QUI VIVE!
From Land’s End to John O’ Groat’s is a long tramp, but that from
Montreal to Hudson’s Bay is far longer, and yet many have made it; more,
however, in the days of which we are writing than now, and with greater
hardships also then. But weighed against the greater hardships there was
a bolder temper and a more romantic spirit.
How strange and severe a journey it was, only those can tell who have
travelled those wastes, even in these later days, when paths have been
beaten down from Mount Royal to the lodges of the North. When they
started, the ice had not yet all left the Ottawa River, and they wound
their way through crowding floes, or portaged here and there for miles,
the eager sun of spring above with scarcely a cloud to trail behind
him. At last the river cleared, and for leagues they travelled to the
north-west, and came at last to the Lake of the Winds. They travelled
across one corner of it, to a point where they would strike an unknown
path to Hudson’s Bay.
Iberville had never before seen this lake, and, with all his knowledge
of great proportions, he was not prepared for its splendid vastness.
They came upon it in the evening, and camped beside it. They watched the
sun spread out his banners, presently veil his head in them, and sink
below the world. And between them and that sunset was a vast rock
stretching out from a ponderous shore--a colossal stone lion, resting
Sphinxlike, keeping its faith with the ages. Alone, the warder of
the West, stormy, menacing, even the vernal sun could give it little
cheerfulness. But to Iberville and his followers it brought no gloom at
night, nor yet in the morning when all was changed, and a soft silver
mist hung over the “great water,” like dissolving dew, through which
the sunlight came with a strange, solemn delicacy. Upon the shore were
bustle, cheerfulness, and song, until every canoe was launched, and then
the band of warriors got in, and presently were away in the haze.
The long bark canoes, with lofty prows, stained with powerful dyes, slid
along this path swiftly, the paddles noiselessly cleaving the water
with the precision of a pendulum. One followed the other with a space
between, so that Iberville, in the first, looking back, could see a
diminishing procession, the last seeming large and weird--almost a
shadow--as it were a part of the weird atmosphere. On either side was
that soft plumbless diffusion, and ahead the secret of untravelled wilds
and the fortunes of war.
As if by common instinct, all gossip ceased soon after they left
the shore, and, cheerful as was the French Canadian, he was--and
is--superstitious. He saw sermons in stones, books in the running
brooks, and the supernatural in everything. Simple, hardy, occasionally
bloody, he was ever on the watch for signs and wonders, and a phase of
nature influenced him after the manner of a being with a temperament.
Often, as some of the woodsmen and river-men had seen this strange
effect, they now made the sacred gesture as they ran on. The pure
moisture lay like a fine exudation on their brown skins, glistened on
their black hair, and hung from their beards, giving them a mysterious
look. The colours of their canoes and clothes were softened by the
dim air and long use, and there seemed to accompany each boat and
each person an atmosphere within this other haze, a spiritual kind of
exhalation; so that one might have thought them, with the crucifixes
on their breasts, and that unworldly, distinguished look which comes to
those who live much with nature, as sons of men going upon such mission
as did they who went into the far land with Arthur.
But the silence could not be maintained for long. The first flush of
the impression gone, these half-barbarians, with the simple hearts of
children, must rise from the almost melancholy, somewhat religious mood,
into which they had been cast. As Iberville, with Sainte-Helene and
Perrot, sat watching the canoes that followed, with voyageurs erect
in bow and stern, a voice in the next canoe, with a half-chanting
modulation, began a song of the wild-life. Voice after voice slowly took
it up, until it ran along the whole procession. A verse was sung, then
a chorus altogether, then a refrain of one verse which was sung by each
boat in succession to the last. As the refrain of this was sung by the
last boat it seemed to come out of the great haze behind. Verses of the
old song are still preserved:
“Qui vive!
Who is it cries in the dawn
Cries when the stars go down?
Who is it comes through the mist
The mist that is fine like lawn,
The mist like an angel’s gown?
Who is it comes in the dawn?
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.
“Qui rive!
Who is it passeth us by,
Still in the dawn and the mist?
Tall seigneur of the dawn:
A two-edged sword at his thigh,
A shield of gold at his wrist:
Who is it hurrieth by?
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.”
