Chapter 10

Late in December the last ship sailed away. Then the last roof-tree of Grand Pré village went down in ashes; and Winslow's lieutenant, Osgood, with a sense of heavy duty done, departed with his New England troops. Winslow himself had gone some weeks before.

For five years after the great exile the Acadian lands lay deserted, and the fogs that gathered morning by morning on the dark top of Blomidon looked down on a waste where came and went no human footstep. All the while the fated amethyst lay hidden, as far as tradition tells, beneath the red ooze and changing tides of the creek.

Then settlers began to come in, and the empty fields were taken up by men of English speech. Once more a village arose on Grand Pré, and cider-presses creaked on the hills of Gaspereau. Of the Acadians, to keep their memory green on the meadows they had captured from the sea, there remained the interminable lines of mighty dike, the old apple orchards and the wind-breaks of tall poplars, and some gaping cellars full of ruins wherein the newcomers dug persistently for treasure.

By and by certain of the settlers, who occupied the higher grounds back of the village, began to talk of a star which they had seen, gleaming with a strange violet radiance from a patch of unreclaimed salt marsh by the mouth of the creek. In early evening only could the elfin light be discerned, and then it was visible to none but those who stood upon the heights. Soon, from no one knew where, came tales of "The Eye of Gluskâp," and "The Witch's Stone," and "_L'Etoile de Pierrot Desbarat_," and the death of the sailor of St. Malo, and the losing of the gem on the day the ship sailed forth. Of the value of the amethyst the most fabulous stories went abroad, and for a season the good wives of the settlers had but a sorry time of it, cleansing their husbands' garments from a daily defilement of mud.

While the vain search was going on, an old Scotchman, shrewder than his fellows, was taking out his title-deeds to the whole expanse of salt-flats, which covered perhaps a score of acres. Having quietly made his position secure at Halifax, Dugald McIntyre came down on his fellow-villagers with a firm celerity, and the digging and the defiling of garments came suddenly to an end by Grand Pré Creek. Soon a line of new dike encompassed the flats, the spring tides swept no more across those sharp grasses which had bent beneath the unreturning feet of the Acadians, and the prudent Scot found himself the richer by twenty acres of exhaustlessly fertile meadow, worth a hundred dollars an acre any day. Moreover, he felt that _he had the amethyst_. Could he not see it almost any evening toward sundown by merely climbing the hillside back of his snug homestead? How divinely it gleamed, with long, pale, steady rays, just inside the lines of circumvallation which he had so cunningly drawn about it! In its low lurking-place beside the hubbub of the recurring ebb and flow, it seemed to watch, like an unwinking eye, for the coming of curious and baleful fates.

But it never fell to the Scotchman's fortune to behold his treasure close at hand. To the hill-top he had to go whenever he would gloat upon its beauty. To the most diligent and tireless searching of every inch of the marsh's surface it refused to yield up its implacably virginal lustre. Sometimes, though rarely, it was visible as the moon drew near her setting, and then it would glitter whitely and malignantly, like a frosty spear-point.

At last the settlers began to whisper that the Star was not in the marsh at all, but that Dugald McIntyre, after the fashion of these canny folk, had o'er-reached himself, and run the lines of the dike right over it. That it could continue to shine under such discouraging circumstances, the settlement by this time scorned to doubt. To "The Eye of Gluskâp" the people were ready to attribute any powers, divine or devilish.

Whether the degree of possession to which Dugald McIntyre had attained could be considered to constitute a legal ownership of the jewel or not is a question for lawyers, not for the mere teller of a plain tale, the mere digger among the facts of a perishing history. Suffice it to say that the finger of ill-fortune soon designated Dugald McIntyre as the man whose claim to the "Eye" was acknowledged by the Fates.

From the time of the completion of the new dike dated the Scotchman's troubles. His cattle one year, his crops another, seemed to find the seasons set against them. Dugald's prudence, watchfulness, and untiring industry minimized every stroke; nevertheless, things went steadily to the worse.

