Chapter 201

"RETURN, O SHULAMITE!"

Almost the first person that Gaston recognised in London was Cluny Vosse. He had been to Victoria Station to see a friend off by the train, and as he was leaving, Gaston and he recognised each other. The lad's greeting was a little shy until he saw that Gaston was cool and composed as usual --in effect, nothing had happened. Cluny was delighted, and opened his mind:

"They'd kicked up a deuce of a row in the papers, and there'd been no end of talk; but he didn't see what all the babble was about, and he'd said so again and again to Lady Dargan."

"And Lady Dargan, Cluny?!" asked Gaston quietly. Cluny could not be dishonest, though he would try hard not to say painful things.

"Well, she was a bit fierce at first--she's a woman, you know; but afterwards she went like a baby; cried, and wouldn't stay at Cannes any longer: so we're back in town. We're going down to the country, though, to-morrow or next day."

"Do you think I had better call, Cluny?!" Gaston ventured suggestively.

"Yes, yes, of course," Cluny replied, with great eagerness, as if to justify the matter to himself. Gaston smiled, said that he might,-- he was only in town for a few days, and dropped Cluny in Pall Mall. Cluny came running back.

"I say, Belward, things'll come around just as they were before, won't they? You're going to cut in, and not let 'em walk on you?"

"Yes, I'm 'going to cut in,' Cluny boy." Cluny brightened.

"And of course it isn't all over with Delia, is it?" He blushed.

Gaston reached out and dropped a hand on Cluny's shoulder.

"I'm afraid it is all over, Cluny." Cluny spoke without thinking.

"I say, it's rough on her, isn't it?"

Then he was confused, hurriedly offered Gaston a cigarette, a hasty good- bye was said, and they parted. Gaston went first to Lord Faramond. He encountered inquisition, cynical humour, flashes of sympathy, with a general flavour of reproach. The tradition of the Commons! Ah, one way only: he must come back alone--alone--and live it down. Fortunately, it wasn't an intrigue--no matter of divorce--a dompteuse, he believed. It must end, of course, and he would see what could be done. Such a chance --such a chance as he had had! Make it up with his grandfather, and reverse the record--reverse the record: that was the only way. This meeting must, of course, be strictly between themselves. But he was really interested for him, for his people, and for the tradition of the Commons.

"I am Master of the Hounds too," said Gaston dryly. Lord Faramond caught the meaning, and smiled grimly.

Then came Gaston's decision--he would come back--not to live the thing down, but to hold his place as long as he could: to fight.

Lord Faramond shrugged a shoulder. "Without her?"

"I cannot say that."

"With her, I can promise nothing--nothing. You cannot fight it so. No one man is stronger than massed opinion. It is merely a matter of pressure. No, no; I can promise nothing in that case."

The Premier's face had gone cold and disdainful. Why should a clever man like Belward be so infatuated? He rose, Gaston thanked him for the meeting, and was about to go, when the Prime Minister, tapping his shoulder kindly, said:

"Mr. Belward, you are not playing to the rules of the game." He waved his hand towards the Chamber of the House. "It is the greatest game in the world. She must go! Do not reply. You will come back without her --good-bye!"

Then came Ridley Court. He entered on Sir William and Lady Belward without announcement. Sir William came to his feet, austere and pale. Lady Belward's fingers trembled on the lace she held. They looked many years older. Neither spoke his name, nor did they offer their hands. Gaston did not wince, he had expected it. He owed these old people something. They lived according to their lights, they had acted righteously as by their code, they had used him well--well always.

"Will you hear the whole story?!" he said. He felt that it would be best to tell them all. "Can it do any good?!" asked Sir William. He looked towards his wife.

"Perhaps it is better to hear it," she murmured. She was clinging to a vague hope.

Gaston told the story plainly, briefly, as he had told his earlier history. Its concision and simplicity were poignant. From the day he first saw Andree in the justice's room till the hour when she opened Ian Belward's letter, his tale went. Then he paused.

"I remember very well," Sir William said, with painful meditation: "a strange girl, with a remarkable face. You pleaded for her father then. Ah, yes, an unhappy case!"

"There is more?!" asked Lady Belward, leaning on her cane. She seemed very frail.

Then with a terrible brevity Gaston told them of his uncle, of the letter to Andree: all, except that Andree was his wife. He had no idea of sparing Ian Belward now. A groan escaped Lady Belward.

"And now--now, what will you do?!" asked the baronet.

"I do not know. I am going back first to Andree." Sir William's face was ashy.

"Impossible!"

"I promised, and I will go back." Lady Belward's voice quivered:

"Stay, ah, stay, and redeem the past! You can, you can outlive it."

Always the same: live it down!

"It is no use," he answered; "I must return."

Then in a few words he thanked them for all, and bade them good-bye. He did not offer his hand, nor did they. But at the door he heard Lady Belward say in a pleading voice:

"Gaston!"

He returned. She held out her hand.

"You must not do as your father did," she said. "Give the woman up, and come back to us. Am I nothing to you--nothing?"

"Is there no other way?!" he asked, gravely, sorrowfully.

She did not reply. He turned to his grandfather. "There is no other way," said the old man, sternly. Then in a voice almost shrill with pain and indignation, he cried out as he had never done in his life: "Nothing, nothing, nothing but disgrace! My God in heaven! a lion-tamer--a gipsy! An honourable name dragged through the mire! Go back," he said grandly; "go back to the woman and her lions--savages, savages, savages!"

"Savages after the manner of our forefathers," Gaston answered quietly. "The first Gaston showed us the way. His wife was a strolling player's daughter. Good-bye, sir."

Lady Belward's face was in her hands. "Good-bye-grandmother," he said at the door, and then he was gone.

At the outer door the old housekeeper stepped forward, her gloomy face most agitated.

"Oh, sir, oh, sir, you will come back again? Oh, don't go like your father!"

He suddenly threw an arm about her shoulder, and kissed her on the cheek.

"I'll come back--yes I'll come back here--if I can. Good-bye, Hovey."

In the library Sir William and Lady Belward sat silent for a time. Presently Sir William rose, and walked up and down. He paused at last, and said, in a strange, hesitating voice, his hands chafing each other:

"I forgot myself, my dear. I fear I was violent. I would like to ask his pardon. Ah, yes, yes!"

Then he sat down and took her hand, and held it long in the silence.

"It all feels so empty--so empty," she said at last, as the tower-clock struck hollow on the air.

The old man could not reply, but he drew her close to him, and Hovey, from the door, saw his tears dropping on her white hair.

Gaston went to Manchester Square. He half dreaded a meeting with Alice, and yet he wished it. He did not find her. She had gone to Paris with her uncle, the servant said. He got their address. There was little left to do but to avoid reporters, two of whom almost forced themselves in upon him. He was to go back to Douarnenez by the little boat that brought him, and at seven o'clock in the morning he watched the mists of England recede.

He chanced to put his hand into a light overcoat which he had got at his chambers before he started. He drew out a paper, the one discovered in the solicitor's office in London. It was an ancient deed of entail of the property, drawn by Sir Gaston Belward, which, through being lost, was never put into force. He was not sure that it had value. If it had, all chance of the estate was gone for him; it would be his uncle's. Well, what did it matter? Yes, it did matter: Andree! For her? No, not for her. He would play straight. He would take his future as it came: he would not drop this paper into the water.

He smiled bitterly, got an envelope at a publichouse on the quay, wrote a few words in pencil on the document, and in a few moments it was on its way to Sir William Belward, who when he received it said:

"Worthless, quite worthless, but he has an honest mind--an honest mind!"

Meanwhile, Andree was in Paris. Leaving her bag at the Gare Montparnasse, she had gone straight to Ian Belward's house. She had lived years in the last few hours. She had had no sleep on the journey, and her mind had been strained unbearably. It had, however, a fixed idea, which shuttled in and out in a hundred shapes, but ever pointing to one end. She had determined on a painful thing--the only way.

She reached the house, and was admitted. In answer to questions, she had an appointment with monsieur. He was not within. Well, she would wait. She was motioned into the studio. She was outwardly calm. The servant presently recognised her. He had been to the menagerie, and he had seen her with Gaston. His manner changed instantly. Could he do anything? No, nothing. She was left alone. For a long time she sat motionless, then a sudden restlessness seized her. Her brain seemed a burning atmosphere, in which every thought, every thing showed with an unbearable intensity. The terrible clearness of it all--how it made her eyes, her heart ache! Her blood was beating hard against every pore. She felt that she would go mad if he did not come. Once she took out the stiletto she had concealed in the bosom of her cloak, and looked at it. She had always carried it when among the beasts at the menagerie, but had never yet used it.

Time passed. She felt ill; she became blind with pain. Presently the servant entered with a telegram. His master would not be back until the next morning.

Very well, she would return in the morning. She gave him money. He was not to say that she had called. In the Boulevard Montparnasse she took a cab. To the menagerie, she said to the driver. How strange it all looked: the Invalides, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde! The innumerable lights were so near and yet so far: it was a kink of the brain, but she seemed withdrawn from them, not they from her. A woman passed with a baby in her arms. The light from a kiosk fell on it as she passed. What a pretty, sweet face it had. Why did it not have a pretty, delicate Breton cap? As she went on, that kept beating in her brain--why did not the child wear a dainty Breton cap--a white Breton cap? The face kept peeping from behind the lights--without the dainty Breton cap.

The menagerie at last. She dismissed the cab, went to a little door at the back of the building, and knocked. She was admitted. The care-taker exclaimed with pleasure. She wished to visit the animals? He would go with her; and he picked up a light. No, she would go alone. How were Hector and Balzac, and Antoinette? She took the keys. How cool and pleasant they were to the touch! The steel of the lantern too--how exquisitely soothing! He must lie down again: she would wake him as she came out. No, no, she would go alone.

She went to cage after cage. At last to that of the largest lions. There was a deep answering purr to her soft call. As she entered, she saw a heap moving in one corner--a lion lately bought. She spoke, and there was an angry growl. She wheeled to leave the cage, but her cloak caught the door, and it snapped shut.

Too late. A blow brought her to the ground. She had made no cry, and now she lay so still!

The watchman had fallen asleep again. In the early morning he remembered. The greyish golden dawn was creeping in, when he found her with two lions protecting, keeping guard over her, while another crouched snarling in a corner. There was no mark on her face.

The point of the stiletto which she had carried in her cloak had pierced her when she fell.

In a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe Alice Wingfield read the news. It was she who tenderly prepared the body for burial, who telegraphed to Gaston at Audierne, getting a reply from Jacques that he was not yet back from London. The next day Andree was found a quiet place in the cemetery at Montmartre.

In the evening Alice and her relative started for Audierne.

.........................

On board the Fleur d'Orange Gaston struggled with the problem. There was one thought ever coming. He shut it out at this point, and it crept in at that. He remembered when two men, old friends, discovered that one, unknowingly, had been living with the wife of the other. There was one too many--the situation was impossible. The men played a game of cards to see which should die. But they did not reckon with the other factor. It was the woman who died.

Was not his own situation far worse? With his uncle living--but no, no, it was out of the question! Yet Ian Belward had been shameless, a sensualist, who had wrecked the girl's happiness and his. He himself had done a mad thing in the eyes of the world, but it was more mad than wicked. Had this happened in the North with another man, how easily would the problem have been solved!

Go to his uncle and tell him that he must remove himself for ever from the situation? Demand it, force it? Impossible--this was Europe.

They arrived at Douarnenez. The diligence had gone. A fishing-boat was starting for Audierne. He decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are usually shy of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew urged the drunken skipper not to start, for there were signs of a south-west wind, too friendly to the Bay des Trepasses. The skipper was, however, cheerfully reckless, and growled down objection.

The boat came on with a sweet wind off the land for a time. Suddenly, when in the neighbourhood of Point du Raz, the wind drew ahead very squally, with rain in gusts out of the south-west. The skipper put the boat on the starboard tack, close-hauled and close-reefed the sails, keeping as near the wind as possible, with the hope of weathering the rocky point at the western extremity of the Bay des Trepasses. By that time there was a heavy sea running; night came on, and the weather grew very thick. They heard the breakers presently, but they could not make out the Point. Old sailor as he was, and knowing as well as any man the perilous ground, the skipper lost his drunken head this time, and presently lost his way also in the dark and murk of the storm.

At eight o'clock she struck. She was thrown on her side, a heavy sea broke over her, and they were all washed off. No one raised a cry. They were busy fighting Death.

Gaston was a strong swimmer. It did not occur to him that perhaps this was the easiest way out of the maze. He had ever been a fighter. The seas tossed him here and there. He saw faces about him for an instant-- shaggy wild Breton faces--but they dropped away, he knew not where. The current kept driving him inshore. As in a dream, he could hear the breakers--the pumas on their tread-mill of death. How long would it last? How long before he would be beaten upon that tread-mill--fondled to death by those mad paws? Presently dreams came-kind, vague, distant dreams. His brain flew like a drunken dove to far points of the world and back again. A moment it rested. Andree! He had made no provision for her, none at all. He must live, he must fight on for her, the homeless girl, his wife.

He fought on and on. No longer in the water, as it seemed to him. He had travelled very far. He heard the clash of sabres, the distant roar of cannon, the beating of horses' hoofs--the thud-thud, tread-tread of an army. How reckless and wild it was! He stretched up his arm to strike- what was it? Something hard that bruised: then his whole body was dashed against the thing. He was back again, awake. With a last effort he drew himself up on a huge rock that stands lonely in the wash of the bay. Then he cried out, "Andree!" and fell senseless--safe.

The storm went down. The cold, fast-travelling moon came out, saw the one living thing in that wild bay, and hurried on into the dark again; but came and went so till morning, playing hide-and-seek with the man and his Ararat.

Daylight saw him, wet, haggard, broken, looking out over the waste of shaken water. Upon the shore glared the stone of the vanished City of Ys in the warm sun, and the fierce pumas trod their grumbling way. Sea- gulls flew about the quiet set figure, in whose brooding eyes there were at once despair and salvation.

He was standing between two worlds. He had had his great crisis, and his wounded soul rested for a moment ere he ventured out upon the highways again. He knew not how it was, but there had passed into him the dignity of sorrow and the joy of deliverance at the same time. He saw life's responsibilities clearer, duties swam grandly before him. It was a large dream, in which, for the time, he was not conscious of those troubles which, yesterday, had clenched his hands and knotted his forehead. He had come a step higher in the way of life, and into his spirit had flowed a new and sobered power. His heart was sore, but his mind was lifted up. The fatal wrangle of the pumas there below, the sound of it, would be in his ears for ever, but he had come above it; the searching vigour of the sun entered into his bones.

He knew that he was going back to England--to ample work and strong days, but he did not know that he was going alone. He did not know that Andree was gone forever; that she had found her true place: in his undying memory.

So intent was he, that at first he did not see a boat making into the bay towards him.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Clever men are trying He had no instinct for vice in the name of amusement What a nice mob you press fellows are--wholesale scavengers

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR ENTIRE "THE TRESPASSER":

Clever men are trying Down in her heart, loves to be mastered He had no instinct for vice in the name of amusement He was strong enough to admit ignorance I don't wish to fit in; things must fit me Imagination is at the root of much that passes for love Live and let live is doing good Not to show surprise at anything Truth waits long, but whips hard What a nice mob you press fellows are--wholesale scavengers

THE MARCH OF THE WHITE GUARD

By Gilbert Parker

"Ask Mr. Hume to come here for a moment, Gosse," said Field, the chief factor, as he turned from the frosty window of his office at Fort Providence, one of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts. The servant, or more properly, Orderly-Sergeant Gosse, late of the Scots Guards, departed on his errand, glancing curiously at his master's face as he did so. The chief factor, as he turned round, unclasped his hands from behind him, took a few steps forward, then standing still in the centre of the room, read carefully through a letter which he had held in the fingers of his right hand for the last ten minutes as he scanned the wastes of snow stretching away beyond Great Slave Lake to the arctic circle. He meditated a moment, went back to the window, looked out again, shook his head negatively, and with a sigh, walked over to the huge fireplace. He stood thoughtfully considering the floor until the door opened and sub- factor Jaspar Hume entered.

The factor looked up and said: "Hume, I've something here that's been worrying me a bit. This letter came in the monthly batch this morning. It is from a woman. The company sends another commending the cause of the woman and urging us to do all that is possible to meet her wishes. It seems that her husband is a civil engineer of considerable fame. He had a commission to explore the Coppermine region and a portion of the Barren Grounds. He was to be gone six months. He has been gone a year. He left Fort Good Hope, skirted Great Bear Lake, and reached the Coppermine River. Then he sent back all of the Indians who accompanied him but two, they bearing the message that he would make the Great Fish River and come down by Great Slave Lake to Fort Providence. That was nine months ago. He has not come here, nor to any other of the forts, so far as is known, nor has any word been received from him. His wife, backed by the H.B.C., urges that a relief party be sent to look for him. They and she forget that this is the arctic region, and that the task is a well-nigh hopeless one. He ought to have been here six months ago. Now how can we do anything? Our fort is small, and there is always danger of trouble with the Indians. We can't force men to join a relief party like this, and who will volunteer? Who would lead such a party and who will make up the party to be led?"

The brown face of Jaspar Hume was not mobile. It changed in expression but seldom; it preserved a steady and satisfying character of intelligence and force. The eyes, however, were of an inquiring, debating kind, that moved from one thing to another as if to get a sense of balance before opinion or judgment was expressed. The face had remained impassive, but the eyes had kindled a little as the factor talked. To the factor's despairing question there was not an immediate reply. The eyes were debating. But they suddenly steadied and Jaspar Hume said sententiously: "A relief party should go."

"Yes, yes, but who is to lead them?"

Again the eyes debated.

"Read her letter," said the factor, handing it over. Jaspar Hume took it and mechanically scanned it. The factor had moved towards the table for his pipe or he would have seen the other start, and his nostrils slightly quiver, as his eyes grew conscious of what they were seeing. Turning quickly, Hume walked towards the window as though for more light, and with his back to the factor he read the letter. Then he turned and said: "I think this thing should be done."

The factor shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Well, as to that, I think so too, but thinking and doing are two different things, Hume."

"Will you leave the matter in my hands until the morning?"

"Yes, of course, and glad to do so. You are the only man who can arrange the affair, if it is to be done at all. But I tell you, as you know, that everything will depend upon a leader, even if you secure the men.... So you had better keep the letter for to-night. It may help you to get the men together. A woman's handwriting will do more than a man's word any time."

Jaspar Hume's eyes had been looking at the factor, but they were studying something else. His face seemed not quite so fresh as it was a few minutes before.

"I will see you at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, Mr. Field," he said quietly. "Will you let Gosse come to me in an hour?"

"Certainly. Good-night."

Jaspar Hume let himself out. He walked across a small square to a log house and opened a door which creaked and shrieked with the frost. A dog sprang upon him as he did so, and rubbed its head against his breast. He touched the head as if it had been that of a child, and said: "Lie down, Bouche."

It did so, but it watched him as he doffed his dogskin cap and buffalo coat. He looked round the room slowly once as though he wished to fix it clearly and deeply in his mind. Then he sat down and held near the firelight the letter the factor had given him. His features grew stern and set as he read it. Once he paused in the reading and looked into the fire, drawing his breath sharply between his teeth. Then he read it to the end without a sign. A pause, and he said aloud: "So this is how the lines meet again, Varre Lepage!" He read the last sentence of the letter aloud:

In the hope that you may soon give me good news of my husband, I am, with all respect,

Faithfully yours,

ROSE LEPAGE.

Again he repeated: "With all respect, faithfully yours, Rose Lepage."

The dog Bouche looked up. Perhaps it detected something unusual in the voice. It rose, came over, and laid its head on its master's knee. Hume's hand fell gently on the head, and he said to the fire: "Ah, Rose Lepage, you can write to Factor Field what you dare not write to your husband if you knew. You might say to him then, 'With all love,' but not 'With all respect.'"

He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he took the dog's head between his hands and said: "Listen, Bouche, and I will tell you a story." The dog blinked, and pushed its nose against his arm.

"Ten years ago two young men who had studied and graduated together at the same college were struggling together in their profession as civil engineers. One was Clive Lepage and the other was Jaspar Hume. The one was brilliant and persuasive, the other, persistent and studious. Lepage could have succeeded in any profession; Hume had only heart and mind for one.

"Only for one, Bouche, you understand. He lived in it, he loved it, he saw great things to be achieved in it. He had got an idea. He worked at it night and day, he thought it out, he developed it, he perfected it, he was ready to give it to the world. But he was seized with illness, became blind, and was ordered to a warm climate for a year. He left his idea, his invention, behind him--his complete idea. While he was gone his bosom friend stole his perfected idea--yes, stole it, and sold it for twenty thousand dollars. He was called a genius, a great inventor. And then he married her. You don't know her, Bouche. You never saw beautiful Rose Varcoe, who, liking two men, chose the one who was handsome and brilliant, and whom the world called a genius. Why didn't Jaspar Hume expose him, Bouche? Proof is not always easy, and then he had to think of her. One has to think of a woman in such a case, Bouche. Even a dog can see that."

He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "Come, Bouche. You will keep secret what I show you."

He went to a large box in the corner, unlocked it, and took out a model made of brass and copper and smooth but unpolished wood.

"After ten years of banishment, Bouche, Hume has worked out another idea, you see. It should be worth ten times the other, and the world called the other the work of a genius, dog."

Then he became silent, the animal watching him the while. It had seen him working at this model for many a day, but had never heard him talk so much at a time as he had done this last ten minutes. He was generally a silent man--decisive even to severity, careless carriers and shirking under-officers thought. Yet none could complain that he was unjust. He was simply straight-forward, and he had no sympathy with those who had not the same quality. He had carried a drunken Indian on his back for miles, and from a certain death by frost. He had, for want of a more convenient punishment, promptly knocked down Jeff Hyde, the sometime bully of the fort, for appropriating a bundle of furs belonging to a French half-breed, Gaspe Toujours. But he nursed Jeff Hyde through an attack of pneumonia, insisting at the same time that Gaspe Toujours should help him. The result of it all was that Jeff Hyde and Gaspe Toujours became constant allies. They both formulated their oaths by Jaspar Hume. The Indian, Cloud-in-the-Sky, though by word never thanking his rescuer, could not be induced to leave the fort, except on some mission with which Jaspar Hume was connected. He preferred living an undignified, un-Indian life, and earning food and shelter by coarsely labouring with his hands. He came at least twice a week to Hume's log house, and, sitting down silent and cross-legged before the fire, watched the sub-factor working at his drawings and calculations. Sitting so for perhaps an hour or more, and smoking all the time, he would rise, and with a grunt, which was answered by a kindly nod, would pass out as silently as he came.

And now as Jaspar Hume stood looking at his "Idea," Cloud-in-the-Sky entered, let his blanket fall by the hearthstone and sat down upon it. If Hume saw him or heard him, he at least gave no sign at first. But he said at last in a low tone to the dog: "It is finished, Bouche; it is ready for the world."

Then he put it back, locked the box, and turned towards Cloud-in-the-Sky and the fireplace. The Indian grunted; the other nodded with the debating look again dominant in his eyes. The Indian met the look with satisfaction. There was something in Jaspar Hume's habitual reticence and decisiveness in action which appealed more to Cloud-in-the-Sky than any freedom of speech could possibly have done.

Hume sat down, handed the Indian a pipe and tobacco, and, with arms folded, watched the fire. For half an hour they sat so, white man, Indian, and dog. Then Hume rose, went to a cupboard, took out some sealing wax and matches, and in a moment melted wax was dropping upon the lock of the box containing his Idea. He had just finished this as Sergeant Gosse knocked at the door, and immediately afterwards entered the room.

"Gosse," said the sub-factor, "find Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, and Late Carscallen, and bring them here." Sergeant Gosse immediately departed upon this errand. Hume then turned to the Indian, and said "Cloud-in- the-Sky, I want you to go a long journey hereaway to the Barren Grounds. Have twelve dogs ready by nine to-morrow morning."

Cloud-in-the-Sky shook his head thoughtfully, and then after a pause said: "Strong-back go too?" Strongback was his name for the sub-factor. But the other either did not or would not hear. The Indian, however, appeared satisfied, for he smoked harder afterwards, and grunted to himself many times. A few moments passed, and then Sergeant Gosse entered, followed by Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, and Late Carscallen. Late Carscallen had got his name "Late" from having been called "The Late Mr. Carscallen" by the chief factor because of his slowness. Slow as he was, however, the stout Scotsman had more than once proved himself a man of rare merit according to Hume's ideas. He was, of course, the last to enter.

The men grouped themselves about the fire, Late Carscallen getting the coldest corner. Each man drew his tobacco from his pocket, and, cutting it, waited for Hume to speak. His eyes were debating as they rested on the four. Then he took out Mrs. Lepage's letter, and, with the group looking at him, he read it aloud. When it was finished, Cloud-in-the-Sky gave a guttural assent, and Gaspe Toujours, looking at Jeff Hyde, said: "It is cold in the Barren Grounds. We shall need much tabac." These men could read without difficulty Hume's reason for summoning them. To Gaspe Toujours' remark Jeff Hyde nodded affirmatively, and then all looked at Late Carscallen. He opened his heavy jaws once or twice with an animal- like sound, and then he said, in a general kind of way:

"To the Barren Grounds. But who leads?"

Hume was writing on a slip of paper, and he did not reply. The faces of three of them showed just a shade of anxiety. They guessed who it would be, but they were not sure. Cloud-in-the-Sky, however, grunted at them, and raised the bowl of his pipe towards the subfactor. The anxiety then seemed to disappear.

For ten minutes more they sat so, all silent. Then Hume rose, handed the slip of paper to Sergeant Gosse, and said: "Attend to that at once, Gosse. Examine the food and blankets closely."

The five were left alone.

Then Hume spoke: "Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, Late Carscallen, and Cloud- in-the-Sky, this man, alive or dead, is between here and the Barren Grounds. He must be found--for his wife's sake."

He handed Jeff Hyde her letter. Jeff rubbed his fingers before he touched the delicate and perfumed missive. Its delicacy seemed to bewilder him. He said: in a rough but kindly way: "Hope to die if I don't," and passed it on to Gaspe Toujours, who did not find it necessary to speak. His comrade had answered for him. Late Carscallen held it inquisitively for a moment, and then his jaws opened and shut as if he were about to speak. But before he did so Hume said: "It is a long journey and a hard one. Those who go may never come back. But this man was working for his country, and he has got a wife--a good wife." He held up the letter. "Late Carscallen wants to know who will lead you. Can't you trust me? I will give you a leader that you will follow to the Barren Grounds. To-morrow you will know who he is. Are you satisfied? Will you do it?"

The four rose, and Cloud-in-the-Sky nodded approvingly many times. Hume held out his hand. Each man shook it, Jeff Hyde first. Then he said: "Close up ranks for the H.B.C.!" (H.B.C. meaning, of course, Hudson's Bay Company.)

With a good man to lead them, these four would have stormed, alone, the Heights of Balaklava.

Once more Hume spoke. "Go to Gosse and get your outfits at nine to- morrow morning. Cloud-in-the-Sky, have your sleds at the store at eight o'clock, to be loaded. Then all meet me at 10.15 at the office of the chief factor. Good night."

As they passed out into the semi-arctic night, Late Carscallen with an unreal obstinacy said: "Slow march to the Barren Grounds--but who leads?"

Left alone Hume sat down to the pine table at one end of the room and after a short hesitation began to write. For hours he sat there, rising only to put wood on the fire. The result was three letters: the largest addressed to a famous society in London, one to a solicitor in Montreal, and one to Mr. Field, the chief factor. They were all sealed carefully. Then he rose, took out his knife, and went over to the box as if to break the red seal. He paused, however, sighed, and put the knife back again. As he did so he felt something touch his leg. It was the dog.

Hume drew in a sharp breath and said: "It was all ready, Bouche; and in another six months I should have been in London with it. But it will go whether I go or not--whether I go or not, Bouche."

The dog sprang up and put his head against his master's breast.

"Good dog, good dog, it's all right, Bouche; however it goes, it's all right," said Hume.

Then the dog lay down and watched his master until he drew the blankets to his chin, and sleep drew oblivion over a fighting soul.

II

At ten o'clock next morning Jaspar Hume presented himself at the chief factor's office. He bore with him the letters he had written the night before.

The factor said: "Well, Hume, I am glad to see you. That woman's letter was on my mind all night. Have you anything to propose? I suppose not," he added despairingly, as he looked closely into the face of the other. "Yes, Mr. Field, I propose that the expedition start at noon to-day."

"Start-at noon-to-day?"

"In two hours."

"Who are the party?"

"Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, Late Carscallen, and Cloud-in-the-Sky."

"Who leads them, Hume? Who leads?"

"With your permission, I do."

