"Not at all, indeed, Mademoiselle. It will be quite as much my pleasure as my duty to see you safely home. Your misfortune--if not too serious--is my great good fortune!"
Thanking him with a look, Barbe arose weakly and took the proffered arm. At first the homeward journey was very slow; but as the afternoon deepened, and the miles gathered between the English commandant and Jean"s little ship, the girl began to let herself recover. By this time she felt that there was no danger of her escort leaving her one minute before he was obliged to; and she knew that now, for this night, the ship was safe. At last, as they emerged from the woods into a high pasture-ground, behind the cottage where Barbe lived with her aunt and uncle, the Englishman threw off the gallant for a moment and became the wide-awake officer. He paused, took his bearings carefully, and scrutinized the trail behind him with searching eyes.
"I have not seen this road before, Mademoiselle," he marked, "and it interests me. It is not down on our map of the Annapolis district.
Whither does it lead, may I ask?"
Barbe"s heart grew faint within her; but she answered lightly, with a look that somehow conveyed to him the impression that he should not be interested in roads when she was by.
"They haul wood over it, my uncle and his neighbors, in the winter,"
she answered, "and black mud in summer from the swamp back there."
The Englishman appeared satisfied; but she felt that his curiosity was aroused, and with all her arts she strove to divert his thoughts exclusively to herself. She succeeded in this to a degree that presently began to stir her apprehensiveness, and at her doorway she made her grateful farewells a trifle hurried. But the Englishman would listen to nothing more discouraging than au revoir. At last he said:
"I shall be shooting over these woods again to-morrow"--Barbe clutched hard upon the latch and held her breath--"and shall give myself the pleasure of calling to ask after--but no!" he corrected himself. "You are making me forget, Mademoiselle. I have a council-meeting to fill my day with drudgery to-morrow." (Barbe breathed again at this respite.) "I must deny myself till the day after. I may call then, may I not?"
There was a moment"s pause, and in that moment the girl"s swift brain made its decision.
"Certainly, Monsieur le Commandant," she said, sweeping his face with a brilliant glance that made his nerves tingle sweetly; "I shall be much honored. My aunt and I will be much honored!" And with a curtsy half mocking, half formal, and a disastrous curving of her scarlet lips, she slipped into the house.
"By--Jove!" muttered the Englishman, as he strode away in a daze.
From the window, behind the bean vines, Barbe watched him go. The instant he was out of sight she darted from the door, sped swiftly over the rough pasture-lot, and disappeared among the twilights of the trail, where the afternoon shadows were already darkening to purple.
She ran with the endurance of health and practice and a clean-breathing outdoor life; but presently her breath began to fail, her heart to thump madly against her slim sides. Then--around a bend of the trail came Jean, returning earlier than his wont. With an exclamation of glad surprise he sprang forward to meet her. Still more was his surprise when she caught him by the shoulders with both hands and leaned, gasping and sobbing, against his breast.
After one fierce clasp he held her lightly and tenderly like a child, and anxiously scanned her face.
"What is it, Barbe, beloved? What is the matter?" he questioned eagerly.
"The ship," she panted, "must go! You must go--_to-morrow_ night!"
"Why? But it is impossible!" he protested, bewildered. "Mich" won"t be here till the day after--and one man can"t launch her, and can"t sail her all by himself."
"I tell you it must be done," she cried imperiously. "You must, you must!" And then, in a few edged words, she explained the situation.
"If you can"t, all is lost," she concluded, "for they will discover you, and seize the ship, the day after to-morrow. Jean, I would never believe that you had any such word as "can"t.""
By this time Jean"s face was white and his jaw was set.
"Of course," he said quietly, "it will be done somehow. I"m not beaten till I"m dead. But the chances are, Sweet, that after I get the little ship launched I"ll run her aground somewhere down the river, and be caught next day like a rat in a barrel. It"s ticklish navigating at best, down the river, and one man can"t rightly manage even the foresail alone, and steer, in those eddies and twists in the channel.
But--"
"But, Jean--" she interrupted, and then paused, leaning close against him, and looking up at him with eyes that seemed to him to make a brightness in the dark.
"But what, beautiful one?" he questioned, leaning his face over her, and growing suddenly tremulous with a vague, wonderful expectancy.
"I can help! Take me!" And she hid her eyes against his rough shirt-sleeve.
For one moment Jean stood tense, moveless, unable to apprehend this sudden realization of his dreams. Then he swung her light figure up into his arms, and covered her face and hair with kisses. With a little smile of content upon her lips she suffered his madness for a while. Then she made him put her down.
