Chapter 29

His recovery thenceforth was rapid. Old Lefort's private forge was in his own court-yard. Here, among the rustling bananas and the flowering pomegranates, where he had played, a motherless infant, the slim, emaciated lad sat or walked about in the November sunshine. And while Marcel hung about, the smith, hammering out the delicate Lefort wrought-iron work so prized in New Orleans to-day, anathematized indiscriminately General Jackson, the Spaniards, the British and the Americans.

Meanwhile strange sounds filtered into the courtyard from without--the beat of drums, the shrill concord of fifes, the measured tread of marching feet.

Marcel heard and wondered. He was not permitted to walk abroad, but what he saw from his window under the roof quickened his blood.

"Is it that Governor Claiborne has heeded the Great Chief's warning?" he asked of his father.

"The governor is an American," said Piff-Paff. "All Americans are perfidious. But the traitor of traitors is General An-drrew Jack-_son_. Be quiet, my son. Do you wish to die of fever?"

"When I do get out," Marcel was saying to himself one sunny day early in December, "I will slay the traitor with my own hand."

A steady tread came echoing down the corridor, and the Great Chief stepped into the court-yard.

"M'sieu' Jean!" cried Piff-Paff, running to meet him.

Lafitte pressed the old man's hands in his, and turned to Marcel.

"Aha, my little game-cock, there you are!" he said, catching the boy in his arms. "My faith, but you paddled well for Louisiana that time we know of! And the arm? Is it all there?" A winning tenderness softened the fierce eyes. "But I am pressed for time, my friends," he continued, stepping back.

As he spoke he unbuckled his belt, to which hung a short sword with jeweled cross-hilt. "Keep this lad, in memory of Lafitte--and the alligator," he laughed, handing sword and belt to Marcel, who stood open-mouthed, unable for sheer ecstasy to utter a word.

"And look you, Marcel," his tones became grave, "I charge you henceforth to forget the road to Barataria. It leads to riches, yes, but it is a crooked and dishonest road. I would I had never myself set foot in such ways!" He paused a moment, his eyes bent on the ground." Learn your father's honest trade. Live by it, an honest man and a good citizen."

"Yes, my captain," stammered Marcel.

"Swear!" said Lafitte, imperiously.

"I swear!" breathed Marcel, his hand on the cross-hilt of the sword. "By God's help!"

"Amen!" said Lafitte, reverently. He turned away.

"But where are you going, M'sieu' Jean?" cried Piff-Paff. "Do you not know that a reward of five hundred dollars is offered for your arrest?"

"I know." Lafitte shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "I go to offer my services to General Jackson."

_"Gen-e-ral Jackson!_" echoed Piff-Paff. His jaws dropped. He stood like one suddenly turned to stone while the chief's retreating footsteps rang down the alleyway. "General Jack-_son!_" he repeated, mechanically. "But he shall not!"

With a roar of rage he leaped for the saber--his old saber which hung by the forge. "Myself, I will slay the traitor Jack-_son_ before M'sieu' Jean dishonors himself! I, Blaise Lefort, will save him."

He dashed out. Marcel followed, buckling on his cross-hilted sword as he ran.

"Nevertheless it is I who will destroy the traitor!" he muttered. "I have already said it."

The narrow streets of the old town presented a unique spectacle. The tall dormer-window houses with their latticed balconies looked down upon hurrying crowds almost as motley as those of the carnival. But the faces of these men and women were earnest, grimly determined.

And soldiers, soldiers everywhere! United States soldiers in trim uniforms; Coffee's Tennesseeans in brown shirts and slouched hats; Planche's gaily clad Creole infantry; D'Aquin's freemen of color; Indians in blankets and leggings--all carrying guns, all stepping briskly to drumbeat and fife-call.

Pennons, guidons and banners tossed about in the orderly confusion; American and French flags waved together from balconies and windows.

"But, look!" exclaimed Marcel in pained astonishment, "our Creoles are drilling with the Americans!"

"They are mad!" growled Piff-Paff. "This General Jack-_son_ has poisoned their hearts."

