bastion by the gate called out, 'Mademoiselle, I hear something!' I went
to him to find out what it was, and by the help of the snow which
covered the ground I could see in the darkness a number of cattle, the
miserable remnant that the Iroquois had left us. The others wanted to
open the gate and let them in, but I answered: 'No. You don't know all
the tricks of the savages. They are, no doubt, following the cattle,
covered with skins of such animals, so as to get into the fort if we are
foolish enough to open the gate for them.' Nevertheless, after taking
every precaution, I decided that we might open it without risk.
"At last the daylight came again, and as the darkness disappeared our
anxieties seemed to disappear with it. Everybody took courage excepting
Madame Marguerite, wife of the Sieur Fontaine, who, being extremely
timid, as all Parisian women are, asked her husband to carry her to
another fort. [A silly request, certainly.] He said, 'I will never
abandon this fort while Mademoiselle Madeleine is here.' I answered him
that I would rather die than give it up to the enemy, and that it was of
the greatest importance that they should never get possession of any
French fort, because if they took _one_ they would think they could get
others, and would grow more bold and presumptuous than ever.
"I may say, with truth, that I did not eat nor sleep for twice
twenty-four hours. I did not go once into my father's house, but kept
always on the bastion, or went to the block-house to see how the people
there were behaving. I always kept a cheerful and smiling face, and
encouraged my little company with the hope of speedy succor.
"We were one week in constant alarm, with the enemy always about us. At
last M. de la Monnerie, a lieutenant sent by M. de Callieres, arrived in
the night with forty men. [He came down the river.] As he did not know
whether the fort was taken or not, he approached as silently as
possible. One of our sentinels, hearing a slight sound, cried, 'Who goes
there?' I was at the time dozing, with my head on a table and my gun
lying across my arms. The sentinel told me that he heard a voice from
the river. I went up at once to the bastion to see whether it was of
Indians or Frenchmen. I demanded, 'Who goes there?' One of them replied,
'We are Frenchmen; it is De la Monnerie, come to bring you help.' I
caused the gate to be opened, placed a sentinel there, and went down to
the river to meet them. As soon as I saw M. de la Monnerie I saluted him
and said, 'Monsieur, I resign my arms to you.' He answered, gallantly,
'Mademoiselle, they are in good hands.' 'Better than you suppose,' I
returned. He inspected the fort and found everything in order and a
sentinel on each bastion. 'It is time to relieve them, monsieur,' said
I; 'we have not been off our bastions for a week.'"
M. de la Monnerie in astonished admiration took charge of the relieved
fort. The heroine's work was over. The savages fled, and not long after
they were captured near Lake Champlain, and some twenty persons they had
made prisoners at Vercheres were brought safely back. The father and
mother of Madeleine came from Montreal and Quebec, and heard the story
of her valor and coolness with rapturous praise. She grew up to be a
woman, receiving for her life a pension from the King of France as a
mark of honor, and she died at an advanced age.
VIII
HOW MARC WAS MADE CAPTAIN
A Rescue from the "Lords of the Woods" in 1695
One evening in the winter of 1694-95 a dozen young men were lounging
around the fire in the big room of the storehouse at St. Maxime, a small
settlement on the St. Lawrence River. The door opened and two others
entered, brushing the snow from their leggings and moccasins.
"What luck with your traps?" cried one of the loungers.
"An otter and eight beaver," answered Noel Duroc, as he tossed a pack of
pelts into the corner. He was a tall, straight young Frenchman, whose
gay and careless nature looked out frankly through a pair of laughing
black eyes. "But come, Madame Bouvier," he cried to the store-keeper's
wife, "give us something to eat; hot, and plenty of it--eh, Philippe! If
you want news, there's more than news of traps--it's of the Iroquois.
'Tis said they're ready for a raid to the north--to make glad the hearts
of their good friends the Algonquins and the French. So our old bear of
a seigneur may do some hugging. But to-night he has other things to
think of. Marc is home--came up along the river from Quebec to-day."
"Is he as much of a monk as 'twas said he would be?" asked Jean Bourdo.
"You know the old seigneur swears he will have no monk's scholar around
him--though he were twice his nephew."
"We have just seen Marc, and, trust me, he is the same jolly lad he was
two years ago. You can make no grave-faced monk of him! But the old
seigneur thinks him surely spoiled. 'Twere better Marc had not seen the
monastery--not that I lack as a churchman; what would we do at St.
