Part 10

Therese and a young Parisienne, her friend, were at luncheon with us. They bade us adieu and went away for a gallop as we took cigars. We had no sooner left the dining room than I called for my horse. Due at the Harbor that evening, I could give myself no longer to the fine hospitality of the count. In a few moments I was bounding over the road, now cool in deep forest shadows. A little way on I overtook Therese and the Parisienne. The former called to me as I passed. I drew rein, coming back and stopping beside her. The other went on at a walk.

"M'sieur le Capitaine, have you any news of them--of Louise and Louison?" she inquired. "You and my father were so busy talking I could not ask you before."

"I know this only: they are in captivity somewhere, I cannot tell where."

"You look worried, M'sieur le Capitaine; you have not the happy face, the merry look, any longer. In June you were a boy, in August--voila! it is a man! Perhaps you are preparing for the ministry."

She assumed a solemn look, glancing up at me as if in mockery of my sober face. She was a slim, fine brunette, who, as I knew, had long been a confidante of Louison.

"Alas! ma'm'selle, I am worried. I have no longer any peace."

"Do you miss them?" she inquired, a knowing look in her handsome eyes. "Do not think me impertinent."

"More than I miss my mother," I said.

"I have a letter," said she, smiling. "I do not know--I thought I should show it to you, but--but not to-day."

"Is it from them?"

"It is from Louison--from Tiptoes."

"And--and it speaks of me?"

"Ah, m'sieur," said she, arching her brows, "it has indeed much to say of you."

"And--and may I not see it?" I asked eagerly. "Ma'm'selle, I tell you I--I must see it."

"Why?" She stirred the mane of her horse with a red riding-whip.

"Why not?" I inquired, my heart beating fast.

"If I knew--if I were justified--you know I am her friend. I know all her secrets."

"Will you not be my friend also?" I interrupted.

"A friend of Louison, he is mine," said she.

"Ah, ma'm'selle, then I confess to you--it is because I love her."

"I knew it; I am no fool," was her answer. "But I had to hear it from you. It is a remarkable thing to do, but they are in such peril. I think you ought to know."

She took the letter from her bosom, passing it to my hand. A faint odor of violets came with it. It read:--

"MY DEAR THERESE: I wish I could see you, if only for an hour. I have so much to say. I have written your father of our prison home. I am going to write you of my troubles. You know what we were talking about the last time I saw you--myself and that handsome fellow. Mon Dieu! I shall not name him. It is not necessary. Well, you were right, my dear. I was a fool; I laughed at your warning; I did not know the meaning of that delicious pain. But oh, my dear friend, it has become a terrible thing since I know I may never see him again. My heart is breaking with it. Mere de Dieu! I can no longer laugh or jest or pretend to be happy. What shall I say? That I had rather die than live without him? No; that is not enough. I had rather be an old maid and live only with the thought of _him_ than marry another, if he were a king. I remember those words of yours, 'I know he loves you.' Oh, my dear Therese, what a comfort they are to me now! I repeat them often. If _I_ could only say, 'I know'! Alas! I can but say, 'I do not know,' nay, even, 'I do not believe.' If I had not been a fool I should have made him tell me, for I had him over his ears in love with me one day, or I am no judge of a man. But, you know, they are so fickle! And then the Yankee girls are pretty and so clever. Well, they shall not have him if I can help it. When I return there shall be war, if necessary, between France and America. And, Therese, you know I have weapons, and you have done me the honor to say I know how to use them. I have told Louise, and--what do you think?--the poor thing cried an hour--for pity of me! As ever, she makes my trouble her own. I have been selfish always, but I know the cure. It is love--toujours l'amour. Now I think only of him, and he recalls you and your sweet words. God make you a true prophet! With love to you and the marquis, I kiss each line, praying for happiness for you and for him. Believe me as ever,

"Your affectionate "LOUISON.

"P.S. I feel better now I have told you. I wonder what his Lordship will say. Poor thing! he will read this; he will think me a fool. Eh bien, I have no better thought of him. He can put me under lock and key, but he shall not imprison my secrets; and, if they bore him, he should not read my letters. L."

