EXCEPT for Jack and his party the Maison Bondie was entirely bare
of guests. The wagoners who made the place their home during their
periodic visits to Fort Wayne had that very morning driven away to the
south. Others would soon arrive, probably on the morrow, but until they
came the Bondies were alone. Rogers had gone, presumably to the fort.
Fantine had been busy comforting Alagwa, and when she remembered him he
had disappeared.
Perhaps it was as well, for as Fantine and Alagwa and Peter’s Miami
wife sat down to supper Peter came hurrying in, bringing news that
destroyed the tastefulness even of Fantine’s cooking.
Captain Wells and Captain Heald and the entire garrison of Fort
Dearborn had been massacred. The news had just reached the Miami
village. It had not yet reached the fort or any white man connected
with the garrison--not even Major Stickney or the priest at the
Catholic church--and probably would not reach them until the morrow.
But it was not to be doubted. The thirty-five Miamis who had gone with
Captain Wells to help in the evacuation of Fort Dearborn were all back
at their homes. But the white men had perished.
With bated breath the Bondies discussed the massacre. They all knew
Captain Wells; the Bondies had known him for twenty years and Alagwa
for a few weeks only, but they all loved him. Forty years before, when
a boy, he had been captured by the Miami Indians, had been brought up
with them, and had married a Miami woman, the daughter of a chief.
Later he had become interpreter and agent for the United States and
was supposed to be in high favor with the Indians of all tribes. None
of his associations, however, had availed to save him. Where would the
blow fall next? Peter Bondie strove to console himself with the fact
that the Miamis, who lived close at hand, were his sworn friends, and
that the killing had been done by the Pottawatomies, whose homes were a
hundred miles to the west, though many of them were always to be seen
at and near Fort Wayne. But the consolation was rapidly losing its
force.
Peter and Fantine were debating whether Peter should at once seek Major
Stickney, who was ill with ague, and tell him the news or should wait
till the morrow, when the Miamis who had accompanied Captain Wells
would be ready to make formal report. Alagwa sat silent, troubled over
the news, but thinking more of Jack’s words of the afternoon than she
did of the possible consequences of the massacre.
Abruptly a shadow darkened the door and through it, into the room,
stepped Metea. Offering no explanation of his presence nor of his
absence for the past two weeks he sat down at the table and began to
devour the food which Peter’s Miami wife placed before him. When at
last he had finished he stood up.
“Behold,” he said, “my moccasins are worn with much travel. I come
quickly from Yondotia (Detroit). I bring great news. The American chief
and all his men have surrendered. He was a coward. When the red man
shook his tomahawk he fell down and cried out. Over Yondotia now flies
the flag of the white father who lives across the great water.”
No one spoke. The news from Fort Dearborn had been stirring but this
from Detroit was overwhelming, both in its immensity and in the
consequences it portended. The Bondies, Alagwa, and even Metea himself
had come, through many years’ experience, to look upon the Americans as
foes who fought to the death and who, even when conquered, took bitter
toll of those who slew them. That Captain Heald and his garrison had
been massacred was terrifying but not altogether amazing, for he was
outnumbered and isolated. But that an army larger than any that had
ever before been mustered in the northwest should have surrendered
tamely, without a blow, seemed incredible. If it were true--and none
questioned it--it would mean the destruction of American prestige and
the rallying of thousands of savages to the British standard.
Metea voiced the situation. “The white men are women. They have talked
much and have pretended to be great chiefs and the red man has believed
them. But now he knows. They are women. At Yondotia they begged the
redcoats to save them from the wrath of the red men. It was the red men
who conquered and they will conquer again.”
Metea spoke the truth, though it was left to a later day to recognize
it. All the early disasters of the war to the American arms were due
not to the prowess of the British nor of the Indians, but to the fear
of massacre. Hull’s surrender was not to actual foes but to possible
ones, not to the threat of civilized warfare but to that of torture and
murder by foes that kept no faith with the vanquished and that spared
neither men nor women nor babes at the breast. “Surrender! If I have
to attack I will not be able to restrain the fury of the Indians,”
was in substance the message that brought about Hicks’s capitulation
at Mackinaw, Heald’s massacre at Fort Dearborn, and Hull’s shameful
surrender at Detroit. Hull was old, his communications were broken,
he was surrounded by savages in unknown numbers, and the threat of
massacre terrified him. So he yielded.
It was cowardly, of course, and unnecessary, too. The later history of
the war and the history of all later Indian wars proved conclusively
that no force of savages, even when backed by white men, could capture
a fortified place if bravely defended. Even the little fort on the
Sandusky, whose evacuation was later ordered because to defend it
seemed impossible, was successfully held by a tiny garrison commanded
by a real man against all the combined forces of the British General
Proctor and of Tecumseh. The British victories in the west early in the
war were won not by fighting but by diplomacy--by “bluff,” to use the
vernacular of a later day.
Metea had paused and glanced about the room, awaiting a reply. It did
not come and he went on, his glance lingering on Alagwa.
“Peter Bondie has ever been the friend of the red men,” he resumed.
“He has taken a squaw from the Miami tribe. Metea is his friend. Metea
is also the friend of Alagwa, the foster child of Tecumseh. Therefore
he comes to warn him and her. His peoples’ tomahawks are up. The chief
Winnemac leads them. Already they have slain the white men in the west.
