AT JACK’S shout Brito looked up. Then he, too, cried out and settled
himself back in the saddle.
Slowly the two rode toward each other, pistols in hand. Between them
lay the hard-trampled level of the cattle yard. The sun had dropped
behind the trees; the moon had not yet gathered power; no confusing
shadows offered advantage to either.
Suddenly Brito flung up his pistol and fired. Jack felt his hat torn
from his head and saw it go sailing to the ground. He threw up his
own pistol. Then he hesitated; Alagwa and the women and children were
directly behind his foe. He dared not fire.
As he hesitated Brito flung down his useless pistol and spurred at him,
saber flashing as he came. Jack reined back; his horse reared, striking
with its hoofs, and Brito’s black shied to the left and rushed by,
Brito’s blade singing harmlessly in the air as he passed.
The two men wheeled. They had changed places; Jack’s back was toward
the farmhouse. Again he raised his pistol. His finger curled about the
trigger.
Brito paused and his face whitened. Then he cried out, jeering.
“Shoot, you cur!” he shrieked. “Shoot, you d--d American! Shoot an
unarmed man if you dare. No Englishman would take such an advantage.
This isn’t war; it’s a private quarrel. If you’re not all cur, if
there’s any Telfair blood in your veins, throw down that pistol and
fight on equal terms like a man.”
Jack hesitated. Brito had had his shot and had missed. He was talking
merely to save his life; his taunts merited no consideration. Jack knew
well that he ought to shoot him down or take him prisoner. He knew that
the men at the farmhouse were against him. Nevertheless, Brito’s words
bit.
He turned in his saddle. Alagwa was leaping to his side and to her he
handed the pistol. “Keep those others back,” he ordered swiftly. Then
he turned to face his foe.
It was high time. Brito was coming straight for him. Barely he had time
to spur his horse aside and avoid the shock. As he leaped he heard
Brito shouting to the Canadians to shoot.
Jack wheeled. The two Canadians had gone back into the farmhouse. Now
they were rushing out, muskets in hand. Then Alagwa’s pistol settled on
the foremost and he heard their guns crash to the ground.
Jack saw red. For the first time in his life the rage to kill seized
him--a fierce, strong longing that shook him from head to foot, a
survival from the fierce, bitter primeval days when foes were personal
and hate was undiluted. He snatched at his blade and drew it from the
scabbard.
“You d--d cur!” he rasped. “You coward! By God! You’ll pay now.” Wild
as he was, he was also cold as ice; in some men the two go together.
Like most gentlemen of the day Jack had learned to use the foils and
even to some extent the saber. But all his training had been with
buttons, where to be touched meant merely the loss of a point on the
score. Never had he fought a duel or used a sword in anger, while Brito
had done both. To an outsider all the odds would have seemed to be with
the older man.
But Jack did not think of odds. Like many men in the moment of extreme
peril, he felt supreme assurance that victory was to be his. Before him
stretched the vision of long years of life and happiness with Alagwa at
his side. The coming fight was a mere incident, not a catastrophe that
was to whelm him and her in ruin. Eagerly he spurred forward.
The two horses crashed, rearing and biting, and over their heads the
swords of the riders clashed. Neither spoke. Neither had mind to speak
or even to think. Both fought grimly, terribly, well knowing that for
one the end was death. Stroke and parry, parry and stroke; hot and
swift the one followed the other.
For the most part they fought at close quarters, but now and again
the horses carried them apart. At one such moment Jack glimpsed at
the farmhouse door and its group. The women had fled inside and were
peering from the windows; the children had disappeared altogether; the
two men, disarmed, stood backed against the wall, under Alagwa’s pistol.
The crimson sunset had faded from the sky, but the half-moon was
glowing out, changing from its daylight sheen to a silver glory that
spilled like rain upon the shadowy world. By its gleam the fight went
on, minute after minute.
At last Jack began to tire. His arms drooped and he began to fight on
the defensive. He was scarcely twenty-one; for twenty-four hours he had
not closed his eyes; for four days he had had little rest and little
food; for months he had been torn with anxiety, more wearing than any
exertion. Brito had suffered, too, but his stress had been national
rather than personal. His muscles were older and more seasoned, his
arms more sinewy. His attack showed no signs of slackening.