Maxime were it not for our good Father Auguste, who taught us when we
were boys, and keeps us straight now that we are men?--for if he had
stayed here he would doubtless be our captain--a post worth having, now
that the Iroquois are like to visit us."
"Who will be our captain?" asked Jean Bourdo.
"The seigneur has sent to Quebec for an officer--one that's lately from
France, and that's been well trained in the King's army. The old man
knows how much we sympathize with Marc, and so, being surly as a bear,
he will have none of us."
"It may be a costly mistake, this putting of an Old-World soldier over
us," said Jean. "'Tis true we have small knowledge of the science of war
as taught in old France; but we can fight in the woods, and know how to
beat the Iroquois at their own game, and I'll warrant that's more than
this fine soldier can do! 'Tis a pity that Marc--a lad brought up in the
woods, whom we all like and would gladly follow--should be kept back
just because madame his mother sent him to school to the monks. But the
old seigneur will have his way, even when 'tis to his harm!"
"So he will; and if Marc is to lead us, the seigneur must be made to
think that it is his own doing. Come, Philippe," continued Noel, turning
to the man who had come in with him, "you are older than the rest, and
have a wiser head; think of some way of bending the seigneur to our
purpose."
They talked till far into the night, and when they separated the young
Frenchmen had the cheerful and impatient air of men (or boys, for so
they would now be counted) who had planned an undertaking and were in a
hurry to carry it out.
* * * * *
In the afternoon of the next day old Antoine de la Carre, seigneur of
the score of log-houses and the vast tract of woodland belonging to the
royal settlement of St. Maxime, marshalled his fighting force. In front
of the storehouse was an open space, from which the snow was kept clear,
and here the soldiers of St. Maxime were drawn up in line. There were
about forty of them all told, half of their number being young men,
voyageurs, and _coureurs des bois_; the others were older, heads of
families who devoted themselves to the more peaceful occupations of
fishing and farming.
"I have news," said Antoine de la Carre, "that the Iroquois are moving,
so it behooves us to make ready for them. You older men shall act as a
reserve; the younger ones I will organize into a company always to be
under arms and ready to repel attack. Noel Duroc, I appoint you
lieutenant, to have charge till the officer who is to be your captain
comes from Quebec. Be active in your duty, and see that you leave
nothing undone that is for the good of the settlement."
"We'll do what we think is best for the settlement, and he'll find us
active enough--that's certain!" whispered Jean Bourdo, nudging his
neighbor.
In the ranks of the younger men was a tall, dark-haired lad who had the
same bold features that belonged to the old seigneur. All observed him,
for it was Marc Larocque's first appearance after his two years' stay in
Quebec. He met his uncle's sour looks with unflinching, smiling eyes,
and the settlers whispered among themselves that the old seigneur would
find it no easy matter to ignore his nephew--he had the De la Carre
spirit, in spite of the monks and their book-learning.
That evening was a gloomy one in the house of Antoine de la Carre. The
old man sat in silence, drinking deep draughts of red French wine;
across the room was his sister, the widow Larocque, teaching their
catechism to two little maids. He knew she thought him unfair to her
son, who, by right of birth and his own qualities, had reason to expect
a place of authority at St. Maxime, and this knowledge made the old
seigneur more than usually irritable. When the children had finished
reading their tasks and left the room he broke out:
"Ha, Madeleine, you look so solemn, doubtless, because of your dear
Marc! Well, why did you send him to the monks to have a scholar made out
of him? You know how I despise these long-faced readers of musty books,
yet you must thwart me in this way. I'll not forgive you nor him. I had
no fault to find in the old days--then he was a good lad enough, and a
true De la Carre. But I tell you now, as I told you two years ago when
you talked of sending him to Quebec, that I'll have no bookman for a
nephew. So you've only yourself to blame if he be set aside. But you
were always obstinate."
"Ah, almost as obstinate as you, Antoine. But I'll not trouble about
Marc; if you'll not help him, there are others that will. In these
stirring times a boy like him is not forgotten."
