"You are welcome," he said. "I had thought the Indians had left no living beings behind them in all this forest save my brother and myself."
No introductions were needed in this savage place; the face of every white man lit up at sight of a like countenance, and at the sound of the familiar tongue. The men shook hands with a hearty grip, and one said to Humphrey:
"You have had Indians here?"
Humphrey made an expressive gesture with his hand.
"This was a week ago as fair a holding as heart of man could wish to see in this grim forest. You see what is left today!"
"Your house is burnt down, as we plainly see. Have you lost aught beside? Has human blood been spilt?"
"The corpse of my venerable father, and that of a bold baby boy, lie beneath yon heap of ruins which made their funeral pyre. In yonder grave lie the mingled corpses of my brother"s wife and four fair children, hacked to death and half burnt by the savages. And yet this work is not the work of savages alone. With them we have dwelt at peace these many years. The shame, the horror, the disgrace of it is that we owe these horrors to the white sons of France, who hound on the savages to make these raids, and stand by to see them do their b.l.o.o.d.y work!"
The two strangers exchanged glances--meaning glances--and one of them laid a hand upon Humphrey"s shoulder, looking earnestly into his eyes the while.
"Is it so in very truth? So have we heard in whispers, but it was a thing we could scarce believe. We have travelled far from the lands of the south to join our brethren of the English race. We heard rumours of wars cruel and b.l.o.o.d.y. Yet it seemed to us too strange a thing to believe that here, amid the hostile, savage Indians, white man could wage war with white man, and take the b.l.o.o.d.y heathen man as his ally, instead of the brother who bears the name of Christ!"
Humphrey looked with some wonder and fascination into the face of the youth who spoke. It was a refined and beautiful face, notwithstanding the evidences of long exposure to sun and wind. The features were finely cut, sensitive and expressive, and the eyes were very luminous in their glance, and possessed strangely penetrating powers. In stature the young man was almost as tall as Humphrey, but of a much slighter build; yet he was wiry and muscular, as could well be seen, and plainly well used to the life of the wild woodlands. His dress was that of the backwoods, dressed deerskin being the chief material used. Both travellers wore moccasins on their feet, and carried the usual weapons of offence and defence.
Yet Humphrey felt as though this man was in some sort different from those he had met in the woods at rare times when out hunting.
His voice, his words, his phraseology seemed in some sort strange, and he asked him wonderingly:
"From whence are you, friends?"
"From the land of the far south--from the rolling plains of the giant Mississippi, that vast river of which perchance you have heard?"
"Ay, verily," answered Humphrey, with a touch of bitterness in his tone. "I have heard of that great river, which the French King claims to have discovered, and which they say he will guard with a chain of forts right away from Canada, and will thus command all the New World of the West, pinning us English within the limits of that portion of land lying betwixt the ocean and the range of the Allegheny Mountains," and Humphrey waved his hand in that direction, and looked questioningly at the men before him.
He had an impression that all who came from the far south, from the colony of Louisiana, as he had heard it called, must be in some sort French subjects. And yet these men spoke his own tongue, and seemed to be friends and brothers.
"That was the chimera of the French Monarch more than a century ago. Methinks it is little nearer its accomplishment now than when our forefathers, acting as pioneers, made a small settlement in a green valley near to the mouth of the giant river, waiting for the King to send his priests and missionaries to convert the heathen from their evil ways, and found a fair Christian realm in that fair land."
"Then were your forefathers French subjects?" asked Humphrey, rather bewildered. "If so, how come you to speak mine own tongue as you do?"
"I come of no French stock!" cried the companion stranger, who had remained silent until now, looking searchingly round the clearing, and examining Humphrey himself with curiosity; "I have no drop of French blood in my veins, whatever Julian may have. I am Fritz Neville. I come of an English family. But you shall hear all later on, as we sit by our fire at night. I would hear all your tale of desolation and woe. We, for our part, have no cause to love the French oppressors, whose ambition and greed seem to know no bounds.
Can you give us shelter by your hearth tonight? Food we have of our own, since we find game in sufficient abundance in these forest tracks."
As he spoke he unslung from his shoulders a fine young fawn which they had lately shot, and Humphrey made eager answer to the request for hospitality.
"Would that we had better to offer! But the homestead is burnt. My brother lies sick of a fever in yon shed--a fever brought on by loss of blood and by anguish of mind. I have been alone in this place with him hard upon a week now, and to me it seems as though years instead of days had pa.s.sed over my head since the calamity happened."
"I can well believe that," said the first speaker, whom his companion had spoken of as Julian. "There be times in a man"s life when hours are as days and days as years. But let me see your brother if he be sick. I have some skill in the treatment of fevers, and I have brought in my wallet some simples which we find wonderfully helpful down in the south, from where I come. I doubt not I can bring him relief."
Humphrey"s face brightened with a look of joyful relief, and Fritz exclaimed heartily:
"Yes, yes, Julian is a notable leech. We all come to him with our troubles both of body and mind.
"Lead on, comrade. I will cook the supper whilst you and he tend the sick man; and afterwards we will tell all our tale; and take counsel for the future."
It was new life to Humphrey to hear the sound of human voices, to feel the touch of friendly hands, to know himself not alone in the awful isolation of the vast forest. He led the way to the rough shed, which he had contrived during the past days to convert into a rude species of sleeping and living room. He had made a hearth and a chimney, so that he could cook food whilst still keeping an eye upon his sick brother. He had contrived a certain amount of rude comfort in Charles"s bed and surroundings. The place looked pleasant to the wearied, travellers, for it was spotlessly clean, and it afforded shelter from the keen night air.
