"Pierre Boudin," I cried, with my hand on his collar, "if we get back to this place alive, you are to marry that Ottawa girl; to marry her fairly with priest and book. Remember that."
My man turned a complacent eye. "If the master wishes," he said dutifully. Then he gave a fat chuckle. "I promised to marry her when we came back if she would save the Englishman,--but then I thought that we should go home the other way."
Why try to teach decency to a barnyard brood! I dusted my fingers free from the soil of him. "I will marry her to you, if only to see her flout you," I promised vengefully. "Now to the canoes, and have your paddles ready." I had no smile for him, though he sought it, as I walked away.
The moon had swung free of the horizon, and cabins and trees stood out as if made of white cardboard. The night was chilly, and as I crept along the edge of the maize field, I caught my numbed toes on the stiffened clods of earth turned up by last year"s plowing. Yet I moved silently, and by keeping in the shadow of blackened stumps and withered maize stalks, I reached bow-shot of the commandant"s door.
Truly one part of my plan had succeeded. The house was the centre of an ant-like swarm skurrying here and there, apparently without method, but with a jerkiness of movement that suggested attack and recoil. I could distinguish the nose pendants of the Ottawas and the bristling crests of the Hurons. It was a crew with choice potentialities for mischief. Cadillac was justified in feeling that his scalp sat but unsteadily upon his head.
I had given Singing Arrow fifteen minutes to hide her brandy and send word to the braves, and I counted off the time to myself, trying to numb my anxiety. But among savages news runs underground as well as over, and I had scarcely covered half the s.p.a.ce that I had set for myself before the crowd began to disappear. It slipped away like water between the fingers, and in a moment there remained only the guards, Pemaou, and a few Ottawas. The guards, relieved from immediate anxiety of a riot, leaned listlessly on their muskets, the Ottawas would not interfere with a girl of their own tribe, and Pemaou could not watch all quarters at once. Now was certainly the time to act; but where was Singing Arrow? My inaction pressed on me like a hideous weight. It seemed days instead of hours that I had sat like a crone by her distaff and let others do my work--or fail to do it. Why was Singing Arrow so slow to come?
I thought that I had not shifted my gaze from the house for more than an instant; but now, as I watched the door, I learned, and not for the first time, that a white man should have a score of eyes instead of two when it comes to watching an Indian. For the commandant"s door suddenly opened, and out came a blanket-draped, skin-clad figure. My muscles stiffened. It was the Englishman. Singing Arrow had brought him the clothing, and I had not seen.
So the moment had come. I gripped my sword as one turns instinctively to the friend loved best. Would the prisoner act his part? So keen was my anxiety, that I felt my spirit leap out to stand by his side, and I shut my teeth upon the cry of encouragement that welled within me.
But he needed no help of mine. He made his way leisurely past the great fire, walking with wonderful mimicry of a woman"s gait, and he kept his face well in the shelter of the blanket in a way that suggested coquetry rather than disguise.
And in this manner he came straight to me. He came, unerringly as a sleep-walker, past fires, past Indians, and through the gaunt rows of maize. He looked neither to right nor left, and no one molested him.
He came to where I stood silent, and put out his hand to touch mine.
"It is done," he said quietly.
His fingers were warm, and his touch tingled. I marveled. "It is a miracle," I said.
He looked at me in question. "Your hand is very cold. Monsieur, monsieur, did you fear for me so much?"
I bowed. "Yes. I did not think it could be done. You are an able man, monsieur."
He did not answer for a moment, and he followed me silently along the edge of the maize field. Then he touched my shoulder.
"Monsieur, how strange the world looks to-night. The moon,--have you ever seen it so remote and chill? Oh, we are puppets! No, it was not my wit that carried me through. It was Fate. Life has been hard on me. She is saving me now for some further trick she has to play. I pray that it may not bring you ill, monsieur."
I knew not how to answer, for I was moved. As he said, the moon made the world strange. Great beauty is disturbing, and the night was like enchantment. He had come to me like a dream spirit in his woman"s dress. I felt the need of a dash of cold water on my spirit.
"You must not put on woman"s fancies with your petticoats, monsieur," I cautioned over my shoulder. "Now we had best not talk till we are safe afloat in the canoes."
The men were ebon, the canoes vague gray, and the water like sheet ice under the moon. The Englishman and I crept across the pebbles with panther feet, and the splash of a frightened otter was the only sound.
I laid my finger on my lips, and my men checked their breathing. We were silent as figures in a mirror. I tapped the Englishman on the shoulder, and motioned where he should sit in the canoe.
And then, from the timber fringe behind us, came a call. "Singing Arrow! Singing Arrow! Stop! Stop!"