"There is no time now to make love to me," she said. "We"ve so much to do and plan. You"ve never run away with a ship and a girl before, Jean, and we must make sure you know just how to go about it."
That night Barbe s.n.a.t.c.hed a few hours of sleep, being mindful of the witchery of her eyes. But Jean toiled all night long, driving his yoke of oxen to and fro between his cabin and his shipyard in the forest.
And he was not weary. His heart was light as air and sang with every pulse. His strength and his star--he felt them equal to any crisis.
On the following afternoon, when it wanted yet an hour of high tide, and the shadows of the maples were beginning to creep over the yellow chips, all was ready. Full of a wild gayety, and untiring as a boy, Barbe had worked all day, getting the sails bent, the stores on board, the last of block and tackle into place. Suddenly, from a post of vantage in the high-pointing bowsprit, she looked down the trail and clapped her brown hands with a shout of delight.
"Mich" has come!" she cried. And Mich" Ma.s.son, striding into the open, threw down a big red bundle on the chips.
"Pretty nigh ready?" he inquired. "Why, what is the matter, _mon gar"_?"
Jean"s face had fallen like his heart. There was no longer any necessity of Barbe"s sharing his adventure. But he hurried forward and clasped his friend"s hand.
"We"ve got to get away to-night," he stammered, struggling bravely to make his voice sound cheerful. "The English are coming over here to-morrow to find out what"s going on--so it"s time for us to be going off! Barbe was to help me through with it."
Mich" held to Jean"s hand, and glanced questioningly from his troubled face to the girl"s teasing one. But Barbe had burned her bridges and saw no reason to be unmerciful.
"I suppose I"ll have to be just crew and cabin-boy now, Mich"," she pouted. "Jean was going to let me be first mate, and there wasn"t to be any crew."
A great joy broke over Jean"s face, and Mich" removed his gray woolen cap with a sweeping bow. But before either could reply there came from a little way up the trail the excited yapping as of a dog that has treed a partridge. The three looked at each other, their eyes wide with apprehension. Then the report of a gun.
"The Englishman!" gasped Barbe. "He has not waited. Quick, hide, one each side of the trail, and take him prisoner. Don"t shoot him. He was kind to me."
Jean s.n.a.t.c.hed up his musket and the two men darted into the bush. By a rope from the bulwarks Barbe swung herself lightly to the ground. In haste she crossed the chip-strewn open, and then, carelessly swinging her hat in her hand, and singing a fitful s.n.a.t.c.h of song, she sauntered up the trail to meet the intruder.
The trail wound rapidly, so that before she had gone two-score paces the ship was hid from her view. A few steps more and the Englishman came in sight, swinging forward alertly, a fluff of brown feathers dangling from his right hand. He was face to face with Barbe; and the delighted astonishment that came into his eyes was dashed with a faint chill of suspicion.
"How fate favors me, Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, doffing his cap.
"Gad, you are a brave girl to wander so far into the woods alone!"
"No, Monsieur, fate does not favor you," retorted Barbe with a sort of intimate petulance, holding out her brown fingers. "You had no business coming to-day when you said you were not coming till to-morrow. Now, you are going to find out a secret of mine which I didn"t want any one to find out."
"But you are not angry at seeing me," he protested.
"N-n-o-o!" she answered, her head upon one side in doubt, while she bewildered him with her eyes. "But I"m sorry in a way! Well, come and I"ll show you. Forgive me for lying to you yesterday about this road!"
And she turned to accompany him, walking very close to his side, so that her slim shoulder touched his arm and blurred his sagacity. The next instant came the sharp order: "Halt! Don"t stir, or you"re dead!"
The Englishman found himself facing two leveled muskets. At the same moment his own weapon went flying into the underbrush, twitched from his hold by a dexterous catch of Barbe"s fingers.
He stood still and very straight, his arms at his sides, eying his a.s.sailants steadily. His first impulse was to dart upon them with his naked hands; but he saw the well-knit form of Jean, almost his own height, the lean, set face, a certain exultation in the eyes which he read aright; and he saw the shrewd, dark, confident look of Mich", the experienced master of situations. The red mounted slowly to his face, and he turned upon Barbe a look wherein reproach at once gave way to scorn and a kind of shame.
Barbe herself flushed under that look.
"You wrong me, Monsieur!" she cried impetuously. "I did it to save you. You are a brave man, and would have tried to fight, and they would have killed you!"
He bowed stiffly and turned to the men.
"What do you want of me?"