It was Destiny _versus_ Dugald McIntyre, and with true Scottish determination Dugald braced himself to the contest. He made a brave fight; but wherever there was a doubtful point at issue, the Court Invisible ruled inexorably and without a scruple against the possessor of the "Eye of Gluskâp." When he was harvesting his first crop of hay off the new dike--and a fine crop it seemed likely to be--the rains set in with a persistence that at length reduced the windrows to a condition of flavorless gray straw. Dugald McIntyre set his jaws grimly together, took good hay from another meadow to mix with the ruined crop, and by a discreet construction of his bundles succeeded in selling the whole lot at a good price to his most gracious Majesty's government at Halifax. This bold stroke seemed to daunt the Fates for a time, and while they were recovering from their confusion affairs went bravely with Dugald. When haying season came round again the weather kept favorable, and the hay was all harvested in perfect shape. Dugald was much too prudent to boast; but in his innermost heart he indulged a smile of triumph. That night his barns and outbuildings were burned to the ground, and two fine horses with them; and his house was saved hardly. This was too much even for him. Refusing to play longer a losing game, he sold the "New Marsh" at some sacrifice to a settler who laughed at superstition. This sceptical philosopher, however, proved open to conviction. A twelvemonth later he was ready almost to give the land away, and the "Eye of Gluskâp" with it. For a mere song the rich and smiling tract, carrying a heavy crop just ready for the scythe, was purchased by a young New Englander with an admirable instinct for business. This young man went to Halifax and mortgaged the land and crop to their full value; and with the cash he left to seek his fortune. Thus the "Eye of Gluskâp," and the Marsh with it, came into the possession of a widow of great wealth, on whom the spell, it seemed, was of none effect. Her heirs were in England, and it came to pass, in the course of a generation, that Grand Pré knew not the owners of the fated Marsh, and could not tell what troubles, if any, were falling upon the possessors of "The Star." Nevertheless the star kept up its gleaming, a steady eye of violet under the sunsets, a ray of icy pallor when the large moon neared her setting; and at length it was discovered that the enchanted jewel had yet other periods of manifestation. Belated wayfarers, on stormy December nights, had caught the unearthly eye-beam when no other light could be seen in earth or sky. When this took place the tide was always near about the full, and beating hoarsely all along the outer dykes. Then would be heard, between the pauses of the wind, the rattle of oars at the mouth of the creek, and the creaking of ships' cordage, and anon the sound of children crying with the cold. If voices came from the spot where the "New Marsh" lay unseen and the "Star" shone coldly watchful, they were for the most part in a tongue which the wayfarers could not understand. But now and again, some said, there were orders spoken in English, and then the clank of arms and the tramp of marching feet. Of course these things were held in question by many of the settlers, but there were none so hardy as to suffer themselves to be caught upon the "New Marsh" after nightfall. "The Eye of Gluskâp" discerned a supernatural terror in many a heart that claimed renown for courage.

III.

A hundred years had rolled down the hillsides of the Gaspereau and out across the Minas tides into the fogs and hollows of the past; and still the patch of dyked land at the creek's mouth was lit by the unsearchable lustre of the "Eye of Gluskâp."

As for the various distinguished scientists who undertook to unravel the mystery, either much study had made them blind, or the lights were unpropitious; for not one of them ever attained to a vision of the violet gleam. They went away with laughter on their lips.

One spring there came to Grand Pré a young Englishman named Desbra, a long-limbed, ample-chested youth, with whitish hair and ruddy skin, and clear, straightforward blue eyes. Desbra was resolved to learn farming in a new country, so he bought an old farm on the uplands, with an exhausted orchard, and was for a time surprised at the infertility of the soil.

Gradually he made himself master of the situation, and of some more desirable acres, and also, incidentally it seemed, of the affections of a maiden who lived not far from Grand Pré.