After a pause he burst out again: "What folly it was! Has a lad here, in
our rugged New France, any need of court manners and monk's learning? If
you had sent him to learn war it would have been different. But to a
monastery! When a boy in old France, I was made to read Latin and dig
into musty manuscripts till they nearly made a philosopher of me. But I
had the good sense to turn soldier, and since then I've had no liking
for monks and their learning. Madeleine, you knew all this, and remember
now--"
He was interrupted by a crash. The door was burst open and half a dozen
Indians sprang into the room. Before Antoine could draw his dagger they
had leaped upon him, seized his arms, and smothered his shouts. Madame
Larocque was quickly and securely bound hand and foot and gagged.
The Iroquois--for by their paint and dress the old man thought his
captors to belong to the dreaded tribes of the Five Nations--worked
noiselessly and swiftly; in less than five minutes from the bursting in
of the door they led out Antoine de la Carre, his hands tied behind his
back, and a piece of leather so fastened over his mouth that he could
make no sound. The guards that should have been watching were nowhere to
be seen, and the Indians, with their prisoner, quickly scaled the
stockade, crept across a cleared space to the woods, hurried to the
river, and were soon on the smooth, wind-swept ice and moving rapidly
westward. "Where were those young rascals of my company when I needed
them?--drinking in the storehouse or dancing in one of the cabins, most
like!" growled old Antoine to himself.
He was as strong as an old bear, but his joints were stiffened with age,
and he had difficulty in keeping up with the rapid pace of the Indians.
"What sinews these Iroquois have!" he thought, as he struggled on. "No
Algonquin could hold his own with them; they run as well as our own
young _coureurs des bois_!"
When it became evident that he could go no farther, they stopped their
journey along the ice and, turning into the forest, went about a quarter
of a mile from the river's bank. Here they found a dense evergreen
thicket and prepared to make their camp. A fire was built, and some
strips of dried meat they carried were heated and eaten; then they
stretched themselves on evergreen boughs which had been piled on the
snow near the fire. A tall young Indian, who seemed to be the leader of
the little band, now turned to Antoine de la Carre and, much to his
surprise, spoke to him in French.
"Old man, eat and warm yourself. We have far to go, and you are not yet
to die."
Antoine obeyed, and after he had managed to swallow some of the tough
meat he felt better. "How do you, that are of the Iroquois, who trade
with the English and Dutch, come to speak French?" he asked of the young
Indian.
"A French girl was brought a captive to our tribe; my father, who was a
great warrior, took her for his squaw, and she was my mother. She taught
me the language of the French, and taught me also to listen to the words
of the black-robed Jesuits who used to come south to teach the Iroquois.
My mother loved my father, and bade me fight the enemies of his people,
and so I am here. But I wish the Jesuit teachers would come among the
Iroquois as they used to do. I liked to hear them talk in that strange
tongue they called the Latin."
"Did you?" said Antoine, glad to make friends with the young Iroquois.
"When young I was taught by the monks, and know some Latin."
"That is well," returned the Indian, with much satisfaction. "I too was
a pupil of the monks, and always listened to them gladly. Stand up and
repeat to us some of the Latin you learned. When the good Jesuit would
talk in that tongue to my mother and to me, the words came like music,
and then he would tell us the meaning--it told of adventures and battles
and great warriors. Repeat to us this musical tongue."
Antoine de la Carre would rather have fought a bull moose single-handed;
but here was no choice, and he stood up and did his best. That was not
very well; for his voice was as hoarse as a swamp-raven's, and it was
many years since he had looked in a book.
The Iroquois lying around on the evergreen boughs were greatly amused at
his efforts, laughing at his hoarse voice and at his stammering over the
Latin words.
"You do not do it as well as did the Jesuit," exclaimed the half-breed.
"Be careful, Frenchman! Remember, I am no dull log of a Montagnais--I am
an Iroquois, a lord of the woods, and will have no trifling!"
Antoine stammered on, getting more angry each moment; for to a proud old
soldier like him nothing was worse than appearing ridiculous. But this
was a matter of life and death, and he suppressed his feelings. "'Tis
well my young scamps of _coureurs des bois_ cannot see me now," he
thought. "They'd never stop laughing!"
"Look more cheerful, Frenchman!" said the tall half-breed, getting to
his feet. "What if you are to die to-morrow; surely death has no terrors
for so great a scholar and philosopher! And come, when you are talking
to warriors of the Iroquois take off your cap!" Antoine wore his black
velvet house-cap, and as the Iroquois spoke he stepped forward and
plucked it from the old man's head.