Under the influence of this beautiful mystery of the dawn, the slow
thrilling song, and the strange, happy loneliness--as though they were
in the wash between two worlds, Iberville got the great inspiration of
his life. He would be a discoverer, the faithful captain of his king, a
trader in provinces.... And in that he kept his word--years after, but
he kept it. There came with this, what always comes to a man of great
ideas: the woman who should share his prowess. Such a man, if forced to
choose between the woman and the idea, will ever decide for the woman
after he has married her, sacrificing what--however much he hides
it--lies behind all. But he alone knows what he has sacrificed. For it
is in the order of things that the great man shall be first the maker of
kingdoms and homes, and then the husband of his wife and a begetter of
children. Iberville knew that this woman was not more to him than the
feeling just come to him, but he knew also that while the one remained
the other would also.
He stood up and folded his arms, looking into the silence and mist. His
hand mechanically dropped to his sword, and he glanced up proudly to the
silver flag with its golden lilies floating softly on the slight breeze
they made as they passed.
“The sword!” he said under his breath. “The world and a woman by the
sword; there is no other way.”
He had the spirit of his time. The sword was its faith, its magic. If
two men loved a woman, the natural way to make happiness for all was
to let the sword do its eager office. For they had one of the
least-believed and most unpopular of truths, that a woman’s love is
more a matter of mastery and possession than instinct, two men being of
comparatively equal merit and sincerity.
His figure seemed to grow larger in the mist, and the grey haze gave his
hair a frosty coating, so that age and youth seemed strangely mingled in
him. He stood motionless for a long time as the song went on:
“Qui vive!
Who saileth into the morn,
Out of the wind of the dawn?
‘Follow, oh, follow me on!’
Calleth a distant horn.
He is here--he is there--he is gone,
Tall seigneur of the dawn!
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.”
Some one touched Iberville’s arm. It was Dollier de Casson. Iberville
turned to him, but they did not speak at first--the priest knew his
friend well.
“We shall succeed, abbe,” Iberville said.
“May our quarrel be a just one, Pierre,” was the grave reply.
“The forts are our king’s; the man is with my conscience, my dear
friend.”
“But if you make sorrow for the woman?”
“You brought me a gift from her!” His finger touched his doublet.
“She is English, my Pierre.”
“She is what God made her.”
“She may be sworn to the man.”
Iberville started, then shook his head incredulously. “He is not worthy
of her.”
“Are you?”
“I know her value better and prize it more.”
“You have not seen her for four years.”
“I had not seen you for four years--and yet!”
“You saw her then only for a few days--and she was so young!”
“What are days or years? Things lie deep in us till some great moment,
and then they spring into life and are ours for ever. When I kissed King
Louis’ hand I knew that I loved my king; when De Montespan’s. I hated,
and shall hate always. When I first saw this English girl I waked from
youth, I was born again into the world. I had no doubts, I have none
now.”
“And the man?”
“One knows one’s enemy even as the other. There is no way but this,
Dollier. He is the enemy of my king, and he is greatly in my debt.
Remember the Spaniards’ country!”
He laid a hand upon his sword. The face of the priest was calm and
grave, but in his eyes was a deep fire. At heart he was a soldier, a
loyalist, a gentleman of France. Perhaps there came to him then the
dreams of his youth, before a thing happened which made him at last a
servant of the Church after he had been a soldier of the king.
Presently the song of the voyageurs grew less, the refrain softened and
passed down the long line, and, as it were, from out of far mists came
the muffled challenge:
“Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.”
Then a silence fell once more. But presently from out of the mists there
came, as it were, the echo of their challenge:
“Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.”
The paddles stilled in the water and a thrill ran through the line of
voyageurs--even Iberville and his friends were touched by it.
Then there suddenly emerged from the haze on their left, ahead of them,
a long canoe with tall figures in bow and stern, using paddles. They
wore long cloaks, and feathers waved from their heads. In the centre
of the canoe was what seemed a body under a pall, at its head and feet
small censers. The smell of the wood came to them, and a little trail of
sweet smoke was left behind as the canoe swiftly passed into the mist on
the other side and was gone.
It had been seen vaguely. No one spoke, no one challenged; it had come
and gone like a dream. What it was, no one, not even Iberville,
could guess, though he thought it a pilgrimage of burial, such as was
sometimes made by distinguished members of Indian tribes. Or it may
have been--which is likely--a dead priest being carried south by Indian
friends.
