Part 5

On the right at a small table the Seigneur’s son, Biencourt, and the Duc de Montpelier played at dice; the one eagerly, as if mindful of his growing pile of pistoles, the other in listless unconcern. And this difference the appearance of the two enhanced, for while Biencourt was tall, blue-eyed, and smooth and fresh of face, the duc was short and dark, with glittering black eyes and a pale, wearied countenance. And whereas Biencourt was bravely dressed in doublet and hose of soft blue satin, the duc wore a black velvet that harmonized sombrely with his paleness and his listlessness. He had but that day reached Acadie from France, yet the sight of the forest life about him, the fur-clad lackeys and strange Indian relics, seemed scarcely to stir his pulses. Instead he sat in silence by the table, carelessly toying with his white, ringed hands.

The round ended and Biencourt swept in his gains. “Doubles?” he cried.

The duc nodded and pushed forward his stake.

“It was then the English came aboard us, Monsieur Lescarbot,” roared Imbert, waving his sword, “and I leave you to judge how fierce the fighting was with half our men already dead. The deck was a red shambles, and in the midst stood Pierre Euston, blood from head to heel.”

“It is worthy of a ballad,” murmured his hearer.

The duc shivered and drew nearer the fire. “Do ballads flourish in this frozen land?” he asked, with a languid lift of his black eyebrows.

Poutrincourt started from his reverie. “Lescarbot is a famous poet, monsieur le duc. For a ballad or love-song I know few to equal him.”

A blush reddened the poet’s dimpled cheeks. “The wilderness is full of subjects,” said he, modestly.

The wind was rising higher and the stout oaken door rattled clamorously to the white gusts. His highness the Duc de Montpelier shivered again and looked about him somewhat curiously at the quaintly carven doors and the bearskins and heads of deer that hung upon the dark wainscoted walls.

“It was then I came up from the lower deck,” went on Imbert, “and side by side Pierre Euston and I charged together. Ah! Pierre was a brave fighter in those days, I warrant you, and together we swept the decks before us. And droll enough work it was, with the wounded dogs of English laying their swords about our heels as we passed.”

“It was scoundrelly work,” broke in Biencourt, balancing his dice-box on his fingers. “Nothing would please me better than a meeting with this droll gentleman, this Pierre Euston.”

Half seriously, half amusedly, the quondam pirate shrugged his great shoulders. “Tush! I was but a lad,” he said in a tone of apology, “and I took no share beyond the fighting.”

The dicing went on. The duc threw and lost again and impassively as ever filled his silver flagon from the pitcher on the long oaken table behind him. “To your next ballad, Monsieur Lescarbot,” he said, politely. But the wine was scarce half way to his lips ere there came a strange interruption. The door opened slowly from without, and a woman entered, an infant in her arms.

In after years, when alone with Imbert in the ruined fort, that scene came back to Biencourt with startling vividness. Once again he beheld the long room dyed red in the glow of the fire; once more he saw them as they started to their feet and stood staring blankly at the stranger. And much cause was there to stare, for women in Port Royal this winter there were none,--least of all grand ladies, such as each movement showed this to be,--while beyond the fort lay naught but a savage, unbroken wilderness. And Biencourt remembered standing thus while one might slowly count ten.

The duc was the first to speak. “You are cold, madame,” he said softly. “You must drink some wine.” And, flagon in hand, he approached her.

But the newcomer, who was blue-eyed and most marvellously fair of face, waved him curtly back. “I have come to ask shelter for myself and babe, from the lord of the seigneurie, monsieur, not to drink wine.” Then, pausing as if for breath, she stood erect beside the door, slender and lissome, a multitude of snow-flakes slowly melting in the red-gold of her hair.

For a moment Poutrincourt was silent. Idly his thoughts travelled the endless forest wastes of Acadie, snow-clad and inhospitable, where, this winter of 1611, was no white settlement beside his own. He had even passed up the great river to Quebec, where his friend Captain Samuel Champlain had three years before planted the banner of the fleur-de-lis, when with a start he became aware the woman’s eyes were fixed haughtily upon him. Then, mindful of his duty, he stepped forward, bowing low, and bade her welcome to his seigneurie of Port Royal, brushing the snow from her long fur mantle with his own white hands. And in an instant more the stranger was ensconced in a chair before the fire.