Dugald McIntyre had prospered again when the "Eye of Gluskâp" no longer looked malignantly on his fortunes; and to his descendants he had left one of the finest properties within view of Blomidon. It was Jessie McIntyre, his great-grandchild, who had captured the heart of young Desbra.

One rosy September afternoon, as Jessie stood in the porch where the wild grapes clustered half ripe, the young Englishman came swinging his long legs up the slope, sprang over the fence between the apple trees, and caught the maiden gleefully in his arms.

"Congratulate me, Mistress McIntyre," he cried, as the girl pushed him away in mock disapproval. "I have just made a bargain,--a famous bargain,--a thing I never did before in my life."

"Good boy," replied Jessie, standing a-tip-toe to pat the pale brush of her lover's well-cropped hair. "Good boy, we'll make a Blue Nose of you yet! And what is this famous bargain, may I ask?"

"Why, I've just bought what so many of your fellow-countrymen call the 'Noo Ma'sh,'" answered Desbra. "I have got it for twenty dollars an acre, and it's worth a hundred any day! I've got the deed, and the thing's an accomplished fact."

Jessie looked grave, and removed herself from her lover's embrace in order to lend impressiveness to her words. "Oh, Jack, Jack!" she said, "you don't know what you have done! You have become a man of Destiny, which I don't believe you want to be at all. You have bought the 'Star.' You have made yourself the master of the 'Witch's Stone.' You have summoned the 'Eye of Gluskâp' to keep watch upon you critically. In fact, it would take a long time to tell you all you have done. But one thing more you must do,--you must get rid of that famous bargain of yours without delay. I'm not superstitious, Jack, but truly in this case I am disturbed. Bad luck, horrid bad luck, has always befallen any man owning that piece of Marsh, for the Marsh contains the Witch's Stone, and a spell is on the man that possesses that fatal jewel."

Jack Desbra laughed and recaptured the maiden. "All right," said he, "if a man mustn't possess it, I shall give it away to a woman! How will that suit you, my lady?"

Jessie looked dubious, but said anything would be better than for him to keep it himself. Whereupon the young man continued: "Put on your hat, then, and come down into the village with me, and I will forthwith transfer the property, with all appurtenances thereof, to Jessie McIntyre, spinster, of the parish of Grand Pré, County of Kings, Province of Nova Scotia, in her Majesty's Dominion of Canada; and the 'Eye of Gluskâp' will find something better to keep watch upon than me!"

To this proposal Miss Jessie, being in the main a very level-headed young lady, in spite of her little superstitions, assented without demur, and the two proceeded to the village.

On the way thither and back, Desbra learned all the history of the "Star on the Marsh," as I have endeavored to unfold it in the preceding pages. As it happened, however, there was no mention of Pierrot Desbarat's surname in Jessie's account. Marie Beaugrand she spoke of, but Marie's _fiancé_, the last finder of the amethyst, she simply called Pierrot.

"But have you yourself ever seen the sinister glory you describe?" asked Desbra, as they neared the McIntyre home. Jessie's story had interested him keenly. He was charmed with the tale as constituting at least a notable bit of folk-lore.

"Of course I've seen it," replied Jessie, almost petulantly. "I dare say I can show it to you now. Let us go to the top of the hill yonder, where that old poplar stands up all by itself. That tree is a relic of the Acadians, and the 'Eye' watches it, I fancy, when it has nothing better to look at!"

When the lovers reached the hill-top and paused beside the ancient and decaying poplar, the sun had just gone down behind North Mountain, and a sombre splendor flooded the giant brow of Blomidon. The girl pointed toward the mouth of the creek. Desbra could not restrain a cry of astonishment. From just inside the dike, in a deep belt of olive shadow, came a pale, fine violet ray, unwavering and inexplicable. Presently he remarked:--

"That is a fine gem of yours, my dear; and if _I_ owned such a treasure I shouldn't leave it lying around in that careless fashion. Who knows what might happen to it, away down there on the New Marsh? What if a gull, now, should come along and swallow it, to help him grind his fish bones."