"You? But, man, consider the danger and--your invention!"

"I have considered all. Here are three letters. If we do not come back in three months, you will please send this one, with the box in my room, to the address on the envelope. This is for a solicitor in Montreal, which you will also forward as soon as possible; and this last one is for yourself; but you will not open it until the three months have passed. Have I your permission to lead these men? They would not go without me."

"I know that, I know that, Hume. I can't say no. Go, and good luck go with you."

Here the manly old factor turned away his head. He knew that Hume had done right. He knew the possible sacrifice this man was making of all his hopes, of his very life; and his sound Scotch heart appreciated the act to the full. But he did not know all. He did not know that Jaspar Hume was starting to search for the man who had robbed him of youth and hope and genius and home.

"Here is a letter that the wife has written to her husband on the chance of his getting it. You will take it with you, Hume. And the other she wrote to me--shall I keep it?" He held out his hand.

"No, sir, I will keep it, if you will allow me. It is my commission, you know." The shadow of a smile hovered about Hume's lips.

The factor smiled kindly as he replied: "Ah, yes, your commission-- Captain Jaspar Hume of--of what?" Just then the door opened and there entered the four men who had sat before the sub-factor's fire the night before. They were dressed in white blanket costumes from head to foot, white woollen capotes covering the grey fur caps they wore. Jaspar Hume ran his eye over them and then answered the factor's question: "Of the White Guard, sir."

"Good," was the reply. "Men, you are going on a relief expedition. There will be danger. You need a good leader. You have one in Captain Hume."

Jeff Hyde shook his head at the others with a pleased I-told-you-so expression; Cloud-in-the-Sky grunted his deep approval; and Late Carscallen smacked his lips in a satisfied manner and rubbed his leg with a schoolboy sense of enjoyment. The factor continued: "In the name of the Hudson's Bay Company I will say that if you come back, having done your duty faithfully, you shall be well rewarded. And I believe you will come back, if it is in human power to do so."

Here Jeff Hyde said: "It isn't for reward we're doin' it, Mr. Field, but because Mr. Hume wished it, because we believed he'd lead us; and for the lost fellow's wife. We wouldn't have said we'd do it, if it wasn't for him that's just called us the White Guard."

Under the bronze of the sub-factor's face there spread a glow more red than brown, and he said simply: "Thank you, men"--for they had all nodded assent to Jeff Hyde's words--"come with me to the store. We will start at noon."

At noon the White Guard stood in front of the store on which the British flag was hoisted with another beneath it bearing the magic letters, H.B.C.: magic, because they opened to the world regions that seemed destined never to know the touch of civilisation. The few inhabitants of the fort were gathered at the store; the dogs and loaded sleds were at the door. It wanted but two minutes to twelve when Hume came from his house, dressed also in the white blanket costume, and followed by his dog, Bouche. In a moment more he had placed Bouche at the head of the first team of dogs. They were to have their leader too. Punctually at noon, Hume shook hands with the factor, said a quick good-bye to the rest, called out a friendly "How!" to the Indians standing near, and to the sound of a hearty cheer, heartier perhaps because none had a confident hope that the five would come back, the march of the White Guard began.

III

It was eighteen days after. In the shadow of a little island of pines, that lies in a shivering waste of ice and snow, the White Guard were camped. They were able to do this night what they had not done for days --dig a great grave of snow, and building a fire of pine wood at each end of this strange house, get protection and something like comfort. They sat silent close to the fires. Jaspar Hume was writing with numbed fingers. The extract that follows is taken from his diary. It tells that day's life, and so gives an idea of harder, sterner days that they had spent and must yet spend, on this weary journey.

December 25th.--This is Christmas Day and Camp twenty-seven. We have marched only five miles to-day. We are eighty miles from Great Fish River, and the worst yet to do. We have discovered no signs. Jeff Hyde has had a bad two days with his frozen foot. Gaspe Toujours helps him nobly. One of the dogs died this morning. Bouche is a great leader. This night's shelter is a god-send. Cloud-in-the-Sky has a plan whereby some of us will sleep well. We are in latitude 63deg 47' and longitude 112deg 32' 14". Have worked out lunar observations. Have marked a tree JH/27 and raised cairn No. 3.

We are able to celebrate Christmas Day with a good basin of tea and our stand-by of beans cooked in fat. I was right about them: they have great sustaining power. To-morrow we will start at ten o'clock.

The writing done, Jaspar Hume put his book away and turned towards the rest. Cloud-in-the-Sky and Late Carscallen were smoking. Little could be seen of their faces; they were snuffled to the eyes. Gaspe Toujours was drinking a basin of tea, and Jeff Hyde was fitfully dozing by the fire. The dogs were above in the tent--all but Bouche, who was permitted to be near his master. Presently the sub-factor rose, took from a knapsack a small tin pail, and put it near the fire. Then he took five little cups that fitted snugly into each other, separated them, and put them also near the fire. None of the party spoke. A change seemed to pass over the faces of all except Cloud-in-the-Sky. He smoked on unmoved. At length Hume spoke cheerily: "Now, men, before we turn in we'll do something in honour of the day. Liquor we none of us have touched since we started; but back there in the fort, and maybe in other places too, they will be thinking of us; so we'll drink a health to them, though it's but a spoonful, and to the day when we see them again!"

The cups were passed round. The sub-factor measured out a very small portion to each. They were not men of uncommon sentiment; their lives were rigid and isolated and severe. Fireside comforts under fortunate conditions they saw but seldom, and they were not given to expressing their feelings demonstratively. But each man then, save Cloud-in-the- Sky, had some memory worth a resurrection.

Jaspar Hume raised his cup; the rest followed his example. "To absent friends and the day when we see them again!" he said; and they all drank. Gaspe Toujours drank solemnly, and, as though no one was near, made the sign of the cross; for his memory was with a dark-eyed, soft- cheeked habitant girl of the parish of Saint Gabrielle, whom he had left behind seven years before, and had never seen since. Word had come from the parish priest that she was dying, and though he wrote back in his homely patois of his grief, and begged that the good father would write again, no word had ever come. He thought of her now as one for whom the candles had been lighted and masses had been said.

But Jeff Hyde's eyes were bright, and suffering as he was, the heart in him was brave and hopeful. He was thinking of a glorious Christmas Day upon the Madawaska River three years agone; of Adam Henry, the blind fiddler; of bright, warm-hearted Pattie Chown, the belle of the ball, and the long drive home in the frosty night.

Late Carscallen was thinking of a brother whom he had heard preach his first sermon in Edinburgh twenty years before. And Late Carscallen, slow of speech and thought, had been full of pride and love of that brilliant brother. In the natural course of things, they had drifted apart, the slow and uncouth one to make his home at last in the Far North, and to be this night on his way to the Barren Grounds. But as he stood with the cup to his lips he recalled the words of a newspaper paragraph of a few months before. It stated that "the Reverend James Carscallen, D.D., preached before Her Majesty on Whitsunday, and had the honour of lunching with Her Majesty afterwards." Remembering that, Late Carscallen rubbed his left hand joyfully against his blanketed leg and drank.

Cloud-in-the-Sky's thoughts were with the present, and his "Ugh!" of approval was one of the senses purely. Instead of drinking to absent friends he looked at the sub-factor and said: "How!" He drank to the subfactor.

Jaspar Hume had a memory of childhood; of a house beside a swift-flowing river, where a gentle widowed mother braced her heart against misfortune and denied herself and slaved that her son might be educated. He had said to her that some day he would be a great man, and she would be paid back a hundredfold. And he had worked hard at school, very hard. But one cold day of spring a message came to the school, and he sped homewards to the house beside the dark river down which the ice was floating,--he would remember that floating ice to his last day, and entered a quiet room where a white-faced woman was breathing away her life. And he fell at her side and kissed her hand and called to her; and she waked for a moment only and smiled on him, and said: "Be good, my boy, and God will make you great." Then she said she was cold, and some one felt her feet--a kind old soul who shook her head sadly at him; and a voice, rising out of a strange smiling languor, murmured: "I'll away, I'll away to the Promised Land--to the Promised Land. . . . It is cold--so cold--God keep my boy!" Then the voice ceased, and the kind old soul who had looked at him, pityingly folded her arms about him, and drawing his brown head to her breast, kissed him with flowing eyes and whispered: "Come away, laddie, come away."

But he came back in the night and sat beside her, and remained there till the sun grew bright, and then through another day and night, until they bore her out of the little house by the river to the frozen hill-side.

Sitting here in this winter desolation Jaspar Hume once more beheld these scenes of twenty years before and followed himself, a poor dispensing clerk in a doctor's office, working for that dream of achievement in which his mother believed; for which she hoped. And following further the boy that was himself, he saw a friendless first-year man at college, soon, however, to make a friend of Clive Lepage, and to see always the best of that friend, being himself so true. At last the day came when they both graduated together in science, a bright and happy day, succeeded by one still brighter, when they both entered a great firm as junior partners. Afterwards befell the meeting with Rose Varcoe; and he thought of how he praised his friend Lepage to her, and brought him to be introduced to her. He recalled all those visions that came to him when, his professional triumphs achieved, he should have a happy home, and happy faces by his fireside. And the face was to be that of Rose Varcoe, and the others, faces of those who should be like her and like himself. He saw, or rather felt, that face clouded and anxious when he went away ill and blind for health's sake. He did not write to her. The doctors forbade him that. He did not ask her to write, for his was so steadfast a nature that he did not need letters to keep him true; and he thought she must be the same. He did not understand a woman's heart, how it needs remembrances, and needs to give remembrances.

Hume's face in the light of this fire seemed calm and cold, yet behind it was an agony of memory--the memory of the day when he discovered that Lepage was married to Rose, and that the trusted friend had grown famous and well-to-do on the offspring of his brain. His first thought had been one of fierce determination to expose this man who had falsified all trust. But then came the thought of the girl, and, most of all, there came the words of his dying mother, "Be good, my boy, and God will make you great"; and for his mother's sake he had compassion on the girl, and sought no restitution from her husband. And now, ten years later, he did not regret that he had stayed his hand. The world had ceased to call Lepage a genius. He had not fulfilled the hope once held of him. Hume knew this from occasional references in scientific journals.

And now he was making this journey to save, if he could, Lepage's life. Though just on the verge of a new era in his career--to give to the world the fruit of ten years' thought and labour, he had set all behind him, that he might be true to the friendship of his youth, that he might be clear of the strokes of conscience to the last hour of his life.

Looking round him now, the debating look came again into his eyes. He placed his hand in his breast, and let it rest there for a moment. The look became certain and steady, the hand was drawn out, and in it was a Book of Common Prayer. Upon the fly-leaf was written: "Jane Hume, to her dear son Jaspar, on his twelfth birthday."

These men of the White Guard were not used to religious practices, whatever their past had been in that regard, and at any other time they might have been surprised at this action of their leader. Under some circumstances it might have lessened their opinion of him; but his influence over them now was complete. They knew they were getting nearer to him than they had ever done; even Cloud-in-the-Sky appreciated that. Hume spoke no word to them, but looked at them and stood up. They all did the same, Jeff Hyde leaning on the shoulders of Gaspe Toujours. He read first, four verses of the Thirty-first Psalm, then followed the prayer of St. Chrysostom, and the beautiful collect which appeals to the Almighty to mercifully look upon the infirmities of men, and to stretch forth His hand to keep and defend them in all dangers and necessities. Late Carscallen, after a long pause, said "Amen," and Jeff said in a whisper to Gaspe Toujours: "That's to the point. Infirmities and dangers and necessities is what troubles us."

Immediately after, at a sign from the sub-factor, Cloud-in-the-Sky began to transfer the burning wood from one fire to the other until only hot ashes were left where a great blaze had been. Over these ashes pine twigs and branches were spread, and over them again blankets. The word was then given to turn in, and Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, and Late Carscallen lay down in this comfortable bed. Each wished to give way to their captain, but he would not consent. He and Cloud-in-the-Sky wrapped themselves in their blankets like mummies, covering the head completely, and under the arctic sky they slept alone in an austere and tenantless world. They never know how loftily sardonic Nature can be who have not seen that land where the mercury freezes in the tubes, and there is light but no warmth in the smile of the sun. Not Sturt in the heart of Australia with the mercury bursting the fevered tubes, with the finger- nails breaking like brittle glass, with the ink drying instantly on the pen, with the hair fading and falling off, would, if he could, have exchanged his lot for that of the White Guard. They were in a frozen endlessness that stretched away to a world where never voice of man or clip of wing or tread of animal is heard. It is the threshold to the undiscovered country, to that untouched north whose fields of white are only furrowed by the giant forces of the elements; on whose frigid hearthstone no fire is ever lit; where the electric phantoms of a nightless land pass and repass, and are never still; where the magic needle points not towards the north but darkly downward; where the sun never stretches warm hands to him who dares confront the terrors of eternal snow.

The White Guard slept.

IV

"No, Captain; leave me here and push on to Manitou Mountain. You ought to make it in two days. I'm just as safe here as on the sleds, and less trouble. A blind man's no good. I'll have a good rest while you're gone, and then perhaps my eyes will come out right. My foot's nearly well now."

Jeff Hyde was snow-blind. The giant of the party had suffered most.

But Hume said in reply: "I won't leave you alone. The dogs can carry you as they've done for the last ten days."

But Jeff replied: "I'm as safe here as marching, and safer. When the dogs are not carrying me, nor any one leading me, you can get on faster; and that means everything to us, now don't it?"

Hume met the eyes of Gaspe Toujours. He read them. Then he said to Jeff: "It shall be as you wish. Late Carscallen, Cloud-in-the-Sky, and myself will push on to Manitou Mountain. You and Gaspe Toujours will remain here."

Jeff Hyde's blind eyes turned towards Gaspe Toujours, who said: "Yes. We have plenty tabac."

A tent was set up, provisions were put in it, a spirit-lamp and matches were added, and the simple menage was complete. Not quite. Jaspar Hume looked round. There was not a tree in sight. He stooped and cut away a pole that was used for strengthening the runners of the sleds, fastened it firmly in the ground, and tied to it a red woollen scarf, used for tightening his white blankets round him. Then he said: "Be sure and keep that flying."

Jeff's face was turned towards the north. The blindman's instinct was coming to him. Far off white eddying drifts were rising over long hillocks of snow. When he turned round again his face was troubled. It grew more troubled, then it brightened up again, and he said to Hume: "Captain, would you leave that book with me till you come back--that about infirmities, dangers, and necessities? I knew a river-boss who used to carry an old spelling-book round with him for luck. It seems to me as if that book of yours, Captain, would bring luck to this part of the White Guard, that bein' out at heels like has to stay behind."

Hume had borne the sufferings of his life with courage; he had led this terrible tramp with no tremor at his heart for himself; he was seeking to perform a perilous act without any inward shrinking; but Jeff's request was the greatest trial of this critical period in his life.

Jeff felt, if he could not see, the hesitation of his chief. His rough but kind instincts told him something was wrong, and he hastened to add: "Beg your pardon, Mr. Hume, it ain't no matter. I oughtn't have asked you for it. But it's just like me. I've been a chain on the leg of the White Guard this whole tramp."

The moment of hesitation had passed before Jeff had said half-a-dozen words, and Hume put the book in his hands with the words: "No, Jeff, take it. It will bring luck to the White Guard. Keep it safe until I come back."

Jeff took the book, but hearing a guttural "Ugh" behind him, he turned round defiantly. Cloud-in-the-Sky touched his arm and said: "Good! Strong-back book--good!" Jeff was satisfied.

At this point they parted, Jeff and Gaspe Toujours remaining, and Hume and his two followers going on towards Manitou Mountain. There seemed little probability that Clive Lepage would be found. In their progress eastward and northward they had covered wide areas of country, dividing and meeting again after stated hours of travel, but not a sign had been seen; neither cairn nor staff nor any mark of human presence.

Hume had noticed Jeff Hyde's face when it was turned to the eddying drifts of the north, and he understood what was in the experienced huntsman's mind. He knew that severe weather was before them, and that the greatest danger of the journey was to be encountered.

That night they saw Manitou Mountain, cold, colossal, harshly calm; and jointly with that sight there arose a shrieking, biting, fearful north wind. It blew upon them in cruel menace of conquest, in piercing inclemency. It struck a freezing terror to their hearts, and grew in violent attack until, as if repenting that it had foregone its power to save, the sun suddenly grew red and angry, and spread out a shield of blood along the bastions of the west. The wind shrank back and grew less murderous, and ere the last red arrow shot up behind the lonely western wall of white, the three knew that the worst of the storm had passed and that death had drawn back for a time. What Hume thought may be gathered from his diary; for ere he crawled in among the dogs and stretched himself out beside Bouche, he wrote these words with aching fingers:

January 10th: Camp 39.--A bitter day. We are facing three fears now: the fate of those we left behind; Lepage's fate; and the going back. We are twenty miles from Manitou Mountain. If he is found, I should not fear the return journey; success gives hope. But we trust in God.

Another day passed and at night, after a hard march, they camped five miles from Manitou Mountain. And not a sign! But Hume felt there was a faint chance of Lepage being found at this mountain. His iron frame had borne the hardships of this journey well; his strong heart better. But this night an unaccountable weakness possessed him. Mind and body were on the verge of helplessness. Bouche seemed to understand this, and when he was unhitched from the team of dogs, now dwindled to seven, he leaped upon his master's breast. It was as if some instinct of sympathy, of prescience, was passing between the man and the dog. Hume bent his head down to Bouche for an instant and rubbed his side kindly; then he said, with a tired accent: "It's all right, old dog, it's all right."

Hume did not sleep well at first, but at length oblivion came. He waked to feel Bouche tugging at his blankets. It was noon. Late Carscallen and Cloud-in-the-Sky were still sleeping--inanimate bundles among the dogs. In an hour they were on their way again, and towards sunset they had reached the foot of Manitou Mountain. Abruptly from the plain rose this mighty mound, blue and white upon a black base. A few straggling pines grew near its foot, defying latitude, as the mountain itself defied the calculations of geographers and geologists. A halt was called. Late Carscallen and Cloud-in-the-Sky looked at the chief. His eyes were scanning the mountain closely. Suddenly he motioned. A hundred feet up there was a great round hole in the solid rock, and from this hole there came a feeble cloud of smoke! The other two saw also. Cloud-in-the-Sky gave a wild whoop, and from the mountain there came, a moment after, a faint replica of the sound. It was not an echo, for there appeared at the mouth of the cave an Indian, who made feeble signs for them to come. In a little while they were at the cave. As Jaspar Hume entered, Cloud- in-the-Sky and the stalwart but emaciated Indian who had beckoned to them spoke to each other in the Chinook language, the jargon common to all Indians of the West.

Jaspar Hume saw a form reclining on a great bundle of pine branches, and he knew what Rose Lepage had prayed for was come to pass. By the flickering light of a handful of fire he saw Lepage--rather what was left of him--a shadow of energy, a heap of nerveless bones. His eyes were shut, but as Hume, with a quiver of memory and sympathy at his heart, stood for an instant, and looked at the man whom he had cherished as a friend and found an enemy, Lepage's lips moved and a weak voice said: "Who is there?"

"A friend."

"Come-near-me,--friend."

Hume made a motion to Late Carscallen, who was heating some liquor at the fire, and then he stooped and lifted up the sick man's head, and took his hand. "You have come--to save me!" whispered the weak voice again.

"Yes; I've come to save you." This voice was strong and clear and true.

"I seem--to have--heard--your voice before--somewhere before--I seem to-- have--"

But he had fainted.

Hume poured a little liquor down the sick man's throat, and Late Carscallen chafed the delicate hand--delicate in health, it was like that of a little child now. When breath came again Hume whispered to his helper "Take Cloud-in-the-Sky and get wood; bring fresh branches. Then clear one of the sleds, and we will start back with him in the early morning."

Late Carscallen, looking at the skeleton-like figure, said: "He will never get there."

"Yes, he will get there," was Hume's reply.

"But he is dying."

"He goes with me to Fort Providence."

"Ay, to Providence he goes, but not with you," said Late Carscallen, doggedly.

Anger flashed in Hume's eye, but he said quietly "Get the wood, Carscallen."

Hume was left alone with the starving Indian, who sat beside the fire eating voraciously, and with the sufferer, who now was taking mechanically a little biscuit sopped in brandy. For a few moments thus, then his sunken eyes opened, and he looked dazedly at the man bending above him. Suddenly there came into them a look of terror. "You--you --are Jaspar Hume," his voice said in an awed whisper.

"Yes." The hands of the sub-factor chafed those of the other.

"But you said you were a friend, and come to save me."

"I have come to save you."

There was a shiver of the sufferer's body. This discovery would either make him stronger or kill him. Hume knew this, and said: "Lepage, the past is past and dead to me; let it be so to you."

There was a pause.

"How--did you know--about me?"

"I was at Fort Providence. There came letters from the Hudson's Bay Company, and from your wife, saying that you were making this journey, and were six months behind--"

"My wife--Rose!"

"I have a letter for you from her. She is on her way to Canada. We are to take you to her."

"To take me--to her." Lepage shook his head sadly, but he pressed to his lips the letter that Hume had given him.

"To take you to her, Lepage."

"No, I shall never see her again."

"I tell you, you shall. You can live if you will. You owe that to her --to me--to God."

"To her--to you--to God. I have been true to none. I have been punished. I shall die here."

"You shall go to Fort Providence. Do that in payment of your debt to me, Lepage. I demand that." In this transgressor there was a latent spark of honour, a sense of justice that might have been developed to great causes, if some strong nature, seeing his weaknesses, had not condoned them, but had appealed to the natural chivalry of an impressionable, vain, and weak character. He struggled to meet Hume's eyes, and doing so, he gained confidence and said: "I will try to live. I will do you justice--yet."

"Your first duty is to eat and drink. We start for Fort Providence to-morrow."

The sick man stretched out his hand. "Food! Food!" he said.

In tiny portions food and drink were given to him, and his strength sensibly increased. The cave was soon aglow with the fire kindled by Late Carscallen and Cloud-in-the-Sky. There was little speaking, for the sick man soon fell asleep. Lepage's Indian told Cloud-in-the-Sky the tale of their march--how the other Indian and the dogs died; how his master became ill as they were starting towards Fort Providence from Manitou Mountain in the summer weather; how they turned back and took refuge in this cave; how month by month they had lived on what would hardly keep a rabbit alive; and how, at last, his master urged him to press on with his papers; but he would not, and stayed until this day, when the last bit of food had been eaten, and they were found.

V

The next morning Lepage was placed upon a sled, and they started back, Bouche barking joyfully as he led off, with Cloud-in-the-Sky beside him. There was light in the faces of all, though the light could not be seen by reason of their being muffled so. All day they travelled, scarcely halting, Lepage's Indian marching well. Often the corpse-like bundle on the sled was disturbed, and biscuits wet in brandy and bits of preserved venison were given.

That night Hume said to Late Carscallen: "I am going to start at the first light of the morning to get to Gaspe Toujours and Jeff Hyde as soon as possible. Follow as fast as you can. He will be safe, if you give him food and drink often. I shall get to the place where we left them about noon; you should reach there at night or early the next morning."

"Hadn't you better take Bouche with you?" said Late Carscallen.

The sub-factor thought a moment, and then said: "No, he is needed most where he is."

At noon the next day Jaspar Hume looked round upon a billowy plain of sun and ice, but saw no staff, no signal, no tent, no sign of human life: of Gaspe Toujours or of Jeff Hyde. His strong heart quailed. Had he lost his way? He looked at the sun. He was not sure. He consulted his compass, but it quivered hesitatingly. For awhile that wild bewilderment which seizes upon the minds of the strongest, when lost, mastered him, in spite of his struggles against it. He moved in a maze of half-blindness, half-delirium. He was lost in it, swayed by it. He began to wander about; and there grew upon his senses strange delights and reeling agonies. He heard church bells, he caught at butterflies, he tumbled in new-mown hay, he wandered in a tropic garden. But in the hay a wasp stung him, and the butterfly changed to a curling black snake that struck at him and glided to a dark-flowing river full of floating ice, and up from the river a white hand was thrust, and it beckoned him--beckoned him. He shut his eyes and moved towards it, but a voice stopped him, and it said, "Come away, come away," and two arms folded him round, and as he went back from the shore he stumbled and fell, and . . . What is this? A yielding mass at his feet--a mass that stirs! He clutches at it, he tears away the snow, he calls aloud--and his voice has a faraway unnatural sound--"Gaspe Toujours! Gaspe Toujours!" Then the figure of a man shakes itself in the snow, and a voice says: "Ay, ay, sir!" Yes, it is Gaspe Toujours! And beside him lies Jeff Hyde, and alive. "Ay, ay, sir, alive!"

Jaspar Hume's mind was itself again. It had but suffered for a moment the agony of delirium.

Gaspe Toujours and Jeff Hyde had lain down in the tent the night of the great wind, and had gone to sleep at once. The staff had been blown down, the tent had fallen over them, the drift had covered them, and for three days they had slept beneath the snow, never waking.

Jeff Hyde's sight was come again to him. "You've come back for the book," he said. "You couldn't go on without it. You ought to have taken it yesterday."

He drew it from his pocket. He was dazed.

"No, Jeff, I've not come back for that, and I did not leave you yesterday: it is three days and more since we parted. The book has brought us luck, and the best. We have found our man; and they'll be here to-night with him. I came on ahead to see how you fared."

In that frost-bitten world Jeff Hyde uncovered his head for a moment. "Gaspe Toujours is a papist," he said, "but he read me some of that book the day you left, and one thing we went to sleep on: it was that about 'Lightenin' the darkness, and defendin' us from all the perils and dangers of this night.'" Here Gaspe Toujours made the sign of the cross. Jeff Hyde continued half apologetically for his comrade: "That comes natural to Gaspe Toujours--I guess it always does to papists. But I never had any trainin' that way, and I had to turn the thing over and over, and I fell asleep on it. And when I wake up three days after, here's my eyes as fresh as daisies, and you back, sir, and the thing done that we come to do."

He put the Book into Hume's hands and at that moment Gaspe Toujours said: "See!" Far off, against the eastern horizon, appeared a group of moving figures.

That night the broken segments of the White Guard were reunited, and Clive Lepage slept by the side of Jaspar Hume.

VI

Napoleon might have marched back from Moscow with undecimated legions safely enough, if the heart of those legions had not been crushed. The White Guard, with their faces turned homeward, and the man they had sought for in their care, seemed to have acquired new strength. Through days of dreadful cold, through nights of appalling fierceness, through storm upon the plains that made for them paralysing coverlets, they marched. And if Lepage did not grow stronger, life at least was kept in him.

There was little speech among them, but once in a while Gaspe Toujours sang snatches of the songs of the voyageurs of the great rivers; and the hearts of all were strong. Between Bouche and his master there was occasional demonstration. On the twentieth day homeward, Hume said with his hand on the dog's head "It had to be done, Bouche; even a dog could see that."

And so it was "all right" for the White Guard. One day when the sun was warmer than usual over Fort Providence, and just sixty-five days since that cheer had gone up from apprehensive hearts for brave men going out into the Barren Grounds, Sergeant Gosse, who, every day, and of late many times a day, had swept the north-east with a field-glass, rushed into the chief-factor's office, and with a broken voice cried: "They've all come! They've come!" Then he leaned his arm and head against the wall and sobbed. And the old factor rose from his chair tremblingly, and said his thank-god, and went hurriedly into the square. He did not go steadily, however, the joyous news had shaken him, sturdy old pioneer as he was. A fringe of white had grown about his temples in the last two months. The people of the fort had said they had never seen him so irascible, yet so gentle; so uneasy, yet so reserved; so stern about the mouth, yet so kind about the eyes as he had been since Hume had gone on this desperate errand.

Already the handful of people at the fort had gathered. Indians left the store, and joined the rest; the factor and Sergeant Gosse set out to meet the little army of relief. To the factor's "In the name of the Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. Hume," when they met there came "By the help of God, sir," and he pointed to the sled whereon Lepage lay. A feeble hand was clasped in the burly hand of the factor, and then they all fell into line again, Cloud-in-the-Sky running ahead of the dogs. Snow had fallen on them, and as they entered the stockade, men and dogs were white from head to foot.

The White Guard had come back. Jaspar Hume as simply acknowledged his strident welcome as he had done the God-speed two months and more ago. With the factor he bore the sick man in, and laid him on his own bed. Then he came outside again, and when they cheered him once more, he said: "We have come safe through, and I'm thankful. But remember that my comrades in this march deserve your cheers more than I. Without them I couldn't have done anything."

"In our infirmities and in all our dangers and necessities," added Jeff Hyde. "The luck of the world was in that book!"