The impression left upon the party was, however, characteristic. There
was none but, with the smell of the censers in his nostrils, made the
sacred gesture; and had the Jesuit Silvy or the Abbe de Casson been so
disposed, the event might have been made into the supernatural.
After a time the mist cleared away, and nothing could be seen on the
path they had travelled but the plain of clear water and the distant
shore they had left.
Ahead of them was another shore, and they reached this at last. Where
the mysterious canoe had vanished, none could tell.
Days upon days, they travelled with incredible labour, now portaging
over a stubborn country, now, placing their lives in hazard as they shot
down untravelled rapids.
One day on the Black Wing River a canoe was torn open and its three
occupants were thrown into the rapids. Two of them were expert swimmers
and were able to catch the stern of another canoe as it ran by, and
reached safe water, bruised but alive. The third was a boy, Maurice
Joval, the youngest of the party, whom Iberville had been at first loth
to bring with him. But he had remembered his own ambitious youth,
and had consented, persuading De Troyes that the lad was worth
encouragement. His canoe was not far behind when the other ran on the
rocks. He saw the lad struggle bravely and strike out, but a cross
current caught him and carried him towards the steep shore. There he was
thrown against a rock. His strength seemed to fail, but he grasped the
rock. It was scraggy, and though it tore and bruised him he clung to it.
Iberville threw off his doublet, and prepared to spring as his boat
came down. But another had made ready. It was the abbe, with his
cassock gone, and his huge form showing finely. He laid his hand upon
Iberville’s arm. “Stay here,” he said, “I go; I am the stronger.”
But Iberville, as cries of warning and appeal rang out around him,
the drowning lad had not cried out at all,--sprang into the water. Not
alone. The abbe looked around him, made the sacred gesture, and then
sprang also into an eddy a distance below, and at an angle made his
way up towards the two. Priest though he was, he was also an expert
river-man, and his vast strength served him royally. He saw Iberville
tossed here and there, but with impossible strength and good fortune
reach the lad. The two grasped each other and then struck out for the
high shore. De Casson seemed to know what would happen. He altered his
course, and, making for the shore also at a point below, reached it. He
saw with a kind of despair that it was steep and had no trees; yet his
keen eyes also saw, not far below, the dwarfed bole of a tree jutting
out from the rock. There lay the chance. Below this was a great turmoil
of rapids. A prayer mechanically passed the priest’s lips, though his
thoughts were those of a warrior then. He almost enjoyed the danger for
himself: his fear was for Iberville and for the motherless boy.
He had guessed and hoped aright. Iberville, supporting the now senseless
boy, swung down the mad torrent, his eyes blinded with blood so that
he could not see. But he heard De Casson’s voice, and with a splendid
effort threw himself and the lad towards it. The priest also fought
upwards to them and caught them as they came, having reserved his great
strength until now. Throwing his left arm over the lad he relieved
Iberville of his burden, but called to him to hold on. The blood was
flowing into Iberville’s eyes and he could do nothing else. But now came
the fight between the priest and the mad waters. Once--twice--thrice
they went beneath, but neither Iberville nor himself let go, and to the
apprehensive cries of their friends there succeeded calls of delight,
for De Casson had seized the jutting bole and held on. It did not give,
and they were safe for a moment.
A quarter of a mile below there was smoother water, and soon the canoes
were ashore, and Perrot, Sainte-Helene, and others were running to the
rescue. They arrived just in time. Ropes were let down, and the lad was
drawn up insensible. Then came the priest, for Iberville, battered as
he was, would not stir until the abbe had gone up--a stout strain on
the rope. Fortunately there were clefts and fissures in the wall,
which could be used in the ascent. De Casson had consented to go
first, chiefly because he wished to gratify the still youthful pride of
Iberville, who thought the soldier should see the priest into safety.
Iberville himself came up slowly, for he was stiff and his limbs were
shaking. His clothes were in tatters, and his fine face was like that of
a warrior defaced by swords.
But he refused to be carried, and his first care was for the boy, who
had received no mortal injury.
“You have saved the boy, Pierre,” said the priest, in a low voice.
“Self-abasing always, dear abbe; you saved us both. By heaven, but the
king lost a great man in you!”
“Hush! Mere brawn, Pierre.... By the blessing of God,” he added quickly.