I read it thrice, and held it for a moment to my lips. Every word stung me with the sweet pain that afflicted its author. I could feel my cheeks burning.

"Ma'm'selle, pardon me; it is not I she refers to. She does not say whom."

"Surely," said Therese, flirting her whip and lifting her shoulders. "M'sieur Le Capitaine is never a stupid man. You--you should say something very nice now."

"If it is I--thank God! Her misery is my delight, her liberation my one purpose."

"And my congratulations," said she, giving me her hand. "She has wit and beauty, a true heart, a great fortune, and--good luck in having your love."

I raised my hat, blushing to the roots of my hair.

"It is a pretty compliment," I said. "And--and I have no gift of speech to thank you. I am not a match for you except in my love of kindness and--and of Louison. You have made me happier than I have been before."

"If I have made you alert, ingenious, determined, I am content," was her answer. "I know you have courage."

"And will to use it."

"Good luck and adieu!" said she, with a fine flourish of her whip; those people had always a pretty politeness of manner.

"Adieu," I said, lifting my hat as I rode off, with a prick of the spur, for the road was long and I had lost quite half an hour.

My elation gave way to sober thought presently. I began to think of Louise--that quiet, frank, noble, beautiful, great-hearted girl, who might be suffering what trouble I knew not, and all silently, there in her prison home. A sadness grew in me, and then suddenly I saw the shadow of great trouble. I loved them both; I knew not which I loved the better. Yet this interview had almost committed me to Louison.

XVII

Orders came shortly from the War Department providing a detail to go and help man the guns of Perry at Put-in Bay. I had the honor of leading them on the journey and turning them over to the young Captain. I could not bear to be lying idle at the garrison. A thought of those in captivity was with me night and day, but I could do nothing for them. I had had a friendly talk with General Brown. He invited and received my confidence touching the tender solicitude I was unable to cover. I laid before him the plan of an expedition. He smiled, puffing a cigar thoughtfully.

"Reckless folly, Bell," said he, after a moment. "You are young and lucky. If you were flung in the broad water there with a millstone tied to your neck, I should not be surprised to see you turn up again. My young friend, to start off with no destination but Canada is too much even for you. We have no men to waste. Wait; a rusting sabre is better than a hole in the heart. There will be good work for you in a few days, I hope."

And there was--the job of which I have spoken, that came to me through his kind offices. We set sail in a schooner one bright morning,--D'ri and I and thirty others,--bound for Two-Mile Creek. Horses were waiting for us there. We mounted them, and made the long journey overland--a ride through wood and swale on a road worn by the wagons of the emigrant, who, even then, was pushing westward to the fertile valleys of Ohio. It was hard travelling, but that was the heyday of my youth, and the bird music, and the many voices of a waning summer in field and forest, were somehow in harmony with the great song of my heart. In the middle of the afternoon of September 6, we came to the Bay, and pulled up at headquarters, a two-story frame building on a high shore. There were wooded islands in the offing, and between them we could see the fleet--nine vessels, big and little.

I turned over the men, who were taken to the ships immediately and put under drill. Surgeon Usher of the _Lawrence_ and a young midshipman rowed me to Gibraltar Island, well out in the harbor, where the surgeon presented me to Perry--a tall, shapely man, with dark hair and eyes, and ears hidden by heavy tufts of beard. He stood on a rocky point high above the water, a glass to his eye, looking seaward. His youth surprised me: he was then twenty-eight. I had read much of him and was looking for an older man. He received me kindly: he had a fine dignity and gentle manners. Somewhere he had read of that scrape of mine--the last one there among the Avengers. He gave my hand a squeeze and my sword a compliment I have not yet forgotten, assuring me of his pleasure that I was to be with him awhile. The greeting over, we rowed away to the _Lawrence_. She was chopping lazily at anchor in a light breeze, her sails loose. Her crew cheered their commander as we came under the frowning guns.

"They 're tired of waiting," said he; "they 're looking for business when I come aboard."