In truth, the threatened attack on New Orleans by the British had united Creoles and Americans. A few only of the former held aloof--like old Lefort himself; these, honest in their convictions, were uncompromising.

Marcel set his teeth, gripping his sword. At the entrance to General Jackson's headquarters in Royal Street they were questioned by a sentry, who looked from the swarthy old man to the pale lad, and let them pass.

They hurried down the long, dim corridor, which opened upon a sunny courtyard hung with blossoming rose vines. Huge water-jars were ranged against the wall. A fountain played in the center, and round the pool beneath, some soldiers in uniform were lounging and gossiping. Marcel glanced curiously at these as he followed his father up the winding stair. The arched hall above, with its Spanish windows, opened into an anteroom.

Father and son paused instinctively here among the shadows. The large room beyond the folding doors, which were thrown open, was filled with the afternoon sunshine; a table strewn with maps and papers was placed near one of the long windows. Beyond it, in an armchair, was seated a man in an attitude of rigid attention. Several staff-officers were gathered about him.

The Great Chief stood directly in front of the seated figure. He had doubtless been speaking for some minutes. Now, holding out his sword, he concluded:

"And I offer my services and those of my Baratarians in this hour of my country's peril to General Jackson."

He spoke in English. Marcel, who was acquainted with the forbidden tongue, glanced sidewise at his father. He saw that the old man had also understood. Both father arid son, as if moved by the same spring, made a step forward.

But both paused. General Jackson had risen from his seat. The light fell full upon his face as he reached out without a word and grasped Lafitte's hand.

At sight of the tall, martial figure, erect and commanding in the simple uniform of the United States army, the compelling face, with its crown of bristling silvered hair, the eyes that shone with a curious, soft fire, the firm mouth and masterful chin, Marcel Lefort's soul seemed drawn from his bosom as by an invisible hand. A mist gathered before his eyes, his throat clicked, a mysterious longing suddenly swept over him from head to foot.

Before he knew what he was about he had traversed the antechamber and entered the larger room, his footfalls on the bare polished floor disturbing the dramatic silence.

"My captain!" he cried, stopping short and lifting his eager, boyish face to the Great Chief. "My general!" He turned with outstretched sword to the greater chief beyond. He wished to say more, but the throbbing of his heart was too loud in his ears.

Suddenly Marcel heard a footstep sound behind him. His father! He had quite forgotten his father.

"He will slay me where I stand!" he groaned inwardly.

A hand whose touch thrilled him was slipped under his arm. He felt himself drawn to his father's side.

"General An-drrew Jack-_son_,"--the old gunner jpoke with great dignity and feeling although his English was queer,--"we haf come, my son an' me, to hoffer ou' swo'de to dose United State'. Yes, my general. If dose United State' will make us the honah to haccep'."

"By the Eternal," cried General Jackson, surprised into his favorite oath, "with such a spirit in the air, I would storm all the powers of the world!"

In less than a month the memorable Battle of New Orleans was fought--January 8, 1815. The Baratarians, under command of Jean Lafitte, rendered distinguished service in the short but bloody and decisive engagement. The two batteries directed by Beluche and Dominique You were especially commended in the general's official reports. Piff-Paff and his son served side by side in Dominique You's battery.

When the battle was over, Marcel stood with his fellow gunners on the parapet of Rodriguez Canal and looked out across the field--smoke-hung under the cloudless morning sky. The British dead, in their scarlet uniforms, were lying row on row, one behind the other, like grain cut down by the mower's scythe. The boy's heart sickened. But a prolonged cheer came ringing along the parapet.

General Jackson was walking slowly down the line, stopping in front of each command to salute the men and to praise their coolness and courage. As he came up, the Baratarians broke into wild shouts. The great commander shook hands with Lafitte and his brother, who stood a little apart.

"Well done, Baratarians!" he said, stepping into the midst of the powder-grimed crew. His swift glance fell upon a lad whose luminous eyes were fixed upon him.

"Well done, my little creole!" he added, a rare smile flashing across his worn face.

"My general," said Marcel, saluting proudly, "me, I am an American!"

