CHAPTER XIV

A CHALLENGE

Filling the air with ghost-shadows, silencing earth, muffling the sea, day after day fell the snow. Shore-ice barred out the pounding surf. The river had frozen to adamant. Brushwood sank in the deepening drifts like a foundered ship, and all that remained visible of evergreens was an occasional spar or snow mushroom on the crest of a branch.

No east, no west, no day, no night; nothing but a white darkness, billowing snow, and a silence as of death. It was the cold, silent, mystic, white world of northern winter.

At one moment the fort door flings wide with a rush of frost like smoke clouds, and in stamps Godefroy, shaking snow off with boisterous noise and vowing by the saints that the drifts are as high as the St. Pierre's deck. M. Groseillers orders the rascal to shut the door; but bare has the latch clicked when young Jean whisks in, tossing snow from cap and gauntlets like a clipper shaking a reef to the spray, and declares that the snow is already level with the fort walls.

"Eh, nephew," exclaims Radisson sharply, "how are the cannon?"

Ben Gillam, who has lugged himself from bed to the hearth for the first time since his freezing, blurts out a taunting laugh. We had done better to build on the sheltered side of an island, he informs us.

"Now, the shivers take me!" cries Ben, "but where a deuce are all your land forces and marines and jack-tars and forty thousand officers?"

He cast a scornful look down our long, low-roofed barracks, counting the men gathered round the hearth and laughing as he counted. M. Radisson affected not to hear, telling Jean to hoist the cannon and puncture embrasures high to the bastion-roofs like Italian towers.

"Monsieur Radisson," impudently mouths Ben, who had taken more rum for his health than was good for his head, "I asked you to inform me where your land forces are?"

"Outside the fort constructing a breastwork of snow."

"Good!" sneers Ben. "And the marines?"

"On the ships, where they ought to be."

"Good!" laughs Gillam again. "And the officers?"

"Superintending the raising of the cannon. And I would have you to know, young man," adds Radisson, "that when a guest asks too many questions, a host may not answer."

But Ben goes on unheeding.

"Now I'll wager that dog of a runaway slave o' mine, that Jack Battle who's hiding hereabouts, I'll wager the hangdog slave and pawn my head you haven't a corporal's guard o' marines and land forces all told!"

M. Radisson never allowed an enemy's taunt to hasten speech or act. He looked at Ben with a measuring glance which sized that fellow very small indeed.

"Then I must decline your wager, Ben," says he. "In the first place, Jack Battle is mine already. In the second, you would lose ten times over. In the third, you have few enough men already. And in the fourth, your head isn't worth pawn for a wager; though I may take you, body and boots, all the same," adds he.

With that he goes off, leaving Ben blowing curses into the fire like a bellows. The young rake bawled out for more gin, and with head sunk on his chest began muttering to himself.

"That black-eyed, false-hearted, slippery French eel!" he mumbles, rapping out an oath. "Now the devil fly off with me, an I don't slit him like a Dutch herring for a traitor and a knave and a thief and a cheat! By Judas, if he doesn't turn up with the furs, I'll do to him as I did to the supercargo last week, and bury him deep in the bastion! Very fine, him that was to get the furs hiding inland! Him, that didn't add a cent to what Kirke and Stocking paid; they to supply the money, my father to keep the company from knowing, and me to sail the ship--him, that might 'a' hung in Boston but for my father towing him out o' port--him the first to turn knave and steal all the pelts!"

"Who?" quietly puts in M. Groseillers, who had been listening with wide eyes.

But Ben's head rolled drunkenly and he slid down in sodden sleep.

Again the fort door opened with the rush of frost clouds, and in the midst of the white vapour hesitated three men. The door softly closed, and Le Borgne stole forward.

"White-man--promise--no--hurt--good Indian?" he asked.

"The white-man is Le Borgne's friend," assured Groseillers, "but who are these?"

He pointed to two figures, more dead than alive, chittering with cold.

Le Borgne's foxy eye took on a stolid look. "White--men--lost--in the snow," said he, "white-man from the big white canoe--come walkee--walkee--one--two--three sleep--watchee good Indian--friend--fort!"

M. Groseillers sprang to his feet muttering of treachery from Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company, and put himself in front of the intruders so that Ben could not see. But the poor fellows were so frozen that they could only mumble out something about the Prince Rupert having foundered, carrying half the crew to the river bottom. Hurrying the two Englishmen to another part of the fort, M. Groseillers bade me run for Radisson.