In another half-hour the White Guard was at ease, and four of them were gathered about the great stove in the store, Cloud-in-the-Sky smoking placidly, and full of guttural emphasis; Late Carscallen moving his animal-like jaws with a sense of satisfaction; Gaspe Toujours talking in Chinook to the Indians, in patois to the French clerk, and in broken English to them all; and Jeff Hyde exclaiming on the wonders of the march, the finding of Lepage at Manitou Mountain, and of himself and Gaspe Toujours buried in the snow.

VII

In Hume's house at midnight Lepage lay asleep with his wife's letters-- received through the factor--in his hand. The firelight played upon a dark, disappointed face--a doomed, prematurely old face, as it seemed to the factor.

"You knew him, then," the factor said, after a long silence, with a gesture towards the bed.

"Yes, well, years ago," replied Hume.

Just then the sick man stirred in his sleep, and he said disjointedly: "I'll make it all right to you, Hume." Then came a pause, and a quicker utterance: "Forgive--forgive me, Rose." The factor got up, and turned to go, and Hume, with a sorrowful gesture, went over to the bed.

Again the voice said: "Ten years--I have repented ten years--I dare not speak--"

The factor touched Hume's arm. "He has fever. You and I must nurse him, Hume. You can trust me--you understand."

"Yes, I can trust you," was the reply. "But I can tell you nothing."

"I do not want to know anything. If you can watch till two o'clock I will relieve you. I'll send the medicine chest over. You know how to treat him."

The factor passed out, and the other was left alone with the man who had wronged him. The feeling most active in his mind was pity, and, as he prepared a draught from his own stock of medicines, he thought the past and the present all over. He knew that however much he had suffered, this man had suffered more. In this silent night there was broken down any barrier that may have stood between Lepage and his complete compassion. Having effaced himself from the calculation, justice became forgiveness.

He moistened the sick man's lips, and bathed his forehead, and roused him once to take a quieting powder. Then he sat down and wrote to Rose Lepage. But he tore the letter up again and said to the dog: "No, Bouche, I can't; the factor must do it. She needn't know yet that it was I who saved him. It doesn't make any burden of gratitude, if my name is kept out of it. The factor mustn't mention me, Bouche--not yet. When he is well we will go to London with It, Bouche, and we needn't meet her. It will be all right, Bouche, all right!"

The dog seemed to understand; for he went over to the box that held It; and looked at his master. Then Jaspar Hume rose, broke the seal, unlocked the box and opened it; but he heard the sick man moan, and he closed it again and went over to the bed. The feeble voice said: "I must speak--I cannot die so--not so." Hume moistened the lips once, put a cold cloth on the fevered head, and then sat down by the fire again.

Lepage slept at last. The restless hands grew quiet, the breath became more regular, the tortured mind found a short peace. With the old debating look in his eyes, Hume sat there watching until the factor relieved him.

VIII

February and March and April were past, and May was come. Lepage had had a hard struggle for life, but he had survived. For weeks every night there was a repetition of that first night after the return: delirious self-condemnation, entreaty, appeal to his wife, and Hume's name mentioned in shuddering remorse. With the help of the Indian who had shared the sick man's sufferings in the Barren Grounds, the factor and Hume nursed him back to life. After the first night no word had passed between the two watchers regarding the substance of Lepage's delirium. But one evening the factor was watching alone, and the repentant man from his feverish sleep cried out: "Hush, hush! don't let them know--I stole them both, and Rose did not know. Rose did not know!"

The factor rose and walked away. The dog was watching him. He said to Bouche: "You have a good master, Bouche."

IX

In an arm-chair made of hickory and birch-bark by Cloud-in-the-Sky, Lepage sat reading a letter from his wife. She was at Winnipeg, and was coming west as far as Regina to meet him on his way down. He looked a wreck; but a handsome wreck. His refined features, his soft black beard and blue eyes, his graceful hand and gentle manners, seemed not to belong to an evil-hearted man. He sat in the sunlight at the door, wrapped about in moose and beaver skins. The world of plain and wood was glad. Not so Lepage. He sat and thought of what was to come. He had hoped at times that he would die, but twice Hume had said: "I demand your life. You owe it to your wife--to me." He had pulled his heart up to this demand and had lived. But what lay before him? He saw a stony track, and he shuddered.

As he sat there facing the future, Hume came to him and said: "If you feel up to it, Lepage, we will start for Edmonton on Monday. I think it will be quite safe, and your wife is anxious. I shall accompany you as far as Edmonton; you can then proceed by easy stages, in this pleasant weather. Are you ready to go?"

"Quite ready," was the reply.

X

On a beautiful May evening Lepage, Hume, and the White Guard were welcomed at Fort Edmonton by the officer in command of the Mounted Police. They were to enjoy the hospitality of the fort for a couple of days. Hume was to go back with Cloud-in-the-Sky and Late Carscallen, and a number of Indian carriers; for this was a journey of business too. Gaspe Toujours and Jeff Hyde were to press on with Lepage, who was now much stronger and better. One day passed, and on the following morning Hume gave instructions to Gaspe Toujours and Jeff Hyde, and made preparations for his going back. He was standing in the Barracks Square, when a horseman rode in and made inquiry of a sergeant standing near, if Lepage had arrived at the fort. A few words brought out the fact that Rose Lepage was nearing the fort from the south. The trooper had been sent on ahead the day before, but his horse having met with a slight accident, he had been delayed. He had seen the party, however, a long distance back in the early morning. He must now ride away and meet Mrs. Lepage, he said. He was furnished with a fresh horse, and he left, bearing a message from Lepage.

Hume decided to leave Fort Edmonton at once, and to take all the White Guard back with him; and gave orders to that effect. Entering the room where Lepage sat alone, he said: "Lepage, the time has come for good-bye. I am starting for Fort Providence."

But the other replied: "You will wait until my wife comes. You must." There was trouble in his voice. "I must not."

Lepage braced himself for a heavy task and said: "Hume, if the time has come to say good-bye, it has also come when we should speak together for once openly: to settle, in so far as can be done, a long account. You have not let my wife know who saved me. That appears from her letters. She asks the name of my rescuer. I have not yet told her. But she will know that to-day when I tell her all."

"When you tell her all?"

"When I tell her all."

"But you shall not do that."

"I will. It will be the beginning of the confession which I shall afterwards make to the world."

"By Heaven you shall not do it. Do you want to wreck her life?"

Jaspar Hume's face was wrathful, and remained so till the other sank back in the chair with his forehead in his hands; but it softened as he saw this remorse and shame. He began to see that Lepage had not clearly grasped the whole situation. He said in quieter but still firm tones: "No, Lepage, that matter is between us two, and us alone. She must never know--the world therefore must never know. You did an unmanly thing; you are suffering a manly remorse. Now let it end here--but I swear it shall," he said in sharp tones, as the other shook his head negatively: "I would have let you die at Manitou Mountain, if I had thought you would dare to take away your wife's peace--your children's respect."

"I have no children; our baby died."

Hume softened again. "Can you not see, Lepage? The thing cannot be mended. I bury it all, and so must you. You will begin the world again, and so shall I. Keep your wife's love. Henceforth you will deserve it."

Lepage raised moist eyes to the other and said: "But you will take back the money I got for that?"

There was a pause, then Hume replied: "Yes, upon such terms, times, and conditions as I shall hereafter fix. You have no child, Lepage?" he gently added.

"We have no child; it died with my fame."

Hume looked steadily into the eyes of the man who had wronged him. "Remember, Lepage, you begin the world again. I am going now. By the memory of old days, good-bye." He held out his hand. Lepage took it, rose tremblingly to his feet, and said, "You are a good man, Hume. Good- bye."

The sub-factor turned at the door. "If it will please you, tell your wife that I saved you. Some one will tell her; perhaps I would rather-- at least it would be more natural, if you did it."

He passed out into the sunshine that streamed into the room and fell across the figure of Lepage, who murmured dreamily: "And begin the world again."

Time passed. A shadow fell across the sunlight that streamed upon Lepage. He looked up. There was a startled cry of joy, an answering exclamation of love, and Rose was clasped in her husband's arms.

A few moments afterwards the sweet-faced woman said: "Who was that man who rode away to the north as I came up, Clive? He reminded me of some one."

"That was the leader of the White Guard, the man who saved me, Rose." He paused a moment and then solemnly said: "It was Jaspar Hume."

The wife came to her feet with a spring. "He saved you--Jaspar Hume! Oh, Clive!"

"He saved me, Rose."

Her eyes were wet: "And he would not stay and let me thank him! Poor fellow, poor Jaspar Hume! Has he been up here all these years?"

Her face was flushed, and pain was struggling with the joy she felt in seeing her husband again.

"Yes, he has been here all the time."

"Then he has not succeeded in life, Clive!" Her thoughts went back to the days when, blind and ill, Hume went away for health's sake, and she remembered how sorry then she felt for him, and how grieved she was that when he came back strong and well, he did not come near her or her husband, and offered no congratulations. She had not deliberately wronged him. She knew he cared for her: but so did Lepage. A promise had been given to neither when Jaspar Hume went away; and after that she grew to love the successful, kind-mannered genius who became her husband. No real pledge had been broken. Even in this happiness of hers, sitting once again at her husband's feet, she thought with tender kindness of the man who had cared for her eleven years ago; and who had but now saved her husband.

"He has not succeeded in life," she repeated softly. Looking down at her, his brow burning with a white heat, Lepage said: "He is a great man, Rose."

"I am sure he is a good man," she added.

Perhaps Lepage had borrowed some strength not all his own, for he said almost sternly: "He is a great man."

His wife looked up half-startled and said: "Very well, dear; he is a good man--and a great man."

The sunlight still came in through the open door. The Saskatchewan flowed swiftly between its verdant banks, an eagle went floating away to the west, robins made vocal a solitary tree a few yards away, troopers moved backwards and forwards across the square, and a hen and her chickens came fluttering to the threshold. The wife looked at the yellow brood drawing close to their mother, and her eyes grew wistful. She thought of their one baby asleep in an English grave. But thinking of the words of the captain of the White Guard, Lepage said firmly: "We will begin the world again."

She smiled, and rose to kiss him as the hen and chickens hastened away from the door, and a clear bugle call sounded in the square.

XI

Eleven years have gone since that scene was enacted at Edmonton.

A great gathering is dispersing from a hall in Piccadilly. It has been drawn together to do honour to a man who has achieved a triumph in engineering science. As he steps from the platform to go, he is greeted by a fusilade of cheers. He bows calmly and kindly. He is a man of vigorous yet reserved aspect; he has a rare individuality. He receives with a quiet cordiality the personal congratulations of his friends. He remains for some time in conversation with a royal duke, who takes his arm, and with him passes into the street. The duke is a member of this great man's club, and offers him a seat in his brougham. Amid the cheers of the people they drive away together. Inside the club there are fresh congratulations, and it is proposed to arrange an impromptu dinner, at which the duke will preside. But with modesty and honest thanks the great man declines. He pleads an engagement. He had pleaded this engagement the day before to a well-known society. After his health is proposed, he makes his adieux, and leaving the club, walks away towards a West-end square. In one of its streets he pauses, and enters a building called "Providence Chambers." His servant hands him a cablegram. He passes to his library, and, standing before the fire, opens it. It reads: "My wife and I send congratulations to the great man."

Jaspar Hume stands for a moment looking at the fire, and then says simply: "I wish poor old Bouche were here." He then sits down and writes this letter:

My dear Friends,--Your cablegram has made me glad. The day is over. My latest idea was more successful than I even dared to hope; and the world has been kind. I went down to see your boy, Jaspar, at Clifton last week. It was his birthday, you know--nine years old, and a clever, strong-minded little fellow. He is quite contented. As he is my god-child, I again claimed the right of putting a thousand dollars to his credit in the bank,--I have to speak of dollars to you people living in Canada--which I have done on his every birthday. When he is twenty-one he will have twenty-one thousand dollars--quite enough for a start in life. We get along well together, and I think he will develop a fine faculty for science. In the summer, as I said, I will bring him over to you. There is nothing more to say to-night except that I am as always,

Your faithful and loving friend, JASPAR HUME.

A moment after the letter was finished, the servant entered and announced "Mr. Late Carscallen." With a smile and hearty greeting the great man and this member of the White Guard met. It was to entertain his old arctic comrade that Jaspar Hume had declined to be entertained by society or club. A little while after, seated at the table, the ex-sub-factor said: "You found your brother well, Carscallen?"

The jaws moved slowly as of old. "Ay, that, and a grand meenister, sir."

"He wanted you to stay in Scotland, I suppose?" "Ay, that, but there's no place for me like Fort Providence."

"Try this pheasant. And you are sub-factor now, Carscallen?"

"There's two of us sub-factors--Jeff Hyde and myself. Mr. Field is old, and can't do much work, and trade's heavy now."

"I know. I hear from the factor now and then. And Gaspe Toujours, what of him?"

"He went away three years ago, and he said he'd come back. He never did though. Jeff Hyde believes he will. He says to me a hundred times, 'Carscallen, he made the sign of the cross that he'd come back from Saint Gabrielle; and that's next to the Book with a papist. If he's alive he'll come.'"

"Perhaps he will, Carscallen. And Cloud-in-the-Sky?"

"He's still there, and comes in and smokes with Jeff Hyde and me, as he used to do with you; but he doesn't obey our orders as he did yours, sir. He said to me when I left: 'You see Strong-back, tell him Cloud-in-the- Sky good Injun--he never forget. How!'"

Jaspar Hume raised his glass with smiling and thoughtful eyes: "To Cloud- in-the-Sky and all who never forget!" he said.

This eBook was produced by Andrew Sly

THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY

BEING THE MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROBERT MORAY, SOMETIME AN OFFICER IN THE VIRGINIA REGIMENT, AND AFTERWARDS OF AMHERST'S REGIMENT

By Gilbert Parker

To the Memory of Madge Henley.

CONTENTS

Chapter Introduction to the Imperial Edition Prefatory note to First Edition I An escort to the citadel II The master of the King's magazine III The wager and the sword IV The rat in the trap V The device of the dormouse VI Moray tells the story of his life VII "Quoth little Garaine" VIII As vain as Absalom IX A little concerning the Chevalier de la Darante X An officer of marines XI The coming of Doltaire XII "The point envenomed too!" XIII A little boast XIV Argand Cournal XV In the chamber of torture XVI Be saint or imp XVII Through the bars of the cage XVIII The steep path of conquest XIX A Danseuse and the Bastile XX Upon the ramparts XXI La Jongleuse XXII The lord of Kamaraska XXIII With Wolfe at Montmorenci XXIV The sacred countersign XXV In the cathedral XXVI The secret of the tapestry XXVII A side-wind of revenge XXVIII "To cheat the Devil yet" XXIX "Master Devil" Doltaire XXX "Where all the lovers can hide" Appendix--Excerpt from 'The Scot in New France'

INTRODUCTION TO THE IMPERIAL EDITION

It was in the winter of 1892, when on a visit to French Canada, that I made up my mind I would write the volume which the public knows as 'The Seats of the Mighty,' but I did not begin the composition until early in 1894. It was finished by the beginning of February, 1895, and began to appear in 'The Atlantic Monthly' in March of that year. It was not my first attempt at historical fiction, because I had written 'The Trail of the Sword' in the year 1893, but it was the first effort on an ambitious scale, and the writing of it was attended with as much searching of heart as enthusiasm. I had long been saturated by the early history of French Canada, as perhaps 'The Trail of the Sword' bore witness, and particularly of the period of the Conquest, and I longed for a subject which would, in effect, compel me to write; for I have strong views upon this business of compulsion in the mind of the writer. Unless a thing has seized a man, has obsessed him, and he feels that it excludes all other temptations to his talent or his genius, his book will not convince. Before all else he must himself be overpowered by the insistence of his subject, then intoxicated with his idea, and, being still possessed, become master of his material while remaining the slave of his subject. I believe that every book which has taken hold of the public has represented a kind of self-hypnotism on the part of the writer. I am further convinced that the book which absorbs the author, which possesses him as he writes it, has the effect of isolating him into an atmosphere which is not sleep, and which is not absolute wakefulness, but a place between the two, where the working world is indistinct and the mind is swept along a flood submerging the self-conscious but not drowning into unconsciousness.

Such, at any rate, is my own experience. I am convinced that the books of mine which have had so many friends as this book, 'The Seats of the Mighty', has had in the English-speaking world were written in just such conditions of temperamental isolation or absorption. First the subject, which must of itself have driving power, then the main character, which becomes a law working out its own destiny; and the subject in my own work has always been translatable into a phrase. Nearly every one of my books has always been reducible to its title.

For years I had wished to write an historical novel of the conquest of Canada or the settlement of the United Empire loyalists and the subsequent War of 1812, but the central idea and the central character had not come to me; and without both and the driving power of a big idea and of a big character, a book did not seem to me possible. The human thing with the grip of real life was necessary. At last, as pointed out in the prefatory note of the first edition, published in the spring of 1896 by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., of New York, and Messrs. Methuen & Co., of London, I ran across a tiny little volume in the library of Mr. George M. Fairchild, Jr., of Quebec, called the Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo. It was published by John S. Davidson, of Market Street, Pittsburgh, with an introduction by an editor who signed himself "N. B.C."

The Memoirs proper contained about seventeen thousand words, the remaining three thousand words being made up of abstracts and appendices collected by the editor. The narrative was written in a very ornate and grandiloquent style, but the hero of the memoirs was so evidently a man of remarkable character, enterprise and adventure, that I saw in the few scattered bones of the story which he unfolded the skeleton of an ample historical romance. There was necessary to offset this buoyant and courageous Scotsman, adventurous and experienced, a character of the race which captured him and held him in leash till just before the taking of Quebec. I therefore found in the character of Doltaire--which was the character of Voltaire spelled with a big D--purely a creature of the imagination, one who, as the son of a peasant woman and Louis XV, should be an effective offset to Major Stobo. There was no hint of Doltaire in the Memoirs. There could not be, nor of the plot on which the story was based, because it was all imagination. Likewise, there was no mention of Alixe Duvarney in the Memoirs, nor of Bigot or Madame Cournal and all the others. They too, when not characters of the imagination, were lifted out of the history of the time; but the first germ of the story came from 'The Memoirs of Robert Stobo', and when 'The Seats of the Mighty' was first published in 'The Atlantic Monthly' the subtitle contained these words: "Being the Memoirs of Captain Robert Stobo, sometime an officer in the Virginia Regiment, and afterwards of Amherst's Regiment."

When the book was published, however, I changed the name of Robert Stobo to Robert Moray, because I felt I had no right to saddle Robert Stobo's name with all the incidents and experiences and strange enterprises which the novel contained. I did not know then that perhaps it might be considered an honour by Robert Stobo's descendants to have his name retained. I could not foresee the extraordinary popularity of 'The Seats of the Mighty', but with what I thought was a sense of honour I eliminated his name and changed it to Robert Moray. 'The Seats of the Mighty' goes on, I am happy to say, with an ever-increasing number of friends. It has a position perhaps not wholly deserved, but it has crystallised some elements in the life of the continent of America, the history of France and England, and of the British Empire which may serve here and there to inspire the love of things done for the sake of a nation rather than for the welfare of an individual.

I began this introduction by saying that the book was started in the summer of 1894. That was at a little place called Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. For several months I worked in absolute seclusion in that out-of-the-way spot which had not then become a Mecca for trippers, and on the wonderful sands, stretching for miles upon miles coastwise and here and there as much as a mile out to the sea, I tried to live over again the days of Wolfe and Montcalm. Appropriately enough the book was begun in a hotel at Mablethorpe called "The Book in Hand." The name was got, I believe, from the fact that, in a far-off day, a ship was wrecked upon the coast at Mablethorpe, and the only person saved was the captain, who came ashore with a Bible in his hands. During the writing now and again a friend would come to me from London or elsewhere, and there would be a day off, full of literary tattle, but immediately my friends were gone I was lost again in the atmosphere of the middle of the eighteenth century.

I stayed at Mablethorpe until the late autumn, and then I went to Harrogate, exchanging the sea for the moors, and there, still living the open-air life, I remained for several months until I had finished the book. The writing of it knew no interruption and was happily set. It was a thing apart, and not a single untoward invasion of other interests affected its course.

The title of the book was for long a trouble to me. Months went by before I could find what I wanted. Scores of titles occurred to me, but each was rejected. At last, one day when I was being visited by Mr. Grant Richards, since then a London publisher, but at that time a writer, who had come to interview me for 'Great Thoughts', I told him of my difficulties regarding the title. I was saying that I felt the title should be, as it were, the kernel of a book. I said: "You see, it is a struggle of one simple girl against principalities and powers; it is the final conquest of the good over the great. In other words, the book will be an illustration of the text, 'He has put down the mighty from their seats, and has exalted the humble and meek.'" Then, like a flash, the title came 'The Seats of the Mighty'.

Since the phrase has gone into the language and was from the very first a popular title, it seems strange that the literary director of the American firm that published the book should take strong exception to it on the ground that it was grandiloquent. I like to think that I was firm, and that I declined to change the title.

I need say no more save that the book was dramatised by myself, and produced, first at Washington by Herbert (now Sir Herbert) Beerbohm Tree in the winter of 1897 and 1898, and in the spring of 1898 it opened his new theatre in London.

PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION

This tale would never have been written had it not been for the kindness of my distinguished friend Dr. John George Bourinot, C.M.G., of Ottawa, whose studies in parliamentary procedure, the English and Canadian Constitutions, and the history and development of Canada have been of singular benefit to the Dominion and to the Empire. Through Dr. Bourinot's good offices I came to know Mr. James Lemoine, of Quebec, the gifted antiquarian, and President of the Royal Society of Canada. Mr. Lemoine placed in my hands certain historical facts suggestive of romance. Subsequently, Mr. George M. Fairchild, Jr., of Cap Rouge, Quebec, whose library contains a valuable collection of antique Canadian books, maps, and prints, gave me generous assistance and counsel, allowing me "the run" of all his charts, prints, histories, and memoirs. Many of these prints, and a rare and authentic map of Wolfe's operations against Quebec are now reproduced in this novel, and may be considered accurate illustrations of places, people, and events. By the insertion of these faithful historical elements it is hoped to give more vividness to the atmosphere of the time, and to strengthen the verisimilitude of a piece of fiction which is not, I believe, out of harmony with fact.

Gilbert Parker

PRELUDE

To Sir Edward Seaforth, Bart., of Sangley Hope in Derbyshire, and Seaforth House in Hanover Square.

Dear Ned: You will have them written, or I shall be pestered to my grave! Is that the voice of a friend of so long standing? And yet it seems but yesterday since we had good hours in Virginia together, or met among the ruins of Quebec. My memoirs--these only will content you? And to flatter or cajole me, you tell me Mr. Pitt still urges on the matter. In truth, when he touched first upon this, I thought it but the courtesy of a great and generous man. But indeed I am proud that he is curious to know more of my long captivity at Quebec, of Monsieur Doltaire and all his dealings with me, and the motions he made to serve La Pompadour on one hand, and, on the other, to win from me that most perfect of ladies, Mademoiselle Alixe Duvarney.

Our bright conquest of Quebec is now heroic memory, and honour and fame and reward have been parcelled out. So I shall but briefly, in these memoirs (ay, they shall be written, and with a good heart), travel the trail of history, or discourse upon campaigns and sieges, diplomacies and treaties. I shall keep close to my own story; for that, it would seem, yourself and the illustrious minister of the King most wish to hear. Yet you will find figuring in it great men like our flaming hero General Wolfe, and also General Montcalm, who, I shall ever keep on saying, might have held Quebec against us, had he not been balked by the vain Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil; together with such notorious men as the Intendant Bigot, civil governor of New France, and such noble gentlemen as the Seigneur Duvarney, father of Alixe.

I shall never view again the citadel on those tall heights where I was detained so barbarously, nor the gracious Manor House at Beauport, sacred to me because of her who dwelt therein--how long ago, how long! Of all the pictures that flash before my mind when I think on those times, one is most with me: that of the fine guest-room in the Manor House, where I see moving the benign maid whose life and deeds alone can make this story worth telling. And with one scene therein, and it the most momentous in all my days, I shall begin my tale.

I beg you convey to Mr. Pitt my most obedient compliments, and say that I take his polite wish as my command.

With every token of my regard, I am, dear Ned, affectionately your friend,

Robert Moray

I

AN ESCORT TO THE CITADEL

When Monsieur Doltaire entered the salon, and, dropping lazily into a chair beside Madame Duvarney and her daughter, drawled out, "England's Braddock--fool and general--has gone to heaven, Captain Moray, and your papers send you there also," I did not shift a jot, but looked over at him gravely--for, God knows, I was startled--and I said,

"The General is dead?"

I did not dare to ask, Is he defeated? though from Doltaire's look I was sure it was so, and a sickness crept through me, for at the moment that seemed the end of our cause. But I made as if I had not heard his words about my papers.

"Dead as a last years courtier, shifted from the scene," he replied; "and having little now to do, we'll go play with the rat in our trap."

I would not have dared look towards Alixe, standing beside her mother then, for the song in my blood was pitched too high, were it not that a little sound broke from her. At that, I glanced, and saw that her face was still and quiet, but her eyes were shining, and her whole body seemed listening. I dared not give my glance meaning, though I wished to do so. She had served me much, had been a good friend to me, since I was brought a hostage to Quebec from Fort Necessity. There, at that little post on the Ohio, France threw down the gauntlet, and gave us the great Seven Years War. And though it may be thought I speak rashly, the lever to spring that trouble had been within my grasp. Had France sat still while Austria and Prussia quarreled, that long fighting had never been. The game of war had lain with the Grande Marquise--or La Pompadour, as she was called--and later it may be seen how I, unwillingly, moved her to set it going.

Answering Monsieur Doltaire, I said stoutly, "I am sure he made a good fight; he had gallant men."

"Truly gallant," he returned--"your own Virginians among others" (I bowed); "but he was a blunderer, as were you also, monsieur, or you had not sent him plans of our forts and letters of such candour. They have gone to France, my captain."

Madame Duvarney seemed to stiffen in her chair, for what did this mean but that I was a spy? and the young lady behind them now put her handkerchief to her mouth as if to stop a word. To make light of the charges against myself was the only thing, and yet I had little heart to do so. There was that between Monsieur Doltaire and myself--a matter I shall come to by-and-bye--which well might make me apprehensive.

"My sketch and my gossip with my friends," said I, "can have little interest in France."

"My faith, the Grande Marquise will find a relish for them," he said pointedly at me. He, the natural son of King Louis, had played the part between La Pompadour and myself in the grave matter of which I spoke. "She loves deciding knotty points of morality," he added.

"She has had chance and will enough," said I boldly, "but what point of morality is here?"

"The most vital--to you," he rejoined, flicking his handkerchief a little, and drawling so that I could have stopped his mouth with my hand. "Shall a hostage on parole make sketches of a fort and send them to his friends, who in turn pass them on to a foolish general?"

"When one party to an Article of War brutally breaks his sworn promise, shall the other be held to his?" I asked quietly.

I was glad that, at this moment, the Seigneur Duvarney entered, for I could feel the air now growing colder about Madame his wife. He, at least, was a good friend; but as I glanced at him, I saw his face was troubled and his manner distant. He looked at Monsieur Doltaire a moment steadily, stooped to his wife's hand, and then offered me his own without a word; which done, he went to where his daughter stood. She kissed him, and, as she did so, whispered something in his ear, to which he nodded assent. I knew afterwards that she had asked him to keep me to dinner with them.

Presently turning to Monsieur Doltaire, he said inquiringly, "You have a squad of men outside my house, Doltaire?"

Doltaire nodded in a languid way, and answered, "An escort--for Captain Moray--to the citadel."

I knew now, as he had said, that I was in the trap; that he had begun the long sport which came near to giving me the white shroud of death, as it turned white the hair upon my head ere I was thirty-two. Do I not know, the indignities, the miseries I suffered, I owed mostly to him, and that at the last he nearly robbed England of her greatest pride, the taking of New France?--For chance sometimes lets humble men like me balance the scales of fate; and I was humble enough in rank, if in spirit always something above my place.

I was standing as he spoke these words, and I turned to him and said, "Monsieur, I am at your service."

"I have sometimes wished," he said instantly, and with a courteous if ironical gesture, "that you were in my service--that is, the King's."

I bowed as to a compliment, for I would not see the insolence, and I retorted, "Would I could offer you a company in my Virginia regiment!"

"Delightful! delightful!" he rejoined. "I should make as good a Briton as you a Frenchman, every whit."

I suppose he would have kept leading to such silly play, had I not turned to Madame Duvarney and said, "I am most sorry that this mishap falls here; but it is not of my doing, and in colder comfort, Madame, I shall recall the good hours spent in your home."

