I tried to wave the picture away, but I had not strength to resist looking. It was no profile that I saw. The brown eyes looked full in mine; merry eyes, challenging, fun-crowded, innocent. There were no sombre shadows there. There was spirit in plenty, but no sorrow.
White shoulders rose from clouds of pink gauze, and the hair was powdered and pearl-wreathed and piled high in a coronet. It was not the face of the woman that I knew. I said so, and returned the portrait to the Englishman.
He could not resist baiting me. "You do not like it, monsieur?"
I shook my head. "It is nothing to me. It is the face of a laughing, trusting, untouched girl. I have never seen her."
"You say that you married her."
"Monsieur, this is a girl. I married a woman, a woman matured by tragedy. The eyes that are laughing in this portrait are wiser now.
They have seen the depths of a man"s treachery. But they have not lost their spirit, no, nor their tenderness, monsieur. You will find little that you recognize in the woman who is now my wife."
He kept his composure. "You use the word "wife" very glibly," he said, with a yawn. "Do you use it when the lady is within hearing, as you do now?"
"She is my wife."
He laughed, for he saw he had drawn blood. "Your wife in name, perhaps,--I grant you that,--but not in fact. Do you think me blind that I should not see the two cabins. And you said that you had never crossed the threshold of the woman"s room. I see that I shall find my cousin the maiden that I left her, monsieur."
I kept my lips closed. He had indeed drawn blood. I could not answer.
He leaned forward and tapped a significant forefinger on my knee.
"Remember, she has kissed me, monsieur. She has kissed me often of her own will."
And then my spirit did return. "That does not concern me."
He lifted his great lip. "You are indulgent."
The flies buzzed odiously. The Englishman was gloating over me, his great head craned forward like a buzzard"s. My brain took fire.
"I am not indulgent," I said slowly, with my throat dry. "I am wise.
She has kissed you, yes. I have no doubt that she has kissed you many times, casually, lightly, indifferently. She brushed the plumage of her falcon in the same way. You are welcome to the memory of those kisses, my lord. You may have more like them in the future, and I shall not say you nay. They mean nothing."
He scowled at me. "What do you know of her kisses?" he said under his breath.
I looked him in the eye. "I know this. There is but one kiss that means anything from a woman, and she gives it, if she is the right kind of a woman, to but one man in her life. For the rest,--I value them no more than the brush of her finger-tips. Tell me, have you felt her lips pressed to yours till her breath and her soul were one with you?
Tell me that. Answer, I say."
I had let the cord of reason and decency slip. I rose, and I think that the hate in my face must have been wolfish, for the man drew back.
He tried to look contemptuous, but I saw fear in his eyes. Fear and something more,--a sudden pain and longing. The emotion that heretofore he had kept well in hand trapped him for the moment. I was answered. The woman might never be mine, but she had never been his, either. I turned away. I was triumphant, but I loathed myself. I was sick with the situation, and the man who had brought me to it.
"You may keep your kisses, monsieur," I said savagely. "You may keep them. But if you mention them to me again I shall throttle you where you stand."
The Englishman had felt the revulsion, and he showed no resentment of my heat. He heaved himself up in the hot, horrible sunshine and rubbed his hands as if washing them free.
"We are curs," he said quietly.
I could not say nay. "We must eat," I cautioned; "we must eat, and keep ourselves sane. If we can get through this day without murder or worse, we shall have work to do from now on that will serve to keep our heads clear. Pierre will be coming soon now."
Starling was regarding me keenly. "You lose your temper, and therefore you should be easy to read," he said reflectively. "But you are not.
You evidently married my cousin for convenience. I can understand the situation. But you stand by your bargain well. You have the honor of your name somewhat sensitively at heart. But if you had not married her---- If there were no compulsion, no outside reason--tell me, would you marry her now?"
But that I left unanswered.
CHAPTER XXI
THE PIVOT
Pierre came at five o"clock. He was keen for the approaching supper hour and came jovially.
I was sick with haste, and deep sunk in my own grief, so I was cruel and a fool; I plumped the facts at him without a softening word. And so I frustrated my own ends. The great, slow creature cowered and grew dumb under my story. Then he went, great-eyed and hanging-lipped, from cabin to cabin. I had locked up his springs of word and thought.