Suddenly his eyes gleamed. He had noted Jack’s growing weakness. His
tongue began to wag. “You fool!” he hissed. “I told you to keep out of
my way. This is the end. Tonight--tonight----”
He disengaged and thrust, his blade singing within a hair’s breadth of
Jack’s throat. He thrust again and the keen edge hissed through Jack’s
sleeve. Again he thrust, but this time Jack met him with a parry that
sent his blade wide.
But the Englishman did not pause. His onslaught became terrible. His
sword became a living flame, circling, writhing, and hissing in the
moonlight. Slowly he forced the American backward. For the moment no
living man could have held ground against his fury.
[Illustration: JACK TELFAIR AND CAPTAIN BRITO SETTLE THEIR DISPUTE]
Then suddenly, when Jack thought he could sustain no more, the attack
slackened. Flesh and blood could not maintain its fury. Brito’s arm
flagged for a second, perhaps in order to deceive; then he thrust
again, upward, for the throat. Jack, worn out, took a desperate chance.
He did not parry with his blade; instead he threw up his hilt and
caught Brito’s point squarely upon the guard. A hair’s breadth to the
right or to the left and the other’s sword would have pierced his
throat. But that hair’s breadth was not granted. Brito’s blade stopped
short, bent almost double, and snapped short. Brito himself swayed
sideways, losing his balance for the moment. Before he could recover
Jack rose in his stirrups and brought his blade down with a sweeping
stroke against the bare, brown neck that for an instant lay exposed.
Deep the steel cut. Beneath it Brito stiffened; his sword dropped
from his hands; blood spouted from the severed veins; he swayed and
toppled--dead.
Jack scarcely saw him fall. The earth swayed round him in a mighty
tourbillon; moon and stars danced in the sky in bewildering
convolutions; the primeval trees beside the farmhouse rocked, cutting
mighty zigzags across the milky-way. Half-fainting he clung to his
saddle, while beneath him the bay panted and wheezed, worn out by the
stress of the fight.
Slowly the mists cleared. Out of them shone Alagwa’s face, white,
but glad with a great gladness. Behind her the two men, crouched
against the house, their staring, terror-filled eyes glistening in the
moonlight.
Jack’s fingers wagged toward the muskets at their feet. “Give me those
guns,” he breathed.
Alagwa obeyed silently. He was in the ascendant now. He was the
warrior; she the squaw, docile and obedient. Her hour would come later
and she was content to wait.
The men shrank back as Jack took the guns, muttering pleas for mercy.
The women came stumbling from the house, shrieking. Jack did not heed
them. He fired the guns into the air; then smashed them against the
corner of the house. Then he turned to Alagwa and pointed to Brito’s
horse. “Come,” he ordered. “The fight is done. We must go.”
Silently Alagwa mounted and silently the two rode up the slope, across
the moon-drenched woods upon the crest, and down the long backward
trail to where the British and Indian power had been shattered.
Jack did not speak. He dared not. A sudden wondering panic had fallen
upon him. He had won his bride at last. He had won her with his heart;
he had earned her with his sword. He had shown her the thoughts of his
heart at dawn beside Tecumseh’s fire; he had shown her the work of his
sword at dusk beside the farmhouse. She was his; he had only to put out
his hand to claim her.
But he did not dare. Love had throned her immeasurably above him.
Scarcely he dared look at her as she rode beside him in the white
moonlight, swaying to the rhythm of her horse’s pace, mystic,
strange--no woodland boy, no “sweet, gentle lady,” no Indian maid--but
all of these at once, all and more, a woman, his woman, his mate, born
for him, foreordained for him since the first dawn that had silvered
the world. Speechless he rode on, glancing at her from sidelong eyes.
Alagwa, too, was silent, waiting. This was her hour, and she knew it.
But he must tell her--tell her what she already knew. Not one sweet
word of the telling would she spare him. And the worse he boggled the
telling the more she would love him. Love--woman’s love--pardons all
but silence.