Biencourt and the duc resumed their gaming, Monsieur Lescarbot took out his tablets preparatory to verse-making, and Imbert busied himself mulling wine for the conclusion of the evening’s potations, which in Port Royal were wont to be of the deepest. But no one ventured to mar the hospitality of Port Royal with a question, and the newcomer proved more taciturn than would have been expected from the laughing curves of her lips, sitting moment after moment silent in the glow of the fire.

The wind still battered at the door and muttered angrily in the chimney, but to Biencourt the room was filled with a new light--a strange radiance that seemed to emanate from the stranger’s golden head or the crimson kirtle which she wore. He forgot his game. He watched only her drooping lashes, with a vague hope that soon she might raise them. And as he watched, the pile of money before him lessened rapidly.

“I fear you bring me ill-luck, madame,” he cried at last, ruefully smiling toward her. “These pistoles have a sorry trick of vanishing since you came.”

The stranger raised her lashes, as he had hoped.

She smiled back responsively, and her eyes caught an amber light from the leaping flames. “Would you turn me into the night again?” she asked, jestingly, yet with a strange inflection in her voice as though speaking to some one far away.

Biencourt shook his head. “This may bring me fortune,” he said, in eager tones. And rising and striding to her side, he stooped down and made the sign of the cross above the baby’s forehead--a simple superstition, but evidently not to the newcomer’s liking, for she said with some hauteur, “I, monsieur, am of the reformed faith,” and leaned back coldly in her chair.

“Methinks, madame, you cannot have journeyed far,” broke in Poutrincourt, who had been staring into the fire. “Your cloak had little snow for much travel, and, besides, there was the babe.”

Madame’s face lost its haughtiness, and she smiled once more.

Poutrincourt rubbed his slender hands softly together. “All about us is the endless forest, and lo! as if by magic you appear! Are you sure there be no witchcraft in it?”

The stranger’s laugh rang through the hall, dying faintly amid the armor in the far corner. “Mayhap I sailed hither in some sea-rover from the Spanish lands, or perhaps”--and here she smiled demurely--“I hid myself in yonder vessel that this day came from France. Perchance I dared the drifts alone, or I may have bribed some of the red savages to carry me. But where’er I came from, the sentry at the gate is not to blame. The night is dark, and the snow has heaped an easy road from outside over the bastion.”

“I am waiting, Monsieur Biencourt,” broke in the duc, with an impatient glance at his opponent, who was still standing by the stranger lady’s side. There was such anger in his tone that the other men, remembering his former listlessness, glanced curiously at him.

His pale face was even paler than before; tiny drops of moisture glittered on his forehead; one hand was clenched above his winnings, in the other his dice-box trembled. “Does he love his pistoles after all?” thought the poet, pausing in his poem. The wine was mulled at last and the goblets filled. The Seigneur of Port Royal drank slowly and reflectively, in small sips, glancing alternately from the fair-haired mother to her dark-eyed, cooing child. “I have thought about your lodging, madame,” he said at last, tilting his goblet to and fro.

“Here you would have no rest, else I would give you my own apartments. This evening we are something quieter than usual, but oftener the noise of revelling disturbs the forest far into the night. The hall is full of men in leathern hunting suits, the red savages sit smoking by the fire, there is gaming and wine-drinking, and in the intervals we sing the songs of France. But without the fort, a half-mile beyond the gate, are two disused huts. One of these I give you to inhabit. And that you suffer insult from none, a protector shall go with you, who shall answer for your honor with his own. There be two huts, and each shall have one. But this night you will lodge here.”

The stranger leaned forward. Her slender fingers touched his arm. “You have forgotten to name the one who is to guard me,” she said hastily, a curious thrill vibrating through her voice.

The Seigneur pointed at Biencourt, and her face, which had seemed strained and eager, relaxed again. “We shall be brave allies, shall we not?” she cried, turning her blue eyes toward him. Biencourt laughed. “None better,” he responded in great good-humor.