But one thing my sword and my words prodded out of him. He had come by the portage path from the east, and had seen no marks of pa.s.sage that were less than a week old. Our star led west.
I baled what provision and ammunition we needed, loaded the canoes, and cached the furs and the balance of the stores at the edge of the forest. At six o"clock we were afloat. I led the way, and Pierre followed with the Englishman. This gave me s.p.a.ce to think in silence.
The sun sank red and clear, and we paddled from a colored dusk to a clear starlight. I knew this dimly, as the lost in the inferno know the barred joys above them. Unless we found Pemaou within the next few hours I should never be one with the loveliness of nature again.
I held my way due west to the Malhominis. I could secure their cooperation, if nothing more. Pierre followed at a canoe length, and we traveled unbrokenly. It was an hour short of midnight when we saw the west sh.o.r.e. I could take no bearings in the dim light, so we nosed along, uncertain whether to go north or south to find the mouth of the Wild Rice River where the Malhominis had their home. We held a short colloquy and started northward. Suddenly Pierre shot his canoe beside my own.
"A camp!" he breathed in a giant whisper.
I suspended my paddle. On the sh.o.r.e to the north of us were lights.
It could not be the Malhominis, for they lived inland; it was not Pemaou, for the camp was many times larger than his would be. It was probably a hunting party. All the western tribes were friendly; more, they were my allies. I saw no necessity for caution. I raised a long halloo, and our canoes raced toward the lights.
We landed in a medley. Indians sprang from the squatting groups around the fire and ran to meet us. They were black shapes that I could not recognize. I leaped from my canoe and held up my hand in greeting.
But an arm reached out and tore my musket from me. I looked up. A leering Iroquois stood over me.
I dropped my arms and stood pa.s.sive. A look over my shoulder told me that Pierre and Starling had been seized and were fighting well.
"Caution!" I called. "Do not resist. Watch me."
"Where are we? What does it mean?" Starling called back. His voice was shaking.
I held out my arms to be bound. "The Iroquois!" I shouted to Pierre in dialect. "I did not know there were any within a thousand miles. Keep steady. Follow me. We may find Pemaou here."
The Indians bound us systematically, but without undue elation, so that I judged that they had many captives. They were Senecas and had the look of picked men. I understood their speech, but beyond ribald jests at our expense they said nothing. It was all swift, unreal. Owls hooted in the woods and dogs snarled at us. The groups that remained by the fire peered in our direction, but were too lethargic to come near. I tried for a word with Starling. I feared for his spirit.
"They are Senecas," I managed to say to him; "the most diplomatic nation of the Iroquois league. They will not butcher us without consideration. Keep cool."
He nodded with some patronage. He looked impressive, unshaken; yet the moment before he had been terror-stricken. I saw that I did not understand him, after all.
Having bound us, our captors raised a shout and shouldered us toward the camp. A young brave capered before us, beating his breast and singing. The braves by the fire took up the cry.
And so we were pushed into the circle of flaming light. The Indians crowded to us, and pressed their oily, grinning faces so near that I felt their breath. I stumbled over refuse, and dirt-crusted dogs blocked my way. The mangled carca.s.s of a deer lay on the ground, and the stench of fresh blood mingled with the reek of the camp. Yet I saw only one thing clearly. In the midst of it stood the woman and Singing Arrow.
My relief caught at my throat, and the cry I gave was hoa.r.s.e and strangled. But the woman heard it. My first look had shown me not only that she was unharmed, but that she was undaunted, that she stood white-faced in all the grime, and held herself above it, a thing of spirit that soil could not reach. Yet when she saw me, the cry that came from her in answer changed her from an effigy to something so warm and living that I forgot where I stood, and stopped my breath to hold her gaze to mine, and drink the moment to the full. We stood with captivity between us and torture at our elbow, but the woman looked only at me, and her lips grew red and tremulous, and her breath came fast. "You are safe. You are safe." I heard the words even among the babel, and I pulled like a wild animal at my bonds to free myself and reach her side.