VISITORS
The fire had every appearance of a night bivouac, but there was remnant
of neither camp nor hunt. Somewhere on my left lay the river. By that
the way led back to M. Radisson's rendezvous. It was risky
enough--that threading of the pathless woods through the pitchy dark;
but he who pauses to measure the risk at each tread is ill fitted to
pioneer wild lands.
Who the assassin was and why he had so suddenly desisted, I knew no
more than you do! That he had attacked was natural enough; for whoever
took first possession of no-man's-land in those days either murdered
his rivals or sold them to slavery. But why had he flung his sword
down at the moment of victory?
The pelting of the rain softened to a leafy patter, the patter to a
drip, and a watery moon came glimmering through the clouds. With my
enemy's rapier in hand I began cutting a course through the thicket.
Radisson's fire no longer shone. Indeed, I became mighty uncertain
which direction to take, for the rush of the river merged with the
beating of the wind. The ground sloped precipitously; and I was
holding back by the underbrush lest the bank led to water when an
indistinct sound, a smothery murmur like the gurgle of a subterranean
pool, came from below.
The wind fell. The swirl of the flowing river sounded far from the
rear. I had become confused and was travelling away from the true
course. But what was that sound?
I threw a stick forward. It struck hard stone. At the same instant
was a sibilant, human--distinctly human--"Hss-h," and the sound had
ceased.
That was no laving of inland pond against pebbles. Make of it what you
will--there were voices, smothered but talking. "No-no-no" . . . then
the warning . . . "Hush!" . . . then the wind and the river and . . .
"No--no!" with words like oaths. . . . "No--I say, no! Having come so
far, no!--not if it were my own brother!" . . . then the low
"Hush!" . . . and pleadings . . . then--"Send Le Borgne!"
And an Indian had rushed past me in the dark with a pine fagot in his
hand.
Rising, I stole after him. 'Twas the fellow who had been at the fire
with that unknown assailant. He paused over the smouldering embers,
searching the ground, found the hilt of the broken sword, lifted the
severed blade, kicked leaves over all traces of conflict, and
extinguishing the fire, carried off the broken weapon. An Indian can
pick his way over known ground without a torch. What was this fellow
doing with a torch? Had he been sent for me? I drew back in shadow to
let him pass. Then I ran with all speed to the river.
Gray dawn came over the trees as I reached the swollen waters, and the
sun was high in mid-heaven when I came to the gravel patch where M. de
Radisson had camped. Round a sharp bend in the river a strange sight
unfolded.
A score of crested savages with painted bodies sat on the ground. In
the centre, clad like a king, with purple doublet and plumed hat and
velvet waistcoat ablaze with medals of honour--was M. Radisson. One
hand deftly held his scabbard forward so that the jewelled hilt shone
against the velvet, and the other was raised impressively above the
savages. How had he made the savages come to him? How are some men
born to draw all others as the sea draws the streams?
The poor creatures had piled their robes at his feet as offerings to a
god.
"What did he give for the pelts, Godefroy?" I asked.
"Words!" says Godefroy, with a grin, "gab and a drop o' rum diluted in
a pot o' water!"
"What is he saying to them now?"
Godefroy shrugged his shoulders. "That the gods have sent him a
messenger to them; that the fire he brings "--he was handing a musket
to the chief--"will smite the Indians' enemy from the earth; that the
bullet is magic to outrace the fleetest runner"--this as M. Radisson
fired a shot into mid-air that sent the Indians into ecstasies of
childish wonder--"that the bottle in his hands contains death, and if
the Indians bring their hunt to the white-man, the white-man will never
take the cork out except to let death fly at the Indians' enemy"--he
lifted a little phial of poison as he spoke--"that the Indian need
never feel cold nor thirst, now that the white-man has brought
fire-water!"
At this came a harsh laugh from a taciturn Indian standing on the outer
rim of the crowd. It was the fellow who had run through the forest
with the torch.
"Who is that, Godefroy?"
"Le Borgne."
"Le Borgne need not laugh," retorted M. de Radisson sharply. "Le
Borgne knows the taste of fire-water! Le Borgne has been with the
white-man at the south, and knows what the white-man says is true."
But Le Borgne only laughed the harder, deep, guttural, contemptuous
"huh-huh's!"--a fitting rebuke, methought, for the ignoble deception
implied in M. Radisson's words.
Indeed, I would fain suppress this part of M. Radisson's record, for he
juggled with truth so oft, when he thought the end justified the means,
he finally got a knack of juggling so much with truth that the means
would never justify any end. I would fain repress the ignoble faults
of a noble leader, but I must even set down the facts as they are, so
you may see why a man who was the greatest leader and trader and
explorer of his times reaped only an aftermath of universal distrust.
He lied his way through thick and thin--as we traders used to say--till
that lying habit of his sewed him up in a net of his own weaving like a
grub in a cocoon.
Godefroy was giving a hand to bind up my gashed palm when something
grunted a "huff-huff" beside us. Le Borgne was there with a queer look
on his inscrutable face.
"Le Borgne, you rascal, you know who gave me this," I began, taking
careful scrutiny of the Indian.
One eye was glazed and sightless, the other yellow like a fox's; but
the fellow was straight, supple, and clean-timbered as a fresh-hewn
mast. With a "huh-huh," he gabbled back some answer.
"What does he say, Godefroy?"
