The Soul’s Supremer Sense
At this point it seems proper that I should once more speak in my own
person; for at this point the story of my beloved once more converges to
my own.
I was awakened out of a bitter dream by Marc’s lips moving at my ear in
the stealthiest whisper. The first pallor of dawn was sifting down
amongst us from the open hatch, opened for air. I nodded my head to
signify I was awake and listening. There was a ringing gabble of small
waves against the ship’s side, covering up all trivial sounds; and I
knew we were tacking.
“Listen now, Paul,” said Marc’s obscure whisper, like a voice within my
head. “We have made a beginning earlier than we planned, because the
guards were sleepy, and the noise of these light waves favoured us. You
knew, or guessed, we had a plan. That wily fox, La Mouche, brought a
file with him in his boot. It was sent to him while he was in the chapel
prison. Grûl, none other, sent it to him inside a loaf of bread—and,
faith, thereby came a broken tooth. Your Grûl is wonderful, a _deus ex
machinâ_ every time. Well, we muffled the file in my shirt, and I
scraped away, under cover of all this good noise, at the spring of La
Mouche’s handcuffs, till it gave. Now he can slip them on and off in a
twinkling; but to the eye of authority they are infrangible as ever. Oh,
things are coming our way at last, for a change, my poor dejected! We
will rise to-night, this very coming night, if all goes well; and the
ship will be ours, for we are five to one.”
There was a thrill in his whisper, imperturbable Marc though he was.
Under the long chafing of restraint his imperturbability had worn thin.
My own blood flowed with a sudden warmth at his words. Here was a near
hope of freedom, and freedom would mean to me but one thing—a swift
return to the neighbourhood where I might achieve to see Yvonne. I felt
the strong medicine of this thought working health in every vein.
“But how to-night?” I whispered back, unwilling to be too soon sanguine.
“It takes time to file fetters, _n’est-ce pas_?”
“Oh, but trust La Mouche!” replied Marc. “He understands those
bracelets—as you, my cousin, in days you doubtless choose to forget,
understood the more fragile, but scarce less fettering, ones affected by
fair arms in Montreal, or Quebec, or even Trois Pistoles.”
I took it ill of my cousin to gall my sore at such a moment, but I
strictly held my tongue; and after a vexing pause he went on:
“This wily La Mouche—with free hands and the knowing how, it is but a
turn and a click, and the thing is off. It will be no mean weapon, too,
when we’re ready to wield it.”
I stretched fiercely.
“Pray God it be to-night!” I muttered.
“S-sh-sh!” whispered Marc in my ear. “Not so loud, boy! Now, with this
to dream on, go to sleep again. There’ll be something to keep us awake
next night.”
“And when we’ve got the ship, what then?” I whispered, feeling no doubt
of our success.
“We’ll run into the St. John mouth,” was the answer, “and then, leaving
the women and children, with such men as will stay, at the Jemseg
settlement, we will strike overland on snow-shoes for Quebec.”
“And I for Grand Pré,” said I doggedly.
I heard the ghost of a laugh flit from Marc’s lips.
“Good dog! Hold fast!” said he.
There was no gainsaying it. I was better. For perhaps an hour or two I
slept like a baby, to awake deeply refreshed. A clear light came down
the hatch, and there was a busy tramping of sailors overhead. It was
high morning.
We were all awake, but silent. Sullen we might have seemed, and
hopelessly submissive, but there was an alertness in the eyes flashing
everywhere toward Marc and me, such as might have been warning to a folk
less hardily indifferent than our captors. Two red-coated guards, taxed
with the office of preventing conspiracy, paced up and down with their
heads high and heeded us little. “What could these poor handcuffed
wretches do, anyway?” was the palpable significance of their mien.
We desired indeed, at that time, to do nothing save eat the breakfast of
weevilly biscuits just now served out to us, with good water still sweet
from the wells of vanished Grand Pré. When one has hunger, there is rare
relish in a weevilly biscuit; and I could have desired more of them than
I got. With our fettered hands we ate like a colony of squirrels.
In the course of the morning it was not difficult, the guards being so
heedless, to pass whispered word from one to another, so that soon all
Marc’s plans were duly laid down. His was the devising and ordering
head, while La Mouche, for all his subtlety, and long Philibert Trou,
for all his craft, were but the wielded instruments. It was an unwonted
part for me to be playing, this of blindly following another’s lead; but
Marc had done well, seeing my heavy preoccupation, to make no great
demand upon my wits. My arm, he knew, would be ready enough at need. I
was not jealous. I wanted to fight the English; but I wanted to
think—well, of just one thing on earth. Looking back now, I trust I
would have been more useful to our cause that morning had not Marc’s
capacity made wits of mine superfluous.
Throughout the morning we were all so quiet that the ship’s rats, lean
and grey, came out and ate the few crumbs we had let drop. Nevertheless,
ere an hour before noon every man knew the part he was to play in the
venture of next night. Long Philibert and La Mouche, with two other
Acadian woodsmen skilled in ambuscade, were to deal with the guard
silently. Marc and I, with no stomach for aught but open warfare, were
to lead the rush up through the hatchway, to an excellent chance of a
bayonet through our gullets. I felt justified now, however, in
considering as to whether I should be likely to find Yvonne still at
Grand Pré, casting a ray of beauty on the ruins, or at Halifax,
disturbing with her eyes the deliberations of the governor and his
council.
I said—one hour before noon. About that time the speed of the ship
sensibly slackened, and there seemed presently a confusion, an
excitement of some sort upon deck. We heard hails and sharp orders.
There was a sound as of people coming on board. And then, of a sudden, a
strange trembling seized upon me. It was in every nerve and vein, and my
heart shook merely, instead of beating. Such a feeling had come over me
once before—when Yvonne’s eyes, turned upon me suddenly, seemed to say
more than her lips would have permitted her to acknowledge. With a faint
laugh at the very madness of it I could not but say to Marc:
“I think that is Yvonne coming!”
Whereupon he looked at me solicitously, as if he thought I was about to
be taken with some sickness.
I bit my tongue for having said it.
Before many minutes, however, footsteps passed near the hatchway, and
again the trembling took me. Then I caught a ripple of clear
laughter—life has never afforded to my ears other melody so sweet as
that laughter was, and is, and always will be. I sprang straight upon my
feet, but instantly sat down again. Marc himself had heard it and was
puzzled, for who that had ever heard the laughter of Yvonne de Lamourie
could forget it?
“It—_is she_!” I said to him, in a thick voice.