He showed me over the clean decks: it was all as clean as a Puritan parlor.

"Captain," said he, "tie yourself to that big bow gun. It's the modern sling of David, only its pebble is big as a rock. Learn how to handle it, and you may take a fling at the British some day."

He put D'ri in my squad, as I requested, leaving me with the gunners. I went to work at once, and knew shortly how to handle the big machine. D'ri and I convinced the captain with no difficulty that we were fit for a fight so soon as it might come.

It came sooner than we expected. The cry of "Sail ho!" woke me early one morning. It was the 10th of September. The enemy was coming. Sails were sticking out of the misty dawn a few miles away. In a moment our decks were black and noisy with the hundred and two that manned the vessel. It was every hand to rope and windlass then. Sails went up with a snap all around us, and the creak of blocks sounded far and near. In twelve minutes we were under way, leading the van to battle. The sun came up, lighting the great towers of canvas. Every vessel was now feeling for the wind, some with oars and sweeps to aid them. A light breeze came out of the southwest. Perry stood near me, his hat in his hand. He was looking back at the Niagara.

"Run to the leeward of the islands," said he to the sailing-master.

"Then you 'll have to fight to the leeward," said the latter.

"Don't care, so long as we fight," said Perry. "Windward or leeward, we want to fight."

Then came the signal to change our course. The wind shifting to the southeast, we were all able to clear the islands and keep the weather-gage. A cloud came over the sun; far away the mist thickened. The enemy wallowed to the topsails, and went out of sight. We had lost the wind. Our sails went limp; flag and pennant hung lifeless. A light rain drizzled down, breaking the smooth plane of water into crowding rings and bubbles. Perry stood out in the drizzle as we lay waiting. All eyes were turning to the sky and to Perry. He had a look of worry and disgust. He was out for a quarrel, though the surgeon said he was in more need of physic, having the fever of malaria as well as that of war. He stood there, tall and handsome, in a loose jacket of blue nankeen, with no sign of weakness in him, his eyes flashing as he looked up at the sky.

D'ri and I stood in the squad at the bow gun. D'ri was wearing an old straw hat; his flannel shirt was open at the collar.

"Ship stan's luk an ol' cow chawin' 'er cud," said he, looking off at the weather. "They's a win' comin' over there. It 'll give 'er a slap 'n th' side purty soon, mebbe. Then she 'll switch 'er tail 'n' go on 'bout 'er business."

In a moment we heard a roaring cheer back amidships. Perry had come up the companionway with his blue battle-flag. He held it before him at arm's-length. I could see a part of its legend, in white letters, "Don't give up the ship."

"My brave lads," he shouted, "shall we hoist it?"

Our "Ay, ay, sir!" could have been heard a mile away, and the flag rose, above tossing hats and howling voices, to the mainroyal masthead.

The wind came; we could hear the sails snap and stiffen as it overhauled the fleet behind us. In a jiffy it bunted our own hull and canvas, and again we began to plough the water. It grew into a smart breeze, and scattered the fleet of clouds that hovered over us. The rain passed; sunlight sparkled on the rippling plane of water. We could now see the enemy; he had hove to, and was waiting for us in a line. A crowd was gathering on the high shores we had left to see the battle. We were well in advance, crowding our canvas in a good breeze. I could hear only the roaring furrows of water on each side of the prow. Every man of us held his tongue, mentally trimming ship, as they say, for whatever might come. Three men scuffed by, sanding the decks. D'ri was leaning placidly over the big gun. He looked off at the white line, squinted knowingly, and spat over the bulwarks. Then he straightened up, tilting his hat to his right ear.

"They 're p'intin' their guns," said a swabber.

"Fust they know they'll git spit on," said D'ri, calmly.