Antoine had been able to keep down his anger at their laughing, but this
was too much for his small stock of patience, which already was sorely
tried. He was desperate and reckless, for death was fairly certain under
any circumstances, and it might as well come to-night as later.
"Insolent--take that!" he exclaimed, and he struck out savagely.
The tall half-breed, hit squarely between the eyes, went down as if
before the blow of a sledge-hammer.
Several of the Indians sprang to their feet and seized the old man. The
half-breed got up slowly, half stunned. Antoine waited for his tomahawk
to strike the death-blow, but the half-breed did not raise his arm to
strike. "Old man," he said, "if I were like these other braves you would
even now be dead; but, as I told you, I am a convert, and the Jesuit
teaches that one must not be too quick in anger--especially with the old
and foolish. You shall live, at least till to-morrow; give thanks that
I, like yourself, am a monk-taught man!"
Soon afterwards the Iroquois arranged themselves to sleep, one of their
number being left as a sentinel and guard over their prisoner. Antoine's
hands and ankles were bound, and by the half-breed's orders he was laid
on the boughs near the fire. One by one the Indians, save the guard,
fell asleep; but the old Frenchman was too nervous and excited. Finally
his attention was arrested by an object that was slowly and noiselessly
stealing out from the evergreen thicket. It crept straight towards the
Indian sentinel, who lay gazing up at the stars that shone through the
tree-tops. Of a sudden there was a quick, stealthy movement and the
gleam of a knife: the sentinel's head sank back, and he lay stretched
out, still and motionless.
"A skilful thrust!" thought Antoine. "I never saw a man die so easily."
The man with the knife crept towards him, and in a moment Antoine felt
that the thongs about his ankles and wrists were cut. The man beckoned
and stole away; Antoine followed, and then they silently made their way
into the thicket--leaving the Indians sleeping in the white starlight,
the sentinel looking most peaceful of all.
[Illustration: THE THONGS WERE CUT]
"Do you know me, my uncle?" whispered Marc Larocque. "I tracked you
through the snow. Follow me swiftly and quietly."
Back they hurried to the river, and then began the journey over the ice
down to St. Maxime.
"I thought the Iroquois strong and fleet, Marc, but I see that none of
them is a match for you! You are a brave fellow, in spite of the monks,
and never shall I forget what you have done this night. But I wish you
had thrust your knife into the heart of the leader of the Iroquois, an
insolent fellow who pulled my cap from my head and laughed at me.
However, I gave him a good buffet between the eyes!"
Soon the old man began to lag behind, and Marc had to grasp his arm to
help him; so they ran on through the white winter's night. With ghostly
wings the great snowy owl flapped across their path, and the wolf pack
halted for a moment to watch them pass, and then turned away to hunt
again for some stray deer or wounded moose.
It was almost dawn when they reached the stockade at St. Maxime. Old
Antoine was exhausted, and had hardly strength enough to say to Marc:
"Send a messenger to Quebec to tell the French officer he need not come.
I have found a captain here."
Marc took him to the seigneury, and he fell into a heavy sleep, from
which he did not wake till afternoon. The soldiers were then at their
daily drill, and after he had eaten, the old man went out where they
were. Tall Lieutenant Noel Duroc was drilling them. Antoine de la Carre
gave them all a severe scolding for their carelessness the night before.
"If it were not for my brave nephew," he said, "I would surely have been
murdered by the Iroquois. Marc, step out from the ranks. I make you
captain!"
A shout went up from all the men, but old Antoine silenced it with a
gesture. He was looking at Noel Duroc. "Lieutenant, your face is black
and blue; how were you hurt? You were not so yesterday!"
"Last night, seigneur, an old bear gave me a buffet--and a good round
blow it was!"
Antoine looked at him hard. "Lieutenant, you had best let old bears
alone!" Then he turned quickly to his nephew. "Marc, has that messenger
yet started for Quebec who was to stop the French officer?"
"He left soon after daybreak this morning."
"Ah! you were not slow in sending him." The old man paused, and Noel,
who was watching him closely, thought he saw his mouth twitch under the
gray beard. "But never mind; it may be for the best. You shall be
captain, my nephew, and you, Noel Duroc, shall be lieutenant, though I
think you both rascals. However, no bookman could run as Marc did this
morning; and so I know he is not wholly spoiled by the monks."
