AS SEEN THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY
When King Louis and King James called for peace, they could not know
that it was as little possible to their two colonies as between rival
buccaneers. New France was full of bold spirits who loved conquest
for conquest’s sake. Besides, in this case there was a force at work,
generally unknown, but as powerful as the convincing influence of an
army. Behind the worst and the best acts of Charles II was a woman.
Behind the glories and follies of Louis XIV was also a woman. Behind
some of the most striking incidents in the history of New France, New
England, and New York, was a woman.
We saw her when she was but a child--the centre of singular events.
Years had passed. Not one of those events had gone for nothing; each was
bearing fruit after its kind.
She is sitting alone in a room of a large unhandsome house, facing on
Boston harbour. It is evening. The room itself is of dark wood, and
evening has thrown it into gloom. Yet somehow the girl’s face has a
light of its own. She is turned fair towards the window, and is looking
out to sea. A mist is rising from the water, and the shore is growing
grey and heavy as the light in the west recedes and night creeps in from
the ocean. She watches the waves and the mist till all is mist without;
a scene which she had watched, how often she could not count. The night
closes in entirely upon her, but she does not move. At last the door of
the room opens and some one enters and closes it again. “My daughter!”
says an anxious voice. “Are you here, Jessica?”
“I am here, father,” is the reply. “Shall we have lights?”
“As you will.”
Even as they speak a servant enters, and lighted candles are put upon
the table. They are alone again. Both are pale. The girl stands very
still, and so quiet is her face, one could never guess that she is
passing, through the tragic moment of her life.
“What is your answer, Jessica?” he asks. “I will marry him when he comes
back.”
“Thank God!” is the old man’s acknowledgment. “You have saved our
fortunes.”
The girl sighs, and then, with a little touch of that demure irony which
we had seen in her years before, says: “I trust we have not lost our
honour.”
“Why, you love him, do you not? There is no one you care for more than
George Gering?”
“I suppose not,” is her reply, but the tone is enigmatical.
While this scene is on, another appears in Cheapside, London. A man
of bold and vigorous bearing comes from the office of a well-known
solicitor. That very morning he had had an interview with the King, and
had been reminded with more exactness than kindness that he had cost
King Charles a ship, scores of men, and thousands of pounds, in a
fruitless search for buried treasure in Hispaniola. When he had urged
his case upon the basis of fresh information, he was drily told that the
security was too scant, even for a king. He had then pleaded his case
to the Duke of Albemarle and other distinguished gentlemen. They were
seemingly convinced, but withheld their answer till the following
morning.
But William Phips, stubborn adventurer, destined to receive all sorts of
honours in his time, has no intention of quitting London till he has his
way; and this is his thought as he steps into Cheapside, having already
made preparations upon the chance of success. He has gone so far as
to purchase a ship, called the Bridgwater Merchant from an alderman
in London, though he has not a hundred guineas at his disposal. As he
stands debating, a hand touches his arm and a voice says in his ear:
“You were within a mile of it with the Atgier Rose, two years ago.”
The great adventurer turns. “The devil I was! And who are you?”
Satanic humour plays in the stranger’s eyes as he answers: “I am Edward
Bucklaw, pirate and keeper of the treasure-house in the La Planta
River.”
“Blood of Judas,” Phips says, “how dare you speak to me? I’ll have you
in yon prison for an unhung rascal!”
“Ah! you are a great man,” is the unmoved reply. “I knew you’d feel
that way. But if you’ll listen for five minutes, down here at the
Bull-and-Daisy, there shall be peace between us.”
An hour later, Phips, following Bucklaw’s instructions, is tracing on a
map the true location of the lost galleon’s treasure.
“Then,” says Bucklaw, “we are comrades?”
“We are adventurers.”
Another scene. In a northern inland sea two men are standing on the deck
of a ship: the one stalwart, clear-eyed, with a touch of strong reserve
in face and manner; the other of middle height, with sinister look. The
former is looking out silently upon the great locked hummocks of ice
surrounding the vessel. It is the early morning. The sun is shining with
that hard brightness only seen in the Arctic world--keen as silver, cold
as steel. It plays upon the hummocks, and they send out shafts of
light at fantastic angles, and a thin blue line runs between the almost
unbearable general radiance and the sea of ice stretching indefinitely
away. But to the west is a shore, and on it stands a fort and a few
detached houses. Upon the walls of the fort are some guns, and the
British flag is flying above. Beyond these again are the plains of the
north--the home of the elk, musk-ox, silver fox, the white bear and the
lonely races of the Pole. Here and there, in the south-west, an island
of pines breaks the monotony, but to the north there is only the white
silence, the terrible and yet beautiful trail of the Arctic.
The smaller man stands swinging his arms for warmth; the smack of the
leather in the clear air like the report of a gun. Presently, stopping
his exercise, he says:
“Well, monsieur, what do you say?”
Slowly the young man withdraws his eyes from the scene and turns.
“Radisson,” he says, “this is much the same story as Bucklaw told
Governor Nicholls. How come you to know of it?”
