THE VANQUISHED
The Indians had fought bravely. Charles Langlade and their chief Ominipeg had
kept them steady. Long after the Canadians were in full retreat they lay
behind a mound firing without ceasing on the English, who were advancing upon
them. Then a strange thing happened.
Ominipeg stood on a grassy knoll, on the left side of which were high bushes,
and looked around upon the battle-field. He knew that Montcalm was wounded; he
saw the Canadians flying before the English: the cause was lost; he and his
tribe would ere long be prisoners.
The Black Eagle could not brook defeat. Charles Langlade, lying on the ground
at a little distance firing on the English, saw him suddenly stoop behind the
bushes and gather something in his arms. A cry, a child’s cry, even through
the din of battle reached his ears, and a terrified baby face, round which the
soft fair curls clustered, appeared before his agonised gaze. To spring
forward to seize him would have been the work of a second, but Ominipeg was
too quick for him. Clasping the child tightly in his arms, with horrible
cries, brandishing his enormous battle-axe, the Indian chief, followed by his
whole tribe, dashed into the midst of the enemy.
The yells and war-whoops of the savages gradually died out as the English
bayonets pierced their naked bodies, and they lay upon the ground a bleeding
mass of humanity. They had fulfilled their code of honour; they had died for
the cause they could not save!
And the Black Eagle, with his daughter’s child, the little “White Chief,” as
he had been surnamed, lay foremost among the slain. A shot had struck Charles
Langlade to the ground before he could advance a step to save the child.
That morning, at early dawn, when the first alarm had reached Quebec, a young
Indian had passed rapidly through the streets, gained the house inhabited by
Mercèdes, and knocked loudly at the door of her apartment.
“Who is there?” asked Marthe.
“Langlade; open quickly,” was the answer. She hastened to obey; the Indian
glided into the room, looked round, and saw the child sleeping in its little
bed. To snatch it in his arms, smothering its cries, and disappear with it,
was the work of a second.
Roused by the noise, Mercèdes came running in, but the child was gone. Marthe
was wringing her hands, and in short, incoherent phrases told Mercèdes what
had happened.
But events were to succeed each other so rapidly that they had hardly time to
breathe, much more think. So accustomed had they become to the bombardment of
the city that, though it sounded more continuous and louder than usual that
morning, they attached no especial importance to it; but a nun with a white,
terrified face came to them from the Superior, bidding them repair at once to
the General Hospital, that the English were on the Heights of Abraham, and
that a great battle was being fought. Wrapping their black cloaks around them,
and drawing their hoods over their heads in such a way as to conceal their
faces, they hastened to obey, passing quickly through the streets, in some
parts crowded by frightened citizens driven forth from their half-ruined
houses, in others swept clean by the bombs which came whizzing down from the
English batteries. Very white and fixed was the young novice’s face as she
glided along. She suddenly came to a standstill, almost in front of the Church
of the Ursulines, where a crowd was gathered, which opened to let a party of
soldiers, carrying a litter which had been hastily constructed out of guns
crossed one over the other, pass on their way.
The brilliant rays of the sun fell full upon the livid face of the man who lay
thereon. The waxen features were thrown into relief by the black military
cloak around him.
Not a cry escaped Mercèdes’ lips, though in that second she had had time
enough to recognise her father; but like an arrow she flew to his side. One of
the officers knew her, and gently and pityingly made way for her, and she
entered the church with the litter; then the heavy doors were closed to keep
back the surging crowd. Slowly, with measured steps, surrounded by his
officers, they bore him up the nave; in front of the high altar the soldiers
laid down their precious burden, and Mercèdes, kneeling beside him, raised his
hand to her lips. He made no sign of being even aware of her presence; his
eyes were fixed, his features immovable; his soul was still on the
battle-field in the agony of that first moment of defeat. A surgeon had been
hastily summoned, who examined the patient and probed the wound; but not a
muscle of Montcalm’s face moved even under that agony. When it was over, and a
temporary dressing had been applied, he said, “Well, sir, how long have I to
live?”
“General,” answered the surgeon, in a low, pained voice, “a few hours only.”
“All the better,” he said. “I shall not see the English enter Quebec,” and he
closed his eyes. Notwithstanding the wounds received on the battle-field,
borne by the tide of the fugitives the General had ridden into Quebec at the
head of the army, crossed the bridge under the northern rampart, and entered
the palace gate. At that moment another shot reached him, which, passing
through his body, proved fatal, and he was half lifted, half fell from his
horse; and so it came to pass that his soldiers bore him into the Church of
the Ursulines.
Mercèdes and Marthe tended him. Quiet and loving were the words which from
time to time he spoke to them. A few only of those who surrounded them knew
that the pale-faced novice was his daughter. Michel, the gardener of the
Ursuline Convent, fetched and carried for them, and so that fatal day drew to
an end.
Towards evening, Ramsay, the new Governor, came and asked Montcalm’s advice as
to how he might best defend Quebec.
“Have you any orders to give me, General?” he asked.
“Sir,” answered Montcalm, “I deliver into your hands the honour of France. I
shall spend my night with God preparing to die.”
Then he asked for pen and paper, and desired one of his officers to write at
his dictation:--
“General,--The humanity of the English sets my mind at peace
concerning the fate of the French prisoners and the Canadians.
“May you feel towards them as they have caused me to feel for
them. Do not let them feel that they have changed masters. Be
their protector, as I have been their father.”
“Let this letter be sent without delay to General Wolfe,” he said, when with
difficulty he had succeeded in signing it.
“It is rumoured that James Wolfe is either dead or dying,” replied one of his
officers.
“He also!” said Montcalm. “At least he is happier than I am,” he added; “he
dies in the midst of his country’s triumph.”
Shortly after this his face became livid. His sufferings were intense; he
could only from time to time give utterance to a few words in a low voice to
Mercèdes, tender remembrances for the loved ones at home! About midnight the
Bishop Pont Briand administered the last Sacraments of the Church in which he
had lived and was now dying.
Gently, almost painlessly, he lingered until the dawn of a new day, and as the
light began to creep into the sacred building his eyes closed. When the
surgeon, who had never left him, saw the eyelids droop, he shook his head
sadly, slipped his hand under the white uniform so deeply stained with blood,
and waited a few minutes, then he rose.
“Gentlemen,” he said, turning to the group of officers who stood watching,
“that great heart has ceased to beat.”
Mercèdes never moved, her head was bowed low on her father’s bier; Marthe
alone wept, kneeling there beside her master.
Then suddenly the doors of the church were thrown open, and the crowd which
had been waiting patiently outside came flocking up the nave. Soldiers of that
poor defeated army, inhabitants of Quebec, Canadians, savages, pressed around
to take a last look at the brave General who had so gallantly defended them.
In the dim morning light the torches flared, showing the half-ruined church,
the roof laid open, through which the sky looked down, shattered pillars, the
pavement torn up by bombs which in bursting had made deep holes; and in the
centre of all this ruin, surrounded by his officers, lay that still figure
wrapped in his black mantle, looking grander in death than he had done in
life.
In the afternoon of the same day they carried him into the forsaken garden of
the Convent of the Ursulines. The bursting of a shell dug his grave, and there
they laid him, all who had known and loved him grieving, not for the hero so
much as for the man.
Throughout that night two women knelt and prayed beside that lonely grave.