I think I said it with a general courtesy, yet, feeling the eyes of the young lady on me, perhaps a little extra warmth came into my voice, and worked upon Madame, or it may be she was glad of my removal from contact with her daughter; but kindness showed in her face, and she replied gently, "I am sure it is only for a few days till we see you again."

Yet I think in her heart she knew my life was perilled: those were rough and hasty times, when the axe or the rope was the surest way to deal with troubles. Three years before, at Fort Necessity, I had handed my sword to my lieutenant, bidding him make healthy use of it, and, travelling to Quebec on parole, had come in and out of this house with great freedom. Yet since Alixe had grown towards womanhood there had been strong change in Madame's manner.

"The days, however few, will be too long until I tax your courtesy again," I said. "I bid you adieu, Madame."

"Nay, not so," spoke up my host; "not one step: dinner is nearly served, and you must both dine with us. Nay, but I insist," he added, as he saw me shake my head. "Monsieur Doltaire will grant you this courtesy, and me the great kindness. Eh, Doltaire?"

Doltaire rose, glancing from Madame to her daughter. Madame was smiling, as if begging his consent; for, profligate though he was, his position, and more than all, his personal distinction, made him a welcome guest at most homes in Quebec. Alixe met his look without a yes or no in her eyes--so young, yet having such control and wisdom, as I have had reason beyond all men to know. Something, however, in the temper of the scene had filled her with a kind of glow, which added to her beauty and gave her dignity. The spirit of her look caught the admiration of this expatriated courtier, and I knew that a deeper cause than all our past conflicts--and they were great--would now, or soon, set him fatally against me.

"I shall be happy to wait Captain Moray's pleasure," he said presently, "and to serve my own by sitting at your table. I was to have dined with the Intendant this afternoon, but a messenger shall tell him duty stays me.... If you will excuse me!" he added, going to the door to find a man of his company. He looked back for an instant, as if it struck him I might seek escape, for he believed in no man's truth; but he only said, "I may fetch my men to your kitchen, Duvarney? 'Tis raw outside."

"Surely. I shall see they have some comfort," was the reply.

Doltaire then left the room, and Duvarney came to me. "This is a bad business, Moray," he said sadly. "There is some mistake, is there not?"

I looked him fair in the face. "There is a mistake," I answered. "I am no spy, and I do not fear that I shall lose my life, my honour, or my friends by offensive acts of mine."

"I believe you," he responded, "as I have believed since you came, though there has been gabble of your doings. I do not forget you bought my life back from those wild Mohawks five years ago. You have my hand in trouble or out of it."

Upon my soul, I could have fallen on his neck, for the blow to our cause and the shadow on my own fate oppressed me for the moment.

At this point the ladies left the room to make some little toilette before dinner, and as they passed me the sleeve of Alixe's dress touched my arm. I caught her fingers for an instant, and to this day I can feel that warm, rich current of life coursing from finger-tips to heart. She did not look at me at all, but passed on after her mother. Never till that moment had there been any open show of heart between us. When I first came to Quebec (I own it to my shame) I was inclined to use her youthful friendship for private and patriotic ends; but that soon passed, and then I wished her companionship for true love of her. Also, I had been held back because when I first knew her she seemed but a child. Yet how quickly and how wisely did she grow out of her childhood! She had a playful wit, and her talents were far beyond her years. It amazed me often to hear her sum up a thing in some pregnant sentence which, when you came to think, was the one word to be said. She had such a deep look out of her blue eyes that you scarcely glanced from them to see the warm sweet colour of her face, the fair broad forehead, the brown hair, the delicate richness of her lips, which ever were full of humour and of seriousness--both running together, as you may see a laughing brook steal into the quiet of a river.

Duvarney and I were thus alone for a moment, and he straightway dropped a hand upon my shoulder. "Let me advise you," he said, "be friendly with Doltaire. He has great influence at the Court and elsewhere. He can make your bed hard or soft at the citadel."

I smiled at him, and replied, "I shall sleep no less sound because of Monsieur Doltaire."

"You are bitter in your trouble," said he.

I made haste to answer, "No, no, my own troubles do not weigh so heavy--but our General's death!"

"You are a patriot, my friend," he added warmly. "I could well have been content with our success against your English army without this deep danger to your person."

I put out my hand to him, but I did not speak, for just then Doltaire entered. He was smiling at something in his thought.

"The fortunes are with the Intendant always," said he. "When things are at their worst, and the King's storehouse, the dear La Friponne, is to be ripped by our rebel peasants like a sawdust doll, here comes this gay news of our success on the Ohio; and in that Braddock's death the whining beggars will forget their empty bellies, and bless where they meant to curse. What fools, to be sure! They had better loot La Friponne. Lord, how we love fighting, we French! And 'tis so much easier to dance, or drink, or love." He stretched out his shapely legs as he sat musing.

Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, smiling. "But you, Doltaire--there's no man out of France that fights more."

He lifted an eyebrow. "One must be in the fashion; besides, it does need some skill to fight. The others--to dance, drink, love: blind men's games!" He smiled cynically into the distance.

I have never known a man who interested me so much--never one so original, so varied, and so uncommon in his nature. I marvelled at the pith and depth of his observations; for though I agreed not with him once in ten times, I loved his great reflective cleverness and his fine penetration--singular gifts in a man of action. But action to him was a playtime; he had that irresponsibility of the Court from which he came, its scornful endurance of defeat or misery, its flippant look upon the world, its scoundrel view of women. Then he and Duvarney talked, and I sat thinking. Perhaps the passion of a cause grows in you as you suffer for it, and I had suffered, and suffered most by a bitter inaction. Governor Dinwiddie, Mr. Washington (alas that, as I write the fragment chapters of my life, among the hills where Montrose my ancestor fought, George leads the colonists against the realm of England!), and the rest were suffering, but they were fighting too. Brought to their knees, they could rise again to battle; and I thought then, How more glorious to be with my gentlemen in blue from Virginia, holding back death from the General, and at last falling myself, than to spend good years a hostage at Quebec, knowing that Canada was for our taking, yet doing nothing to advance the hour!

In the thick of these thoughts I was not conscious of what the two were saying, but at last I caught Madame Cournal's name; by which I guessed Monsieur Doltaire was talking of her amours, of which the chief and final was with Bigot the Intendant, to whom the King had given all civil government, all power over commerce and finance in the country. The rivalry between the Governor and the Intendant was keen and vital at this time, though it changed later, as I will show. At her name I looked up and caught Monsieur Doltaire's eye.

He read my thoughts. "You have had blithe hours here, monsieur," he said--"you know the way to probe us; but of all the ladies who could be most useful to you, you left out the greatest. There you erred. I say it as a friend, not as an officer, there you erred. From Madame Cournal to Bigot, from Bigot to Vaudreuil the Governor, from the Governor to France. But now--"

He paused, for Madame Duvarney and her daughter had come, and we all rose.

The ladies had heard enough to know Doltaire's meaning. "But now--Captain Moray dines with us," said Madame Duvarney quietly and meaningly.

"Yet I dine with Madame Cournal," rejoined Doltaire, smiling.

"One may use more option with enemies and prisoners," she said keenly, and the shot ought to have struck home. In so small a place it was not easy to draw lines close and fine, and it was in the power of the Intendant, backed by his confederates, to ruin almost any family in the province if he chose; and that he chose at times I knew well, as did my hostess. Yet she was a woman of courage and nobility of thought, and I knew well where her daughter got her good flavor of mind.

I could see something devilish in the smile at Doltaire's lip's, but his look was wandering between Alixe and me, and he replied urbanely, "I have ambition yet--to connive at captivity"; and then he looked full and meaningly at her.

I can see her now, her hand on the high back of a great oak chair, the lace of her white sleeve falling away, and her soft arm showing, her eyes on his without wavering. They did not drop, nor turn aside; they held straight on, calm, strong--and understanding. By that look I saw she read him; she, who had seen so little of the world, felt what he was, and met his invading interest firmly, yet sadly; for I knew long after that a smother was at her heart then, foreshadowings of dangers that would try her as few women are tried. Thank God that good women are born with greater souls for trial than men; that, given once an anchor for their hearts, they hold until the cables break.

When we were about to enter the dining-room, I saw, to my joy, Madame incline towards Doltaire, and I knew that Alixe was for myself--though her mother wished it little, I am sure. As she took my arm, her finger-tips plunged softly into the velvet of my sleeve, giving me a thrill of courage. I felt my spirits rise, and I set myself to carry things off gaily, to have this last hour with her clear of gloom, for it seemed easy to think that we should meet no more.

As we passed into the dining-room, I said, as I had said the first time I went to dinner in her father's house, "Shall we be flippant, or grave?"

I guessed that it would touch her. She raised her eyes to mine and answered, "We are grave; let us seem flippant."

In those days I had a store of spirits. I was seldom dismayed, for life had been such a rough-and-tumble game that I held to cheerfulness and humour as a hillsman to his broadsword, knowing it the greatest of weapons with a foe, and the very stone and mortar of friendship. So we were gay, touching lightly on events around us, laughing at gossip of the doorways (I in my poor French), casting small stones at whatever drew our notice, not forgetting a throw or two at Chateau Bigot, the Intendant's country house at Charlesbourg, five miles away, where base plots were hatched, reputations soiled, and all clean things dishonoured. But Alixe, the sweetest soul France ever gave the world, could not know all I knew; guessing only at heavy carousals, cards, song, and raillery, with far-off hints of feet lighter than fit in cavalry boots dancing among the glasses on the table. I was never before so charmed with her swift intelligence, for I never had great nimbleness of thought, nor power to make nice play with the tongue.

"You have been three years with us," suddenly said her father, passing me the wine. "How time has flown! How much has happened!"

"Madame Cournal's husband has made three million francs," said Doltaire, with dry irony and truth.

Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, stiffened; for, oblique as the suggestion was, he did not care to have his daughter hear it.

"And Vaudreuil has sent bees buzzing to Versailles about Bigot and Company," added the impish satirist.

Madame Duvarney responded with a look of interest, and the Seigneur's eyes steadied to his plate. All at once by that I saw the Seigneur had known of the Governor's action, and maybe had counseled with him, siding against Bigot. If that were so--as it proved to be--he was in a nest of scorpions; for who among them would spare him: Marin, Cournal, Rigaud, the Intendant himself? Such as he were thwarted right and left in this career of knavery and public evils.

"And our people have turned beggars; poor and starved, they beg at the door of the King's storehouse--it is well called La Friponne," said Madame Duvarney, with some heat; for she was ever liberal to the poor, and she had seen manor after manor robbed, and peasant farmers made to sell their corn for a song, to be sold to them again at famine prices by La Friponne. Even now Quebec was full of pilgrim poor begging against the hard winter, and execrating their spoilers.

Doltaire was too fond of digging at the heart of things not to admit she spoke truth.

"La Pompadour et La Friponne! Qu'est que cela, mon petit homme?" "Les deux terribles, ma chere mignonne, Mais, c'est cela-- La Pompadour et La Friponne!"

He said this with cool drollery and point, in the patois of the native, so that he set us all laughing, in spite of our mutual apprehensions.

Then he continued, "And the King has sent a chorus to the play, with eyes for the preposterous make-believe, and more, no purse to fill."

We all knew he meant himself, and we knew also that so far as money went he spoke true; that though hand-in-glove with Bigot, he was poor, save for what he made at the gaming-table and got from France. There was the thing that might have clinched me to him, had matters been other than they were; for all my life I have loathed the sordid soul, and I would rather, in these my ripe years, eat with a highwayman who takes his life in his hands than with the civilian who robs his king and the king's poor, and has no better trick than false accounts, nor better friend than the pettifogging knave. Doltaire had no burning love for France, and little faith in anything; for he was of those Versailles water-flies who recked not if the world blackened to cinders when their lights went out. As will be seen by-and-bye, he had come here to seek me, and to serve the Grande Marquise.

More speech like this followed, and amid it all, with the flower of the world beside me at this table, I remembered my mother's words before I bade her good-bye and set sail from Glasgow for Virginia.

"Keep it in mind, Robert," she said, "that an honest love is the thing to hold you honest with yourself. 'Tis to be lived for, and fought for, and died for. Ay, be honest in your loves. Be true."

And there I took an oath, my hand clenched beneath the table, that Alixe should be my wife if better days came; when I was done with citadel and trial and captivity, if that might be.

The evening was well forward when Doltaire, rising from his seat in the drawing-room, bowed to me, and said, "If it pleases you, monsieur?"

I rose also, and prepared to go. There was little talk, yet we all kept up a play of cheerfulness. When I came to take the Seigneur's hand, Doltaire was a distance off, talking to Madame. "Moray," said the Seigneur quickly and quietly, "trials portend for both of us." He nodded towards Doltaire.

"But we shall come safe through," said I.

"Be of good courage, and adieu," he answered, as Doltaire turned towards us.

My last words were to Alixe. The great moment of my life was come. If I could but say one thing to her out of earshot, I would stake all on the hazard. She was standing beside a cabinet, very still, a strange glow in her eyes, a new, fine firmness at the lips. I felt I dared not look as I would; I feared there was no chance now to speak what I would. But I came slowly up the room with her mother. As we did so, Doltaire exclaimed and started to the window, and the Seigneur and Madame followed. A red light was showing on the panes.

I caught Alixe's eye, and held it, coming quickly to her. All backs were on us. I took her hand and pressed it to my lips suddenly. She gave a little gasp, and I saw her bosom heave.

"I am going from prison to prison," said I, "and I leave a loved jailer behind."

She understood. "Your jailer goes also," she answered, with a sad smile.

"I love you! I love you!" I urged.

She was very pale. "Oh, Robert!" she whispered timidly; and then, "I will be brave, I will help you, and I will not forget. God guard you."

That was all, for Doltaire turned to me then and said, "They've made of La Friponne a torch to light you to the citadel, monsieur."

A moment afterwards we were outside in the keen October air, a squad of soldiers attending, our faces towards the citadel heights. I looked back, doffing my cap. The Seigneur and Madame stood at the door, but my eyes were for a window where stood Alixe. The reflection of the far-off fire bathed the glass, and her face had a glow, the eyes shining through, intent and most serious. Yet how brave she was, for she lifted her handkerchief, shook it a little, and smiled.

As though the salute were meant for him, Doltaire bowed twice impressively, and then we stepped forward, the great fire over against the Heights lighting us and hurrying us on.

We scarcely spoke as we went, though Doltaire hummed now and then the air La Pompadour et La Friponne. As we came nearer I said, "Are you sure it is La Friponne, monsieur?"

"It is not," he said, pointing. "See!"

The sky was full of shaking sparks, and a smell of burning grain came down the wind.

"One of the granaries, then," I added, "not La Friponne itself?"

To this he nodded assent, and we pushed on.

II

THE MASTER OF THE KING'S MAGAZINE

"What fools," said Doltaire presently, "to burn the bread and oven too! If only they were less honest in a world of rogues, poor moles!"

Coming nearer, we saw that La Friponne itself was safe, but one warehouse was doomed and another threatened. The streets were full of people, and thousands of excited peasants, laborers, and sailors were shouting, "Down with the palace! Down with Bigot!"

We came upon the scene at the most critical moment. None of the Governors soldiers were in sight, but up the Heights we could hear the steady tramp of General Montcalm's infantry as they came on. Where were Bigot's men? There was a handful--one company--drawn up before La Friponne, idly leaning on their muskets, seeing the great granary burn, and watching La Friponne threatened by the mad crowd and the fire. There was not a soldier before the Intendant's palace, not a light in any window.

"What is this weird trick of Bigot's?" said Doltaire, musing.

The Governor, we knew, had been out of the city that day. But where was Bigot? At a word from Doltaire we pushed forward towards the palace, the soldiers keeping me in their midst. We were not a hundred feet from the great steps when two gates at the right suddenly swung open, and a carriage rolled out swiftly and dashed down into the crowd. I recognized the coachman first--Bigot's, an old one-eyed soldier of surpassing nerve, and devoted to his master. The crowd parted right and left. Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Bigot stood up, folding his arms, and glancing round with a disdainful smile without speaking a word. He carried a paper in one hand.

Here were at least two thousand armed and unarmed peasants, sick with misery and oppression, in the presence of their undefended tyrant. One shot, one blow of a stone, one stroke of a knife--to the end of a shameless pillage. But no hand was raised to do the deed. The roar of voices subsided--he waited for it--and silence was broken only by the crackle of the burning building, the tramp of Montcalm's soldiers in Mountain Street, and the tolling of the cathedral bell. I thought it strange that almost as Bigot came out the wild clanging gave place to a cheerful peal.

After standing for a moment, looking round him, his eye resting on Doltaire and myself (we were but a little distance from him), Bigot said in a loud voice: "What do you want with me? Do you think I may be moved by threats? Do you punish me by burning your own food, which, when the English are at our doors, is your only hope? Fools! How easily could I turn my cannon and my men upon you! You think to frighten me. Who do you think I am?--a Bostonnais or an Englishman? You--revolutionists! T'sh! You are wild dogs without a leader. You want one that you can trust; you want no coward, but one who fears you not at your wildest. Well, I will be your leader. I do not fear you, and I do not love you, for how have you deserved my love? By ingratitude and aspersion? Who has the King's favour? Francois Bigot. Who has the ear of the Grande Marquise? Francois Bigot. Who stands firm while others tremble lest their power pass to-morrow? Francois Bigot. Who else dare invite revolution, this danger"--his hand sweeping to the flames--"who but Francois Bigot?" He paused for a moment, and looking up to the leader of Montcalm's soldiers on the Heights, waved him back; then he continued:

"And to-day, when I am ready to give you great news, you play the mad dog's game; you destroy what I had meant to give you in our hour of danger, when those English came. I made you suffer a little, that you might live then. Only to-day, because of our great and glorious victory--"

He paused again. The peal of bells became louder. Far up on the Heights we heard the calling of bugles and the beating of drums; and now I saw the whole large plan, the deep dramatic scheme. He had withheld the news of the victory that he might announce it when it would most turn to his own glory. Perhaps he had not counted on the burning of the warehouse, but this would tell now in his favour. He was not a large man, but he drew himself up with dignity, and continued in a contemptuous tone:

"Because of our splendid victory, I designed to tell you all my plans, and, pitying your trouble, divide among you at the smallest price, that all might pay, the corn which now goes to feed the stars."

At that moment some one from the Heights above called out shrilly, "What lie is in that paper, Francois Bigot?"

I looked up, as did the crowd. A woman stood upon a point of the great rock, a red robe hanging on her, her hair free over her shoulders, her finger pointing at the Intendant. Bigot only glanced up, then smoothed out the paper.

He said to the people in a clear but less steady voice, for I could see that the woman had disturbed him, "Go pray to be forgiven for your insolence and folly. His most Christian Majesty is triumphant upon the Ohio. The English have been killed in thousands, and their General with them. Do you not hear the joy-bells in the Church of Our Lady of the Victories? and more--listen!"

There burst from the Heights on the other side a cannon shot, and then another and another. There was a great commotion, and many ran to Bigot's carriage, reached in to touch his hand, and called down blessings on him.

"See that you save the other granaries," he urged, adding, with a sneer, "and forget not to bless La Friponne in your prayers!"

It was a clever piece of acting. Presently from the Heights above came the woman's voice again, so piercing that the crowd turned to her.

"Francois Bigot is a liar and a traitor!" she cried. "Beware of Francois Bigot! God has cast him out."

A dark look came upon Bigot's face; but presently he turned, and gave a sign to some one near the palace. The doors of the courtyard flew open, and out came squad after squad of soldiers. In a moment, they, with the people, were busy carrying water to pour upon the side of the endangered warehouse. Fortunately the wind was with them, else it and the palace also would have been burned that night.

The Intendant still stood in his carriage watching and listening to the cheers of the people. At last he beckoned to Doltaire and to me. We both went over.

"Doltaire, we looked for you at dinner," he said. "Was Captain Moray"--nodding towards me--"lost among the petticoats? He knows the trick of cup and saucer. Between the sip and click he sucked in secrets from our garrison--a spy where had been a soldier, as we thought. You once wore a sword, Captain Moray--eh?"

"If the Governor would grant me leave, I would not only wear, but use one, your excellency knows well where," said I.

"Large speaking, Captain Moray. They do that in Virginia, I am told."

"In Gascony there's quiet, your excellency."

Doltaire laughed outright, for it was said that Bigot, in his coltish days, had a shrewish Gascon wife, whom he took leave to send to heaven before her time. I saw the Intendant's mouth twitch angrily.

"Come," he said, "you have a tongue; we'll see if you have a stomach. You've languished with the girls; you shall have your chance to drink with Francois Bigot. Now, if you dare, when we have drunk to the first cockcrow, should you be still on your feet, you'll fight some one among us, first giving ample cause."

"I hope, your excellency," I replied, with a touch of vanity, "I have still some stomach and a wrist. I will drink to cockcrow, if you will. And if my sword prove the stronger, what?"

"There's the point," he said. "Your Englishman loves not fighting for fighting's sake, Doltaire; he must have bonbons for it. Well, see: if your sword and stomach prove the stronger, you shall go your ways to where you will. Voila!"

If I could but have seen a bare portion of the craftiness of this pair of devils artisans! They both had ends to serve in working ill to me, and neither was content that I should be shut away in the citadel, and no more. There was a deeper game playing. I give them their due: the trap was skillful, and in those times, with great things at stake, strategy took the place of open fighting here and there. For Bigot I was to be a weapon against another; for Doltaire, against myself.

What a gull they must have thought me! I might have known that, with my lost papers on the way to France, they must hold me tight here till I had been tried, nor permit me to escape. But I was sick of doing nothing, thinking with horror on a long winter in the citadel, and I caught at the least straw of freedom.

"Captain Moray will like to spend a couple of hours at his lodgings before he joins us at the palace," the Intendant said, and with a nod to me he turned to his coachman. The horses wheeled, and in a moment the great doors opened, and he had passed inside to applause, though here and there among the crowd was heard a hiss, for the Scarlet Woman had made an impression. The Intendant's men essayed to trace these noises, but found no one. Looking again to the Heights, I saw that the woman had gone. Doltaire noted my glance and the inquiry in my face, and he said:

"Some bad fighting hours with the Intendant at Chateau Bigot, and then a fever, bringing a kind of madness: so the story creeps about, as told by Bigot's enemies."

Just at this point I felt a man hustle me as he passed. One of the soldiers made a thrust at him, and he turned round. I caught his eye, and it flashed something to me. It was Voban the barber, who had shaved me every day for months when I first came, while my arm was stiff from a wound got fighting the French on the Ohio. It was quite a year since I had met him, and I was struck by the change in his face. It had grown much older; its roundness was gone. We had had many a talk together; he helping me with French, I listening to the tales of his early life in France, and to the later tale of a humble love, and of the home which he was fitting up for his Mathilde, a peasant girl of much beauty, I was told, but whom I had never seen. I remembered at that moment, as he stood in the crowd looking at me, the piles of linen which he had bought at Ste. Anne de Beaupre, and the silver pitcher which his grandfather had got from the Duc de Valois for an act of merit. Many a time we had discussed the pitcher and the deed, and fingered the linen, now talking in French, now in English; for in France, years before, he had been a valet to an English officer at King Louis's court. But my surprise had been great when I learned that this English gentleman was no other than the best friend I ever had, next to my parents and my grandfather. Voban was bound to Sir John Godric by as strong ties of affection as I. What was more, by a secret letter I had sent to George Washington, who was then as good a Briton as myself, I had been able to have my barber's young brother, a prisoner of war, set free.

I felt that he had something to say to me. But he turned away and disappeared among the crowd. I might have had some clue if I had known that he had been crouched behind the Intendant's carriage while I was being bidden to the supper. I did not guess then that there was anything between him and the Scarlet Woman who railed at Bigot.

In a little while I was at my lodgings, soldiers posted at my door and one in my room. Doltaire gone to his own quarters promising to call for me within two hours. There was little for me to do but to put in a bag the fewest necessaries, to roll up my heavy cloak, to stow safely my pipes and two goodly packets of tobacco, which were to be my chiefest solace for many a long day, and to write some letters--one to Governor Dinwiddie, one to George Washington, and one to my partner in Virginia, telling them my fresh misfortunes, and begging them to send me money, which, however useless in my captivity, would be important in my fight for life and freedom. I did not write intimately of my state, for I was not sure my letters would ever pass outside Quebec. There were only two men I could trust to do the thing. One was a fellow-countryman, Clark, a ship-carpenter, who, to save his neck and to spare his wife and child, had turned Catholic, but who hated all Frenchmen barbarously at heart, remembering two of his bairns butchered before his eyes. The other was Voban. I knew that though Voban might not act, he would not betray me. But how to reach either of them? It was clear that I must bide my chances.

One other letter I wrote, brief but vital, in which I begged the sweetest girl in the world not to have uneasiness because of me; that I trusted to my star and to my innocence to convince my judges; and begging her, if she could, to send me a line at the citadel. I told her I knew well how hard it would be, for her mother and her father would not now look upon my love with favour. But I trusted all to time and Providence.

I sealed my letters, put them in my pocket, and sat down to smoke and think while I waited for Doltaire. To the soldier on duty, whom I did not notice at first, I now offered a pipe and a glass of wine, which he accepted rather gruffly, but enjoyed, if I might judge by his devotion to them.

By-and-bye, without any relevancy at all, he said abruptly, "If a little sooner she had come--aho!"

For a moment I could not think what he meant; but soon I saw.

"The palace would have been burnt if the girl in scarlet had come sooner--eh?" I asked. "She would have urged the people on?"

"And Bigot burnt, too, maybe," he answered.

"Fire and death--eh?"

I offered him another pipeful of tobacco. He looked doubtful, but accepted.

"Aho! And that Voban, he would have had his hand in," he growled.

I began to get more light.

"She was shut up at Chateau Bigot--hand of iron and lock of steel--who knows the rest! But Voban was for always," he added presently.

The thing was clear. The Scarlet Woman was Mathilde. So here was the end of Voban's little romance--of the fine linen from Ste. Anne de Beaupre and the silver pitcher for the wedding wine. I saw, or felt, that in Voban I might find now a confederate, if I put my hard case on Bigot's shoulders.

"I can't see why she stayed with Bigot," I said tentatively.

"Break the dog's leg, it can't go hunting bones--mais, non! Holy, how stupid are you English!"

"Why doesn't the Intendant lock her up now? She's dangerous to him. You remember what she said?"

"Tonnerre, you shall see to-morrow," he answered; "now all the sheep go bleating with the bell. Bigot--Bigot--Bigot--there is nothing but Bigot! But, pish! Vaudreuil the Governor is the great man, and Montcalm, aho! son of Mahomet! You shall see. Now they dance to Bigot's whistling; he will lock her safe enough to-morrow, 'less some one steps in to help her. Before to-night she never spoke of him before the world--but a poor daft thing, going about all sad and wild. She missed her chance to-night--aho!"

"Why are you not with Montcalm's soldiers?" I asked. "You like him better."

"I was with him, but my time was out, and I left him for Bigot. Pish! I left him for Bigot, for the militia!" He raised his thumb to his nose, and spread out his fingers. Again light dawned on me. He was still with the Governor in all fact, though soldiering for Bigot--a sort of watch upon the Intendant.

I saw my chance. If I could but induce this fellow to fetch me Voban! There was yet an hour before I was to go to the intendance.

I called up what looks of candour were possible to me, and told him bluntly that I wished Voban to bear a letter for me to the Seigneur Duvarney's. At that he cocked his ear and shook his bushy head, fiercely stroking his mustaches.

I knew that I should stake something if I said it was a letter for Mademoiselle Duvarney, but I knew also that if he was still the Governor's man in Bigot's pay he would understand the Seigneur's relations with the Governor. And a woman in the case with a soldier--that would count for something. So I said it was for her. Besides, I had no other resource but to make a friend among my enemies, if I could, while yet there was a chance.

It was like a load lifted from me when I saw his mouth and eyes open wide in a big soundless laugh, which came to an end with a voiceless aho! I gave him another tumbler of wine. Before he took it, he made a wide mouth at me again, and slapped his leg. After drinking, he said, "Poom--what good? They're going to hang you for a spy."

"That rope's not ready yet," I answered. "I'll tie a pretty knot in another string first, I trust."

"Damned if you haven't spirit!" said he. "That Seigneur Duvarney, I know him; and I know his son the ensign--whung, what saltpetre is he! And the ma'm'selle--excellent, excellent; and a face, such a face, and a seat like leeches in the saddle. And you a British officer mewed up to kick your heels till gallows day! So droll, my dear!"

"But will you fetch Voban?" I asked.

"To trim your hair against the supper to-night--eh, like that?"

As he spoke he puffed out his red cheeks with wide boylike eyes, burst his lips in another soundless laugh, and laid a finger beside his nose. His marvellous innocence of look and his peasant openness hid, I saw, great shrewdness and intelligence--an admirable man for Vaudreuil's purpose, as admirable for mine. I knew well that if I had tried to bribe him he would have scouted me, or if I had made a motion for escape he would have shot me off-hand. But a lady--that appealed to him; and that she was the Seigneur Duvarney's daughter did the rest.