“You remember, I was proclaimed four years ago? Well, afterwards I fell
in with Bucklaw. I sailed with him to the Spaniards’ country, and we
might have got the treasure, but we quarreled; there was a fight, and
I--well, we end. Bucklaw was captured by the French and was carried to
France. He was a fool to look for the treasure with a poor ship and a
worse crew. He was for getting William Phips, a man of Boston, to work
with him, for Phips had got something of the secret from an old sailor,
but when he would have got him, Phips was on his way with a ship of King
Charles. I will tell you something more.’ Mademoiselle Leveret’s--”
“What do you know of Mademoiselle Leveret?”
“A little. Mademoiselle’s father lost much money in Phips’s expedition.”
“How know you that?”
“I have ears. You have promised to go with Phips. Isn’t that so?”
“What then?”
“I will go with you.”
“Booty?”
“No, revenge.”
“On whom?”
“The man you hate--Iberville.”
Gering’s face darkens. “We are not likely to meet.”
“Pardon! very likely. Six months ago he was coming back from France. He
will find you. I know the race.”
A sneer is on Gering’s face. “Freebooters, outlaws like yourself!”
“Pardon! gentlemen, monsieur; noble outlaws. What is it that once or
twice they have quarreled with the governor, and because they would
not yield have been proclaimed? Nothing. Proclaimed yesterday, today at
Court. No, no. I hate Iberville, but he is a great man.”
In the veins of the renegade is still latent the pride of race. He is a
villain but he knows the height from which he fell. “He will find you,
monsieur,” he repeats. “When Le Moyne is the hunter he never will kennel
till the end. Besides, there is the lady!”
“Silence!”
Radisson knows that he has said too much. His manner changes. “You will
let me go with you?” The Englishman remembers that this scoundrel was
with Bucklaw, although he does not know that Radisson was one of the
abductors.
“Never!” he says, and turns upon his heel.
A moment after and the two have disappeared from the lonely pageant of
ice and sun. Man has disappeared, but his works--houses and ships and
walls and snow-topped cannon--lie there in the hard grasp of the North,
while the White Weaver, at the summit of the world, is shuttling these
lives into the woof of battle, murder, and sudden death.
On the shore of the La Planta River a man lies looking into the sunset.
So sweet, so beautiful is the landscape, the deep foliage, the scent of
flowers, the flutter of bright-winged birds, the fern-grown walls of a
ruined town, the wallowing eloquence of the river, the sonorous din
of the locust, that none could think this a couch of death. A Spanish
priest is making ready for that last long voyage, when the soul of
man sloughs the dross of earth. Beside him kneels another priest--a
Frenchman of the same order.
The dying man feebly takes from his breast a packet and hands it to his
friend.
“It is as I have said,” he whispers. “Others may guess, but I know. I
know--and another. The rest are all dead. There were six of us, and all
were killed save myself. We were poisoned by a Spaniard. He thought he
had killed all, but I lived. He also was killed. His murderer’s name was
Bucklaw--an English pirate. He has the secret. Once he came with a ship
to find, but there was trouble and he did not go on. An Englishman also
came with the king’s ship, but he did not find. But I know that the
man Bucklaw will come again. It should not be. Listen: A year ago, and
something more, I was travelling to the coast. From there I was to sail
for Spain. I had lost the chart of the river then. I was taken ill and
I should have died, but a young French officer stayed his men beside me
and cared for me, and had me carried to the coast, where I recovered. I
did not go to Spain, and I found the chart of the river again.”
There is a pause, in which the deep breathing of the dying man mingles
with the low wash of the river, and presently he speaks again. “I vowed
then that he should know. As God is our Father, swear that you will give
this packet to himself only.”
The priest, in reply, lifts the crucifix from the dying man’s breast and
puts his lips to it. The world seems not to know, so cheerful is it
all, that, with a sob, that sob of farewell which the soul gives the
body,--the spirit of a man is passing the mile-posts called Life, Time,
and Eternity.
Yet another glance into passing incidents before we follow the straight
trail of our story. In the city of Montreal fourscore men are kneeling
in a little church, as the mass is slowly chanted at the altar. All of
them are armed. By the flare of the torches and the candles--for it is
not daybreak yet--you can see the flash of a scabbard, the glint of a
knife, and the sheen of a bandoleer.
Presently, from among them, one man rises, goes to the steps of the
sanctuary and kneels. He is the leader of the expedition, the Chevalier
de Troyes, the chosen of the governor. A moment, and three other men
rise and come and kneel beside him. These are three brothers, and one
we know--gallant, imperious, cordial, having the superior ease of the
courtier.
The four receive a blessing from a massive, handsome priest, whose face,
as it bends over Iberville, suddenly flushes with feeling. Presently
the others rise, but Iberville remains an instant longer, as if loth to
leave. The priest whispers to him: “Be strong, be just, be merciful.”
The young man lifts his eyes to the priest’s: “I will be just, abbe!”
Then the priest makes the sacred gesture over him.