CHAPTER XXII

WE LEAVE THE NORTH SEA

So Sieur Radisson must fit out a royal flotilla to carry Mistress Hortense to the French Habitation. And gracious acts are like the gift horse: you must not look them in the mouth. For the same flotilla that brought Hortense brought all M. Picot's hoard of furs. Coming down the river, lying languidly back among the peltries of the loaded canoe, Hortense, I mind, turned to me with that honest look of hers and asked why Sieur Radisson sent to fetch her in such royal state.

"I am but a poor beggar like your little Jack Battle," she protested.

I told her of M. Radisson's plans for entrance to the English court, and the fire that flashed to her eyes was like his own.

"Must a woman ever be a cat's-paw to man's ambitions?" she asked, with a gleam of the dark lights. "Oh, the wilderness is different," says Hortense with a sigh. "In the wild land, each is for its own! Oh, I love it!" she adds, with a sudden lighting of the depths in her eyes.

"Love--what?"

"The wilderness," says Hortense. "It is hard, but it's free and it's pure and it's true and it's strong!"

And she sat back among the pillows.

When we shot through racing rapids--"sauter les rapides," as our French voyageurs say--she sat up all alert and laughed as the spray splashed athwart. Old Allemand, the pilot, who was steersman on this canoe, forgot the ill-humour of his gin thirst, and proffered her a paddle.

"Here, pretty thing," says he, "try a stroke yourself!"

And to the old curmudgeon's surprise she took it with a joyous laugh, and paddled half that day.

Bethink you who know what warm hearts beat inside rough buckskin whether those voyageurs were her slaves or no! The wind was blowing; Mistress Hortense's hair tossed in a way to make a man swear (vows, not oaths), and Allemand said that I paddled worse than any green hand of a first week. At the Habitation we disembarked after nightfall to conceal our movements from the English. After her arrival, none of us caught a glimpse of Mistress Hortense except of a Sunday at noon, but of her presence there was proof enough. Did voices grow loud in the mess-room? A hand was raised. Some one pointed to the far door, and the voices fell. Did a fellow's tales slip an oath or two? There was a hush. Some one's thumb jerked significantly shoulderwise to the door, and the story-teller leashed his oats for a more convenient season.

"Oh, lordy," taunts an English prisoner out on parole one day, "any angels from kingdom come that you Frenchies keep meek as lambs?"

Allemand, not being able to explain, knocked the fellow flat.

It would scarce have been human nature had not some of the ruffians uttered slurs on the origin of such an one as Hortense found in so strange a case. The mind that feedeth on carrion ever goeth with the large mouth, and for the cleansing of such natures I wot there is no better physic than our crew gave those gossips. What the sailors did I say not. Enough that broken heads were bound by our chirurgeon for the rest of the week.

That same chirurgeon advised a walk outside the fort walls for Mistress Hillary's health. By the goodness of Providence, the duty of escorting her fell to me. Attended by the blackamoor and a soldier, with a musket across my shoulder, I led her out of a rear sally-port and so avoided the scenes of drunkenness among the Indians at the main gate. We got into hiding of a thicket, but boisterous shouting came from the Indian encampment. I glanced at Hortense. She was clad in a green hunting-suit, and by the light of the setting sun her face shone radiant.

"You are not afraid?"

A flush of sheer delight in life flooded her cheeks.

"Afraid?" she laughed.

"Hortense! Hortense! Do you not hear the drunken revel? Do you know what it means? This world is full of what a maid must fear. 'Tis her fear protects her."

"Ah?" asks Hortense.

And she opened the tight-clasped hunting-cloak. A Spanish poniard hung against the inner folds.

"'Tis her courage must protect her. The wilderness teaches that," says Hortense, "the wilderness and men like Picot."

Then we clasped hands and ran like children from thicket to rock and rock to the long stretches of shingly shore. Behind came the blackamoor and the soldier. The salt spray flew in our faces, the wind through our hair; and in our hearts, a joy untold. Where a great obelisk of rock thrust across the way, Hortense halted. She stood on the lee side of the rock fanning herself with her hat.

"Now you are the old Hortense!"

"I _am_ older, hundreds of years older," laughed Hortense.

The westering sun and the gold light of the sea and the caress of a spring wind be perilous setting for a fair face. I looked and looked again.