"Don't be silly, Jack!" said the girl, her eyes dilating as she watched the mystic beam. "You know you don't half like the look of it yourself. It makes you feel uncanny, and you're just talking nonsense to make believe you don't think there is anything queer about it!"

"Quite the contrary, I assure you, O Mistress of the Witch Stone, O Cynosure of the 'Eye of Gluskâp!'" answered Desbra. "I am, indeed, so much impressed that I was taking pains to remind the Powers of the transfer I have just effected! I desire to hide me from the 'Eye of Gluskâp' by taking refuge behind a certain little spinster's petticoats!"

There was a long silence, while Desbra kept gazing on the mystic gleam as if fascinated. At last Jessie made a move as if she thought it time to return to the house, whereupon the young man, waking out of his fit of abstraction, said slowly:--

"Do you know, it seems to me now as if you had been telling me an old story. I feel as if you had merely recalled to my memory incidents which I had long forgotten. I remember it all now, with much that I think you did not tell me. Looking at that strange point of light I have seen,--_did_ you tell me anything of an old man dying in a boat and being brought to shore just as Marie was leaving for the ship? That is a scene that stands out upon my memory sharply now. And did you say anything about an old priest? I saw him leaning over the side of the boat and slipping something into Mane's sack."

"No," said Jessie, "I didn't tell you any of that, though it all happened as you say. Let us go home, Jack, it frightens me terribly. Oh, I wish you hadn't bought that Marsh!" and she clung trembling to the young man's arm.

"But what can it mean?" persisted Desbra, as they descended the hill. "Why should I think that I was there when it all happened,--that it all happened to me, in fact? My grandmother was of French blood,--perhaps Acadian blood, for my grandfather married her, in the West Indies. After the exile the Acadians, you say, were scattered all over the face of the New World! Can there be in my veins any of the blood of that unhappy people?"

Jessie stopped short and looked up at her lover's face. "Why, your name," she cried, "sounds as if it might have been French once!"

"My grandfather's name was Manners Sutton," responded Desbra, musing. "My father had to take my grandfather's name to inherit some property in Martinique. I, of course, pronounce my name in English fashion, but it is spelled just as my father's was--D-e-s-b-r-a!"

As the young Englishman gave his name its French accent and pronunciation, Jessie uttered a little cry of intelligence and wonder. She looked at her lover a moment in silence, and then said very slowly, very deliberately, pausing for every word to tell.

"The name of Marie's lover, the young man who found the 'Witch's Stone,' was--Pierrot Desbarats! D-e-s-b-a-r-a-t-s. You are none other, Jack, than the great-grandson of Marie and Pierrot."

"Truly," said Desbra, "when I come to think of it, the name was spelled that way once upon a time!"

"Well, you shall _not_ be a man of Destiny, Jack!" exclaimed the girl. "I won't have it! But as for me, that is another matter. We shall see if the 'Eye of Gluskâp' has any malign influence over _me_!"

IV.

Early in December, having just returned to Grand Pré from their wedding journey, Jack Desbra and his wife were standing one evening in a window that looked out across the marshes and the Basin. It was a wild night. A terrific wind had come up with the tide, and the waves raged in thunderously all along the Minas Dykes. There was nothing visible without, so thick was the loud darkness of the storm; but the young Englishman had suggested that they should look to see if the "Star" would shine a welcome to their home-coming.

"It is _my_ Star, remember, Jack," said his wife, "and it will be guilty of no such irregularity as showing itself on a night like this."

"You forget, my lady," was the reply, "that the Star is now mine. The Marsh has the Star, and my lady has the Marsh; but I have my lady, and so possess all!"

"Oh, Jack," cried the girl, with a shudder, "there it is! I am sure something will happen. Let us sell the Marsh to-morrow, dear; for now that I belong to you I can no longer protect you from the spell. I had forgotten that!"

"Very well," said Desbra, lightly, "if you say so, we'll sell to-morrow."