I wish that you could have seen the triumphant glint laughing in Pierre Radisson's eyes when I told him.

"Fate deals the cards! 'Tis we must play them! This time the jade hath trumped her partner's ace! Ha, ha, Ramsay! We could 'a' captured both father and son with a flip o' the finger! Now there's only need to hold the son! Governor Brigdar must beg passage from us to leave the bay; but who a deuce are those inlanders that Ben Gillam keeps raving against for hiding the furs?"

And he flung the mess-room door open so forcibly that Ben Gillam waked with a jump. At sight of Le Borgne the young New Englander sprang over the benches with his teeth agleam and murder on his face. But the liquor had gone to his knees. He keeled head over like a top-heavy brig, and when we dragged him up Le Borgne had bolted.

All that night Ben swore deliriously that he would do worse to Le Borgne's master than he had done to the supercargo; but he never by any chance let slip who Le Borgne's master might be, though M. Radisson, Chouart Groseillers, young Jean, and I kept watch by turns lest the drunken knave should run amuck of our Frenchmen. I mind once, when M. Radisson and I were sitting quiet by the bunk where Ben was berthed, the young rake sat up with a fog-horn of a yell and swore he would slice that pirate of a Radisson and all his cursed Frenchies into meat for the dogs.

M. Radisson looked through the candle-light and smiled. "If you want to know your character, Ramsay," says he, "get your enemy talking in his cups!"

"Shiver my soul, if I'd ever come to his fort but to find out how strong the liar is!" cries Ben.

"Hm! I thought so," says M. de Radisson, pushing the young fellow back to his pillow and fastening the fur robes close lest frost steamed through the ill-chinked logs.

By Christmas Ben Gillam and Jack Battle of the New Englanders' fort and the two spies of the Hudson's Bay Company had all recovered enough from their freezing to go about. What with keeping the English and New Englanders from knowing of each other's presence, we had as twisted a piece of by-play as you could want. Ben Gillam and Jack we dressed as bushrangers; the Hudson's Bay spies as French marines. Neither suspected the others were English, nor ever crossed words while with us. And whatever enemies say of Pierre Radisson, I would have you remember that he treated his captives so well that chains would not have dragged them back to their own masters.

"How can I handle all the English of both forts unless I win some of them for friends?" he would ask, never laying unction to his soul for the kindness that he practised.

By Christmas, too, the snow had ceased falling and the frost turned the land to a silent, white, paleocrystic world. Sap-frozen timbers cracked with the loud, sharp snapping of pistol-shots--then the white silence! The river ice splintered to the tightening grip of winter with the grinding of an earthquake, and again the white silence! Or the heavy night air, lying thick with frost smoke like a pall over earth, would reverberate to the deep bayings of the wolf-pack, and over all would close the white silence!

As if to defy the powers of that deathly realm, M. de Radisson had the more logs heaped on our hearth and doubled the men's rations. On Christmas morning he had us all out to fire a salute, Ben Gillam and Jack and the two Fur Company spies disguised as usual, and the rest of us muffled to our eyes. Jackets and tompions were torn from the cannon. Unfrosted priming was distributed. Flags were run up on boats and bastions. Then the word was given to fire and cheer at the top of our voices.

Ben Gillam was sober enough that morning but in the mood of a ruffian stale from overnight brawls. Hardly had the rocking echoes of cannonading died away when the rascal strode boldly forward in front of us all, up with his musket, took quick aim at the main flagstaff and fired. The pole splintered off at the top and the French flag fluttered to the ground.

"There's for you--you Frenchies!" he shouted. "See the old rag tumble!"

'Twas the only time M. Radisson gave vent to wrath.

"Dog!" he ground out, wrenching the gun from Gillam's hands.

"Avast! Avast!" cries Ben. "He who lives in glass-houses needs not to throw stones! Mind that, ye pirate!"

"Dog!" repeats M. Radisson, "dare to show disrespect to the Most Christian of Kings!"

"Most Christian of Kings!" flouts Ben. "I'll return to my fort! Then I'll show you what I'll give the Most Christian of Kings!"

La Chesnaye rushed up with rash threat; but M. de Radisson pushed the merchant aside and stood very still, looking at Ben.