"Hortense, should an oath to the dead bind the living?"

"If it was right to take the oath, yes," said Hortense.

"Hortense, I may never see you alone again. I promised to treat you as I would treat a sister----"

"But--" interrupts Hortense.

Footsteps were approaching along the sand. I thought only of the blackamoor and soldier.

"I promised to treat you as I would a sister--but what--Hortense?"

"But--but I didn't promise to treat you as I would a brother----"

Then a voice from the other side of the rock: "Devil sink my soul to the bottom of the sea if that viper Frenchman hasn't all our furs packed away in his hold!"

Then--"A pox on him for a meddlesome--" the voice fell.

Then Ben Gillam again: "Shiver my soul! Let 'im set sail, I say! Aren't you and me to be shipped on a raft for the English fort at the foot o' the bay?"

"We'll send 'em all to the bottom o' hell first."

"An you give the word, all my men will rise!"

"Capture the fort--risk the ships--butcher the French!"

Hortense raised her hand and pointed along the shore. Our two guards were lumbering up and would presently betray our presence. Stealing forward we motioned their silence. I sent both to listen behind the rock, while Hortense and I struck into cover of the thicket to regain the fort.

"Do not fear," said I. "M. Radisson has kept the prisoners in hand. He will snuff this pretty conspiracy out before Brigdar and Ben get their heads apart."

She gave that flitting look which laughs at fear and hastened on. We could not go back as we had come without exposing ourselves to the two conspirators, and our course lay nearer the Indian revel. About a mile from the fort Hortense stopped short. Through the underbrush crawled two braves with their eyes leering at us.

"Hortense," I urged, "run for the rear gate! I'll deal with these two alone. There may be more! Run, my dear!"

"Give me your musket," she said, never taking her eyes from the savages.

Wondering not a little at the request, I handed her the weapon.

"Now run," I begged, for a sand crane flapped up where the savages had prowled a pace nearer.

Quick as it rose Hortense aimed. There was a puff of smoke. The bird fell shot at the savages' feet, and the miscreants scudded off in terror.

"That was better," said Hortense, "_you_ would have killed a man."

In vain I urged her to hasten back. She walked.

"You know it may be the last time," she laughed, mocking my grave air of the beach.

"Hortense--Hortense--how am I to keep a promise?"

But she did not answer a word till we reached the sally-port. There she turned with a brave enough look till her eyes met mine, when all was the confusion that men give their lives to win.

"Yes--yes--keep your promise. If you had not come, I had died; if I had not come, you had died. Let us keep faith with truth, for that's keeping faith with God--and--and--God bless you," she whispered brokenly, and she darted through the gate.

* * * * * *

And the next morning we embarked, young Jean Groseillers remaining with ten Frenchmen to hold the fort; Brigdar and Ben aboard our ship instead of going to the English at the foot of the bay; half the prisoners under hatches in M. Groseillers's ship; the other half sent south on the raft--a plan which effectually stopped that conspiracy of Ben's. Not one glimpse of our fair passenger had we on all that voyage south, for what with Ben's oaths and Governor Brigdar's drinking, the cabin was no place for Hortense.

At Isle Percée, entering the St. Lawrence, lay a messenger from La Chesnaye's father with a missive that bore ill news.

M. de la Barre, the new governor, had ordered our furs confiscated because we had gone north without a license, and La Chesnaye had thriftily rigged up this ship to send half our cargo across to France before the Farmers of the Revenue could get their hands upon it. It was this gave rise to the slander that M. de Radisson ran off with half La Chesnaye's furs--which the records de la marine will disprove, if you search them.

On this ship with her blackamoors sailed Mistress Hortense, bearing letters to Sir John Kirke, director of the Hudson's Bay Company and father of M. Radisson's wife.

"Now praise be Heaven, that little ward will open the way for us in England, Chouart," said M. de Radisson, as he moodily listened to news of the trouble abrewing in Quebec.

And all the way up the St. Lawrence, as the rolling tide lapped our keel, I was dreaming of a far, cold paleocrystic sea, mystic in the frost-clouds that lay over it like smoke. Then a figure emerged from the white darkness. I was snatched up, with the northern lights for chariot, two blazing comets our steeds, and the north star a charioteer.