"He says he doesn't understand the white-man's tongue--which is a lie,"
added Godefroy of his own account. "Le Borgne was interpreter for the
Fur Company at the south of the bay the year that M. Radisson left the
English."
Were my assailants, then, Hudson's Bay Company men come up from the
south end of James Bay? Certainly, the voice had spoken English. I
would have drawn Godefroy aside to inform him of my adventure, but Le
Borgne stuck to us like a burr. Jean was busy helping M. de Radisson
at the trade, or what was called "trade," when white men gave an awl
for forty beaver-skins.
"Godefroy," I said, "keep an eye on this Indian till I speak to M. de
Radisson." And I turned to the group. 'Twas as pretty a bit of colour
as I have ever seen. The sea, like silver, on one side; the
autumn-tinted woods, brown and yellow and gold, on the other; M. de
Radisson in his gay dress surrounded by a score of savages with their
faces and naked chests painted a gaudy red, headgear of swans' down,
eagle quills depending from their backs, and buckskin trousers fringed
with the scalp-locks of the slain.
Drawing M. de Radisson aside, I gave him hurried account of the night's
adventures.
"Ha!" says he. "Not Hudson's Bay Company men, or you would be in
irons, lad! Not French, for they spoke English. Pardieu! Poachers
and thieves--we shall see! Where is that vagabond Cree? These people
are southern Indians and know nothing of him.--Godefroy," he called.
Godefroy came running up. "Le Borgne's gone," said Godefroy
breathlessly.
"Gone?" repeated Radisson.
"He left word for Master Stanhope from one who wishes him well--"
"One who wishes him well," repeated M. Radisson, looking askance at me.
"For Master Stanhope not to be bitten twice by the same dog!"
Our amazement you may guess: M. de Radisson, suspicious of treachery
and private trade and piracy on my part; I as surprised to learn that I
had a well-wisher as I had been to discover an unknown foe; and
Godefroy, all cock-a-whoop with his news, as is the way of the vulgar.
"Ramsay," said M. Radisson, speaking very low and tense, "As you hope
to live and without a lie, what--does--this--mean?"
"Sir, as I hope to live--I--do--not--know!"
He continued to search me with doubting looks. I raised my wounded
hand.
"Will you do me the honour to satisfy yourself that wound is genuine?"
"Pish!" says he.
He studied the ground. "There's nothing impossible on this earth.
Facts are hard dogs to down.--Jean," he called, "gather up the pelts!
It takes a man to trade well, but any fool can make fools drink!
Godefroy--give the knaves the rum--but mind yourselves," he warned,
"three parts rain-water!" Then facing me, "Take me to that bank!"
He followed without comment.
At the place of the camp-fire were marks of the struggle.
"The same boot-prints as on the sand! A small man," observed Radisson.
But when we came to the sloping bank, where the land fell sheer away to
a dry, pebbly reach, M. Radisson pulled a puzzled brow.
"They must have taken shelter from the rain. They must have been under
your feet."
"But where are their foot-marks?" I asked.
"Washed out by the rain," said he; but that was one of the untruths
with which a man who is ever telling untruths sometimes deceives
himself; for if the bank sheltered the intruders from the rain, it also
sheltered their foot-marks, and there was not a trace.
"All the same," said M. de Radisson, "we shall make these Indians our
friends by taking them back to the fort with us."
"Ramsay," he remarked on the way, "there's a game to play."
"So it seems."
"Hold yourself in," said he sententiously.
I walked on listening.
"One plays as your friend, the other as your foe! Show neither friend
nor foe your hand! Let the game tell! 'Twas the reined-in horse won
King Charles's stakes at Newmarket last year! Hold yourself in, I say!"
"In," I repeated, wondering at this homily.
"And hold yourself up," he continued. "That coxcomb of a marquis
always trailing his dignity in the dust of mid-road to worry with a
common dog like La Chesnaye--pish! Hold your self-respect in the chest
of your jacket, man! 'Tis the slouching nag that loses the race! Hold
yourself up!"
His words seemed hard sense plain spoken.
"And let your feet travel on," he added.
"In and up and on!" I repeated.
"In and up and on--there's mettle for you, lad!"
And with that terse text--which, I think, comprehended the whole of M.
Radisson's philosophy--we were back at the beach.
The Indians were not in such a state as I have seen after many a
trading bout. They were able to accompany us. In embarking, M.
Radisson must needs observe all the ceremony of two races. Such a
whiffing of pipes among the stately, half-drunk Indian chiefs you never
saw, with a pompous proffering of the stem to the four corners of the
compass, which they thought would propitiate the spirits. Jean blew a
blast on the trumpet. I waved the French flag. Godefroy beat a
rattling fusillade on the drum, grabbed up his bobbing tipstaff, led
the way; and down we filed to the canoes.
At all this ostentation I could not but smile; but no man ever had
greater need of pomp to hold his own against uneven odds than Radisson.
As we were leaving came a noise that set us all by the ears--the dull
booming reverberations of heavy cannonading.
The Indians shook as with palsy. Jean Groseillers cried out that his
father's ships were in peril. Godefroy implored the saints; but with
that lying facility which was his doom, M. de Radisson blandly informed
the savages that more of his vessels had arrived from France.
Bidding Jean go on to the Habitation with the Indians, he took the rest
of us ashore with one redskin as guide, to spy out the cause of the
firing.
"'Twill be a pretty to-do if the English Fur Company's ships arrive
before we have a French fort ready to welcome them," said he.