As the two stood locked in each other's arms, and straining their eyes into the blackness, the violet ray gathered intensity, and almost seemed to reveal, by fits, the raving turmoil of the rapidly mounting tide.

In a few moments Desbra became absorbed, as it were, in a sort of waking dream. His frank, merry, almost boyish countenance took on a new expression, and his eyes assumed the strange, far-focused steadfastness of the seer's. His wife watched, with a growing awe which she could not shake off, the change in her husband's demeanor; and the fire-light in the cheerful room died away unnoticed.

At last the girl could bear no longer the ghostly silence, and that strange look in her husband's face. "What do you see, Jack?" she cried. "What do you see? Oh, how terribly it shines!"

When Desbra replied, she hardly recognized his voice.

"I see many ships," said he, slowly, and as if he heard not the sound of his own words. "They sail in past Blomidon. They steer for the mouths of the Canard and Gaspereau. Some are already close at hand. The strange light of the 'Eye of Gluskâp,' is on the sails of all. From somewhere I hear voices singing, '_Nos bonnes gens reviendront._' The sound of it comes beating on the wind. Hark! how it swells over the marshes!"

"I do not hear anything, Jack, dear, except these terrible gusts that cry past the corners of the house," said Jessie, tremulously.

"How light it grows upon the New Marsh, now!" continued her husband, in the same still voice. "The 'Eye' shines everywhere. I hear no more the children crying with the cold; but on the Marsh I see an old man standing. He is waiting for the ships. He waves his stick exultantly to welcome them. I know him,--it is old Remi Corveau. They told me he died and was buried when the ships sailed away from Grand Pré.

"There comes a great ship heading for Long Island shoal. Cannot the captain see how the waves break furiously before him? No ship will live a moment that strikes the shoal to-night. She strikes! God have--No! she sails straight through the breakers!--and not three feet of water on the shoal!

"Two ships have reached the creek," continued Desbra, speaking more rapidly. "How the violet light shines through their sails! How crowded the decks are! All the faces are turned toward shore, with laughter and with streaming eyes, and hands outstretched to the fields of Grand Pré. I know the faces. There is Evangeline, and there is Jaques Le May,--but why don't they drop anchor? They will ground if they come any nearer shore! And in this sea--Merciful Heaven, they are on the dikes! They strike--and the dike goes down before them! The great white waves throng in behind them--the Marsh is buried--and the light goes out!"

The young man started back and put his hand to his eyes, as if awaking from a dream. He caught the sound of his wife's sobbing, and, throwing both arms about her, he stooped to kiss her hair, which gleamed in the dark.

"What's the matter, darling?" he whispered, anxiously. "And what has become of our fire?"

"Oh, Jack, you have frightened me so!" replied the girl. "You have been dreaming or in a trance, and seeing dreadful things that I could not see at all! I could see nothing but that hateful 'Eye,' which has been shining as if all the fires of hell were in it. Come away! we will sell the Marsh to-morrow at _any_ price!"

"But, dear," said Desbra, "the Star has gone out! There is not a sign of it to be seen. All outside is black as Egypt. Look!"

Reluctantly the girl turned toward the window. She gave a little cry. "That's just what you said a minute ago!" she exclaimed. "You said 'the light goes out,' and then you came to yourself. I believe the dike is washed away!"

"Well," said Desbra, "we'll see to-morrow." And they drew the curtains and lit the lamps and stirred the fire to a blaze; and between the shriekings of the wind they heard the roar of the breakers, trampling the low and naked coast.

When morning broke over the Gaspereau hills, and men looked out of their windows, every vestige of the dike that had inclosed the New Marsh was gone. The site of the Marsh was much eaten away, and a bank of sand was piled at the other side of the creek, near the mouth, in such a way as to divert the channel many feet from its old course.

Thereafter the tides foamed in and out with daily and nightly clamor across the spot where the "Star on the Marsh" had gleamed; and men made no new effort to reclaim the ruined acres.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Earth's Enigmas, by Charles G. D. Roberts