"Yes, yes," said I, "one must be well appointed in soul and body when one sups with his Excellency and Monsieur Doltaire."

"Limed inside and chalked outside," he retorted gleefully. "But M'sieu' Doltaire needs no lime, for he has no soul. No, by Sainte Helois! The good God didn't make him. The devil laughed, and that laugh grew into M'sieu' Doltaire. But brave!--no kicking pulse is in his body."

"You will send for Voban--now?" I asked softly.

He was leaning against the door as he spoke. He reached and put the tumbler on a shelf, then turned and opened the door, his face all altered to a grimness.

"Attend here, Labrouk!" he called; and on the soldier coming, he blurted out in scorn, "Here's this English captain can't go to supper without Voban's shears to snip him. Go fetch him, for I'd rather hear a calf in a barn-yard than this whing-whanging for 'M'sieu' Voban!'"

He mocked my accent in the last two words, so that the soldier grinned, and at once started away. Then he shut the door, and turned to me again, and said more seriously, "How long have we before Monsieur comes?"--meaning Doltaire.

"At least an hour," said I.

"Good," he rejoined, and then he smoked while I sat thinking.

It was near an hour before we heard footsteps outside; then came a knock, and Voban was shown in.

"Quick, m'sieu'," he said. "M'sieu' is almost at our heels."

"This letter," said I, "to Mademoiselle Duvarney," and I handed four: hers, and those to Governor Dinwiddie, to Mr. Washington, and to my partner.

He quickly put them in his coat, nodding. The soldier--I have not yet mentioned his name--Gabord, did not know that more than one passed into Voban's hands.

"Off with your coat, m'sieu'," said Voban, whipping out his shears, tossing his cap aside, and rolling down his apron. "M'sieu' is here."

I had off my coat, was in a chair in a twinkling, and he was clipping softly at me as Doltaire's hand turned the handle of the door.

"Beware--to-night!" Voban whispered.

"Come to me in the prison," said I. "Remember your brother!"

His lips twitched. "M'sieu', I will if I can." This he said in my ear as Doltaire entered and came forward.

"Upon my life!" Doltaire broke out. "These English gallants! They go to prison curled and musked by Voban. VOBAN--a name from the court of the King, and it garnishes a barber. Who called you, Voban?"

"My mother, with the cure's help, m'sieu'."

Doltaire paused, with a pinch of snuff at his nose, and replied lazily, "I did not say 'Who called you VOBAN?' Voban, but who called you here, Voban?"

I spoke up testily then of purpose: "What would you have, monsieur? The citadel has better butchers than barbers. I sent for him."

He shrugged his shoulders and came over to Voban. "Turn round, my Voban," he said. "Voban--and such a figure! a knee, a back like that!"

Then, while my heart stood still, he put forth a finger and touched the barber on the chest. If he should touch the letters! I was ready to seize them--but would that save them? Twice, thrice, the finger prodded Voban's breast, as if to add an emphasis to his words. "In Quebec you are misplaced, Monsieur le Voban. Once a wasp got into a honeycomb and died."

I knew he was hinting at the barber's resentment of the poor Mathilde's fate. Something strange and devilish leapt into the man's eyes, and he broke out bitterly,

"A honey-bee got into a nest of wasps--and died."

I thought of the Scarlet Woman on the hill.

Voban looked for a moment as if he might do some wild thing. His spirit, his devilry, pleased Doltaire, and he laughed. "Who would have thought our Voban had such wit? The trade of barber is double-edged. Razors should be in fashion at Versailles."

Then he sat down, while Voban made a pretty show of touching off my person. A few minutes passed so, in which the pealing of bells, the shouting of the people, the beating of drums, and the calling of bugles came to us clearly.

A half hour afterwards, on our way to the Intendant's palace, we heard the Benedictus chanted in the Church of the Recollets as we passed--hundreds kneeling outside, and responding to the chant sung within:

"That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us."

At the corner of a building which we passed, a little away from the crowd, I saw a solitary cloaked figure. The words of the chant, following us, I could hear distinctly:

"That we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear."

And then, from the shadowed corner came in a high, melancholy voice the words:

"To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Looking closer, I saw it was Mathilde.

Doltaire smiled as I turned and begged a moment's time to speak to her.

"To pray with the lost angel and sup with the Intendant, all in one night--a liberal taste, monsieur; but who shall stay the good Samaritan!"

They stood a little distance away, and I went over to her and said, "Mademoiselle--Mathilde, do you not know me?"

Her abstracted eye fired up, as there ran to her brain some little sprite out of the House of Memory and told her who I was.

"There were two lovers in the world," she said: "the Mother of God forgot them, and the devil came. I am the Scarlet Woman," she went on; "I made this red robe from the curtains of Hell--"

Poor soul! My own trouble seemed then as a speck among the stars to hers. I took her hand and held it, saying again, "Do you not know me? Think, Mathilde!"

I was not sure that she had ever seen me, to know me, but I thought it possible; for, as a hostage, I had been much noticed in Quebec, and Voban had, no doubt, pointed me out to her. Light leapt from her black eye, and then she said, putting her finger on her lips, "Tell all the lovers to hide. I have seen a hundred Francois Bigots."

I looked at her, saying nothing--I knew not what to say. Presently her eye steadied to mine, and her intellect rallied. "You are a prisoner, too," she said; "but they will not kill you: they will keep you till the ring of fire grows in your head, and then you will make your scarlet robe, and go out, but you will never find It--never. God hid first, and then It hides.... It hides, that which you lost--It hides, and you can not find It again. You go hunting, hunting, but you can not find It."

My heart was pinched with pain. I understood her. She did not know her lover now at all. If Alixe and her mother at the Manor could but care for her, I thought. But alas! what could I do? It were useless to ask her to go to the Manor; she would not understand.

Perhaps there come to the disordered mind flashes of insight, illuminations and divinations, greater than are given to the sane, for she suddenly said in a whisper, touching me with a nervous finger, "I will go and tell her where to hide. They shall not find her. I know the woodpath to the Manor. Hush! she shall own all I have--except the scarlet robe. She showed me where the May-apples grew. Go,"--she pushed me gently away--"go to your prison, and pray to God. But you can not kill Francois Bigot, he is a devil." Then she thrust into my hands a little wooden cross, which she took from many others at her girdle. "If you wear that, the ring of fire will not grow," she said. "I will go by the woodpath, and give her one, too. She shall live with me: I will spread the cedar branches and stir the fire. She shall be safe. Hush! Go, go softly, for their wicked eyes are everywhere, the were-wolves!"

She put her fingers on my lips for an instant, and then, turning, stole softly away towards the St. Charles River.

Doltaire's mockery brought me back to myself.

"So much for the beads of the addled; now for the bowls of sinful man," said he.

III

THE WAGER AND THE SWORD

As I entered the Intendant's palace with Doltaire I had a singular feeling of elation. My spirits rose unaccountably, and I felt as though it were a fete night, and the day's duty over, the hour of play was come. I must needs have felt ashamed of it then, and now, were I not sure it was some unbidden operation of the senses. Maybe a merciful Spirit sees how, left alone, we should have stumbled and lost ourselves in our own gloom, and so gives us a new temper fitted to our needs. I remember that at the great door I turned back and smiled upon the ruined granary, and sniffed the air laden with the scent of burnt corn--the peoples bread; that I saw old men and women who could not be moved by news of victory, shaking with cold, even beside this vast furnace, and peevishly babbling of their hunger, and I did not say, "Poor souls!" that for a time the power to feel my own misfortunes seemed gone, and a hard, light indifference came on me.

For it is true I came into the great dining-hall, and looked upon the long loaded table, with its hundred candles, its flagons and pitchers of wine, and on the faces of so many idle, careless gentlemen bid to a carouse, with a manner, I believe, as reckless and jaunty as their own. And I kept it up, though I saw it was not what they had looked for. I did not at once know who was there, but presently, at a distance from me, I saw the face of Juste Duvarney, the brother of my sweet Alixe, a man of but twenty or so, who had a name for wildness, for no badness that I ever heard of, and for a fiery temper. He was in the service of the Governor, an ensign. He had been little at home since I had come to Quebec, having been employed up to the past year in the service of the Governor of Montreal. We bowed, but he made no motion to come to me, and the Intendant engaged me almost at once in gossip of the town; suddenly, however, diverging upon some questions of public tactics and civic government. He much surprised me, for though I knew him brave and able, I had never thought of him save as the adroit politician and servant of the King, the tyrant and the libertine. I might have known by that very scene a few hours before that he had a wide, deep knowledge of human nature, and despised it; unlike Doltaire, who had a keener mind, was more refined even in wickedness, and, knowing the world, laughed at it more than he despised it, which was the sign of the greater mind. And indeed, in spite of all the causes I had to hate Doltaire, it is but just to say he had by nature all the great gifts--misused and disordered as they were. He was the product of his age; having no real moral sense, living life wantonly, making his own law of right or wrong. As a lad, I was taught to think the evil person carried evil in his face, repelling the healthy mind. But long ago I found that this was error. I had no reason to admire Doltaire, and yet to this hour his handsome face, with its shadows and shifting lights, haunts me, charms me. The thought came to me as I talked with the Intendant, and I looked round the room. Some present were of coarse calibre--bushranging sons of seigneurs and petty nobles, dashing and profane, and something barbarous; but most had gifts of person and speech, and all seemed capable.

My spirits continued high. I sprang alertly to meet wit and gossip, my mind ran nimbly here and there, I filled the role of honoured guest. But when came the table and wine, a change befell me. From the first drop I drank, my spirits suffered a decline. On one side the Intendant rallied me, on the other Doltaire. I ate on, drank on; but while smiling by the force of will, I grew graver little by little. Yet it was a gravity which had no apparent motive, for I was not thinking of my troubles, not even of the night's stake and the possible end of it all; simply a sort of gray colour of the mind, a stillness in the nerves, a general seriousness of the senses. I drank, and the wine did not affect me, as voices got loud and louder, and glasses rang, and spurs rattled on shuffling heels, and a scabbard clanged on a chair. I seemed to feel and know it all in some far-off way, but I was not touched by the spirit of it, was not a part of it. I watched the reddened cheeks and loose scorching mouths around me with a sort of distant curiosity, and the ribald jests flung right and left struck me not at all acutely. It was as if I were reading a Book of Bacchus. I drank on evenly, not doggedly, and answered jest for jest without a hot breath of drunkenness. I looked several times at Juste Duvarney, who sat not far away, on the other side of the table, behind a grand piece of silver filled with October roses. He was drinking hard, and Doltaire, sitting beside him, kept him at it. At last the silver piece was shifted, and he and I could see each other fairly. Now and then Doltaire spoke across to me, but somehow no word passed between Duvarney and myself.

Suddenly, as if by magic--I know it was preconcerted--the talk turned on the events of the evening and on the defeat of the British. Then, too, as strangely I began to be myself again, amid a sense of my position grew upon me. I had been withdrawn from all real feeling and living for hours, but I believe that same suspension was my salvation. For with every man present deeply gone in liquor round me--every man save Doltaire--I was sane and steady, and settling into a state of great alertness, determined on escape, if that could be, and bent on turning every chance to serve my purposes.

Now and again I caught my own name mentioned with a sneer, then with remarks of surprise, then with insolent laughter. I saw it all. Before dinner some of the revellers had been told of the new charge against me, and, by instruction, had kept it till the inflammable moment. Then, when the why and wherefore of my being at this supper were in the hazard, the stake, as a wicked jest of Bigot's, was mentioned. I could see the flame grow inch by inch, fed by the Intendant and Doltaire, whose hateful final move I was yet to see. For one instant I had a sort of fear, for I was sure they meant I should not leave the room alive; but anon I felt a river of fiery anger flow through me, rousing me, making me loathe the faces of them all. Yet not all, for in one pale face, with dark, brilliant eyes, I saw the looks of my flower of the world: the colour of her hair in his, the clearness of the brow, the poise of the head--how handsome he was!--the light, springing step, like a deer on the sod of June. I call to mind when I first saw him. He was sitting in a window of the Manor, just after he had come from Montreal, playing a violin which had once belonged to De Casson, the famous priest whose athletic power and sweet spirit endeared him to New France. His fresh cheek was bent to the brown, delicate wood, and he was playing to his sister the air of the undying chanson, "Je vais mourir pour ma belle reine." I loved the look of his face, like that of a young Apollo, open, sweet, and bold, all his body having the epic strength of life. I wished that I might have him near me as a comrade, for out of my hard experience I could teach him much, and out of his youth he could soften my blunt nature, by comradeship making flexuous the hard and ungenial.

I went on talking to the Intendant, while some of the guests rose and scattered about the rooms, at tables, to play picquet, the jesting on our cause and the scorn of myself abating not at all. I would not have it thought that anything was openly coarse or brutal; it was all by innuendo, and brow-lifting, and maddening, allusive phrases such as it is thought fit for gentlefolk to use instead of open charge. There was insult in a smile, contempt in the turn of a shoulder, challenge in the flicking of a handkerchief. With great pleasure I could have wrung their noses one by one, and afterwards have met them tossing sword-points in the same order. I wonder now that I did not tell them so, for I was ever hasty; but my brain was clear that night, and I held myself in proper check, letting each move come from my enemies. There was no reason why I should have been at this wild feast at all, I a prisoner, accused falsely of being a spy, save because of some plot by which I was to have fresh suffering and some one else be benefited--though how that could be I could not guess at first.

But soon I understood everything. Presently I heard a young gentleman say to Duvarney over my shoulder:

"Eating comfits and holding yarn--that was his doing at your manor when Doltaire came hunting him."

"He has dined at your table, Lancy," broke out Duvarney hotly.

"But never with our ladies," was the biting answer.

"Should prisoners make conditions?" was the sharp, insolent retort.

The insult was conspicuous, and trouble might have followed, but that Doltaire came between them, shifting the attack.

"Prisoners, my dear Duvarney," said he, "are most delicate and exacting; they must be fed on wine and milk. It is an easy life, and hearts grow soft for them. As thus-- Indeed, it is most sad: so young and gallant; in speech, too, so confiding! And if we babble all our doings to him, think you he takes it seriously? No, no--so gay and thoughtless, there is a thoroughfare from ear to ear, and all's lost on the other side. Poor simple gentleman, he is a claimant on our courtesy, a knight without a sword, a guest without the power to leave us--he shall make conditions, he shall have his caprice. La, la! my dear Duvarney and my Lancy!"

He spoke in a clear, provoking tone, putting a hand upon the shoulder of each young gentleman as he talked, his eyes wandering over me idly, and beyond me. I saw that he was now sharpening the sickle to his office. His next words made this more plain to me:

"And if a lady gives a farewell sign to one she favours for the moment, shall not the prisoner take it as his own?" (I knew he was recalling Alixe's farewell gesture to me at the manor.) "Who shall gainsay our peacock? Shall the guinea cock? The golden crumb was thrown to the guinea cock, but that's no matter. The peacock clatters of the crumb." At that he spoke an instant in Duvarney's ear. I saw the lad's face flush, and he looked at me angrily.

Then I knew his object: to provoke a quarrel between this young gentleman and myself, which might lead to evil ends; and the Intendant's share in the conspiracy was to revenge himself upon the Seigneur for his close friendship with the Governor. If Juste Duvarney were killed in the duel which they foresaw, so far as Doltaire was concerned I was out of the counting in the young lady's sight. In any case my life was of no account, for I was sure my death was already determined on. Yet it seemed strange that Doltaire should wish me dead, for he had reasons for keeping me alive, as shall be seen.

Juste Duvarney liked me once, I knew, but still he had the Frenchman's temper, and had always to argue down his bias against my race, and to cherish a good heart towards me; for he was young, and most sensitive to the opinions of his comrades. I can not express what misery possessed me when I saw him leave Doltaire, and, coming to me where I stood alone, say--

"What secrets found you at our seigneury, monsieur?"

I understood the taunt--as though I were the common interrogation mark, the abuser of hospitality, the abominable Paul Pry. But I held my wits together.

"Monsieur," said I, "I found the secret of all good life: a noble kindness to the unfortunate."

There was a general laugh, led by Doltaire, a concerted influence on the young gentleman. I cursed myself that I had been snared to this trap.

"The insolent," responded Duvarney, "not the unfortunate."

"Insolence is no crime, at least," I rejoined quietly, "else this room were a penitentiary."

There was a moment's pause, and presently, as I kept my eye on him, he raised his handkerchief and flicked me across the face with it, saying, "Then this will be a virtue, and you may have more such virtues as often as you will."

In spite of will, my blood pounded in my veins, and a devilish anger took hold of me. To be struck across the face by a beardless Frenchman, scarce past his teens!--it shook me more than now I care to own. I felt my cheek burn, my teeth clinched, and I know a kind of snarl came from me; but again, all in a moment, I caught a turn of his head, a motion of the hand, which brought back Alixe to me. Anger died away, and I saw only a youth flushed with wine, stung by suggestions, with that foolish pride the youngster feels--and he was the youngest of them all--in being as good a man as the best, and as daring as the worst. I felt how useless it would be to try the straightening of matters there, though had we two been alone a dozen words would have been enough. But to try was my duty, and I tried with all my might; almost, for Alixe's sake, with all my heart.

"Do not trouble to illustrate your meaning," said I patiently. "Your phrases are clear and to the point."

"You bolt from my words," he retorted, "like a shy mare on the curb; you take insult like a donkey on a well-wheel. What fly will the English fish rise to? Now it no more plays to my hook than an August chub."

I could not help but admire his spirit and the sharpness of his speech, though it drew me into a deeper quandary. It was clear that he would not be tempered to friendliness; for, as is often so, when men have said things fiercely, their eloquence feeds their passion and convinces them of holiness in their cause. Calmly, but with a heavy heart, I answered:

"I wish not to find offense in your words, my friend, for in some good days gone you and I had good acquaintance, and I can not forget that the last hours of a light imprisonment before I entered on a dark one were spent in the home of your father--of the brave Seigneur whose life I once saved."

I am sure I should not have mentioned this in any other situation--it seemed as if I were throwing myself on his mercy; but yet I felt it was the only thing to do--that I must bridge this affair, if at cost of some reputation.

It was not to be. Here Doltaire, seeing that my words had indeed affected my opponent, said: "A double retreat! He swore to give a challenge to-night, and he cries off like a sheep from a porcupine; his courage is so slack, he dares not move a step to his liberty. It was a bet, a hazard. He was to drink glass for glass with any and all of us, and fight sword for sword with any of us who gave him cause. Having drunk his courage to death, he'd now browse at the feet of those who give him chance to win his stake."

His words came slowly and bitingly, yet with an air of damnable nonchalance. I looked round me. Every man present was full-sprung with wine; and a distance away, a gentleman on either side of him, stood the Intendant, smiling detestably, a keen, houndlike look shooting out of his small round eyes.

I had had enough; I could bear no more. To be baited like a bear by these Frenchmen--it was aloes in my teeth! I was not sorry then that these words of Juste Duvarney's gave me no chance of escape from fighting; though I would it had been any other man in the room than he. It was on my tongue to say that if some gentleman would take up his quarrel I should be glad to drive mine home, though for reasons I cared not myself to fight Duvarney. But I did not, for I knew that to carry that point farther might rouse a general thought of Alixe, and I had no wish to make matters hard for her. Everything in its own good time, and when I should be free! So, without more ado, I said to him:

"Monsieur, the quarrel was of your choosing, not mine. There was no need for strife between us, and you have more to lose than I: more friends, more years of life, more hopes. I have avoided your bait, as you call it, for your sake, not mine own. Now I take it, and you, monsieur, show us what sort of fisherman you are."

All was arranged in a moment. As we turned to pass from the room to the courtyard, I noted that Bigot was gone. When we came outside, it was just one, as I could tell by a clock striking in a chamber near. It was cold, and some of the company shivered as we stepped upon the white, frosty stones. The late October air bit the cheek, though now and then a warm, pungent current passed across the courtyard--the breath from the people's burnt corn. Even yet upon the sky was the reflection of the fire, and distant sounds of singing, shouting, and carousal came to us from the Lower Town.

We stepped to a corner of the yard and took off our coats; swords were handed us--both excellent, for we had had our choice of many. It was partial moonlight, but there were flitting clouds. That we should have light, however, pine torches had been brought, and these were stuck in the wall. My back was to the outer wall of the courtyard, and I saw the Intendant at a window of the palace looking down at us. Doltaire stood a little apart from the other gentlemen in the courtyard, yet where he could see Duvarney and myself at advantage.

Before we engaged, I looked intently into my opponent's face, and measured him carefully with my eye, that I might have his height and figure explicit and exact; for I know how moonlight and fire distort, how the eye may be deceived. I looked for every button; for the spot in his lean, healthy body where I could disable him, spit him, and yet not kill him--for this was the thing furthest from my wishes, God knows. Now the deadly character of the event seemed to impress him, for he was pale, and the liquor he had drunk had given him dark hollows round the eyes, and a gray shining sweat was on his cheek. But his eyes themselves were fiery and keen and there was reckless daring in every turn of his body.

I was not long in finding his quality, for he came at me violently from the start, and I had chance to know his strength and weakness also. His hand was quick, his sight clear and sure, his knowledge to a certain point most definite and practical, his mastery of the sword delightful; but he had little imagination, he did not divine, he was merely a brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that if I put him on the defensive I should have him at advantage, for he had not that art of the true swordsman, the prescient quality which foretells the opponents action and stands prepared. There I had him at fatal advantage--could, I felt, give him last reward of insult at my pleasure. Yet a lust of fighting got into me, and it was difficult to hold myself in check at all, nor was it easy to meet his breathless and adroit advances.

Then, too, remarks from the bystanders worked me up to a deep sort of anger, and I could feel Doltaire looking at me with that still, cold face of his, an ironical smile at his lips. Now and then, too, a ribald jest came from some young roisterer near, and the fact that I stood alone among sneering enemies wound me up to a point where pride was more active than aught else. I began to press him a little, and I pricked him once. Then a singular feeling possessed me. I would bring this to an end when I had counted ten; I would strike home when I said "ten."

So I began, and I was not aware then that I was counting aloud. "One--two--three!" It was weird to the onlookers, for the yard grew still, and you could hear nothing but maybe a shifting foot or a hard breathing. "Four--five--six!" There was a tenseness in the air, and Juste Duvarney, as if he felt a menace in the words, seemed to lose all sense of wariness, and came at me lunging, lunging with great swiftness and heat. I was incensed now, and he must take what fortune might send; one can not guide one's sword to do the least harm fighting as did we.

I had lost blood, and the game could go on no longer. "Eight!" I pressed him sharply now. "Nine!" I was preparing for the trick which would end the matter, when I slipped on the frosty stones, now glazed with our tramping back and forth, and, trying to recover myself, left my side open to his sword. It came home, though I partly diverted it. I was forced to my knees, but there, mad, unpardonable youth, he made another furious lunge at me. I threw myself back, deftly avoided the lunge, and he came plump on my upstretched sword, gave a long gasp, and sank down.

At that moment the doors of the courtyard opened, and men stepped inside, one coming quickly forward before the rest. It was the Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. He spoke, but what he said I knew not, for the stark upturned face of Juste Duvarney was there before me, there was a great buzzing in my ears, and I fell back into darkness.

IV

THE RAT IN THE TRAP

When I waked I was alone. At first nothing was clear to me; my brain was dancing in my head, my sight was obscured, my body painful, my senses were blunted. I was in darkness, yet through an open door there showed a light, which, from the smell and flickering, I knew to be a torch. This, creeping into my senses, helped me to remember that the last thing I saw in the Intendant's courtyard was a burning torch, which suddenly multiplied to dancing hundreds and then went out. I now stretched forth a hand, and it touched a stone wall; I moved, and felt straw under me. Then I fixed my eyes steadily on the open door and the shaking light, and presently it all came to me: the events of the night, and that I was now in a cell of the citadel. Stirring, I found that the wound in my body had been bound and cared for. A loosely tied scarf round my arm showed that some one had lately left me, and would return to finish the bandaging. I raised myself with difficulty, and saw a basin of water, a sponge, bits of cloth, and a pocket-knife. Stupid and dazed though I was, the instinct of self-preservation lived, and I picked up the knife and hid it in my coat. I did it, I believe, mechanically, for a hundred things were going through my mind at the time.

All at once there rushed in on me the thought of Juste Duvarney as I saw him last--how long ago was it?--his white face turned to the sky, his arms stretched out, his body dabbled in blood. I groaned aloud. Fool, fool! to be trapped by these lying French! To be tricked into playing their shameless games for them, to have a broken body, to have killed the brother of the mistress of my heart, and so cut myself off from her and ruined my life for nothing--for worse than nothing! I had swaggered, boasted, had taken a challenge for a bout and a quarrel like any hanger-on of a tavern.

Suddenly I heard footsteps and voices outside; then one voice, louder than the other, saying, "He hasn't stirred a peg--lies like a log!" It was Gabord.

Doltaire's voice replied, "You will not need a surgeon--no?" His tone, as it seemed to me, was less careless than usual.

Gabord answered, "I know the trick of it all--what can a surgeon do? This brandy will fetch him to his intellects. And by-and-bye crack'll go his spine--aho!"

You have heard a lion growling on a bone. That is how Gabord's voice sounded to me then--a brutal rawness; but it came to my mind also that this was the man who had brought Voban to do me service!

"Come, come, Gabord, crack your jaws less, and see you fetch him on his feet again," said Doltaire. "From the seats of the mighty they have said that he must live--to die another day; and see to it, or the mighty folk will say that you must die to live another day--in a better world, my Gabord."

There was a moment in which the only sound was that of tearing linen, and I could see the shadows of the two upon the stone wall of the corridor wavering to the light of the torch; then the shadows shifted entirely, and their footsteps came on towards my door. I was lying on my back as when I came to, and, therefore, probably as Gabord had left me, and I determined to appear still in a faint. Through nearly closed eyelids however I saw Gabord enter. Doltaire stood in the doorway watching as the soldier knelt and lifted my arm to take off the bloody scarf. His manner was imperturbable as ever. Even then I wondered what his thoughts were, what pungent phrase he was suiting to the time and to me. I do not know to this day which more interested him--that very pungency of phrase, or the critical events which inspired his reflections. He had no sense of responsibility; his mind loved talent, skill, and cleverness, and though it was scathing of all usual ethics, for the crude, honest life of the poor it had sympathy. I remember remarks of his in the market-place a year before, as he and I watched the peasant in his sabots and the good-wife in her homespun cloth.

"These are they," said he, "who will save the earth one day, for they are like it, kin to it. When they are born they lie close to it, and when they die they fall no height to reach their graves. The rest--the world--are like ourselves in dreams: we do not walk; we think we fly, over houses, over trees, over mountains; and then one blessed instant the spring breaks, or the dream gets twisted, and we go falling, falling, in a sickening fear, and, waking up, we find we are and have been on the earth all the while, and yet can make no claim on it, and have no kin with it, and no right to ask anything of it--quelle vie--quelle vie!"

Sick as I was, I thought of that as he stood there, looking in at me; and though I knew I ought to hate him, I admired him in spite of all.

Presently he said to Gabord, "You'll come to me at noon to-morrow, and see you bring good news. He breathes?"

Gabord put a hand on my chest and at my neck, and said at once, "Breath for balloons--aho!"

Doltaire threw his cloak over his shoulder and walked away, his footsteps sounding loud in the passages. Gabord began humming to himself as he tied the bandages, and then he reached down for the knife to cut the flying strings. I could see this out of a little corner of my eye. When he did not find it, he settled back on his haunches and looked at me. I could feel his lips puffing out, and I was ready for the "Poom!" that came from him. Then I could feel him stooping over me, and his hot strong breath in my face. I was so near to unconsciousness at that moment by a sudden anxiety that perhaps my feigning had the look of reality. In any case, he thought me unconscious and fancied that he had taken the knife away with him; for he tucked in the strings of the bandage. Then, lifting my head, he held the flask to my lips; for which I was most grateful--I was dizzy and miserably faint.

I think I came to with rather more alacrity than was wise, but he was deceived, and his first words were, "Ho, ho! the devil's knocking; who's for home, angels?"

It was his way to put all things allusively, using strange figures and metaphors. Yet, when one was used to him and to them, their potency seemed greater than polished speech and ordinary phrase.

He offered me more brandy, and then, without preface, I asked him the one question which sank back on my heart like a load of ice even as I sent it forth. "Is he alive?" I inquired. "Is Monsieur Juste Duvarney alive?"