"Young man," he began, as quietly as if he were wishing Ben the season's compliments, "I brought you to this fort for the purpose of keeping you in this fort, and it is for me to say when you may leave this fort!"

Ben rumbled out a string of oaths, and M. Radisson motioned the soldiers to encircle him. Then all Ben's pot-valiant bravery ebbed.

"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded savagely.

"Prisoner or guest, according to your conduct," answered Radisson lightly. Then to the men--"Form line-march!"

At the word we filed into the guard-room, where the soldiers relieved Gillam of pistol and sword.

"Am I to be shot? Am I to be shot?" cried Gillam, white with terror at M. Radisson's order to load muskets. "Am I to be shot?" he whimpered.

"Not unless you do it yourself, and 'twould be the most graceful act of your life, Ben! And now," said M. Radisson, dismissing all the men but one sentinel for the door, "and now, Ben, a Merry Christmas to you, and may it be your last in Hudson Bay!"

With that he left Ben Gillam prisoner; but he ordered special watch to be kept on the fort bastions lest Ben's bravado portended attack. The next morning he asked Ben to breakfast with our staff.

"The compliments of the morning to you. And I trust you rested well!" M. Radisson called out.

Ben wished that he might be cursed if any man could rest well on bare boards rimed with frost like curdled milk.

"Cheer up, man! Cheer up!" encourages Radisson. "There's to be a capture to-day!"

"A capture!" reiterates Ben, glowering black across the table and doffing his cap with bad grace.

"Aye, I said a capture! Egad, lad, one fort and one ship are prize enough for one day!"

"Sink my soul," flouts Gillam, looking insolently down the table to the rows of ragged sailors sitting beyond our officers, "if every man o' your rough-scuff had the nine lives of a cat, their nine lives would be shot down before they reached our palisades!"

"Is it a wager?" demands M. Radisson.

"A wager--ship and fort and myself to boot if you win!"

"Done!" cries La Chesnaye.

"Ah, well," calculates M. Radisson, "the ship and the fort are worth something! When we've taken them, Ben can go. Nine lives for each man, did you say?"

"A hundred, if you like," boasts the New Englander, letting fly a broadside of oaths at the Frenchman's slur. "A hundred men with nine lives, if you like! We've powder for all!"

"Ben!" M. Radisson rose. "Two men are in the fort now! Pick me out seven more! That will make nine! With those nine I own your fort by nightfall or I set you free!"

"Done!" shouts Ben. "Every man here a witness!"

"Choose!" insists M. Radisson.

Sailors and soldiers were all on their feet gesticulating and laughing; for Godefroy was translating into French as fast as the leaders talked.

"Choose!" urges M. Radisson, leaning over to snuff out the great breakfast candle with bare fingers as if his hand were iron.

"Shiver my soul, then," laughs Ben, in high feather, "let the first be that little Jack Sprat of a half-frozen Battle! He's loyal to me!"

"Good!" smiles M. Radisson. "Come over here, Jack Battle."

Jack Battle jumped over the table and stood behind M. Radisson as second lieutenant, Ben's eyes gaping to see Jack's disguise of bushranger like himself.

"Go on," orders M. Radisson, "choose whom you will!"

The soldiers broke into ringing cheers.

"Devil take you, Radisson," ejaculates Ben familiarly, "such cool impudence would chill the Nick!"

"That is as it may be," retorts Radisson. "Choose! We must be off!"

Again the soldiers cheered.

"Well, there's that turncoat of a Stanhope with his fine airs. I'd rather see him shot next than any one else!"

"Thank you, Ben," said I.

"Come over here, Ramsay," orders Radisson. "That's two. Go on! Five more!"

The soldiers fell to laughing and Ben to pulling at his mustache.

"That money-bag of a La Chesnaye next," mutters Ben. "He's lady enough to faint at first shot."

"There'll be no first shot. Come, La Chesnaye! Three. Go on! Go on, Ben! Your wits work slow!"

"Allemand, the pilot! He is drunk most of the time."

"Four," counts M. Radisson. "Come over here, Allemand! You're drunk most of the time, like Ben. Go on!"

"Godefroy, the English trader--he sulks--he's English--he'll do!"

"Five," laughs M. Radisson.

And for the remaining two, Ben Gillam chose a scullion lad and a wretched little stowaway, who had kept hidden under hatches till we were too far out to send him back. At the last choice our men shouted and clapped and stamped and broke into snatches of song about conquerors.