HUMPHRY DAVY AND THE SAFETY-LAMP

By George C. Towle

Few boys have ever led a happier, busier, or more varied existence than did Humphry Davy. He was the son of a poor wood-carver, who lived in the pretty seaside town of Penzance, in England, where Humphry was born in 1778. Lowly, however, as was his birth, in his earliest years Humphry gave many proofs that nature had endowed him with rare talents.

Some of the stories told of his childish brightness are hard to believe. They relate, for instance, that before he was two years old he could talk almost as plainly and clearly as a grown person; that he could repeat many passages of "Pilgrim's Progress," from having heard them, before he could read; and that at five years old he could read very rapidly, and remembered almost everything he read.

His father, the wood-carver, had died while Humphry was still very young, and had left his family poor. But by good-fortune a kind neighbor and friend, a Mr. Tonkine, took care of the widow and her children, and obtained a place for Humphry as an apprentice with an apothecary of the town. Humphry proved, indeed, a rather troublesome inmate of the apothecary's house. He set up a chemical laboratory in his little room upstairs, and there devoted himself to all sorts of experiments. Every now and then an explosion would be heard, which made the members of the apothecary's household quake with terror.

Humphry began to dream ambitious dreams. Not for him, he thought, was the drudgery of an apothecary store. He felt that he had in himself the making of a famous man, and he resolved that he would leave no science unexplored. He set to work with a will. His quick mind soon grasped the sciences not only of mathematics and chemistry, but of botany, anatomy, geology, and metaphysics. His means for the experiments he desired to make were very limited, but he did not allow any obstacle to prevent him from pursuing them.

He was especially fond of wandering along the seashore, and observing and examining the many curious and mysterious objects which he found on the crags and in the sand. One day his eye was struck with the bladders of seaweed, which he found full of air. The question was, how did the air get into them? This puzzled him, and he could find no answer to it, because he had no instruments to experiment with.

But on another day, soon after, as he strolled on the beach, what was his surprise and delight to find a case of surgical instruments, which had been flung up from some wreck on the coast! Armed with this, he hastened home, and managed to turn each one of the instruments to some useful account. He constructed an air-pump out of a surgeon's syringe, and made a great many experiments with it.

Fortunately for Humphry, he formed a friendship with a youth who could not only sympathize with him, but was of a great deal of use to him. This was Gregory Watt, a son of the great James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine. Gregory Watt had gone to Penzance for his health, and had there fallen in with the ambitious son of the wood-carver. This new friend was able to give Humphry many new and valuable hints and encouraged him with hopeful words to go on with his studies and experiments.

Already Humphry was getting to be known as a scientific genius beyond the quiet neighborhood of Penzance. He had proposed a theory on heat and light which had attracted the attention of learned men; and at twenty-one he had discovered the peculiar properties of nitrous oxide--what we now call "laughing-gas"--though he nearly killed himself by inhaling too much of it. He had also made many experiments in galvanism, and had found silicious earth in the skin of reeds and grass.

So famous indeed had he already become, that at the age of twenty-two--when most young men are only just leaving college--he was chosen lecturer on science at the great Royal Institution in London. There he amazed men by the eloquence and clearness with which he revealed the mysteries of science. He was so bright and attractive a young man, moreover, that the best London society gladly welcomed him to its drawing-rooms, and praises of him were in every mouth. His lecture-room was crowded whenever he spoke.

But he was not a bit spoiled by all this flattery and homage. He worked all the harder; resolved to achieve yet greater triumphs in science than he had yet done. An opportunity soon arose to turn his knowledge and inventive powers to account in a very important way. For a long time the English public had every now and then been horrified by the terrible explosions which took place in the coal mines. These explosions resulted often in an appalling loss of human life. Their cause was the filling of the mine by a deadly gas, called "fire-damp," which, when ignited by a lighted candle or lamp, exploded with fearful violence. One day an explosion of fire-damp occurred which killed over one hundred miners on the spot.