In two days they will be here. Their tomahawks will fall on the white
men, and when they fall they will spare not. Therefore, let my brother
and all that is his betake themselves to the south. All this land once
belonged to the red men and it will belong to them again. No white man,
brother though he be to the Indian, shall live in it. Let my brother
take warning and begone; and”--he turned to Alagwa--“let my sister
prepare to go to Yondotia. Such is the will of Tecumseh.”
The Bondies looked at each other; then they looked at Alagwa. The
imminent loss of all that they had accumulated was a shock, but Metea’s
words to Alagwa struck them dumb. Fantine, knowing what she did about
the girl, had suspected that the tie between her and Tecumseh had not
been entirely broken, but Peter was ignorant even of her sex, and its
revelation took his breath away. Neither he nor Fantine guessed the
purpose for which Alagwa had come into the American lines, nor in any
case would they have greatly reprobated it, for their associations and
sympathies were largely with the Indians. But the order to her to join
Tecumseh was a bolt out of a clear sky. Curiously, questioningly, the
two stared at her.
Alagwa, however, was not thinking of herself, but of Jack. His words
that afternoon had cut her to the heart. But they had not freed her
from her obligation to serve him. She loved him and with her to love
was to give all, without question of return. Not even at the command of
Tecumseh, would she leave him. Yet she could not defy the will of the
great chief. She must gain time to think and to plan.
She looked up and saw Metea’s eyes fixed on her.
“At dawn tomorrow my sister will be ready,” he said.
At dawn! Alagwa’s heart stood still. She would have time neither to
think nor to plan. Desperately she cast about for some respite, however
brief. “At dawn!” she echoed. “Why need I go so soon? Why need I go
at all. Will not Tecumseh and the redcoats come here? It is only the
Pottawatomies who will attack the fort?”
Metea paused a moment before replying. “The Pottawatomies are brave,”
he said. “They will surround the fort, cutting off all help from the
south. If a chance offers they will capture it. If not, they will wait.
In one moon their redcoat brothers will come with the big guns to
batter down the walls. But my sister may not wait for them. Tecumseh
commands her presence now and she must go. She will have fitting
escort. Twenty of my men wait to attend her.”
Alagwa’s hope vanished. No way could she see out of the coil that bound
her. “Did Tecumseh send no word about the young white chief?” she
faltered, desperately.
Metea shrugged his shoulders. “The young white chief?” he echoed. “He
who slew the Shawnee braves at Defiance? No, Tecumseh sent no word!
Let the young chief stay where he is. Soon we will test his courage
at the stake and see if he is a brave man or a coward.” Metea threw
his blanket about his shoulders and turned to the door. Then he looked
back. “At dawn!” he repeated. “Let my sister be ready.” He strode
through the opening and disappeared.
Alagwa sprang to her feet. Her eyes flashed, her nostrils dilated,
her lips curled back as they had curled when she faced Brito. “You
shall not,” she shrieked to the empty door. “You shall not. Dog of a
Pottawatomie, little do you know Alagwa. I will not leave him and he
shall not die. I will save him yet.”
Peter Bondie looked at the girl contemptuously. “So!” he sneered. “You
will not leave him, hein? You will save him, hein? And how will you
save him? Bah! It is squaw’s talk.”
“Silence, cochon!” Fantine had risen swiftly to her feet. Her vast
bulk quivered. “Fear not, ma bebée,” she cried. “We shall save him!
He is a fool and blind, but some day le bon Dieu will open his eyes.
Till then Fantine will protect and save him and you.” She caught
the half-fainting girl in her arms, and turned upon her brother.
“Scelerat!” she cried. “Know you to whom you speak? Know you that
you address the daughter of M. Delaroche, the niece of the Count
of Telfair, your liege lady? Down upon your knees, pig, and beg
forgiveness.”
Peter did not drop upon his knees--he had been in America too
long--but he changed color and began to mutter hasty apologies.
Alagwa scarcely heard him. Confused as leaves driven before October’s
blasts her thoughts fluttered. Possibility after possibility rose
in her mind only to be swiftly discarded. Her efforts to gain time
had failed. Metea would come for her at dawn. No doubt his men were
watching. She and Jack might flee that very night--But no! Jack would
not go without explanation. Even if he did go, his flight and hers
would be discovered in the morning and they would be pursued and Jack
would be killed. He could not withstand twenty men. And he must not be
excited. Besides, he would not go. Well she knew it. Could she persuade
him to take refuge in the fort? Not without an explanation, certainly!
And the fort would soon be attacked. She herself had made that certain.
It was her message to Tecumseh that had caused the British to send
their red allies to beleaguer it and cut off all help and ammunition.
Truly her deeds had found her out.
What could she do? What _could_ she do? Insistently her thoughts beat
upon the question. And presently the answer came.
Jack must be saved. He could be saved only by saving the fort.
Therefore the fort must be saved. It could not be saved unless its
garrison was warned. Therefore it must be warned.
To warn it was to be treacherous to Tecumseh and to her friends. It
was to dig a deathtrap in the path which she had called them to tread.
It was to set back, perhaps forever, the day on which her people would
regain their ancient power.
Alagwa knew it. To the last detail she knew it. And she did not care.
Jack should not die! Rather let every Shawnee die! Rather let Tecumseh
himself perish! Rather let the whole Indian nation pass away forever!
Metea’s threat had done its work well, but its effect had been far
different from that which he had intended.
She sprang to her feet. “Come,” she said. “Let us go.”
Bondie stared at her with his little black eyes. “Go where, madame?” he
questioned, respectfully but wonderingly.
“To Major Stickney. We must warn him. The fort must be saved.”