Sword unsheathed, I dashed across the open s.p.a.ce of moonlight toward the trees. Who called, or why, I did not question. But I must smother the noise. "Singing Arrow!" the call came again, and the roar of it in the quiet night made my flesh crawl.
I had not taken two strides into the timber when I saw a man running toward me. He was still calling. I leaped upon him, winding an arm about his neck, and covering his mouth. He was a small armful; a weazened body to have sheltered so great a power of lung.
"Hush! For the Virgin"s sake, hush!" I stormed in noisy whispers.
"Father Carheil, is it you? Hush! Hush!" I dropped my hand from his mouth. "Now speak in whispers," I implored.
The father shook his ca.s.sock free from my fingers. My embrace had been fervid, and his ca.s.sock was rumpled, and his scant hair was stringing wildly from under his skullcap. But shrunken and tumbled as he was, he was impressive. With some men, if you disarrange their outer habit, you lower their inner dignity as well. It was not so with Father Carheil.
He looked at me closely, with a sober gentleness that became him well, and that he did not often use. "Why should I go quietly?" he asked.
"My errand is righteous. It is only black work that needs the cover of a silent tongue. My son, you are letting your men abduct Singing Arrow. Did your promise to me count for so little in your mind?"
I bowed, and mumbled something meaningless to gain time. I was not clear as to my course. "Why do you think that we have Singing Arrow?"
I blurted out finally.
"Pemaou told me."
Pemaou again! But we had tricked him. I grinned with joy to think of him with his nose still rooted close to the deserted hole. I could almost forgive him for the trouble he was causing now.
"Pemaou lied," I said cheerfully. "Singing Arrow is not with us, Father Carheil. Will you go back now? My mission is urgent and demands secrecy."
He looked at the ground. "You swear to this? You swear that Singing Arrow is not with you?"
I laid my hand on my sword, and bared my head. "I swear."
He turned away. "You seem a gentleman," he said reluctantly. "I regret that I troubled you. I wish you fair winds, monsieur."
Beshrew me, but the man could get close to my heart. "Thank you, father," I cried earnestly. "I wish that I might requite your trust with greater candor. But, in the end, I hope to justify my means. I would that I might have your blessing on my mission and my cargo."
Blockhead that I was, not to have let well enough alone. For I was to blame for what followed. I may have grown unconsciously rhetorical, and waved my hand in the direction of the canoes. I do not know. I do know that at the word "cargo" Father Carheil turned and looked toward the sh.o.r.e. There, in my canoe, with gaze searching the timber where I had disappeared, stood a figure,--a woman"s figure in Singing Arrow"s dress and blanket.
Father Carheil looked at me. He did not speak; it was not necessary.
I endured his gaze for a moment, then sold my prudence to save my honor. I laid my finger on the priest"s arm.
"Come with me to the canoes," I demanded. "If you find yourself in the wrong, it may teach you to trust a man"s word against your own eyesight."
He a.s.sented. We walked swiftly across the moon-lighted open, and I had scant time for fear. Yet I was afraid. I could give the Englishman no helping hand, no word of warning. Would he rise to the moment?
He did. He turned his back upon us, Indian-fashion, and squatted in his blanket. He lost all suggestion of Singing Arrow"s slim elasticity, and sat in a shapeless huddle. I laughed with relief.
"Where is Singing Arrow now?" I twitted the priest. "Is this she?"
The old priest peered. "No," he meditated. "No, this is not Singing Arrow." He wheeled on me with one of his flashes of temper. "I cannot recognize this girl. Let her take off her blanket."
I motioned my men to take stations in the canoes. "Father Carheil, I beg you to let me go at once," I implored. "You see you were wrong.
As to this Indian, you never saw her; she is a stranger here."
But the father was not pacified. "Let her take off her blanket," he repeated, with all the aimless persistency of age.
Did I say that the man had grown close to my heart? Why, I could have shaken him. But the Englishman cut the knot. He turned with a hunch of the shoulder, and peered at us over the corner of his blanket.
Gesture, and roll of the head, he was an Indian. I was so pleased at the mimicry, that I gave way to witless laughter.
"Now!" I cried triumphantly. "Now, are you satisfied?"
But the priest did not reply. He stared, and his eyes grew ferret-sharp. Then he shifted his position, and stared again. It beat into my brain that he had lived thirty years among the Indians, and that his eyes were trained. He could see meanings, where I saw a blank wall.
"This is no Indian woman," he said slowly, with a wagging forefinger that beat off his words like the minute hand of Fate. "This is--this is--why, this is the English prisoner!"