The flames were soon but a twinkling point behind them, and at last vanished behind the trees. Du Lhut pushed on rapidly until they came to the edge of a moonlit clearing. He was about to skirt this, as he had done others, when suddenly he caught De Catinat by the shoulder and pushed him down behind a clump of sumach, while Amos did the same with Ephraim Savage.
A man was walking down the other side of the open s.p.a.ce. He had just emerged, and was crossing it diagonally, making in the direction of the river. His body was bent double, but as he came out from the shadow of the trees they could see that he was an Indian brave in full war-paint, with leggings, loin-cloth, and musket. Close at his heels came a second, and then a third and a fourth, on and on until it seemed as if the wood were full of men, and that the line would never come to an end. They flitted past like shadows in the moonlight, in absolute silence, all crouching and running in the same swift stealthy fashion. Last of all came a man in the fringed tunic of a hunter, with a cap and feather upon his head. He pa.s.sed across like the others, and they vanished into the shadows as silently as they had appeared. It was five minutes before Du Lhut thought it safe to rise from their shelter.
"By Saint Anne," he whispered, "did you count them?"
"Three hundred and ninety-six," said Amos.
"I made it four hundred and two."
"And you thought that there were only a hundred and fifty of them!" cried De Catinat.
"Ah, you do not understand. This is a fresh band. The others who took the blockhouse must be over there, for their trail lies between us and the river."
"They could not be the same," said Amos, "for there was not a fresh scalp among them."
Du Lhut gave the young hunter a glance of approval. "On my word," said he, "I did not know that your woodsmen are as good as they seem to be.
You have eyes, monsieur, and it may please you some day to remember that Greysolon du Lhut told you so."
Amos felt a flush of pride at these words from a man whose name was honoured wherever trader or trapper smoked round a camp fire. He was about to make some answer when a dreadful cry broke suddenly out of the woods, a horrible screech, as from some one who was goaded to the very last pitch of human misery. Again and again, as they stood with blanched cheeks in the darkness, they heard that awful cry swelling up from the night and ringing drearily through the forest.
"They are torturing the women," said Du Lhut.
"Their camp lies over there."
"Can we do nothing to aid them?" cried Amos.
"Ay, ay, lad," said the captain in English. "We can"t pa.s.s distress signals without going out of our course. Let us put about and run down yonder."
"In that camp," said Du Lhut slowly, "there are now nearly six hundred warriors. We are four. What you say has no sense. Unless we warn them at Sainte Marie, these devils will lay some trap for them. Their parties are a.s.sembling by land and by water, and there may be a thousand before daybreak. Our duty is to push on and give our warning."
"He speaks the truth," said Amos to Ephraim. "Nay, but you must not go alone!" He seized the stout old seaman by the arm and held him by main force to prevent him from breaking off through the woods.
"There is one thing which we can do to spoil their night"s amus.e.m.e.nt," said Du Lhut. "The woods are as dry as powder, and there has been no drop of rain for a long three months."
"Yes?"
"And the wind blows straight for their camp, with the river on the other side of it."
"We should fire the woods!"
"We cannot do better."
In an instant Du Lhut had sc.r.a.ped together a little bundle of dry twigs, and had heaped them up against a withered beech tree which was as dry as tinder. A stroke of flint and steel was enough to start a little smoulder of flame, which lengthened and spread until it was leaping along the white strips of hanging bark. A quarter of a mile farther on Du Lhut did the same again, and once more beyond that, until at three different points the forest was in a blaze. As they hurried onwards they could hear the dull roaring of the flames behind them, and at last, as they neared Sainte Marie, they could see, looking back, the long rolling wave of fire travelling ever westward towards the Richelieu, and flashing up into great spouts of flame as it licked up a clump of pines as if it were a bundle of f.a.ggots. Du Lhut chuckled in his silent way as he looked back at the long orange glare in the sky.
"They will need to swim for it, some of them," said he. "They have not canoes to take them all off. Ah, if I had but two hundred of my coureurs-de-bois on the river at the farther side of them not one would have got away."
"They had one who was dressed like a white man," remarked Amos.
"Ay, and the most deadly of the lot. His father was a Dutch trader, his mother an Iroquois, and he goes by the name of the Flemish b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Ah, I know him well, and I tell you that if they want a king in h.e.l.l, they will find one all ready in his wigwam. By Saint Anne, I have a score to settle with him, and I may pay it before this business is over. Well, there are the lights of Sainte Marie shining down below there. I can understand that sigh of relief, monsieur, for, on my word, after what we found at Poitou, I was uneasy myself until I should see them."
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
THE TAPPING OF DEATH.
Day was just breaking as the four comrades entered the gate of the stockade, but early as it was the censitaires and their families were all afoot staring at the prodigious fire which raged to the south of them. De Catinat burst through the throng and rushed upstairs to Adele, who had herself flown down to meet him, so that they met in each other"s arms half-way up the great stone staircase with a burst of those little inarticulate cries which are the true unwritten language of love. Together, with his arm round her, they ascended to the great hall where old De la Noue with his son were peering out of the window at the wonderful spectacle.
"Ah, monsieur," said the old n.o.bleman, with his courtly bow, "I am indeed rejoiced to see you safe under my roof again, not only for your own sake, but for that of madame"s eyes, which, if she will permit an old man to say so, are much too pretty to spoil by straining them all day in the hopes of seeing some one coming out of the forest. You have done forty miles, Monsieur de Catinat, and are doubtless hungry and weary. When you are yourself again I must claim my revenge in piquet, for the cards lay against me the other night."
But Du Lhut had entered at De Catinat"s heels with his tidings of disaster.
"You will have another game to play, Monsieur de Sainte-Marie," said he. "There are six hundred Iroquois in the woods and they are preparing to attack."
"Tut, tut, we cannot allow our arrangements to be altered by a handful of savages," said the seigneur. "I must apologise to you, my dear De Catinat, that you should be annoyed by such people while you are upon my estate. As regards the piquet, I cannot but think that your play from king and knave is more brilliant than safe. Now when I played piquet last with De Lannes of Poitou-"
"De Lannes of Poitou is dead, and all his people," said Du Lhut.
"The blockhouse is a heap of smoking ashes."
The seigneur raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff, tapping the lid of his little round gold box.
"I always told him that his fort would be taken unless he cleared away those maple trees which grew up to the very walls. They are all dead, you say?"
"Every man."
"And the fort burned?"
"Not a stick was left standing."
"Have you seen these rascals?"
"We saw the trail of a hundred and fifty. Then there were a hundred in canoes, and a war-party of four hundred pa.s.sed us under the Flemish b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Their camp is five miles down the river, and there cannot be less than six hundred."
"You were fortunate in escaping them."
"But they were not so fortunate in escaping us. We killed Brown Moose and his son, and we fired the woods so as to drive them out of their camp."
"Excellent! Excellent!" said the seigneur, clapping gently with his dainty hands. "You have done very well indeed, Du Lhut! You are, I presume, very tired?"
"I am not often tired. I am quite ready to do the journey again."
"Then perhaps you would pick a few men and go back into the woods to see what these villains are doing?"
"I shall be ready in five minutes."
"Perhaps you would like to go also, Achille?" His son"s dark eyes and Indian face lit up with a fierce joy.
"Yes, I shall go also," he answered.
"Very good, and we shall make all ready in your absence. Madame, you will excuse these little annoyances which mar the pleasure of your visit. Next time that you do me the honour to come here I trust that we shall have cleared all these vermin from my estate. We have our advantages. The Richelieu is a better fish pond, and these forests are a finer deer preserve than any of which the king can boast. But on the other hand we have, as you see, our little troubles. You will excuse me now, as there are one or two things which demand my attention. De Catinat, you are a tried soldier and I should be glad of your advice. Onega, give me my lace handkerchief and my cane of clouded amber, and take care of madame until her husband and I return."