This event called universal attention to the subject, and Humphry Davy was besought to try and find some means of preventing, or at least lessening, similar calamities. He promptly undertook the task, and set about it with all his wonted energy. The problem before him was how to provide light in the mines in such a way that the miners might see to work by it, and at the same time be safe from the danger of fire-damp explosion. Many attempts had been made to achieve this, but they had all failed,

Davy began his experiments. He soon made several valuable discoveries. One was that explosions of inflammable gases could not pass through long narrow metallic tubes. Another was that when he held a piece of wire gauze over a lighted candle, the flame would not pass through it. As a result of his long and patient toil Davy was able at last to construct his now famous _Safety-Lamp_, which has undoubtedly saved the lives of thousands during the period which has elapsed since it was invented. He presented a model of his new lamp to the Royal Society, in whose rooms in London it is to be seen to this day.

It is a simple affair, being merely a lamp screwed on to a wire gauze cylinder, and fitted to it by a tight ring. His idea was to admit the fire-damp into the lamp gradually by narrow tubes, so that it would be consumed by combustion. The Safety-Lamp was in truth the greatest triumph of Humphry Davy's useful life.

"I value it," he said, "more than anything I ever did."

Honors of all kinds were showered upon him. Many medals were awarded to him, and the grateful miners subscribed from their scant wages enough to present him with a magnificent service of silver worth $12,000. His discovery was hailed from every part of Europe. The Czar Alexander of Russia sent him a beautiful vase, and he was chosen a member of the historic Institute of France; while his own government conferred upon him the coveted title of baronet.

Sir Humphry Davy, as he was now called, died in the prime of life and in the fulness of honor and fame. Fond of travel, and continuing to the last his scientific studies, he went to the continent, and took up his abode at Geneva, on the borders of one of the loveliest of Swiss lakes. There he had a laboratory, where he could work at will, and could also indulge his passion for fishing and hunting.

But he was worn out before his time. He was attacked by palsy, and passed away at Geneva in 1829, in the fifty-first year of his age. There he was buried. A simple monument reveals where he lies in the foreign churchyard; while a tablet in Westminster Abbey keeps alive his memory in the hearts of his countrymen.

KIT CARSON'S DUEL

By Emerson Hough

"How much farther, François?" asked the leader of a little mountain cavalcade which wound its way down a broad river valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. "See, it is now noon, and the encampment is not yet in sight. Shall we not stop and rest?"

The speaker was a tall, thin man, whose face, browned by the sun of the plains and mountains, none the less bore a refinement almost approaching austerity. The man accosted was leaner and browner than himself, and wore the full costume of the Western _engage_ of the fur trade.

"M'sieu' Parker," he replied, "halways you hask how far to ze hencampment. I do not know. In the mountain we do no hask how far. We push on ze horse. Thass all."

"But the rendezvous--are you sure it is in this valley of the Green?"

"It is establish for ze month of August in ze valley of ze Green. Those man of the mountain, he do not disappoint. This rendezvous of ze year 1835, it may be ze last one for ze trappaire. But me, François Verrier, say to you that you shall see ze rendezvous, also ze trappaire, and ze trader, and ze Injin--hundreds of heem. My faith! Zay shall see for ze first time ze missionaire to ze Injin! M'sieu' Parker, you are not ze good father? _Eh bien_, you shall make some little _priere_ for those _sauvages_."

The thin face of Samuel Parker brightened. This land before his view, majestic, beautiful, was as fabled and unknown as the continent of lost Atlantis. It was a wild world, a new one. He, first to answer that strange appeal from the wild Northwest,--that appeal carried by the four Nez Perces Indians, who travelled in ignorance and hope across half a continent to ask that the Book might be sent out to them by the white man,--felt now exaltation swell within his soul.

What a meeting must be this, which he had pushed forward so eagerly to discover! It was a gathering, as he had been well advised, not in the name of religion or of politics, of art or science--hardly even in the cause of commerce, although here the wild trappers and hunters, absent from one year's end to the other in the mountains, annually met, at some appointed spot in the Rockies, those bold merchants who brought out to them stores of goods to trade for furs. The trappers' rendezvous! He had heard of it a thousand tales distorted and unreal. Truly there was work ahead. He caught up the reins upon his horse's neck, forgot his weariness, and resumed his way.