The storm was growing fiercer as the night went on. The door rattled more noisily, and the flames in the great chimney waved to and fro in the sudden gusts. The space on the other side of the table, feebly lit by two candles in brazen candlesticks, became a battleground of shadows from the group before the fire. The stranger lady, seeming not to mind the storm, looked dreamily about her at the strange antlers on the walls, and at the motto of the lords of Port Royal, carved above the oaken mantel, shielding her baby’s face the while from the glare of the flames. Presently her eyes met Biencourt’s.

“You are brave; is it not so?” she asked, with a laugh and a toss of her head that spread her golden hair in sunshine over her shoulders.

Imbert answered in his place. “Very brave, and a fine swordsman!” cried the old pirate, while his black eyes flashed. “All Port Royal knows the young admiral and his famous wrist-play.”

“Admiral!” Again the blue eyes looked into his, and again Biencourt had the same strange feeling, as if the speaker’s thoughts were far away, and she were merely toying with the words.

“Aye!” went on Imbert, coming nearer, and laying his monstrous hands upon the mantel, “the late King Henry made him an admiral for these waters months ere his martyrdom, and since then he has swept the freebooters from the coast.”

His highness the Duc de Montpelier leaned lazily backward in his chair, raising his black eyebrows. “So my good cousin, Henry of Navarre, chose for his admirals beardless boys!” he said very softly and very languidly.

There was an instant hush throughout the room, in which the clatter of the door rose almost to a scream. Imbert drew in his breath with a sharp, hissing sound; the poet looked up from his tablets, and Poutrincourt from the fire. These latter were just in time to see Biencourt leap to his feet and draw his sword, and almost before they understood the cause the fight had begun.

The first of the encounter was much in the duc’s favor. He fenced so strongly behind a certain affectation of disdain, and his thrusts came so subtly home, that, ere five minutes had passed, Biencourt was bleeding from a wound in his left shoulder. The duc lowered his sword and surveyed his opponent. “Are you satisfied, monsieur?” he asked placidly.

“Not yet!” cried Biencourt, angrily.

Imbert drew near and examined the wound. “A scratch!” he called, contemptuously. Then, with a warning look, he lounged back to his position by the mantel. The room was very still as the two faced each other again,--the duc, dark and pale; Biencourt, with a crimson flush upon his cheeks.

There was the same writhing of swords, the same chilly music of steel, and once again the duellists swayed to and fro. Then for the second time the duc’s sword found its mark; this time not far below the heart.

Biencourt leaned back, ashen white, upon Lescarbot’s shoulder. His blood flowed fast and his eyes were closed as if in pain. The duc himself approached and surveyed him, leaning the while a trifle wearily upon his sword, for the last bout had been a fierce one.

“It was a brave fight,” he said slowly.

At the sound of his voice Biencourt’s blue eyes opened. “Can you stay the bleeding?” he asked huskily of Imbert, who with the deftness of an old campaigner was binding a mass of soft cloths about the wound.

Imbert nodded.

“Then a moment more and I am ready.”

“But, monsieur,” the duc courteously interposed, “your wound is deep and you have already done enough for honor. Believe me you have this night shown a swordsmanship I never saw before--I who have met and conquered every _maître d’armes_ in France. It was but by using all my skill I touched you.”

But with the duc’s insult still rankling at his heart Biencourt was in no mood for fine speeches. “I can try once more,” he answered rather grimly, “and I warn you to be on your guard. Let no gleam of the stranger’s golden hair tempt you from your watchfulness, or ill may well betide you.”

At this the duc’s pale face flushed and he shook his head in fiercest anger. But he spoke no word. Then the two faced each other again.

Poutrincourt’s oval face was gray and haggard; Lescarbot looked on half eagerly, half sullenly; Imbert, his hands twined in his shaggy black hair, alone was imperturbable. And at one side, with head averted, the stranger leaned idly in her chair, smoothing her baby’s forehead with her hand.