With exasperating coolness he winked an eye, to connect the event with what he knew of the letter I had sent to Alixe, and, cocking his head, he blew out his lips with a soundless laugh, and said:

"To whisk the brother off to heaven is to say good-bye to sister and pack yourself to Father Peter."

"For God's sake, tell me, is the boy dead?" I asked, my voice cracking in my throat.

"He's not mounted for the journey yet," he answered, with a shrug, "but the Beast is at the door."

I plied my man with questions, and learned that they had carried Juste into the palace for dead, but found life in him, and straightway used all means to save him. A surgeon came, his father and mother were sent for, and when Doltaire had left there was hope that he would live.

I learned also that Voban had carried word to the Governor of the deed to be done that night; had for a long time failed to get admittance to him, but was at last permitted to tell his story; and Vaudreuil had gone to Bigot's palace to have me hurried to the citadel, and had come just too late.

After answering my first few questions, Gabord say nothing more, and presently he took the torch from the wall and with a gruff good-night prepared to go. When I asked that a light be left, he shook his head, said he had no orders. Whereupon he left me, the heavy door clanging to, the bolts were shot, and I was alone in darkness with my wounds and misery. My cloak had been put into the cell beside my couch, and this I now drew over me, and I lay and thought upon my condition and my prospects, which, as may be seen, were not cheering. I did not suffer great pain from my wounds--only a stiffness that troubled me not at all if I lay still. After an hour or so passed--for it is hard to keep count of time when one's thoughts are the only timekeeper--I fell asleep.

I know not how long I slept, but I awoke refreshed. I stretched forth my uninjured arm, moving it about. In spite of will a sort of hopelessness went through me, for I could feel long blades of corn grown up about my couch, an unnatural meadow, springing from the earth floor of my dungeon. I drew the blades between my fingers, feeling towards them as if they were things of life out of place like myself. I wondered what colour they were. Surely, said I to myself, they can not be green, but rather a yellowish white, bloodless, having only fibre, the heart all pinched to death. Last night I had not noted them, yet now, looking back, I saw, as in a picture, Gabord the soldier feeling among them for the knife that I had taken. So may we see things, and yet not be conscious of them at the time, waking to their knowledge afterwards. So may we for years look upon a face without understanding, and then, suddenly, one day it comes flashing out, and we read its hidden story like a book.

I put my hand out farther, then brought it back near to my couch, feeling towards its foot mechanically, and now I touched an earthen pan. A small board lay across its top, and moving my fingers along it I found a piece of bread. Then I felt the jar, and knew it was filled with water. Sitting back, I thought hard for a moment. Of this I was sure: the pan and bread were not there when I went to sleep, for this was the spot where my eyes fell naturally while I lay in bed looking towards Doltaire; and I should have remembered it now, even if I had not noted it then. My jailer had brought these while I slept. But it was still dark. I waked again as though out of sleep, startled: I was in a dungeon that had no window!

Here I was, packed away in a farthest corner of the citadel, in a deep hole that maybe had not been used for years, to be, no doubt, denied all contact with the outer world--I was going to say FRIENDS, but whom could I name among them save that dear soul who, by last night's madness, should her brother be dead, was forever made dumb and blind to me? Whom had I but her and Voban!--and Voban was yet to be proved. The Seigneur Duvarney had paid all debts he may have owed me, and he now might, because of the injury to his son, leave me to my fate. On Gabord the soldier I could not count at all.

There I was, as Doltaire had said, like a rat in a trap. But I would not let panic seize me. So I sat and ate the stale but sweet bread, took a long drink of the good water from the earthen jar, and then, stretching myself out, drew my cloak up to my chin, and settled myself for sleep again. And that I might keep up a kind delusion that I was not quite alone in the bowels of the earth, I reached out my hand and affectionately drew the blades of corn between my fingers.

Presently I drew my chin down to my shoulder, and let myself drift out of painful consciousness almost as easily as a sort of woman can call up tears at will. When I waked again, it was without a start or moving, without confusion, and I was bitterly hungry. Beside my couch, with his hands on his hips and his feet thrust out, stood Gabord, looking down at me in a quizzical and unsatisfied way. A torch was burning near him.

"Wake up, my dickey-bird," said he in his rough, mocking voice, "and we'll snuggle you into the pot. You've been long hiding; come out of the bush--aho!"

I drew myself up painfully. "What is the hour?" I asked, and meanwhile I looked for the earthen jar and the bread.

"Hour since when?" said he.

"Since it was twelve o'clock last night," I answered.

"Fourteen hours since THEN," said he.

The emphasis arrested my attention. "I mean," I added, "since the fighting in the courtyard."

"Thirty-six hours and more since then, m'sieu' the dormouse," was his reply.

I had slept a day and a half since the doors of this cell closed on me. It was Friday then; now it was Sunday afternoon. Gabord had come to me three times, and seeing how sound asleep I was had not disturbed me, but had brought bread and water--my prescribed diet.

He stood there, his feet buried in the blanched corn--I could see the long yellowish-white blades--the torch throwing shadows about him, his back against the wall. I looked carefully round my dungeon. There was no a sign of a window; I was to live in darkness. Yet if I were but allowed candles, or a lantern, or a torch, some books, paper, pencil, and tobacco, and the knowledge that I had not killed Juste Duvarney, I could abide the worst with some sort of calmness. How much might have happened, must have happened, in all these hours of sleep! My letter to Alixe should have been delivered long ere this; my trial, no doubt, had been decided on. What had Voban done? Had he any word for me? Dear Lord! here was a mass of questions tumbling one upon the other in my head, while my heart thumped behind my waistcoat like a rubber ball to a prize-fighter's fist. Misfortunes may be so great and many that one may find grim humour and grotesqueness in their impossible conjunction and multiplicity. I remembered at that moment a friend of mine in Virginia, the most unfortunate man I ever knew. Death, desertion, money losses, political defeat, flood, came one upon the other all in two years, and coupled with this was loss of health. One day he said to me:

"Robert, I have a perforated lung, my liver is a swelling sponge, eating crowds my waistband like a balloon, I have a swimming in my head and a sinking at my heart, and I can not say litany for happy release from these for my knees creak with rheumatism. The devil has done his worst, Robert, for these are his--plague and pestilence, being final, are the will of God--and, upon my soul, it is an absurd comedy of ills!" At that he had a fit of coughing, and I gave him a glass of spirits, which eased him.

"That's better," said I cheerily to him.

"It's robbing Peter to pay Paul," he answered; "for I owed it to my head to put the quid refert there, and here it's gone to my lungs to hurry up my breathing. Did you ever think, Robert," he added, "that this breathing of ours is a labor, and that we have to work every second to keep ourselves alive? We have to pump air in and out like a blacksmith's boy." He said it so drolly, though he was deadly ill, that I laughed for half an hour at the stretch, wiping away my tears as I did it; for his pale gray face looked so sorry, with its quaint smile and that odd, dry voice of his.

As I sat there in my dungeon, with Gabord cocking his head and his eyes rolling, that scene flashed on me, and I laughed freely--so much so that Gabord sulkily puffed out his lips, and flamed like bunting on a coast-guard's hut. The more he scowled and spluttered, the more I laughed, till my wounded side hurt me and my arm had twinges. But my mood changed suddenly, and I politely begged his pardon, telling him frankly then and there what had made me laugh, and how I had come to think of it. The flame passed out of his cheeks, the revolving fire of his eyes dimmed, his lips broke into a soundless laugh, and then, in his big voice, he said:

"You've got your knees to pray on yet, and crack my bones, but you'll have need to con your penitentials if tattle in the town be true."

"Before you tell of that," said I, "how is young Monsieur Duvarney? Is--is he alive?" I added, as I saw his face look lower.

"The Beast was at door again last night, wild to be off, and foot of young Seigneur was in the stirrup, when along comes sister with drug got from an Indian squaw who nursed her when a child. She gives it him, and he drinks; they carry him back, sleeping, and Beast must stand there tugging at the leathers yet."

"His sister--it was his sister," said I, "that brought him back to life?"

"Like that--aho! They said she must not come, but she will have her way. Straight she goes to the palace at night, no one knowing but--guess who? You can't--but no!"

A light broke in on me. "With the Scarlet Woman--with Mathilde," I said, hoping in my heart that it was so, for somehow I felt even then that she, poor vagrant, would play a part in the history of Alixe's life and mine.

"At the first shot," he said. "'Twas the crimson one, as quiet as a baby chick, not hanging to ma'm'selle's skirts, but watching and whispering a little now and then--and she there in Bigot's palace, and he not knowing it! And maids do not tell him, for they knew the poor wench in better days--aho!"

I got up with effort and pain, and made to grasp his hand in gratitude, but he drew back, putting his arms behind him.

"No, no," said he, "I am your jailer. They've put you here to break your high spirits, and I'm to help the breaking."

"But I thank you just the same," I answered him; "and I promise to give you as little trouble as may be while you are my jailer--which, with all my heart, I hope may be as long as I'm a prisoner."

He waved out his hands to the dungeon walls, and lifted his shoulders as if to say that I might as well be docile, for the prison was safe enough. "Poom!" said he, as if in genial disdain of my suggestion.

I smiled, and then, after putting my hands on the walls here and there to see if they were, as they seemed, quite dry, I drew back to my couch and sat down. Presently I stooped to tip the earthen jar of water to my lips, for I could not lift it with one hand, but my humane jailer took it from me and held it to my mouth. When I had drunk, "Do you know," asked I as calmly as I could, "if our barber gave the letter to Mademoiselle?"

"M'sieu', you've travelled far to reach that question," said he, jangling his keys as if he enjoyed it. "And if he had--?"

I caught at his vague suggestion, and my heart leaped.

"A reply," said I, "a message or a letter," though I had not dared to let myself even think of that.

He whipped a tiny packet from his coat. "'Tis a sparrow's pecking--no great matter here, eh?"--he weighed it up and down on his fingers--"a little piping wren's par pitie."

I reached out for it. "I should read it," said he. "There must be no more of this. But new orders came AFTER I'd got her dainty a m'sieu'! Yes, I must read it," said he--"but maybe not at first," he added, "not at first, if you'll give word of honour not to tear it."

"On my sacred honour," said I, reaching out still.

He looked it all over again provokingly, and then lifted it to his nose, for it had a delicate perfume. Then he gave a little grunt of wonder and pleasure, and handed it over.

I broke the seal, and my eyes ran swiftly through the lines, traced in a firm, delicate hand. I could see through it all the fine, sound nature, by its healthy simplicity mastering anxiety, care, and fear.

"Robert," she wrote, "by God's help my brother will live, to repent with you, I trust, of Friday night's ill work. He was near gone, yet we have held him back from that rough-rider, Death.

"You will thank God, will you not, that my brother did not die? Indeed, I feel you have. I do not blame you; I know--I need not tell you how--the heart of the affair; and even my mother can see through the wretched thing. My father says little, and he has not spoken harshly; for which I gave thanksgiving this morning in the chapel of the Ursulines. Yet you are in a dungeon, covered with wounds of my brother's making, both of you victims of others' villainy, and you are yet to bear worse things, for they are to try you for your life. But never shall I believe that they will find you guilty of dishonour. I have watched you these three years; I do not, nor ever will, doubt you, dear friend of my heart.

"You would not believe it, Robert, and you may think it fanciful, but as I got up from my prayers at the chapel I looked towards a window, and it being a little open, for it is a sunny day, there sat a bird on the sill, a little brown bird that peeped and nodded. I was so won by it that I came softly over to it. It did not fly away, but hopped a little here and there. I stretched out my hand gently on the stone, and putting its head now this side, now that, at last it tripped into it, and chirped most sweetly. After I had kissed it I placed it back on the window-sill, that it might fly away again. Yet no, it would not go, but stayed there, tipping its gold-brown head at me as though it would invite me to guess why it came. Again I reached out my hand, and once more it tripped into it. I stood wondering and holding it to my bosom, when I heard a voice behind me say, 'The bird would be with thee, my child. God hath many signs.' I turned and saw the good Mere St. George looking at me, she of whom I was always afraid, so distant is she. I did not speak, but only looked at her, and she nodded kindly at me and passed on.

"And, Robert, as I write to you here in the Intendant's palace (what a great wonderful place it is! I fear I do not hate it and its luxury as I ought!), the bird is beside me in a cage upon the table, with a little window open, so that it may come out if it will. My brother lies in the bed asleep; I can touch him if I but put out my hand, and I am alone save for one person. You sent two messengers: can you not guess the one that will be with me? Poor Mathilde, she sits and gazes at me till I almost fall weeping. But she seldom speaks, she is so quiet--as if she knew that she must keep a secret. For, Robert, though I know you did not tell her, she knows--she knows that you love me, and she has given me a little wooden cross which she said will make us happy.

"My mother did not drive her away, as I half feared she would, and at last she said that I might house her with one of our peasants. Meanwhile she is with me here. She is not so mad but that she has wisdom too, and she shall have my care and friendship.

"I bid thee to God's care, Robert. I need not tell thee to be not dismayed. Thou hast two jails, and one wherein I lock thee safe is warm and full of light. If the hours drag by, think of all thou wouldst do if thou wert free to go to thine own country--yet alas that thought!--and of what thou wouldst say if thou couldst speak to thy ALIXE.

"Postscript.--I trust that they have cared for thy wounds, and that thou hast light and food and wine. Voban hath promised to discover this for me. The soldier Gabord, at the citadel, he hath a good heart. Though thou canst expect no help from him, yet he will not be rougher than his orders. He did me a good service once, and he likes me, and I him. And so fare thee well, Robert. I will not languish; I will act, and not be weary. Dost thou really love me?"

V

THE DEVICE OF THE DORMOUSE

When I had read the letter, I handed it up to Gabord without a word. A show of trust in him was the only thing, for he had enough knowledge of our secret to ruin us, if he chose. He took the letter, turned it over, looking at it curiously, and at last, with a shrug of the shoulders, passed it back.

"'Tis a long tune on a dot of a fiddle," said he, for indeed the letter was but a small affair in bulk. "I'd need two pairs of eyes and telescope! Is it all Heart-o'-my-heart, and Come-trip-in-dewy-grass--aho? Or is there knave at window to bear m'sieu' away?"

I took the letter from him. "Listen," said I, "to what the lady says of you." And then I read him that part of her postscript which had to do with himself.

He put his head on one side like a great wise magpie, and "H'm--ha!" said he whimsically, "aho! Gabord the soldier, Gabord, thou hast a good heart--and the birds fed the beast with plums and froth of comfits till he died, and on his sugar tombstone they carved the words, 'Gabord had a good heart.'"

"It was spoken out of a true spirit," said I petulantly, for I could not bear from a common soldier even a tone of disparagement, though I saw the exact meaning of his words. So I added, "You shall read the whole letter, or I will read it to you and you shall judge. On the honour of a gentleman, I will read all of it!"

"Poom!" said he, "English fire-eater! corn-cracker! Show me the 'good heart' sentence, for I'd see how it is written--how GABORD looks with a woman's whimsies round it."

I traced the words with my fingers, holding the letter near the torch. "'Yet he will not be rougher than his orders,'" said he after me, and "'He did me a good service once.'"

"Comfits," he continued; "well, thou shalt have comfits, too," and he fished from his pocket a parcel. It was my tobacco and my pipe.

Truly, my state might have been vastly worse. Little more was said between Gabord and myself, but he refused bluntly to carry message or letter to anybody, and bade me not to vex him with petitions. But he left me the torch and a flint and steel, so I had light for a space, and I had my blessed tobacco and pipe. When the doors clanged shut and the bolts were shot, I lay back on my couch.

I was not all unhappy. Thank God, they had not put chains on me, as Governor Dinwiddie had done with a French prisoner at Williamsburg, for whom I had vainly sought to be exchanged two years before, though he was my equal in all ways and importance. Doltaire was the cause of that, as you shall know. Well, there was one more item to add to his indebtedness. My face flushed and my fingers tingled at thought of him, and so I resolutely turned my meditations elsewhere, and again in a little while I seemed to think of nothing, but lay and bathed in the silence, and indulged my eyes with the good red light of the torch, inhaling its pitchy scent. I was conscious, yet for a time I had no thought: I was like something half animal, half vegetable, which feeds, yet has no mouth, nor sees, nor hears, nor has sense, but only lives. I seemed hung in space, as one feels when going from sleep to waking--a long lane of half-numb life, before the open road of full consciousness is reached.

At last I was aroused by the sudden cracking of a knot in the torch. I saw that it would last but a few hours more. I determined to put it out, for I might be allowed no more light, and even a few minutes of this torch every day would be a great boon. So I took it from its place, and was about to quench it in the moist earth at the foot of the wall, when I remembered my tobacco and my pipe. Can you think how joyfully I packed full the good brown bowl, delicately filling in every little corner, and at last held it to the flame, and saw it light? That first long whiff was like the indrawn breath of the cold, starved hunter, when, stepping into his house, he sees food, fire, and wife on his hearthstone. Presently I put out the torchlight, and then went back to my couch and sat down, the bowl shining like a star before me.

There and then a purpose came to me--something which would keep my brain from wandering, my nerves from fretting and wearing, for a time at least. I determined to write to my dear Alixe the true history of my life, even to the point--and after--of this thing which now was bringing me to so ill a pass. But I was in darkness, I had no paper, pens, nor ink. After a deal of thinking I came at last to the solution. I would compose the story, and learn it by heart, sentence by sentence, as I so composed it.

So there and then I began to run back over the years of my life, even to my first remembrances, that I might see it from first to last in a sort of whole and with a kind of measurement. But when I began to dwell upon my childhood, one little thing gave birth to another swiftly, as you may see one flicker in the heaven multiply and break upon the mystery of the dark, filling the night with clusters of stars. As I thought, I kept drawing spears of the dungeon corn between my fingers softly (they had come to be like comrades to me), and presently there flashed upon me the very first memory of my life. It had never come to me before, and I knew now that it was the beginning of conscious knowledge: for we can never know till we can remember. When a child remembers what it sees or feels, it has begun life.

I put that recollection into the letter which I wrote Alixe, and it shall be set down forthwith and in little space, though it took me so very many days and weeks to think it out, to give each word a fixed place, so that it should go from my mind no more. Every phrase of that story as I told it is as fixed as stone in my memory. Yet it must not be thought I can give it all here. I shall set down only a few things, but you shall find in them the spirit of the whole. I will come at once to the body of the letter.

VI

MORAY TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE

"...I would have you know of what I am and whence I came, though I have given you glimpses in the past. That done, I will make plain why I am charged with this that puts my life in danger, which would make you blush that you ever knew me if it were true. And I will show you first a picture as it runs before me, sitting here, the corn of my dungeon garden twining in my fingers:--

"A multiplying width of green grass spotted with white flowers, an upland where sheep browsed on a carpet of purple and gold and green, a tall rock on a hill where birds perched and fluttered, a blue sky arching over all. There, sprawling in a garden, a child pulled at long blades of grass, as he watched the birds flitting about the rocks, and heard a low voice coming down the wind. Here in my dungeon I can hear the voice as I have not heard it since that day in the year 1730--that voice stilled so long ago. The air and the words come floating down (for the words I knew years afterwards):

'Did ye see the white cloud in the glint o' the sun? That's the brow and the eye o' my bairnie. Did ye ken the red bloom at the bend o' the crag? That's the rose in the cheek o' my bairnie. Did ye hear the gay lilt o' the lark by the burn? That's the voice of my bairnie, my dearie. Did ye smell the wild scent in the green o' the wood? That's the breath o' my ain, o' my bairnie. Sae I'll gang awa' hame, to the shine o' the fire, To the cot where I lie wi' my bairnie.'

"These words came crooning over the grass of that little garden at Balmore which was by my mother's home. There I was born one day in June, though I was reared in the busy streets of Glasgow, where my father was a prosperous merchant and famous for his parts and honesty.

"I see myself, a little child of no great strength, for I was, indeed, the only one of my family who lived past infancy, and my mother feared she should never bring me up. She, too, is in that picture, tall, delicate, kind yet firm of face, but with a strong brow, under which shone grave gray eyes, and a manner so distinguished that none might dispute her kinship to the renowned Montrose, who was lifted so high in dying, though his gallows was but thirty feet, that all the world has seen him there. There was one other in that picture, standing near my mother, and looking at me, who often used to speak of our great ancestor--my grandfather, John Mitchell, the Gentleman of Balmore, as he was called, out of regard for his ancestry and his rare merits.

"I have him well in mind: his black silk breeches and white stockings and gold seals, and two eyes that twinkled with great humour when, as he stooped over me, I ran my head between his calves and held him tight. I recall how my mother said, 'I doubt that I shall ever bring him up,' and how he replied (the words seem to come through great distances to me), 'He'll live to be Montrose the second, rascal laddie! Four seasons at the breast? Tut, tut! what o' that? 'Tis but his foolery, his scampishness! Nae, nae! his epitaph's no for writing till you and I are tucked i' the sod, my Jeanie. Then, like Montrose's, it will be--

'Tull Edinburrow they led him thair, And on a gallows hong; They hong him high abone the rest, He was so trim a boy.'

"I can hear his laugh this minute, as he gave an accent to the words by stirring me with his stick, and I caught the gold head of it and carried it off, trailing it through the garden, till I heard my mother calling, and then forced her to give me chase, as I pushed open a little gate and posted away into that wide world of green, coming quickly to the river, where I paused and stood at bay. I can see my mother's anxious face now, as she caught me to her arms; and yet I know she had a kind of pride, too, when my grandfather said, on our return, 'The rascal's at it early. Next time he'll ford the stream and skirl at ye, Jeanie, from yonder bank.'

"This is the first of my life that I remember. It may seem strange to you that I thus suddenly recall not only it, but the words then spoken too. It is strange to me, also. But here it comes to me all on a sudden in this silence, as if another self of me were speaking from far places. At first all is in patches and confused, and then it folds out--if not clearly, still so I can understand--and the words I repeat come as if filtered through many brains to mine. I do not say that it is true--it may be dreams; and yet, as I say, it is firmly in my mind.

"The next that I remember was climbing upon a chair to reach for my grandfather's musket, which hung across the chimney. I got at last upon the mantelshelf, and my hands were on the weapon, when the door opened, and my grandfather and my father entered. I was so busy I did not hear them till I was caught by the legs and swung to a shoulder, where I sat kicking. 'You see his tastes, William,' said my grandfather to my father; 'he's white o' face and slim o' body, but he'll no carry on your hopes.' And more he said to the point, though what it was I knew not. But I think it to have been suggestion (I heard him say it later) that I would bring Glasgow up to London by the sword (good doting soul!) as my father brought it by manufactures, gaining honour thereby.

"However that may be, I would not rest till my grandfather had put the musket into my arms. I could scarcely lift it, but from the first it had a charm for me, and now and then, in spite of my mother's protests, I was let to handle it, to learn its parts, to burnish it, and by-and-bye--I could not have been more than six years old--to rest it on a rock and fire it off. It kicked my shoulder roughly in firing, but I know I did not wink as I pulled the trigger. Then I got a wild hunger to fire it at all times; so much so, indeed, that powder and shot were locked up, and the musket was put away in my grandfather's chest. But now and again it was taken out, and I made war upon the unresisting hillside, to the dismay of our neighbours in Balmore. Feeding the fever in my veins, my grandfather taught me soldiers' exercises and the handling of arms: to my dear mother's sorrow, for she ever fancied me as leading a merchant's quiet life like my father's, hugging the hearthstone, and finding joy in small civic duties, while she and my dear father sat peacefully watching me in their decline of years.

"I have told you of that river which flowed near my father's house. At this time most of my hours were spent by it in good weather, for at last my mother came to trust me alone there, having found her alert fears of little use. But she would very often come with me and watch me as I played there. I loved to fancy myself a miller, and my little mill-wheel, made by my own hands, did duty here and there on the stream, and many drives of logs did I, in fancy, saw into piles of lumber, and loads of flour sent away to the City of Desire. Then, again, I made bridges, and drove mimic armies across them; and if they were enemies, craftily let them partly cross, to tumble them in at the moment when part of the forces were on one side of the stream and part on the other, and at the mercy of my men.

"My grandfather taught me how to build forts and breastworks, and I lay in ambush for the beadle, who was my good friend, for my grandfather, and for half a dozen other village folk, who took no offense at my sport, but made believe to be bitterly afraid when I surrounded them and drove them, shackled, to my fort by the river. Little by little the fort grew, until it was a goodly pile; for now and then a village youth helped me, or again an old man, whose heart, maybe, rejoiced to play at being child again with me. Years after, whenever I went back to Balmore, there stood the fort, for no one ever meddled with it, nor tore it down.

"And I will tell you one reason why this was, and you will think it strange that it should have played such a part in the history of the village, as in my own life. You must know that people living in secluded places are mostly superstitious. Well, when my fort was built to such proportions that a small ladder must be used to fix new mud and mortar in place upon it, something happened.

"Once a year there came to Balmore--and he had done so for a generation--one of those beings called The Men, who are given to prayer, fasting, and prophesying, who preach the word of warning ever, calling even the ministers of the Lord sharply to account. One day this Man came past my fort, folk with him, looking for preaching or prophesy from him. Suddenly turning he came inside my fort, and, standing upon the ladder against the wall, spoke to them fervently. His last words became a legend in Balmore, and spread even to Glasgow and beyond.

"'Hear me!' cried he. 'As I stand looking at ye from this wall, calling on ye in your natural bodies to take refuge in the Fort of God, the Angel of Death is looking ower the battlements of heaven, choosing ye out, the sheep frae the goats; calling the one to burning flames, and the other into peaceable habitations. I hear the voice now,' cried he, 'and some soul among us goeth forth. Flee ye to the Fort of Refuge.' I can see him now, his pale face shining, his eyes burning, his beard blowing in the wind, his grizzled hair shaking on his forehead. I had stood within the fort watching him. At last he turned, and, seeing me intent, stooped, caught me by the arms, and lifted me upon the wall. 'See you,' said he, 'yesterday's babe a warrior to-day. Have done, have done, ye quarrelsome hearts. Ye that build forts here shall lie in darksome prisons; there is no fort but the Fort of God. The call comes frae the white ramparts. Hush!' he added solemnly, raising a finger. 'One of us goeth hence this day; are ye ready to walk i' the fearsome valley?'

"I have heard my mother speak these words over often, and they were, as I said, like an old song in Balmore and Glasgow. He set me down, and then walked away, waving the frightened people back; and there was none of them that slept that night.

"Now comes the stranger thing. In the morning The Man was found dead in my little fort, at the foot of the wall. Henceforth the spot was sacred, and I am sure it stands there as when last I saw it twelve years ago, but worn away by rains and winds.

"Again and again my mother said over to me his words, 'Ye that build forts here shall lie in darksome prisons'; for always she had fear of the soldier's life, and she was moved by signs and dreams.

"But this is how the thing came to shape my life:

"About a year after The Man died, there came to my grandfather's house, my mother and I being present, a gentleman, by name Sir John Godric, and he would have my mother tell the whole story of The Man. That being done, he said that The Man was his brother, who had been bad and wild in youth, a soldier; but repenting had gone as far the other way, giving up place and property, and cutting off from all his kin.

"This gentleman took much notice of me and said that he should be glad to see more of me. And so he did, for in the years that followed he would visit at our home in Glasgow when I was at school, or at Balmore until my grandfather died.

"My father liked Sir John greatly, and they grew exceedingly friendly, walking forth in the streets of Glasgow, Sir John's hand upon my father's arm. One day they came to the school in High Street, where I learned Latin and other accomplishments, together with fencing from an excellent master, Sergeant Dowie of the One Hundredth Foot. They found me with my regiment at drill; for I had got full thirty of my school-fellows under arms, and spent all leisure hours in mustering, marching, and drum-beating, and practising all manner of discipline and evolution which I had been taught by my grandfather and Sergeant Dowie.

"Those were the days soon after which came Dettingen and Fontenoy and Charles Edward the Pretender, and the ardour of arms ran high. Sir John was a follower of the Stuarts, and this was the one point at which he and my father paused in their good friendship. When Sir John saw me with my thirty lads marching in fine order, all fired with the little sport of battle--for to me it was all real, and our sham fights often saw broken heads and bruised shoulders--he stamped his cane upon the ground, and said in a big voice, 'Well done! well done! For that you shall have a hundred pounds next birthday, and as fine a suit of scarlet as you please, and a sword from London too.'

"Then he came to me and caught me by both shoulders. 'But alack, alack! there needs some blood and flesh here, Robert Moray,' said he. 'You have more heart than muscle.'

"This was true. I had ever been more eager than my strength--thank God, that day is gone!--and sometimes, after Latin and the drill of my Lightfoots, as I called them, I could have cried for weakness and weariness, had I been a girl and not a proud lad. And Sir John kept his word, liking me better from that day forth, and coming now and again to see me at the school,--though he was much abroad in France--giving many a pound to my Lightfoots, who were no worse soldiers for that. His eye ran us over sharply, and his head nodded, as we marched past him; and once I heard him say, 'If they had had but ten years each on their heads, my Prince!'

"About this time my father died--that is, when I was fourteen years old. Sir John became one of the executors with my mother, and at my wish, a year afterwards, I was sent to the university, where at least fifteen of my Lightfoots went also; and there I formed a new battalion of them, though we were watched at first, and even held in suspicion, because of the known friendship of Sir John for me; and he himself had twice been under arrest for his friendship to the Stuart cause. That he helped Prince Charles was clear: his estates were mortgaged to the hilt.

"He died suddenly on that day of January when Culloden was fought, before he knew of the defeat of the Prince. I was with him at the last. After some most serious business, which I shall come to by-and-bye, 'Robert,' said he, 'I wish thou hadst been with my Prince. When thou becomest a soldier, fight where thou hast heart to fight; but if thou hast conscience for it, let it be with a Stuart. I thought to leave thee a good moiety of my fortune, Robert, but little that's free is left for giving. Yet thou hast something from thy father, and down in Virginia, where my friend Dinwiddie is Governor, there's a plantation for thee, and a purse of gold, which was for me in case I should have cause to flee this troubled realm. But I need it not; I go for refuge to my Father's house. The little vineyard and the purse of gold are for thee, Robert. If thou thinkest well of it, leave this sick land for that new one. Build thyself a name in that great young country, wear thy sword honourably and bravely, use thy gifts in council and debate--for Dinwiddie will be thy friend--and think of me as one who would have been a father to thee if he could. Give thy good mother my loving farewells.... Forget not to wear my sword--it has come from the first King Charles himself, Robert.'

"After which he raised himself upon his elbow and said, 'Life--life, is it so hard to untie the knot?' Then a twinge of agony crossed over his face, and afterwards came a great clearing and peace, and he was gone.

"King George's soldiers entered with a warrant for him even as he died, and the same moment dropped their hands upon my shoulder. I was kept in durance for many days, and was not even at the funeral of my benefactor; but through the efforts of the provost of the university and some good friends who could vouch for my loyal principles, I was released. But my pride had got a setback, and I listened with patience to my mother's prayers that I would not join the King's men. With the anger of a youth, I now blamed his Majesty for the acts of Sir John Godric's enemies. And though I was a good soldier of the King at heart, I would not serve him henceforth. We threshed matters back and forth, and presently it was thought I should sail to Virginia to take over my estate. My mother urged it, too, for she thought if I were weaned from my old comrades, military fame would no longer charm. So she urged me, and go I did, with a commission from some merchants of Glasgow, to give my visit to the colony more weight.

"It was great pain to leave my mother, but she bore the parting bravely, and away I set in a good ship. Arrived in Virginia, I was treated with great courtesy in Williamsburg, and the Governor gave me welcome to his home for the sake of his old friend; and yet a little for my own, I think, for we were of one temper, though he was old and I young. We were both full of impulse and proud, and given to daring hard things, and my military spirit suited him.

"In Virginia I spent a gay and busy year, and came off very well with the rough but gentlemanly cavaliers, who rode through the wide, sandy streets of the capital on excellent horses, or in English coaches, with a rusty sort of show and splendour, but always with great gallantry. The freedom of the life charmed me, and with rumours of war with the French there seemed enough to do, whether with the sword or in the House of Burgesses, where Governor Dinwiddie said his say with more force than complaisance. So taken was I with the life--my first excursion into the wide working world--that I delayed my going back to Glasgow, the more so that some matters touching my property called for action by the House of Burgesses, and I had to drive the affair to the end. Sir John had done better by me than he thought, and I thanked him over and over again for his good gifts.

"Presently I got a letter from my father's old partner to say that my dear mother was ill. I got back to Glasgow only in time--but how glad I was of that!--to hear her last words. When my mother was gone I turned towards Virginia with longing, for I could not so soon go against her wishes and join the King's army on the Continent, and less desire had I to be a Glasgow merchant. Gentlemen merchants had better times in Virginia. So there was a winding-up of the estate, not greatly to my pleasure; for it was found that by unwise ventures my father's partner had perilled the whole, and lost part of the property. But as it was, I had a competence and several houses in Glasgow, and I set forth to Virginia with a goodly sum of money and a shipload of merchandise, which I should sell to merchants, if it chanced I should become a planter only. I was warmly welcomed by old friends and by the Governor and his family, and I soon set up an establishment of my own in Williamsburg, joining with a merchant there in business, while my land was worked by a neighbouring planter.

"Those were hearty days, wherein I made little money, but had much pleasure in the giving and taking of civilities, in throwing my doors open to acquaintances, and with my young friend, Mr. Washington, laying the foundation for a Virginian army, by drill and yearly duty in camp, with occasional excursions against the Indians. I saw very well what the end of our troubles with the French would be, and I waited for the time when I should put to keen use the sword Sir John Godric had given me. Life beat high then, for I was in the first flush of manhood, and the spirit of a rich new land was waking in us all, while in our vanity we held to and cherished forms and customs that one would have thought to see left behind in London streets and drawing-rooms. These things, these functions in a small place, kept us a little vain and proud, but, I also hope it gave us some sense of civic duty.

"And now I come to that which will, comrade of my heart, bring home to your understanding what lies behind the charges against me:

"Trouble came between Canada and Virginia. Major Washington, one Captain Mackaye, and myself marched out to the Great Meadows, where at Fort Necessity we surrendered, after hard fighting, to a force three times our number. I, with one Captain Van Braam, became a hostage. Monsieur Coulon Villiers, the French commander, gave his bond that we should be delivered up when an officer and two cadets, who were prisoners with us, should be sent on. It was a choice between Mr. Mackaye of the Regulars and Mr. Washington, or Mr. Van Braam and myself. I thought of what would be best for the country; and besides, Monsieur Coulon Villiers pitched upon my name at once, and held to it. So I gave up my sword to Charles Bedford, my lieutenant, with more regret than I can tell, for it was sheathed in memories, charging him to keep it safe--that he would use it worthily I knew. And so, sorrowfully bidding my friends good-by, away we went upon the sorry trail of captivity, arriving in due time at Fort Du Quesne, at the junction of the Ohio and the Monongahela, where I was courteously treated. There I bettered my French and made the acquaintance of some ladies from Quebec city, who took pains to help me with their language.

"Now, there was one lady to whom I talked with some freedom of my early life and of Sir John Godric. She was interested in all, but when I named Sir John she became at once much impressed, and I told her of his great attachment to Prince Charles. More than once she returned to the subject, begging me to tell her more; and so I did, still, however, saying nothing of certain papers Sir John had placed in my care. A few weeks after the first occasion of my speaking, there was a new arrival at the fort. It was--can you guess?--Monsieur Doltaire. The night after he came he visited me in my quarters, and after courteous passages, of which I need not speak, he suddenly said, 'You have the papers of Sir John Godric--those bearing on Prince Charles's invasion of England?'

"I was stunned by the question, for I could not guess his drift or purpose, though presently it dawned upon me.--Among the papers were many letters from a great lady in France, a growing rival with La Pompadour in the counsels and favour of the King. She it was who had a secret passion for Prince Charles, and these letters to Sir John, who had been with the Pretender at Versailles, must prove her ruin if produced. I had promised Sir John most solemnly that no one should ever have them while I lived, except the great lady herself, and that I would give them to her some time, or destroy them. It was Doltaire's mission to get these letters, and he had projected a visit to Williamsburg to see me, having just arrived in Canada, after a search for me in Scotland, when word came from the lady gossip at Fort Du Quesne (with whom he had been on most familiar terms in Quebec) that I was there.

"When I said I had the papers, he asked me lightly for 'those compromising letters,' remarking that a good price would be paid, and adding my liberty as a pleasant gift. I instantly refused, and told him I would not be the weapon of La Pompadour against her rival. With cool persistence he begged me to think again, for much depended on my answer.

"'See, monsieur le capitaine,' said he, 'this little affair at Fort Necessity, at which you became a hostage, shall or shall not be a war between England and France as you shall dispose.' When I asked him how that was, he said, 'First, will you swear that you will not, to aid yourself, disclose what I tell you? You can see that matters will be where they were an hour ago in any case.'

"I agreed, for I could act even if I might not speak. So I gave my word. Then he told me that if those letters were not put into his hands, La Pompadour would be enraged, and fretful and hesitating now, would join Austria against England, since in this provincial war was convenient cue for battle. If I gave the letters up, she would not stir, and the disputed territory between us should be by articles conceded by the French.

"I thought much and long, during which he sat smoking and humming, and seeming to care little how my answer went. At last I turned on him, and told him I would not give up the letters, and if a war must hang on a whim of malice, then, by God's help, the rightness of our cause would be our strong weapon to bring France to her knees.

"'That is your final answer?' asked he, rising, fingering his lace, and viewing himself in a looking-glass upon the wall.

"'I will not change it now or ever,' answered I.

"'Ever is a long time,' retorted he, as one might speak to a wilful child. 'You shall have time to think and space for reverie. For if you do not grant this trifle you shall no more see your dear Virginia; and when the time is ripe you shall go forth to a better land, as the Grande Marquise shall give you carriage.'

"'The Articles of Capitulation!' I broke out protestingly.

"He waved his fingers at me. 'Ah, that,' he rejoined--'that is a matter for conning. You are a hostage. Well, we need not take any wastrel or nobody the English offer in exchange for you. Indeed, why should we be content with less than a royal duke? For you are worth more to us just now than any prince we have; at least so says the Grande Marquise. Is your mind quite firm to refuse?' he added, nodding his head in a bored sort of way.

"'Entirely,' said I. 'I will not part with those letters.'

"'But think once again,' he urged; 'the gain of territory to Virginia, the peace between our countries!'

"'Folly!' returned I. 'I know well you overstate the case. You turn a small intrigue into a game of nations. Yours is a schoolboy's tale, Monsieur Doltaire.'

"'You are something of an ass,' he mused, and took a pinch of snuff.

"'And you--you have no name,' retorted I.

"I did not know, when I spoke, how this might strike home in two ways or I should not have said it. I had not meant, of course, that he was King Louis's illegitimate son.

"'There is some truth in that,' he replied patiently, though a red spot flamed high on his cheeks. 'But some men need no christening for their distinction, and others win their names with proper weapons. I am not here to quarrel with you. I am acting in a large affair, not in a small intrigue; a century of fate may hang on this. Come with me,' he added. 'You doubt my power, maybe.'

"He opened the door of the cell, and I followed him out, past the storehouse and the officers' apartments, to the drawbridge. Standing in the shadow by the gate, he took keys from his pocket. 'Here,' said he, 'are what will set you free. This fort is all mine: I act for France. Will you care to free yourself? You shall have escort to your own people. You see I am most serious,' he added, laughing lightly. 'It is not my way to sweat or worry. You and I hold war and peace in our hands. Which shall it be? In this trouble France or England will be mangled. It tires one to think of it when life can be so easy. Now, for the last time,' he urged, holding out the keys. 'Your word of honour that the letters shall be mine--eh?'

"'Never,' I concluded. 'England and France are in greater hands than yours or mine. The God of battles still stands beside the balances.'

"He shrugged a shoulder. 'Oh well,' said he, 'that ends it. It will be interesting to watch the way of the God of battles. Meanwhile you travel to Quebec. Remember that however free you may appear you will have watchers, that when you seem safe you will be in most danger, that in the end we will have those letters or your life; that meanwhile the war will go on, that you shall have no share in it, and that the whole power of England will not be enough to set her hostage free. That is all there is to say, I think.... Will you have a glass of wine with me?' he added courteously, waving a hand towards the commander's quarters.

"I assented, for why, thought I, should there be a personal quarrel between us? We talked on many things for an hour or more, and his I found the keenest mind that ever I have met. There was in him a dispassionateness, a breadth, which seemed most strange in a trifler of the Court, in an exquisite--for such he was. I sometimes think that his elegance and flippancy were deliberate, lest he should be taking himself or life too seriously. His intelligence charmed me, held me, and, later, as we travelled up to Quebec, I found my journey one long feast of interest. He was never dull, and his cynicism had an admirable grace and cordiality. A born intriguer, he still was above intrigue, justifying it on the basis that life was all sport. In logic a leveller, praising the moles, as he called them, the champion of the peasant, the apologist for the bourgeois--who always, he said, had civic virtues--he nevertheless held that what was was best, that it could not be altered, and that it was all interesting. 'I never repent,' he said to me one day. 'I have done after my nature, in the sway and impulse of our time, and as the King has said, After us the deluge. What a pity it is we shall see neither the flood nor the ark! And so, when all is done, we shall miss the most interesting thing of all: ourselves dead and the gap and ruin we leave behind us. By that, from my standpoint,' he would add, 'life is a failure as a spectacle.'

"Talking in this fashion and in a hundred other ways, we came to Quebec. And you know in general what happened. I met your honoured father, whose life I had saved on the Ohio some years before, and he worked for my comfort in my bondage. You know how exchange after exchange was refused, and that for near three years I have been here, fretting my soul out, eager to be fighting in our cause, yet tied hand and foot, wasting time and losing heart, idle in an enemy's country. As Doltaire said, war was declared, but not till he had made here in Quebec last efforts to get those letters. I do not complain so bitterly of these lost years, since they have brought me the best gift of my life, your love and friendship; but my enemies here, commanded from France, have bided their time, till an accident has given them a cue to dispose of me without openly breaking the accepted law of nations. They could not decently hang a hostage, for whom they had signed articles; but they have got their chance, as they think, to try me for a spy.

"Here is the case. When I found that they were determined and had ever determined to violate their articles, that they never intended to set me free, I felt absolved from my duty as an officer on parole, and I therefore secretly sent to Mr. Washington in Virginia a plan of Fort Du Quesne and one of Quebec. I knew that I was risking my life by so doing, but that did not deter me. By my promise to Doltaire, I could not tell of the matter between us, and whatever he has done in other ways, he has preserved my life; for it would have been easy to have me dropped off by a stray bullet, or to have accidentally drowned me in the St. Lawrence. I believe this matter of the letters to be between myself and him and Bigot--and perhaps not even Bigot, though he must know that La Pompadour has some peculiar reason for interesting herself in a poor captain of provincials. You now can see another motive for the duel which was brought about between your brother and myself.

"My plans and letters were given by Mr. Washington to General Braddock, and the sequel you know: they have fallen into the hands of my enemies, copies have gone to France, and I am to be tried for my life. Preserving faith with my enemy Doltaire, I can not plead the real cause of my long detention; I can only urge that they had not kept to their articles, and that I, therefore, was free from the obligations of parole. I am sure they have no intention of giving me the benefit of any doubt. My real hope lies in escape and the intervention of England, though my country, alas! has not concerned herself about me, as if indeed she resented the non-delivery of those letters to Doltaire, since they were addressed to one she looked on as a traitor, and held by one whom she had unjustly put under suspicion.

"So, dear Alixe, from that little fort on the banks of the river Kelvin have come these strange twistings of my life, and I can date this dismal fortune of a dungeon from that day The Man made his prophecy from the wall of my mud fort.

"Whatever comes now, if you have this record, you will know the private history of my life.... I have told all, with unpractised tongue, but with a wish to be understood, and to set forth a story of which the letter should be as true as the spirit. Friend beyond all price to me, some day this tale will reach your hands, and I ask you to house it in your heart, and, whatever comes, let it be for my remembrance. God be with you, and farewell!"

VII

"QUOTH LITTLE GARAINE"

I have given the whole story here as though it had been thought out and written that Sunday afternoon which brought me good news of Juste Duvarney. But it was not so. I did not choose to break the run of the tale to tell of other things and of the passing of time. The making took me many, many weeks, and in all that time I had seen no face but Gabord's, and heard no voice but his, when he came twice a day to bring me bread and water. He would answer no questions concerning Juste Duvarney, or Voban, or Monsieur Doltaire, nor tell me anything of what was forward in the town. He had had his orders precise enough, he said. At the end of my hints and turnings and approaches, stretching himself up, and turning the corn about with his foot (but not crushing it, for he saw that I prized the poor little comrades), he would say:

"Snug, snug, quiet and warm! The cosiest nest in the world--aho!"

There was no coaxing him, and at last I desisted. I had no light. With resolution I set my mind to see in spite of the dark, and at the end of a month I was able to note the outlines of my dungeon; nay, more, I was able to see my field of corn; and at last what joy I had when, hearing a little rustle near me, I looked closely and beheld a mouse running across the floor! I straightway began to scatter crumbs of bread, that it might, perhaps, come near me--as at last it did.

I have not spoken at all of my wounds, though they gave me many painful hours, and I had no attendance but my own and Gabord's. The wound in my side was long healing, for it was more easily disturbed as I turned in my sleep, while I could ease my arm at all times, and it came on slowly. My sufferings drew on my flesh, my blood, and my spirits, and to this was added that disease inaction, the corrosion of solitude, and the fever of suspense and uncertainty as to Alixe and Juste Duvarney. Every hour, every moment that I had ever passed in Alixe's presence, with many little incidents and scenes in which we shared, passed before me--vivid and cherished pictures of the mind. One of those incidents I will set down here.

A year or so before, soon after Juste Duvarney came from Montreal, he brought in one day from hunting a young live hawk, and put it in a cage. When I came the next morning, Alixe met me, and asked me to see what he had brought. There, beside the kitchen door, overhung with morning-glories and flanked by hollyhocks, was a large green cage, and in it the gray-brown hawk. "Poor thing, poor prisoned thing!" she said. "Look how strange and hunted it seems! See how its feathers stir! And those flashing, watchful eyes, they seem to read through you, and to say, 'Who are you? What do you want with me? Your world is not my world; your air is not my air; your homes are holes, and mine hangs high up between you and God. Who are you? Why do you pen me? You have shut me in that I may not travel, not even die out in the open world. All the world is mine; yours is only a stolen field. Who are you? What do you want with me? There is a fire within my head, it eats to my eyes, and I burn away. What do you want with me?'"

She did not speak these words all at once as I have written them here, but little by little, as we stood there beside the cage. Yet, as she talked with me, her mind was on the bird, her fingers running up and down the cage bars soothingly, her voice now and again interjecting soft reflections and exclamations.

"Shall I set it free?" I asked her.

She turned upon me and replied, "Ah, monsieur, I hoped you would--without my asking. You are a prisoner too," she added; "one captive should feel for another."

"And the freeman for both," I answered meaningly, as I softly opened the cage.

She did not drop her eyes, but raised them shining honestly and frankly to mine, and said, "I wished you to think that."

Opening the cage door wide, I called the little captive to freedom. But while we stood close by it would not stir, and the look in its eyes became wilder. I moved away, and Alixe followed me. Standing beside an old well we waited and watched. Presently the hawk dropped from the perch, hopped to the door, then with a wild spring was gone, up, up, up, and was away over the maple woods beyond, lost in the sun and the good air.

I know not quite why I dwell on this scene, save that it throws some little light upon her nature, and shows how simple and yet deep she was in soul, and what was the fashion of our friendship. But I can perhaps give a deeper insight of her character if I here set down the substance of a letter written about that time, which came into my possession long afterwards. It was her custom to write her letters first in a book, and afterwards to copy them for posting. This she did that they might be an impulse to her friendships and a record of her feelings.

ALIXE DUVARNEY TO LUCIE LOTBINIERE.

QUEBEC CITY, the 10th of May, 1756.

MY DEAR LUCIE: I wish I knew how to tell you all I have been thinking since we parted at the door of the Ursulines a year ago. Then we were going to meet again in a few weeks, and now twelve months have gone! How have I spent them? Not wickedly, I hope, and yet sometimes I wonder if Mere St. George would quite approve of me; for I have such wild spirits now and then, and I shout and sing in the woods and along the river as if I were a mad youngster home from school. But indeed, that is the way I feel at times, though again I am so quiet that I am frightened of myself. I am a hawk to-day and a mouse to-morrow, and fond of pleasure all the time. Ah, what good days I have had with Juste! You remember him before he went to Montreal? He is gay, full of fancies, as brave as can be, and plays and sings well, but he is very hot-headed, and likes to play the tyrant. We have some bad encounters now and then. But we love each other better for it; he respects me, and he does not become spoiled, as you will see when you come to us.

I have had no society yet. My mother thinks seventeen years too few to warrant my going into the gay world. I wonder will my wings be any stronger, will there be less danger of scorching them at twenty-six? Years do not make us wise; one may be as wise at twenty as at fifty. And they do not save us from the scorching. I know more than they guess how cruel the world may be to the innocent as to--the other. One can not live within sight of the Intendant's palace and the Chateau St. Louis without learning many things; and, for myself, though I hunger for all the joys of life, I do not fret because my mother holds me back from the gay doings in the town. I have my long walks, my fishing and rowing, and sometimes hunting, with Juste and my sweet sister Georgette, my drawing, painting, music, and needlework, and my housework.

Yet I am not entirely happy, I do not know quite why. Do you ever feel as if there were some sorrow far back in you, which now and then rushed in and flooded your spirits, and then drew back, and you could not give it a name? Well, that is the way with me. Yesterday, as I stood in the kitchen beside our old cook Jovin, she said a kind word to me, and my eyes filled, and I ran up to my room, and burst into tears as I lay upon my bed. I could not help it. I thought at first it was because of the poor hawk that Captain Moray and I set free yesterday morning; but it could not have been that, for it was FREE when I cried, you see. You know, of course, that he saved my father's life, some years ago? That is one reason why he has been used so well in Quebec, for otherwise no one would have lessened the rigours of his captivity. But there are tales that he is too curious about our government and state, and so he may be kept close jailed, though he only came here as a hostage. He is much at our home, and sometimes walks with Juste and me and Georgette, and accompanies my mother in the streets. This is not to the liking of the Intendant, who loves not my father because he is such a friend of our cousin the Governor. If their lives and characters be anything to the point the Governor must be in the right.

In truth, things are in a sad way here, for there is robbery on every hand, and who can tell what the end may be? Perhaps that we go to the English after all. Monsieur Doltaire--you do not know him, I think--says, "If the English eat us, as they swear they will, they'll die of megrims, our affairs are so indigestible." At another time he said, "Better to be English than to be damned." And when some one asked him what he meant, he said, "Is it not read from the altar, 'Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man'? The English trust nobody, and we trust the English." That was aimed at Captain Moray, who was present, and I felt it a cruel thing for him to say; but Captain Moray, smiling at the ladies, said, "Better to be French and damned than not to be French at all." And this pleased Monsieur Doltaire, who does not love him. I know not why, but there are vague whispers that he is acting against the Englishman for causes best known at Versailles, which have nothing to do with our affairs here. I do believe that Monsieur Doltaire would rather hear a clever thing than get ten thousand francs. At such times his face lights up, he is at once on his mettle, his eyes look almost fiendishly beautiful. He is a handsome man, but he is wicked, and I do not think he has one little sense of morals. I do not suppose he would stab a man in the back, or remove his neighbour's landmark in the night, though he'd rob him of it in open daylight, and call it "enterprise"--a usual word with him.

He is a favourite with Madame Cournal, who influences Bigot most, and one day we may see the boon companions at each other's throats; and if either falls, I hope it maybe Bigot, for Monsieur Doltaire is, at least, no robber. Indeed, he is kind to the poor in a disdainful sort of way. He gives to them and scoffs at them at the same moment; a bad man, with just enough natural kindness to make him dangerous. I have not seen much of the world, but some things we know by instinct; we feel them; and I often wonder if that is not the way we know everything in the end. Sometimes when I take my long walks, or go and sit beside the Falls of Montmorenci, looking out to the great city on the Heights, to dear Isle Orleans, where we have our pretty villa (we are to go there next week for three months--happy summer months), up at the blue sky and into the deep woods, I have strange feelings, which afterwards become thoughts; and sometimes they fly away like butterflies, but oftener they stay with me, and I give them a little garden to roam in--you can guess where. Now and then I call them out of the garden and make them speak, and then I set down what they say in my journal; but I think they like their garden best. You remember the song we used to sing at school?

"'Where do the stars grow, little Garaine? The garden of moons, is it far away? The orchard of suns, my little Garaine, Will you take us there some day?'

"'If you shut your eyes,' quoth little Garaine, 'I will show you the way to go To the orchard of suns, and the garden of moons, And the field where the stars do grow.

"'But you must speak soft,' quoth little Garaine, 'And still must your footsteps be, For a great bear prowls in the field of the stars, And the moons they have men to see.

"'And the suns have the Children of Signs to guard, And they have no pity at all-- You must not stumble, you must not speak, When you come to the orchard wall.

"'The gates are locked,' quoth little Garaine, 'But the way I am going to tell? The key of your heart it will open them all: And there's where the darlings dwell!'"

You may not care to read these lines again, but it helps to show what I mean: that everything is in the heart, and that nothing is at all if we do not feel it. Sometimes I have spoken of these things to my mother, but she does not see as I do. I dare not tell my father all I think, and Juste is so much a creature of moods that I am never sure whether he will be sensible and kind, or scoff. One can not bear to be laughed at. And as for my sister, she never thinks; she only lives; and she looks it--looks beautiful. But there, dear Lucie, I must not tire you with my childish philosophy, though I feel no longer a child. You would not know your friend. I can not tell what has come over me. Voila!

To-morrow we go to visit General Montcalm, who has just arrived in the colony. Bigot and his gay set are not likely to be there. My mother insists that I shall never darken the doors of the Intendant's palace.

Do you still hold to your former purpose of keeping a daily journal? If so, I beg you to copy into it this epistle and your answer; and when I go up to your dear manor house at Beauce next summer, we will read over our letters and other things set down, and gossip of the changes come since we met last. Do sketch the old place for me (as will I our new villa on dear Isle Orleans), and make interest with the good cure to bring it to me with your letter, since there are no posts, no postmen, yet between here and Beauce. The cure most kindly bears this to you, and says he will gladly be our messenger. Yesterday he said to me, shaking his head in a whimsical way, "But no treason, mademoiselle, and no heresy or schism." I am not quite sure what he meant. I dare hardly think he had Captain Moray in his mind. I would not for the world so lessen my good opinion of him as to think him suspicious of me when no other dare; and so I put his words down to chance hitting, to a humorous fancy.

Be sure, dear Lucie, I shall not love you less for giving me a prompt answer. Tell me of what you are thinking and what doing. If Juste can be spared from the Governor's establishment, may I bring him with me next summer? He is a difficult, sparkling sort of fellow, but you are so steady-tempered, so full of tact, getting your own way so quietly and cleverly, that I am sure I should find plenty of straw for the bricks of my house of hope, my castle in Spain!

Do not give too much of my share of thy heart elsewhere, and continue to think me, my dear Lucie, thy friend, loyal and loving,

ALIXE DUVARNEY.

P.S.--Since the above was written we have visited the General. Both Monsieur Doltaire and Captain Moray were there, but neither took much note of me--Monsieur Doltaire not at all. Those two either hate each other lovingly, or love hatefully, I know not which, they are so biting, yet so friendly to each other's cleverness, though their style of word-play is so different: Monsieur Doltaire's like a bodkin-point, Captain Moray's like a musket-stock a-clubbing. Be not surprised to see the British at our gates any day. Though we shall beat them back, I shall feel no less easy because I have a friend in the enemy's camp. You may guess who. Do not smile. He is old enough to be my father. He said so himself six months ago.

ALIXE.

VIII

AS VAIN AS ABSALOM

Gabord, coming in to me one day after I had lain down to sleep, said, "See, m'sieu' the dormouse, 'tis holiday-eve; the King's sport comes to-morrow."

I sat up in bed with a start, for I knew not but that my death had been decided on without trial; and yet on second thought I was sure this could not be, for every rule of military conduct was against it.

"Whose holiday?" asked I after a moment; "and what is King's sport?"

"You're to play bear in the streets to-morrow--which is sport for the King," he retorted; "we lead you by a rope, and you dance the quickstep to please our ladies all the way to the Chateau, where they bring the bear to drum-head."

"Who sits behind the drum?" I questioned.

"The Marquis de Vaudreuil," he replied, "the Intendant, Master Devil Doltaire, and the little men." By these last he meant officers of the colonial soldiery.

So then, at last I was to be tried, to be dealt with definitely on the abominable charge. I should at least again see light and breathe fresh air, and feel about me the stir of the world. For a long year I had heard no voice but my own and Gabord's, had had no friends but my pale blades of corn and a timid mouse, day after day no light at all; and now winter was at hand again, and without fire and with poor food my body was chilled and starved. I had had no news of the world, nor of her who was dear to me, nor of Juste Duvarney save that he lived, nor of our cause. But succeeding the thrill of delight I had at thought of seeing the open world again there came a feeling of lassitude, of indifference; I shrank from the jar of activity. But presently I got upon my feet, and with a little air of drollery straightened out my clothes and flicked a handkerchief across my gaiters. Then I twisted my head over my shoulder as if I were noting the shape of my back and the set of my clothes in a mirror, and thrust a leg out in the manner of an exquisite. I had need to do some mocking thing at the moment, or I should have given way to tears like a woman, so suddenly weak had I become.