Well, for two hours it was all creeping and talking under the breath, and here and there an oath as some nervous chap tightened the ropes of his resolution. Then suddenly, as we swung about, a murmur went up and down the deck. We could see with our naked eyes the men who were to give us battle. Perry shouted sternly to some gunners who thought it high time to fire. Then word came: there would be no firing until we got close. Little gusts of music came chasing over the water faint-footed to our decks--a band playing "Rule Britannia." I was looking at a brig in the line of the enemy when a bolt of fire leaped out of her and thick belches of smoke rushed to her topsails. Then something hit the sea near by a great hissing slap, and we turned quickly to see chunks of the shattered lake surface fly up in nets of spray and fall roaring on our deck. We were all drenched there at the bow gun. I remember some of those water-drops had the sting of hard-flung pebbles, but we only bent our heads, waiting eagerly for the word to fire.

"We was th' ones 'at got spit on," said a gunner, looking at D'ri.

"Wish they'd let us holler back," said the latter, placidly. "Sick o' holdin' in."

We kept fanning down upon the enemy, now little more than a mile away, signalling the fleet to follow.

"My God! see there!" a gunner shouted.

The British line had turned into a reeling, whirling ridge of smoke lifting over spurts of flame at the bottom. We knew what was coming. Untried in the perils of shot and shell, some of my gunners stooped to cover under the bulwarks.

"Pull 'em out o' there," I called, turning to D'ri, who stood beside me.

The storm of iron hit us. A heavy ball crashed into the after bulwarks, tearing them away and slamming over gun and carriage, that slid a space, grinding the gunners under it. One end of a bowline whipped over us; a jib dropped; a brace fell crawling over my shoulders like a big snake; the foremast went into splinters a few feet above the deck, its top falling over, its canvas sagging in great folds. It was all the work of a second. That hasty flight of iron, coming out of the air, thick as a flock of pigeons, had gone through hull and rigging in a wink of the eye. And a fine mess it had made.

Men lay scattered along the deck, bleeding, yelling, struggling. There were two lying near us with blood spurting out of their necks. One rose upon a knee, choking horribly, shaken with the last throes of his flooded heart, and reeled over. The _Scorpion_ of our fleet had got her guns in action; the little _Ariel_ was also firing. D'ri leaned over, shouting in my ear.

"Don't like th' way they 're whalin' uv us," he said, his cheeks red with anger.

"Nor I," was my answer.

"Don't like t' stan' here an' dew nuthin' but git licked," he went on. "'T ain' no way nat'ral."

Perry came hurrying forward.

"Fire!" he commanded, with a quick gesture, and we began to warm up our big twenty-pounder there in the bow. But the deadly scuds of iron kept flying over and upon our deck, bursting into awful showers of bolt and chain and spike and hammerheads. We saw shortly that our brig was badly out of gear. She began to drift to leeward, and being unable to aim at the enemy, we could make no use of the bow gun. Every brace and bowline cut away, her canvas torn to rags, her hull shot through, and half her men dead or wounded, she was, indeed, a sorry sight. The _Niagara_ went by on the safe side of us, heedless of our plight. Perry stood near, cursing as he looked off at her. Two of my gunners had been hurt by bursting canister. D'ri and I picked them up, and made for the cockpit. D'ri's man kept howling and kicking. As we hurried over the bloody deck, there came a mighty crash beside us and a burst of old iron that tumbled me to my knees.

A cloud of smoke covered us. I felt the man I bore struggle and then go limp in my arms; I felt my knees getting warm and wet. The smoke rose; the tall, herculean back of D'ri was just ahead of me. His sleeve had been ripped away from shoulder to elbow, and a spray of blood from his upper arm was flying back upon me. His hat crown had been torn off, and there was a big rent in his trousers, but he kept going, I saw my man had been killed in my arms by a piece of chain, buried to its last link in his breast. I was so confused by the shock of it all that I had not the sense to lay him down, but followed D'ri to the cockpit. He stumbled on the stairs, falling heavily with his burden. Then I dropped my poor gunner and helped them carry D'ri to a table, where they bade me lie down beside him.

"It is no time for jesting," said I, with some dignity.

"My dear fellow," the surgeon answered, "your wound is no jest. You are not fit for duty."