"Bravo!" cried Noel Duroc, throwing up his cap. "Bravo! Here is a right
good seigneur who knows what is best for his people; and a kind uncle;
and--I'll pledge my word--a great scholar and philosopher too!"
IX
CAPTAIN KIDD
An Overrated Pirate
Of all the pirates whose dreaded top-sails appeared along the coast of
America in the old days of the colonies none has left a more grewsome
and romantic reputation behind him than Captain William Kidd, the New
York ship-master, who was born in 1650. Legends abound of his boldness,
his craftiness, and his savage and blood-thirsty disposition, and
stories of the immense treasure that he accumulated, the dreadful
murders that he committed in its acquisition, and when and with what
ghastly accompaniments he buried it are still told over the firesides of
'longshore hamlets from Maine to the Carolinas.
Fiction has not neglected to turn this pirate's career to its own
purpose, and one of Poe's most imaginative and thrilling tales is based
upon the discovery on Sullivan's Island, in Charleston Harbor (South
Carolina), of a parchment which, on being held to the fire, revealed a
cryptogram of Kidd's that led to the discovery of buried wealth
amounting to millions of dollars.
It seems almost a pity to tamper with the halo of romance and mystery
which posterity has drawn about this worthy's brow, but the fact is that
Kidd was an unready, unwise, and vacillating character, and that there
was little truth in the romances told about him. Beside such dreadfully
famous buccaneers as Blackbeard, Roberts, and Avery he appears a pygmy
in his own "profession," and his career, when contrasted with theirs,
seems colorless and contemptible.
As to the vast riches that he was supposed to have acquired, it is
doubtful if in his whole course of piracy he was able to accumulate more
than a hundred thousand dollars. One thing is assured--the only money
that he buried on the coast of America amounted to not more than
seventy-five thousand dollars, which he hid on Gardiner's Island, over
against New London, and the last penny of this was recovered by
Bellamont after Kidd's execution.
During King William's War Kidd, who was a handsome man of somewhat
pleasing address, made the acquaintance of Lord Bellamont, the Governor
of Barbadoes. The two were in New York at the time of the meeting, and
as Kidd was a member of a good family and moved in the limited
aristocratic circle of that day, the new acquaintances saw much of each
other. Kidd's plausible tongue, fund of anecdote, and agreeable manner
impressed the Governor so pleasantly that his liking for the shipman
developed into esteem, and esteem into friendship. Through Bellamont's
influence Kidd obtained command of a privateer, and a series of lucky
events contributed to his reputation, so that when he returned to New
York, after his cruise in the Gulf, Bellamont and his other fine friends
hailed him with adulation as a conquering hero. He was wined and feted,
was toasted by prominent men and noble dames, and over many a steaming
bowl and long-stemmed pipe loosed his glib speech in a way to impress
his hearers with a fine notion of his indomitable character. Through the
thick clouds of the Virginia tobacco smoke a great idea was born in
Bellamont's hazy brain. Complaints were made daily of the pirates that
infested the shores of the colonies. These pirates were rich with
plunder. True, they were skilful and bold and crafty, but here was a man
who by his own confession was more skilful and bolder and craftier than
any of them. Then, should Kidd be fitted out with a fine ship and a good
crew to chase these pirates and capture them, great glory would come to
Bellamont's name, and great good to Bellamont's pocket.
The idea was acted upon, and the Governor and some other wealthy
gentlemen purchased the _Adventure_ galley, equipped her, and armed her
with thirty carronades, while Kidd went down among the docks and the
sailors' lodging-houses, picking out for his crew sturdy two-handed
mariners, men long of the sea, blowzed by the weather, browned by the
wind, used to the pike and cutlass--men like ducks on the shore and like
monkeys in the rigging.
The ship was fitted out at Plymouth, and the great day of the sailing
arrived at last. The _Adventure_ pushed out into the stream, Kidd
smirking and bowing and striking attitudes on the quarter-deck, the busy
sailors swarming aloft to loose sail, the good ship heeling over farther
and farther as canvas after canvas was spread to a quartering breeze,
and an assemblage of fine ladies and gorgeous beaux waving scarfs and
fluttering handkerchiefs from the end of the pier.