At last Jack found his tongue. He spoke hurriedly, gaspingly, trying
to hide the ferment of his soul. “The war here is over,” he said. “I
did not stay to see the end of the battle, but I know the British
power in the west is shattered. Most of the army will go home. And we
will go to Alabama. Father is waiting to welcome you. I wrote him of
you and he wrote me that if I did not bring you with me I might stay
away myself. You will like father. He is fierce, like yourself, and
tender-hearted, too--like yourself. Ah! Yes! You will like him and you
will like Alabama. Alabama! I told you once what the word meant. It’s
Creek: a-la-ba-ma, here we rest. There we will rest. Later we will go
to France to see your inheritance--yours no more. Father writes that
Napoleon has confiscated the Telfair estates. But we can spare them.
Cato will go with us--father writes that the two girls he humbugged
have husbands of their own and will not trouble him, and that the
third--the one he is fond of--is waiting for him. Rogers and Fantine
will make a match of it, I think. He says now that he likes to hear
women’s talk. Tecumseh--I do not know what his fate may be. But he
swore he would win or leave his bones on the field today--and he did
not win. I--I have read that letter; there was nothing in it--nothing.
I fainted because of my illness and not because of anything I read.”
Jack’s voice died. He had run through his budget of news without
broaching the subject that lay so near his heart. Alagwa did not help
him. Silently she waited.
The night was wearing on. The moon was sinking into the west. Its fairy
sheen lingered faintly on the trees and the grass and dusty road that
stretched through the dew-wet fields like a band of silver. High above,
the multitudinous stars blazed in the firmament. Silence reigned; no
cry of bird or beast sounded through the night; even the sound of the
horses’ hoofs was muffled in the soft dust. Like spirits the two rode
on through the enchanted silence.
Then, in slow crescendo, the tinkle of a far-off brook blended softly
into the beauty of the night, blended so softly that its music seemed
the melody of tautened heart-strings. Slowly it grew till the stream
glanced suddenly out, dancing in the last rays of the setting moon.
Beyond it stretched an open space, floored with fallen leaves, ringed
with tall saplings, silver edged, through whose leafless tops the stars
shone faintly down.
The path to the ford was narrow. The two horses crowded into it,
crushed their riders together, and at the touch Jack’s surcharged
heart found vent. “Alagwa! Alagwa!” he cried, brokenly; and again,
“Alagwa!”
The girl swayed toward him. Her eyes, wet with unshed tears, gleamed
into his from beneath the dark masses of her tangled hair. Then, in a
moment his arms were round her and her head lay heavy on his breast.
The horses halted, bending their heads to the water that rippled about
their feet.
Jack’s heart kindled in the swimming darkness. His pulse beat madly in
his throat. “Alagwa!” he gasped. “Alagwa! Friend! Comrade! Wife! I love
you so! I love you so!”
“And I love you!” Like a great organ note the girl’s voice echoed
the avowal. “Ah! But you know it. You know I left you for your own
sake--for your own sake----”
Closer and closer Jack drew her. The flood-gates of his speech were
broken up. Words, undreamed before, leaped to his lips. “I loved you
then,” he breathed. “I have loved you always. But the change from boy
to man came too suddenly. I did not know. I did not understand. It
took time--time and the touchstone of absence and peril and agony--to
teach me that I was a fool and mad and blind.” He broke off, laughing
with wonder. “Fool that I was to tell you that I was fond of you! Fool
to prate of friendship! Fool to match stilted periods when my every
fibre was thrilling, my every nerve quivering for you and you alone.
I knew it and yet I knew it not. I did not dream that it was love that
thrilled me. I did not know what love was. But now I know.”
The horses raised their heads, whinnying. Slowly, high-stepping, they
splashed through the lambent waters of the ford and out upon the broad
bank.
Jack leaped from the saddle and held up his arms for his bride. “We are
far from camp,” he said, “and it is dangerous to approach it from this
direction in the darkness. The horses are tired; the night is mild--and
far spent. Come, dear! Come! a-la-ba-ma; here we rest.”
FINIS
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.