His followers, a score or more of horsemen and pack-train drivers, among whom rode a short sturdy young man, the future martyr-missionary, Marcus Whitman, moved on, browned, gaunt, dust-begrimed, yet cheerful.

They had travelled for perhaps a mile or so down the valley when the guide, riding abreast of his employer, suddenly pulled up his horse and signed for his companion to pause.

"M'sieu'," said he, "you think I know little of zis land. Behol'! We are harrive' zis hour."

He pointed. There, against the sky-line, on a projecting range of the mountainside which sloped down to the edge of the valley, was the figure of a mountain man, motionless, and evidently on guard.

"_En avant!_" cried François, setting heels to his horse. "_V'la!_ It is ze guard of ze encampment. Ride quick, _mes camarades!_"

The train, packhorses and all, pushed forward at a gallop, which soon broke into a wild run--the proper gait in trapper custom for all who arrived at the mountain rendezvous.

As they rounded the spur of rocks which had made the watch-tower of the sentinel, the full scene burst upon their eyes. There was a wide, sweet space in the valley, made as if for the very purpose of the great rendezvous. A flat of green cottonwoods adjoined the river-bank. "Benches," or natural terraces, of sweet grass rose along the hillside a half-mile away. Hundreds of horses, picketed or hobbled, grazed here and there. Others, favorite steeds of their masters, stood tied at the doors of lodges, in front of which rose long, tufted spears, in the heraldry of that land insignia of their owner's rank. Teepees, a hundred and twoscore, skin tents of the savage tribes and homes also of the whites, were grouped irregularly over a space of more than half a mile. At the doors of many of these, silent Indians sat and smoked. In the wide interspaces of the village were many men, some of them dressed in brown buckskins, others clad more gaudily. These passed to and fro, some on foot, others riding furiously. Animation was in all the air.

Shouts, cries, a tumult formed of many factors filled the air. Babel of speech rose from Frenchmen, Spaniards, Canadians, English, Scotch, Irish, and American backwoodsmen, and Indians of half a dozen tribes. Horses, dogs, black-haired and blanketed women, and children of divers colors moved about continually. The gathering was heterogeneous, conglomerate, picturesque, savage.

Samuel Parker, missionary to the Oregon tribes, and now come hither to the mountain market of 1835 as knight-errant of the Gospel, pulled up his horse at the edge of the encampment and gazed in sheer amazement. His party--except Whitman, who reined in his horse at his friend's side--passed on and joined the shouting throng. Apparently they conveyed certain news as they rode; for now out of the circling ranks of wild horsemen there swept toward the strangers a group of yelling riders.

Long ribbons and waving eagle feathers streamed from the manes and tails of their ponies. Some riders, even of the white men, wore the great war-bonnets of the northern tribes, the long crests of feathers sweeping back upon the croups of the rough-coated steeds they rode. Weapons were in the hands of all. Loud speech and many oaths were on their lips. They might well have disturbed bolder hearts than that of a peaceful missionary.

The leader of the approaching band was a man of gigantic stature, more than six inches above the six-feet mark. He was dark of hair and eye; a wide mustache swept back across his face, and his heavy, untrimmed beard, matted and sunburned at the edges, gave him an expression savage and forbidding.

Clad in the buckskin of a mountain trapper, none the less this personage affected a certain finery. A brilliant sash encircled his waist, his hat bore a wide plume. At his belt hung pistols, and in his hand was a long rifle. He pulled up his horse squatting, its nose high in air.

"How, friend!" he cried. "Or _be_ you friend, who come thus without word to Bill Shunan's camp?"

"Sir," replied the missionary, "my name is Parker--Samuel Parker. I am from far New England, and am bound upon my way to Oregon. I have come aside from the Sublette Cutoff trail to be present at this rendezvous. Yourself I do not know."

"What! Not know Bill Shunan, the bully of the Rockies, and the owner of this camp? Hark ye, stranger, ye're treading on dangerous ground. I've whipped half a dozen men to-day, and driven every fighter of the rendezvous back into his lodge. _They_ know Bill Shunan, and they show him respect, as you shall yourself."

Samuel Parker made no reply, and found no way to move forward, even had he been sure that friends awaited him in the village. The giant went on: