not tell.
"Alvarez must have a place, a plantation, I believe they call it, near
here," said Paul intuitively, "and he's going to stop at it. As he wants
to get Spain into a war with us he could plot a lot of mischief in a house
of his own away from New Orleans."
"Of course, that's it," said Henry with conviction. "Now if we could only
capture Braxton Wyatt and then carry off the fellow and his maps and plans
with us, it would be a great stroke. It might make Alvarez quit his wicked
plot."
Henry and Shif'less Sol slept briefly, and rising before daylight, went
forth to investigate again. When they arrived at the edge of the bayou,
they saw that the work of removal had been resumed already. All the boats
had been tied up securely, and a mongrel lot of new men had joined the
Spanish force, shiftless and half-civilized Houma and Natchez Indians,
coal black negroes, some from the West Indies and some from Africa,
Acadians, and fierce-looking adventurers from Europe. Most of them seemed
to be laborers, however, and they worked with the arms and baggage taken
from the boats. Among these laborers were several stalwart negro women
with blazing red handkerchiefs tied around their heads.
Alvarez came off one of the boats, followed by Braxton Wyatt. The Spanish
commander had attired himself with great care, and he was a really
splendid figure in his glittering uniform and plumed hat. His gold-hilted
small sword swung by his side. He bore himself as a lord proprietor, and
in fact he was such at this moment. He was about to go, surrounded by his
retainers, to his own house on a huge grant of land made to him by the
Spanish King--Spanish kings granted lands very freely in America to
favorites, and the relatives of favorites.
Braxton Wyatt also showed pride. Was he not the most trusted friend of an
able man who was dreaming a great dream, a dream that would come true? The
last remnants of his border attire had disappeared and he, too, was
dressed wholly as a Spanish officer, though by no means so splendidly as
his chief.
Alvarez addressed a few words to a man in civilian attire, evidently his
overseer, a dark, heavy West India Spaniard who carried a pistol in his
sash, and then advanced through the rabble, which quickly fell back on
either side to let him pass.
Horses were in waiting for Alvarez, Wyatt, and several others, and
mounting, they rode off, Henry and Shif'less Sol watching from the bush as
well as they could, and following. The way of the officers led through a
great plantation but partially redeemed from the ancient forest. Cane and
grain fields were on either side of the path, and presently they
approached a large house of only one story, built of wood, and surrounded
by a wide veranda supported with posts at regular intervals. This house
was built around a court in the center of which was a clear pool.
Henry and the shiftless one saw Alvarez and his company dismount and enter
the house. They noticed others who approached on foot, but who did not
enter, obviously men who did not dare to enter unless asked. Among them
was a thin, middle-aged Natchez Indian, whose extraordinary, feline face
had won for him the name of The Cat. Henry particularly observed this man,
whose manner was in accordance with his appearance and name. Like those
they had seen in the canoes he had a hangdog, shiftless look, different
from the bold warrior of the more northerly forests.
The two did not remain long. So many people were about that they were
likely to be seen, and they returned through the forest to the cypress
cove in which "The Galleon" lay hidden. Here, it was agreed that they
should go forth later in the day on another tour of inspection,
re-inforced by Tom Ross, while Long Jim and Paul should remain to guard
the boat and their precious stores.
When the three had gone, Long Jim sat on the edge of the boat and looked
around at the sluggish waters of the bayou, the sad cypresses, and the
drooping live oaks. An ugly water snake twined its slimy length just
within the edge of the bayou, and the odor of the still forest about them
was heavy and oppressive.
Long Jim took a long, comprehensive look, and then heaved a deep sigh.
"What's the matter?" asked Paul.
"I don't think the country and the climate agree with me," replied Long
Jim lugubriously. "I wuz never so fur south afore, an' I'm a delicate
plant, I am. I need the snow and the north wind to keep me fresh an'
bloomin'. All this gits on me. My lungs don't feel clean. I'm longin' fur
them big, fine woods up in our country, whar you may run agin a b'ar, but
whar you ain't likely to step on a snake afore you see it."
"Give me the temperate climate, too," said Paul, "but we've come on a
great errand, Jim, and we've come a long way. It's good, too, to see new
things."
"So it is, but I don't like to set here waitin' in this swamp. Think I'll
stretch my legs a little on the bank thar, ef it's firm enough to hold me
up, though I do have an abidin' distrust uv most uv the land hereabouts."
Jim leaped upon the bank which upheld him, and stretched his long legs
with obvious relief.
"A boat's mighty easy," he said, "but now an' then walkin's good."
He strode up and down two or three times and then he stopped. He had heard
a sound, faint, it is true, but enough to arrest the attention of Long
Jim. Then he went on with a look of disgust. It was surely one of those
snakes again!
He was about to pass a great cypress when a pair of long, brown arms
reached out and grasped him by the throat. Long Jim was a strong man and,
despite his early advantage, it would have gone hard with the owner of the
arms, none other than The Cat himself, but three or four men, springing
from the covert, threw themselves upon him.
Paul heard the first sounds of the contest and sprang up. He saw Long Jim
struggling in the grasp of many hands, and snatching at the first weapon
that lay near, he sprang to the bank, rushing to the assistance of his
comrade.
A shout of derisive laughter greeted Paul. Long Jim had been thrown down
and held fast and the lad was confronted by none other than Alvarez
himself, while Braxton Wyatt, smiling in malignant triumph, stood just
behind him.
"Well, my young man of Kaintock," said Francisco Alvarez in his precise
English, "we have taken you and at least one of your brother thieves. In
good time we'll have the others, too. It was an evil day when you ventured
on my plantation so near such a wonderful tracker as The Cat. Why, he
detected them instinctively when your comrades ventured near us!"
The eyes of the stooping Natchez Indian flashed at the compliment but, in
a moment, he resumed his immobility. All the blood rushed to Paul's face,
and he could not contain his anger.
"Thief! how dare you call me a thief!" he said.
"This is my boat before me," replied Alvarez. "You stole it."
"Not so," replied Paul. "We captured it. You seized and held me a prisoner
when I came to your camp on a friendly mission, and we took it in fair
reprisal and for a good purpose. Moreover, you are plotting with that vile
renegade there to destroy our people in Kentucky!"
"You are a thief," repeated Francisco Alvarez calmly, "you stole my boat.
Why, the very sword that you hold in your hand is mine, stolen from me."
Paul glanced down. In his haste and excitement he had snatched up one of
the beautiful small swords when he leaped from the boat, but he had been
unconscious of it. He was yet free and he held a sword in his hand. One of
the men who was holding Jim Hart suddenly kicked him to make him keep
quiet, and Paul's wrath blazed up under the double incentive of the blow
and the sneering face of Francisco Alvarez.
The lad rushed forward, sword in hand, and one of the soldiers raised his
musket. Alvarez pushed the weapon down.
"Since this young rebel wants to fight, and has a stolen sword of mine in
his hand," he said, "he can fight with me. I will give him that honor."
So speaking Alvarez drew his own sword and held up the blade to the light
until it glittered. A shout of approval arose from the soldiers, but Long
Jim cried out:
"It ain't fair! It ain't right to take one uv your kind uv weepins an'
attack him! It's murder! Let me loose an' I'll fight you with rifles."
"Have you got that ruffian securely bound?" asked Alvarez.
"Yes," replied one of his men.
"Then I'll teach this youth a lesson, as I said."
Paul had stopped in his rush, and suddenly he became cool and collected.
"Don't you be afraid for me, Jim," he said. "I can take care of myself,
and I'll fight him."
Alvarez laughed derisively and the others echoed the laugh of their
master, but Paul held up his own sword, also, until it glittered in the
light. Every nerve and muscle became taut, and the blood went back from
his brain, leaving it cool and clear.
"Come on," he said to Alvarez. "I'm ready."
They stood in a level glade, and the two faced each other, the sunshine
lighting up all the area enclosed by the cypresses. Around them stood
Braxton Wyatt and the followers of Alvarez.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote B: It is probable that the bluff, indicated by Paul, is the one
on which the present city of Memphis stands.]