They had been finding the nights grow cold as they journeyed northward, and Fritz rubbed his hands at sight of the glow of the fire, and set to work eagerly upon his culinary tasks; whilst Julian and Humphrey bent over Charles, the former examining the condition of his pulse and skin with the air of one who knows how to combat the symptoms of illness.
He administered a draught, and bathed the sick man"s temples with some pungent decoction of herbs which he prepared with hot water; and after giving him a small quant.i.ty of soup, told Humphrey that he would probably sleep quietly all night, and might very likely awake without any fever, though as weak as a child.
And in effect only a short time elapsed before his eyes closed, and he sank into a peaceful slumber, such as he had not known throughout the past days.
"Thank G.o.d you came!" said Humphrey with fervour; "I had thought to bury my brother here beside his wife, and the loneliness and horror had well nigh driven me mad. If he live, I shall have something left to live for; else I could have wished that we had all perished together!"
"Nay," cried Fritz from the fire, "we can do better than that: we can join those who have the welfare of the country at heart. We can punish proud France for her ambition and encroachments, and perchance--who knows?--England"s flag may ere long proudly wave where now only the banner of France has floated from her scattered forts."
But just at this moment Humphrey could not be roused to any patriotic fervour. The sense of personal loss and horror was strong upon him. His thoughts were turning vaguely towards the mother country from which his fathers had come. For the moment the wild West was hateful to him. He could not face the thought of taking up the old life again. He had been uprooted too suddenly and ruthlessly. The spell of the forest was gone. Sometimes he felt that he never wished to look upon waving trees again.
As they partook of the well-cooked supper which Fritz had provided, and afterwards sat smoking their pipes beside the fire, whilst the wind moaned and sighed round the corners of the shed, and whispered through the trees around the clearing, he told these strangers the whole history of his life, and how it had seemed to be suddenly cut in half a week ago, whilst the last half already began to look and feel to him longer than the first.
There was no lack of sympathy and interest in the faces of his hearers. When they heard how a Frenchman had been with the Indians upon their raid, Fritz smote the ground heavily with his open hand, exclaiming:
"That is what we heard as we journeyed onward; that is the rumour that reached us even in the far south. It was hard to believe that brother should turn against brother out here in these trackless wilds, amid hordes of savage Indians. We said it must surely be false--that Christian men could not be guilty of such wickedness!
Yet it has proved all too true. We have heard stories during our journey which have filled our hearts with loathing and scorn.
France is playing a treacherous, a vile and unworthy game. England is no match for her yet--unprepared and taken at a disadvantage.
But you will see, you will see! She will arise from sleep like a giant refreshed! And then let proud France tremble for her b.l.o.o.d.y laurels!"
His eye flashed, and Julian said thoughtfully:
"Ay, truly has she stained her laurels with blood; and she is even now staining her annals with dark crimes, when she stirs up the savage Indian to bring death and desolation to those peaceful settlers with whom they have so long lived as friends. G.o.d will require their blood at the hands of France. Let her beware! for the hour of her destruction will not be prolonged if she sells herself to sin."
There was a long silence then between the three men; it was at length broken by Humphrey, who looked from one to the other, and said:
"You have not yet told me of yourselves. Who are you, and whence do you come? I have heard of vast plains and mighty rivers in the south and west, but I know nothing beyond these forest tracks which lie about our desolated home."
Fritz signed to Julian to be the speaker, and he leaned his back against the wall, clasping his hands behind his head. The firelight gleamed upon his earnest face and shone in his brilliant eyes.
Humphrey regarded him with a species of fascination. He had never seen a man quite of this type before.
"Have you ever heard," asked Julian, "of that great explorer La Salle, who first made the voyage of the great river Mississippi, and founded the infant colony of Louisiana, albeit he himself perished by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin in the wilderness, before he had half achieved the object to which he was pledged?"
"I have heard the name," said Humphrey; "I used to hear the men of Philadelphia talk of such things when I was a boy. But he was a Frenchman."
"Yes, and came with a commission from the King of France hard upon a century ago. My great-grandfather and his father were of the company of La Salle, although they bore their part in a different expedition from that which is known to the world."
"Are you then French?" asked Humphrey, half disappointed, though he could not tell why.
Julian smiled, reading the thought in his heart.
"French in little beside name," he replied. "My great grandfather, Gaspard Dautray, was half English through his mother, an Englishwoman; and he married Mary Neville, an English maiden, from whose family Fritz there is descended. In brief, let me tell you the story. Long before La Salle had penetrated the fastnesses of the west, there had grown up in a green valley a little colony of English, outcasts from their own land by reason of their faith.
They had lived at peace for long with the Indian tribes; but when more white men began invading their country, jealousy and fury were awakened in the hearts of the Indians, and this little settlement was in great danger. In their extremity this little colony sent to La Salle, and though he himself was absent, his lieutenant sent them a band of men to aid them in defending their lives and property, and in routing the attacking Indian force.
"But it was no longer safe to remain in the green valley which had sheltered them so long. They heard of the lands of the south, down the great mysterious river, and they resolved to seek an asylum there.
"With the company of La Salle, and yet not attached to it, was a holy man whom all the world called Father Fritz; a priest, yet one who followed not the Pope of Rome, but loved each Christian brother, and recognized only one Church--the Church of the baptized. He went with the little band, and they made themselves a new home in the land of the south. They were beloved of the Indians about them. Father Fritz taught them, baptized such as were truly converted, and lived amongst them to a h.o.a.ry old age, loving and beloved; seeking always to hold them back from greed and covetousness, and teaching them that the hope for which they must look was the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself to reign upon the earth."