I looked down at the big hole in my trousers and the cut in my thigh, of which I had known nothing until then. I had no sooner seen it and the blood than I saw that I also was in some need of repair, and lay down with a quick sense of faintness. My wound was no pretty thing to see, but was of little consequence, a missile having torn the surface only. I was able to help Surgeon Usher as he caught the severed veins and bathed the bloody strands of muscle in D'ri's arm, while another dressed my thigh. That room was full of the wounded, some lying on the floor, some standing, some stretched upon cots and tables. Every moment they were crowding down the companionway with others. The cannonading was now so close and heavy that it gave me an ache in the ears, but above its quaking thunder I could hear the shrill cries of men sinking to hasty death in the grip of pain. The brig was in sore distress, her timbers creaking, snapping, quivering, like one being beaten to death, his bones cracking, his muscles pulping under heavy blows. We were above water-line there in the cockpit; we could feel her flinch and stagger. On her side there came suddenly a crushing blow, as if some great hammer, swung far in the sky, had come down upon her. I could hear the split and break of heavy timbers; I could see splinters flying over me in a rush of smoke, and the legs of a man go bumping on the beams above. Then came another crash of timbers on the port side. I leaped off the table and ran, limping, to the deck, I do not know why; I was driven by some quick and irresistible impulse. I was near out of my head, anyway, with the rage of battle in me and no chance to fight. Well, suddenly, I found myself stumbling, with drawn sabre, over heaps of the hurt and dead there on our reeking deck. It was a horrible place: everything tipped over, man and gun and mast and bulwark. The air was full of smoke, but near me I could see a topsail of the enemy. Balls were now plunging in the water alongside, the spray drenching our deck. Some poor man lying low among the dead caught me by the boot-leg with an appealing gesture. I took hold of his collar, dragging him to the cockpit. The surgeon had just finished with D'ri. His arm was now in sling and bandages. He was lying on his back, the good arm over his face. There was a lull in the cannonading. I went quickly to his side.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, giving his hand a good grip.

"Nuthin' t' brag uv," he answered. "Never see nobody git hell rose with 'em s' quick es we did--never."

Just then we heard the voice of Perry. He stood on the stairs calling into the cockpit.

"Can any wounded man below there pull a rope?" he shouted.

D'ri was on his feet in a jiffy, and we were both clambering to the deck as another scud of junk went over us. Perry was trying, with block and tackle, to mount a carronade. A handful of men were helping him, D'ri rushed to the ropes, I following, and we both pulled with a will. A sailor who had been hit in the legs hobbled up, asking for room on the rope. I told him he could be of no use, but he spat an oath, and pointing at my leg, which was now bleeding, swore he was sounder than I, and put up his fists to prove it. I have seen no better show of pluck in all my fighting, nor any that ever gave me a greater pride of my own people and my country. War is a great evil, I begin to think, but there is nothing finer than the sight of a man who, forgetting himself, rushes into the shadow of death for the sake of something that is better. At every heave on the rope our blood came out of us, until a ball shattered a pulley, and the gun fell. Perry had then a fierce look, but his words were cool, his manner dauntless. He peered through lifting clouds of smoke at our line. He stood near me, and his head was bare. He crossed the littered deck, his battle-flag and broad pennant that an orderly had brought him trailing from his shoulder. He halted by a boat swung at the davits on the port side--the only one that had not gone to splinters. There he called a crew about him, and all got quickly aboard the boat--seven besides the younger brother of Captain Perry --and lowered it. Word flew that he was leaving to take command of the sister brig, the _Niagara_, which lay off a quarter of a mile or so from where we stood. We all wished to go, but he would have only sound men; there were not a dozen on the ship who had all their blood in them. As they pulled away, Perry standing in the stern, D'ri lifted a bloody, tattered flag, and leaning from the bulwarks, shook it over them, cheering loudly.

"Give 'em hell!" he shouted. "We 'll tek care o' the ol' brig."

We were all crying, we poor devils that were left behind. One, a mere boy, stood near me swinging his hat above his head, cheering. Hat and hand fell to the deck as I turned to him. He was reeling, when D'ri caught him quickly with his good arm and bore him to the cockpit.