This time there was no respite. The two pressed each other fiercely, their swords flashing in the candlelight like twin twining snakes. To and fro they swayed; a dozen times each saved his life as by a miracle; their breath came in quick and quicker gasps, and still they fought on. The duc’s face was now fiery red with passion, and it was evident no thought of mercy lingered in his mind. And for the first time he became uncertain of the result, for Biencourt was fighting with a dogged persistence that boded ill. Try as he would, his thrusts were parried so that presently he began half doubtfully to wonder if at last he had met his equal. And while these thoughts lingered in his mind, giving to his wounded adversary’s face a look of pale foreboding, the infant in the stranger’s arms began crying shrilly. For an instant the duc glanced hastily toward the chair in which she sat, his guard failed, and Biencourt, fainting from loss of blood, ran him through the chest.

It was months ere Biencourt and the Duc de Montpelier met again. Then one June afternoon, when Acadie lay in a yellow swoon, the duc appeared before the two solitary huts, leaning heavily on a stick.

“We shall not quarrel again, I hope,” he said gayly, bowing to Biencourt, who was lounging in the shadow of the forest. “Of a truth I have no mind to stay longer in bed. And I have come, monsieur, both to make amends for my discourtesy on the evening of our meeting, and to beg the honor of your friendship.”

And having thus spoken, he bowed low again and waited, a short yet stately figure set against a background of deep green spruce. But his face, as Biencourt sprang forward to grasp his hand, showed haggard and drawn as if through pain.

This was the beginning of a strange friendship. Lescarbot had turned the duel into a ballad of Homeric proportions, variegated here and there with choice allusions to the “listless lady by the fire.” This the two read together, seated side by side on a rustic seat Imbert had arranged in the shadow--all except the ending, which the poet, despite his skill, had not yet been able to fashion to his mind. Beneath them the bay sparkled in the sunshine; to the right lay the fort, with its gleaming cannon; in the distance a purple mountain ridge reared itself softly against the sky. Of this scene the duc seemed never to weary. Morning after morning he lounged for hours on the rustic seat, idly drinking in its beauty. It was at the second of these meetings he asked Bien-court about his charge.

“You have no trouble with these Port Royal gallants?” he queried.

Biencourt shook his head.

“And how does madame--Manette, the Seigneur told me was her name--how does madame relish her forest life?”

“She is thinner and her cheeks are pale. Since her child died, I fear she grieves.”

For a time the duc sat silent, carelessly digging with his scabbard in the moist, black earth. “One may not see her?” he said at last, doubtfully.

“Why not? Without doubt you will respect her honor, and she seems lonely.”

On the duc’s lips a faint smile trembled. For a moment he seemed about to laugh. But he only repeated, “So she seems lonely.”

Biencourt rose and knocked at the door of the adjoining hut. “Does madame please to walk?” he called.

There was a reply from within, inaudible to the duc’s ears, and in another moment the stranger lady, whose plain name of Madame Manette ill consorted with her stately air, appeared equipped for walking. The duc sauntered near.

“Madame Manette,” said Biencourt, “I have the honor to present to your notice his highness Monsieur le Duc de Montpelier.”

The duc’s plumed hat swept the earth in greeting. “Methinks the climate suits us strangers ill,” he said, gayly. “From your face it steals the roses; me it hinders too long of recovery.”

Madame Manette shrugged her fine shoulders. “Are you in danger?” she asked politely. The subject was evidently uninteresting.

The duc shook his head and smiled. His black eyes were full of a strange light, and his lips quivered so that Biencourt, watching him, feared he might be in danger of overtaxing his new-found strength. Then the three set out through the forest, loitering along quaint footpaths brown with fallen pine needles, or stooping to gather wild flowers in the shelter of anciently bearded trees, where was naught but primeval stillness.

The walk that day, however, was a short one, for Madame Manette was weary, so that presently they found themselves again before the log hut, with its thatched roof and mossy walls. Vines of Imbert’s planting were beginning to twine about the doorway, and in the air floated the dreamy scent of bursting pine buds. A half mile in the distance the four cannon on the bastion of Port Royal flashed brightly in the sunshine, and the flag of France flaunted civilization and progress in the face of the hoary forest; in a neighboring glade the conical wigwams of an Indian camp stood brown and lonely in the shadow.

At the doorway Madame Manette paused a moment before saying adieu; and as she leaned listlessly against the door, with her eyes fixed on the distant fort, the duc asked a question.

“Your baby!” he cried, abruptly; “where may its grave be?”

Madame Manette’s blue eyes were scanning the great stone gateway, and for a moment it seemed she had not heard. Then, without turning her head, she said slowly: “It is buried where you stand. Your feet, monsieur, are above its heart.”

Her questioner moved hastily aside, a deep pallor on his cheeks, and Madame Manette went on calmly: “It was my own choice it should lie there; and my feet, passing over it each day, do but make it rest the sweeter.” Then, bowing slightly, she retired within.

Next day the duc joined in the walk again, and on many succeeding days, which was very natural, since he and Biencourt were constantly together. Indeed, now that he had shaken off his listlessness, he had become a most fascinating companion. To Biencourt he talked for hours of the court and its affairs; Imbert he held under a respectful spell with stories of his campaigns in the frozen north, where men perished by squadrons in the snowstorms. But his fascinations could hardly be said to extend to Madame Manette, who treated him throughout with a certain chilling disdain. His remarks she answered in monosyllables; the flowers he gave her she languidly let fall ere five minutes had passed. But, without a sign of discomfiture, he next day gathered more and talked on, unconcerned. Very frequently, too, he made excuses to speak to her alone, when the morning stroll was ended, and before she had entered the hut. On these occasions, which generally ended in her abrupt withdrawal, he betrayed a curious dread of stepping upon the unmarked grave, standing always much to one side.

The summer waxed and waned upon the hillside, dying day by day in blood-red spots among the hardwood trees, and still Madame Manette lingered in Acadie. Her seclusion was more rigid than before; it might be that she was thinner, but that was all. At intervals, as vessels left for France, the Seigneur called to offer her passage home, which each time she smilingly refused, accompanying her refusal, however, with such liberal gifts to the colony’s poor as sent Poutrincourt away in a maze of wonder. She took pleasure in her seclusion, she told Biencourt one day, when they were for an instant alone, and in their daily ramblings through the forest. It had been a strange experience, this summer on the very skirt of savagery, and her baby’s grave had bound her to the place. But with the first snow she would return to France. And so time went on.

But after many mornings, there at length chanced one when Madame Manette was indisposed, and there was no walking. Next day the same thing happened, to the evident annoyance of the duc, who paced for hours up and down before her door. On the succeeding morning, however, she appeared again, looking very white and frail. She declined to walk, on account of weariness, and spent an hour idly in the rustic chair.

“You are weak, madame,” cried Biencourt, eagerly, as they walked back to her hut. “You need aid. Indeed, you seem to grow ever frailer and more weary.”

Madame Manette turned on the threshold of her domains and surveyed her two escorts with deliberation. There was a faint shadowy smile upon her lips, and her marvellous hair lay in a golden blaze against the white hollow of her cheeks. “He dreams--does he not?” she asked, addressing the duc.

“I fear his dreams are true.” And Biencourt, glancing at him, thought he had never looked so ghastly since his wound. His lips were aquiver and his words came from them with a strange tremor.

But Madame Manette shook her head. “You are both over anxious,” she said lightly, though even as she spoke her voice faltered wearily. Then, with a bow and a glance at some wild-fowl flying near, she closed the door behind her, leaving the two gazing at each other with a mute, fearful questioning.

That night Biencourt chanced to be favored by a visit from Lescarbot. The poet had been wandering about the forest, vainly striving to fashion an ending to his famous ballad, and was consequently in a state of great depression. His figure drooped; his gray eyes stared moodily before him. And thus for hours he sat, while the moon rose above the trees and paled the solitary candle with her rays.

“There will never be an end,” he cried at last, rising pettishly and flinging the door open wide. “For months have I thought upon it--the wild storm, the dicing, the newcomer, and the duel--and each time I reel back, baffled like a child at the entrance of a gloomy forest. For who can paint the motive that daily forms itself beneath his gaze? And here is that which came perhaps from far.”

Monsieur Lescarbot’s troubled face relaxed. His analysis evidently pleased him well, for he stepped briskly into the moonlight flung across the doorway.

Biencourt made no answer. He was busy with a long epistle, which a vessel on the morrow would carry to a certain black-eyed maid of honor at the court of France, and scarcely heeded what the poet said.