Gabord burst out laughing.

An idea came to me. "I must be fine to-morrow," said I. "I must not shame my jailer." I rubbed my beard--I had none when I came into this dungeon first.

"Aho!" said he, his eyes wheeling.

I knew he understood me. I did not speak, but went on running my fingers through my beard.

"As vain as Absalom," he added. "Do you think they'll hang you by the hair?"

"I'd have it off," said I, "to be clean for the sacrifice."

"You had Voban before," he rejoined; "we know what happened--a dainty bit of a letter all rose-lily scented, and comfits for the soldier. The pretty wren perches now in the Governor's house--a-cousining, a-cousining. Think you it is that she may get a glimpse of m'sieu' the dormouse as he comes to trial? But 'tis no business o' mine; and if I bring my prisoner up when called for, there's duty done!"

I saw the friendly spirit in the words.

"Voban," urged I, "Voban may come to me?"

"The Intendant said no, but the Governor yes," was the reply; "and that M'sieu' Doltaire is not yet come back from Montreal, so he had no voice. They look for him here to-morrow."

"Voban may come?" I asked again.

"At daybreak Voban--aho!" he continued. "There's milk and honey to-morrow," he added, and then, without a word, he drew forth from his coat, and hurriedly thrust into my hands, a piece of meat and a small flask of wine, and, swinging round like a schoolboy afraid of being caught in a misdemeanor, he passed through the door and the bolts clanged after him. He left the torch behind him, stuck in the cleft of the wall.

I sat down on my couch, and for a moment gazed almost vacantly at the meat and wine in my hands. I had not touched either for a year, and now I could see that my fingers, as they closed on the food nervously, were thin and bloodless, and I realized that my clothes hung loose upon my person. Here were light, meat, and wine, and there was a piece of bread on the board covering my water-jar. Luxury was spread before me, but although I had eaten little all day I was not hungry. Presently, however, I took the knife which I had hidden a year before, and cut pieces of the meat and laid them by the bread. Then I drew the cork from the bottle of wine, and, lifting it towards that face which was always visible to my soul, I drank--drank--drank!

The rich liquor swam through my veins like glorious fire. It wakened my brain and nerved my body. The old spring of life came back. This wine had come from the hands of Alixe--from the Governor's store, maybe; for never could Gabord have got such stuff. I ate heartily of the rich beef and bread with a new-made appetite, and drank the rest of the wine. When I had eaten and drunk the last, I sat and looked at the glowing torch, and felt a sort of comfort creep through me. Then there came a delightful thought. Months ago I had put away one last pipeful of tobacco, to save it till some day when I should need it most. I got it, and no man can guess how lovingly I held it to a flying flame of the torch, saw it light, and blew out the first whiff of smoke into the sombre air; for November was again piercing this underground house of mine, another winter was at hand. I sat and smoked, and--can you not guess my thoughts? For have you all not the same hearts, being British born and bred? When I had taken the last whiff, I wrapped myself in my cloak and went to sleep. But twice or thrice during the night I waked to see the torch still shining, and caught the fragrance of consuming pine, and minded not at all the smoke the burning made.

IX

A LITTLE CONCERNING THE CHEVALIER DE LA DARANTE

I was wakened completely by the shooting of bolts. With the opening of the door I saw the figures of Gabord and Voban. My little friend the mouse saw them also, and scampered from the bread it had been eating, away among the corn, through which my footsteps had now made two rectangular paths, not disregarded by Gabord, who solicitously pulled Voban into the narrow track, that he should not trespass on my harvest.

I rose, showed no particular delight at seeing Voban, but greeted him easily--though my heart was bursting to ask him of Alixe--and arranged my clothes. Presently Gabord said, "Stools for barber," and, wheeling, he left the dungeon. He was gone only an instant, but long enough for Voban to thrust a letter into my hand, which I ran into the lining of my waistcoat as I whispered, "Her brother--he is well?"

"Well, and he have go to France," he answered. "She make me say, look to the round window in the Chateau front."

We spoke in English--which, as I have said, Voban understood imperfectly. There was nothing more said, and if Gabord, when he returned, suspected, he showed no sign, but put down two stools, seating himself on one, as I seated myself on the other for Voban's handiwork. Presently a soldier appeared with a bowl of coffee. Gabord rose, took it from him, waved him away, and handed it to me. Never did coffee taste so sweet, and I sipped and sipped till Voban had ended his work with me. Then I drained the last drop and stood up. He handed me a mirror, and Gabord, fetching a fine white handkerchief from his pocket, said, "Here's for your tears, when they drum you to heaven, dickey-bird."

But when I saw my face in the mirror, I confess I was startled. My hair, which had been black, was plentifully sprinkled with white, my face was intensely pale and thin, and the eyes were sunk in dark hollows. I should not have recognized myself. But I laughed as I handed back the glass, and said, "All flesh is grass, but a dungeon's no good meadow."

"'Tis for the dry chaff," Gabord answered, "not for young grass--aho!"

He rose and made ready to leave, Voban with him. "The commissariat camps here in an hour or so," he said, with a ripe chuckle.

It was clear the new state of affairs was more to his mind than the long year's rigour and silence. It seemed to me strange then, and it has seemed so ever since, that during all that time I never was visited by Doltaire but once, and of that event I am going to write briefly here.

It was about two months before this particular morning that he came, greeting me courteously enough.

"Close quarters here," said he, looking round as if the place were new to him and smiling to himself.

"Not so close as we all come to one day," said I.

"Dismal comparison!" he rejoined; "you've lost your spirits."

"Not so," I retorted; "nothing but my liberty."

"You know the way to find it quickly," he suggested.

"The letters for La Pompadour?" I asked.

"A dead man's waste papers," responded he; "of no use to him or you, or any one save the Grande Marquise."

"Valuable to me," said I.

"None but the Grande Marquise and the writer would give you a penny for them!"

"Why should I not be my own merchant?"

"You can--to me. If not to me, to no one. You had your chance long ago, and you refused it. You must admit I dealt fairly with you. I did not move till you had set your own trap and fallen into it. Now, if you do not give me the letters--well, you will give them to none else in this world. It has been a fair game, and I am winning now. I've only used means which one gentleman might use with another. Had you been a lesser man I should have had you spitted long ago. You understand?"

"Perfectly. But since we have played so long, do you think I'll give you the stakes now--before the end?"

"It would be wiser," he answered thoughtfully.

"I have a nation behind me," urged I.

"It has left you in a hole here to rot."

"It will take over your citadel and dig me out some day," I retorted hotly.

"What good that? Your life is more to you than Quebec to England."

"No, no," said I quickly; "I would give my life a hundred times to see your flag hauled down!"

"A freakish ambition," he replied; "mere infatuation!"

"You do not understand it, Monsieur Doltaire," I remarked ironically.

"I love not endless puzzles. There is no sport in following a maze that leads to nowhere save the grave." He yawned. "This air is heavy," he added; "you must find it trying."

"Never as trying as at this moment," I retorted.

"Come, am I so malarious?"

"You are a trickster," I answered coldly.

"Ah, you mean that night at Bigot's?" He smiled. "No, no, you were to blame--so green. You might have known we were for having you between the stones."

"But it did not come out as you wished?" hinted I.

"It served my turn," he responded; and he gave me such a smiling, malicious look that I knew sought to convey he had his way with Alixe; and though I felt that she was true to me, his cool presumption so stirred me I could have struck him in the face. I got angrily to my feet, but as I did so I shrank a little, for at times the wound in my side, not yet entirely healed, hurt me.

"You are not well," he said, with instant show of curiosity; "your wounds still trouble you? They should be healed. Gabord was ordered to see you cared for."

"Gabord has done well enough," answered I. "I have had wounds before, monsieur."

He leaned against the wall and laughed. "What braggarts you English are!" he said. "A race of swashbucklers--even on bread and water!"

He had me at advantage, and I knew it, for he had kept his temper. I made an effort. "Both excellent," rejoined I, "and English too."

He laughed again. "Come, that is better. That's in your old vein. I love to see you so. But how knew you our baker was English?--which he is, a prisoner like yourself."

"As easily as I could tell the water was not made by Frenchmen."

"Now I have hope of you," he broke out gaily; "you will yet redeem your nation."

At that moment Gabord came with a message from the Governor to Doltaire, and he prepared to go.

"You are set on sacrifice?" he asked. "Think--dangling from Cape Diamond!"

"I will meditate on your fate instead," I replied.

"Think!" he said again, waving off my answer with his hand. "The letters I shall no more ask for; and you will not escape death?"

"Never by that way," rejoined I.

"So. Very good. Au plaisir, my captain. I go to dine at the Seigneur Duvarney's."

With that last thrust he was gone, and left me wondering if the Seigneur had ever made an effort to see me, if he had forgiven the duel with his son.

That was the incident.

* * * * *

When Gabord and Voban were gone, leaving the light behind, I went over to where the torch stuck in the wall, and drew Alixe's letter from my pocket with eager fingers. It told the whole story of her heart.

CHATEAU ST. LOUIS, 27th November, 1757.

Though I write you these few words, dear Robert, I do not know that they will reach you, for as yet it is not certain they will let Voban visit you. A year, dear friend, and not a word from you! I should have broken my heart if I had not heard of you one way and another. They say you are much worn in body, though you have always a cheerful air. There are stories of a visit Monsieur Doltaire paid you, and how you jested. He hates you, and yet he admires you too.

And now listen, Robert, and I beg you not to be angry--oh, do not be angry, for I am all yours; but I want to tell you that I have not repulsed Monsieur Doltaire when he has spoken flatteries to me. I have not believed them, and I have kept my spirits strong against the evil in him. I want to get you free of prison, and to that end I have to work through him with the Intendant, that he will not set the Governor more against you. With the Intendant himself I will not deal at all. So I use the lesser villain, and in truth the more powerful, for he stands higher at Versailles than any here. With the Governor I have influence, for he is, as you know, a kinsman of my mother's, and of late he has shown a fondness for me. Yet you can see that I must act most warily, that I must not seem to care for you, for that would be your complete undoing. I rather seem to scoff. (Oh, how it hurts me! how my cheeks tingle when I think of it alone! and how I clench my hands, hating them all for oppressing you!)

I do not believe their slanders--that you are a spy. It is I, Robert, who have at last induced the Governor to bring you to trial. They would have put it off till next year, but I feared you would die in that awful dungeon, and I was sure that if your trial came on there would be a change, as there is to be for a time, at least. You are to be lodged in the common jail during the sitting of the court; and so that is one step gained. Yet I had to use all manner of device with the Governor.

He is sometimes so playful with me that I can pretend to sulkiness; and so one day I said that he showed no regard for our family or for me in not bringing you, who had nearly killed my brother, to justice. So he consented, and being of a stubborn nature, too, when Monsieur Doltaire and the Intendant opposed the trial, he said it should come off at once. But one thing grieves me: they are to have you marched through the streets of the town like any common criminal, and I dare show no distress nor plead, nor can my father, though he wishes to move for you in this; and I dare not urge him, for then it would seem strange the daughter asked your punishment, and the father sought to lessen it.

When you are in the common jail it will be much easier to help you. I have seen Gabord, but he is not to be bent to any purpose, though he is kind to me. I shall try once more to have him take some wine and meat to you to-night. If I fail, then I shall only pray that you may be given strength in body for your time of trouble equal to your courage.

It may be I can fix upon a point where you may look to see me as you pass to-morrow to the Chateau. There must be a sign. If you will put your hand to your forehead-- But no, they may bind you, and your hands may not be free. When you see me, pause in your step for an instant, and I shall know. I will tell Voban where you shall send your glance, if he is to be let in to you, and I hope that what I plan may not fail.

And so, Robert, adieu. Time can not change me, and your misfortunes draw me closer to you. Only the dishonourable thing could make me close the doors of my heart, and I will not think you, whate'er they say, unworthy of my constant faith. Some day, maybe, we shall smile at, and even cherish, these sad times. In this gay house I must be flippant, for I am now of the foolish world! But under all the trivial sparkle a serious heart beats. It belongs to thee, if thou wilt have it, Robert, the heart of thy

ALIXE.

An hour after getting this good letter Gabord came again, and with him breakfast--a word which I had almost dropped from my language. True, it was only in a dungeon, on a pair of stools, by the light of a torch, but how I relished it!--a bottle of good wine, a piece of broiled fish, the half of a fowl, and some tender vegetables.

When Gabord came for me with two soldiers, an hour later--I say an hour, but I only guess so, for I had no way of noting time--I was ready for new cares, and to see the world again. Before the others Gabord was the rough, almost brutal soldier, and soon I knew that I was to be driven out upon the St. Foye Road and on into the town. My arms were well fastened down, and I was tied about till I must have looked like a bale of living goods of no great value. Indeed, my clothes were by no means handsome, and save for my well-shaven face and clean handkerchief I was an ill-favoured spectacle; but I tried to bear my shoulders up as we marched through dark reeking corridors, and presently came suddenly into well-lighted passages.

I had to pause, for the light blinded my eyes, and they hurt me horribly, so delicate were the nerves. For some minutes I stood there, my guards stolidly waiting, Gabord muttering a little and stamping upon the floor as if in anger, though I knew he was merely playing a small part to deceive his comrades. The pain in my eyes grew less, and, though they kept filling with moisture from the violence of the light, I soon could see without distress.

I was led into the yard of the citadel, where was drawn up a company of soldiers. Gabord bade me stand still, and advanced towards the officers' quarters. I asked him if I might not walk to the ramparts and view the scene. He gruffly assented, bidding the men watch me closely, and I walked over to a point where, standing three hundred feet above the noble river, I could look out upon its sweet expanse, across to the Levis shore, with its serried legions of trees behind, and its bold settlement in front upon the Heights. There, eastward lay the well-wooded Island of Orleans, and over all the clear sun and sky, enlivened by a crisp and cheering air. Snow had fallen, but none now lay upon the ground, and I saw a rare and winning earth. I stood absorbed. I was recalling that first day that I remember in my life, when at Balmore my grandfather made prophecies upon me, and for the first time I was conscious of the world.

As I stood lost to everything about me, I heard Doltaire's voice behind, and presently he said over my shoulder, "To wish Captain Moray a good-morning were superfluous!"

I smiled at him: the pleasure of that scene had given me an impulse towards good nature even with my enemies.

"The best I ever had," I answered quietly.

"Contrasts are life's delights," he said. "You should thank us. You have your best day because of our worst dungeon."

"But my thanks shall not be in words; you shall have the same courtesy at our hands one day."

"I had the Bastile for a year," he rejoined, calling up a squad of men with his finger as he spoke. "I have had my best day. Two would be monotony. You think your English will take this some time?" he asked, waving a finger towards the citadel. "It will need good play to pluck that ribbon from its place." He glanced up, as he spoke, at the white flag with its golden lilies.

"So much the better sport," I answered. "We will have the ribbon and its heritage."

"You yourself shall furnish evidence to-day. Gabord here will see you temptingly disposed--the wild bull led peaceably by the nose!"

"But one day I will twist your nose, Monsieur Doltaire."

"That is fair enough, if rude," he responded. "When your turn comes, you twist and I endure. You shall be nourished well like me, and I shall look a battered hulk like you. But I shall never be the fool that you are. If I had a way to slip the leash, I'd slip it. You are a dolt." He was touching upon the letters again.

"I weigh it all," said I. "I am no fool--anything else you will."

"You'll be nothing soon, I fear--which is a pity."

What more he might have said I do not know, but there now appeared in the yard a tall, reverend old gentleman, in the costume of the coureur de bois, though his belt was richly chased, and he wore an order on his breast. There was something more refined than powerful in his appearance, but he had a keen, kindly eye, and a manner unmistakably superior. His dress was a little barbarous, unlike Doltaire's splendid white uniform, set off with violet and gold, the lace of a fine handkerchief sticking from his belt, and a gold-handled sword at his side; but the manner of both was distinguished.

Seeing Doltaire, he came forward and they embraced. Then he turned towards me, and as they walked off a little distance I could see that he was curious concerning me. Presently he raised his hand, and, as if something had excited him, said, "No, no, no; hang him and have done with it, but I'll have nothing to do with it--not a thing. 'Tis enough for me to rule at--"

I could hear no further, but I was now sure that he was some one of note who had retired from any share in state affairs. He and Doltaire then moved on to the doors of the citadel, and, pausing there, Doltaire turned round and made a motion of his hand to Gabord. I was at once surrounded by the squad of men, and the order to march was given. A drum in front of me began to play a well-known derisive air of the French army, The Fox and the Wolf.

We came out on the St. Foye Road and down towards the Chateau St. Louis, between crowds of shouting people who beat drums, kettles, pans, and made all manner of mocking noises. It was meant not only against myself, but against the British people. The women were not behind the men in violence; from them at first came handfuls of gravel and dust which struck me in the face; but Gabord put a stop to that.

It was a shameful ordeal, which might have vexed me sorely if I had not had greater trials and expected worse. Now and again appeared a face I knew--some lady who turned her head away, or some gentleman who watched me curiously, but made no sign.

When we came to the Chateau, I looked up as if casually, and there in the little round window I saw Alixe's face--for an instant only. I stopped in my tracks, was prodded by a soldier from behind, and I then stepped on. Entering, we were taken to the rear of the building, where, in an open courtyard, were a company of soldiers, some seats, and a table. On my right was the St. Lawrence swelling on its course, hundreds of feet beneath, little boats passing hither and thither on its flood.

We were waiting about half an hour, the noises of the clamoring crowd coming to us, as they carried me aloft in effigy, and, burning me at the cliff edge, fired guns and threw stones at me, till, rags, ashes, and flame, I was tumbled into the river far below. At last, from the Chateau came the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Bigot, and a number of officers. The Governor looked gravely at me, but did not bow; Bigot gave me a sneering smile, eying me curiously the while, and (I could feel) remarking on my poor appearance to Cournal beside him--Cournal, who winked at his wife's dishonour for the favour of her lover, who gave him means for public robbery.

Presently the Governor was seated, and he said, looking round, "Monsieur Doltaire--he is not here?"

Bigot shook his head, and answered, "No doubt he is detained at the citadel."

"And the Seigneur Duvarney?" the Governor added.

At that moment the Governor's secretary handed him a letter. The Governor opened it. "Listen," said he. He read to the effect that the Seigneur Duvarney felt he was hardly fitted to be a just judge in this case, remembering the conflict between his son and the notorious Captain Moray. And from another standpoint, though the prisoner merited any fate reserved for him, if guilty of spying, he could not forget that his life had been saved by this British captain--an obligation which, unfortunately, he could neither repay nor wipe out. After much thought, he must disobey the Governor's summons, and he prayed that his Excellency would grant his consideration thereupon.

I saw the Governor frown, but he made no remark, while Bigot said something in his ear which did not improve his humour, for he replied curtly, and turned to his secretary. "We must have two gentlemen more," he said.

At that moment Doltaire entered with the old gentleman of whom I have written. The Governor instantly brightened, and gave the stranger a warm greeting, calling him his "dear Chevalier;" and, after a deal of urging, the Chevalier de la Darante was seated as one of my judges: which did not at all displease me, for I liked his face.

I do not need to dwell upon the trial here. I have set down the facts before. I had no counsel and no witnesses. There seemed no reason why the trial should have dragged on all day, for I soon saw it was intended to find me guilty. Yet I was surprised to see how Doltaire brought up a point here and a question there in my favour, which served to lengthen out the trial; and all the time he sat near the Chevalier de la Darante, now and again talking with him.

It was late evening before the trial came to a close. The one point to be established was that the letters taken from General Braddock were mine, and that I had made the plans while a hostage. I acknowledged nothing, and would not do so unless I was allowed to speak freely. This was not permitted until just before I was sentenced.

Then Doltaire's look was fixed on me, and I knew he waited to see if I would divulge the matter private between us. However, I stood by my compact with him. Besides, it could not serve me to speak of it here, or use it as an argument, and it would only hasten an end which I felt he could prevent if he chose.

So when I was asked if I had aught to say, I pleaded only that they had not kept the Articles of War signed at Fort Necessity, which provided I should be free within two months and a half--that is, when prisoners in our hands should be delivered up to them, as they were. They had broken their bond, though we had fulfilled ours, and I held myself justified in doing what I had done for our cause and for my own life.

I was not heard patiently, though I could see that the Governor and the Chevalier were impressed; but Bigot instantly urged the case hotly against me, and the end came very soon. It was now dark; a single light had been brought and placed beside the Governor, while a soldier held a torch at a distance. Suddenly there was a silence; then, in response to a signal, the sharp ringing of a hundred bayonets as they were drawn and fastened to the muskets, and I could see them gleaming in the feeble torchlight. Presently, out of the stillness, the Governor's voice was heard condemning me to death by hanging, thirty days hence, at sunrise. Silence fell again instantly, and then a thing occurred which sent a thrill through us all. From the dark balcony above us came a voice, weird, high, and wailing:

"Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! He is guilty, and shall die! Francois Bigot shall die!"

The voice was Mathilde's, and I saw Doltaire shrug a shoulder and look with malicious amusement at the Intendant. Bigot himself sat pale and furious. "Discover the intruder," he said to Gabord, who was standing near, "and have--him--jailed."

But the Governor interfered. "It is some drunken creature," he urged quietly. "Take no account of it."

X

AN OFFICER OF MARINES

What was my dismay to know that I was to be taken back again to my dungeon, and not lodged in the common jail, as I had hoped and Alixe had hinted! When I saw whither my footsteps were directed I said nothing, nor did Gabord speak at all. We marched back through a railing crowd as we had come, all silent and gloomy. I felt a chill at my heart when the citadel loomed up again out of the November shadow, and I half paused as I entered the gates. "Forward!" said Gabord mechanically, and I moved on into the yard, into the prison, through the dull corridors, the soldiers' heels clanking and resounding behind, down into the bowels of the earth, where the air was moist and warm, and then into my dungeon home! I stepped inside, and Gabord ordered the ropes off my person somewhat roughly, watched the soldiers till they were well away, and then leaned against the wall, waiting for me to speak. I had no impulse to smile, but I knew how I could most touch him, and so I said lightly, "You've got dickey-bird home again."

He answered nothing and turned towards the door, leaving the torch stuck in the wall. But he suddenly stopped short, and suddenly thrust out to me a tiny piece of paper.

"A hand touched mine as I went through the Chateau," said he, "and when out I came, look you, this here! I can't see to read. What does it say?" he added, with a shrewd attempt at innocence.

I opened the little paper, held it towards the torch, and read:

"Because of the storm there is no sleeping. Is there not the watcher aloft? Shall the sparrow fall unheeded? The wicked shall be confounded."

It was Alixe's writing. She had hazarded this in the hands of my jailer as her only hope, and, knowing that he might not serve her, had put her message in vague sentences which I readily interpreted. I read the words aloud to him, and he laughed, and remarked, "'Tis a foolish thing that--The Scarlet Woman, mast like."

"Most like," I answered quietly; "yet what should she be doing there at the Chateau?"

"The mad go everywhere," he answered, "even to the intendance!"

With that he left me, going, as he said, "to fetch crumbs and wine." Exhausted with the day's business, I threw myself upon my couch, drew my cloak over me, composed myself, and in a few minutes was sound asleep. I waked to find Gabord in the dungeon, setting out food upon a board supported by two stools.

"'Tis custom to feed your dickey-bird ere you fetch him to the pot." he said, and drew the cork from a bottle of wine.

He watched me as I ate and talked, but he spoke little. When I had finished, he fetched a packet of tobacco from his pocket. I offered him money, but he refused it, and I did not press him, for he said the food and wine were not of his buying. Presently he left, and came back with pens, ink, paper, and candles, which be laid out on my couch without words.

After a little he came again, and laid a book on the improvised table before me. It was an English Bible. Opening it, I found inscribed on the fly-leaf, Charles Wainfleet, Chaplain to the British Army. Gabord explained that this chaplain had been in the citadel for some weeks; that he had often inquired about me; that he had been brought from the Ohio; and had known of me, having tended the lieutenant of my Virginian infantry in his last hours. Gabord thought I should now begin to make my peace with Heaven, and so had asked for the chaplain's Bible, which was freely given. I bade him thank the chaplain for me, and opening the book, I found a leaf turned down at the words,

"In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast."

When I was left alone, I sat down to write diligently that history of myself which I had composed and fixed in my memory during the year of my housing in this dungeon. The words came from my pen freely, and hour after hour through many days, while no single word reached me from the outside world, I wrote on; carefully revising, but changing little from that which I had taken so long to record in my mind. I would not even yet think that they would hang me; and if they did, what good could brooding do? When the last word of the memoirs (I may call them so), addressed to Alixe, had been written, I turned my thoughts to other friends.

The day preceding that fixed for my execution came, yet there was no sign from friend or enemy without. At ten o'clock of that day Chaplain Wainfleet was admitted to me in the presence of Gabord and a soldier. I found great pleasure in his company, brief as his visit was; and after I had given him messages to bear for me to old friends, if we never met again and he were set free, he left me, benignly commending me to Heaven. There was the question of my other letters. I had but one desire--Voban again, unless at my request the Seigneur Duvarney would come, and they would let him come. If it were certain that I was to go to the scaffold, then I should not hesitate to tell him my relations with his daughter, that he might comfort her when, being gone from the world myself, my love could do her no harm. I could not think that he would hold against me the duel with his son, and I felt sure he would come to me if he could.

But why should I not try for both Voban and the Seigneur? So I spoke to Gabord.

"Voban! Voban!" said he. "Does dickey-bird play at peacock still? Well, thou shalt see Voban. Thou shalt go trimmed to heaven--aho!"

Presently I asked him if he would bear a message to the Governor, asking permission for the Seigneur Duvarney to visit me, if he were so inclined. At his request I wrote my petition out, and he carried it away with him, saying that I should have Voban that evening.

I waited hour after hour, but no one came. As near as I could judge it was now evening. It seemed strange to think that, twenty feet above me, the world was all white with snow; the sound of sleigh-bells and church-bells, and the cries of snowshoers ringing on the clear, sharp air. I pictured the streets of Quebec alive with people: the young seigneur set off with furs and silken sash and sword or pistols; the long-haired, black-eyed woodsman in his embroidered moccasins and leggings with flying thrums; the peasant farmer slapping his hands cheerfully in the lighted market-place; the petty noble, with his demoiselle, hovering in the precincts of the Chateau St. Louis and the intendance. Up there were light, freedom, and the inspiriting frost; down here in my dungeon, the blades of corn, which, dying, yet never died, told the story of a choking air, wherein the body and soul of a man droop and take long to die. This was the night before Christmas Eve, when in England and Virginia they would be preparing for feasting and thanksgiving.

The memories of past years crowded on me. I thought of feastings and spendthrift rejoicings in Glasgow and Virginia. All at once the carnal man in me rose up and damned these lying foes of mine. Resignation went whistling down the wind. Hang me! Hang me! No, by the God that gave me breath! I sat back and laughed--laughed at my own insipid virtue, by which, to keep faith with the fanatical follower of Prince Charlie, I had refused my liberty; cut myself off from the useful services of my King; wasted good years of my life, trusting to pressure and help to come from England, which never came; twisted the rope for my own neck to keep honour with the dishonourable Doltaire, who himself had set the noose swinging; and, inexpressible misery! involved in my shame and peril a young blithe spirit, breathing a miasma upon the health of a tender life. Every rebellious atom in my blood sprang to indignant action. I swore that if they fetched me to the gallows to celebrate their Noel, other lives than mine should go to keep me company on the dark trail. To die like a rat in a trap, oiled for the burning, and lighted by the torch of hatred! No, I would die fighting, if I must die.

I drew from its hiding-place the knife I had secreted the day I was brought into that dungeon--a little weapon, but it would serve for the first blow. At whom? Gabord? It all flashed through my mind how I might do it when he came in again: bury this blade in his neck or heart--it was long enough for the work; then, when he was dead, change my clothes for his, take his weapons, and run my chances to get free of the citadel. Free? Where should I go in the dead of winter? Who would hide me, shelter me? I could not make my way to an English settlement. Ill clad, exposed to the merciless climate, and the end death. But that was freedom--freedom! I could feel my body dilating with the thought, as I paced my dungeon like an ill-tempered beast. But kill Gabord, who had put himself in danger to serve me, who himself had kept the chains from off my ankles and body, whose own life depended upon my security--"Come, come, Robert Moray," said I, "what relish have you for that? That's an ill game for a gentleman. Alixe Duvarney would rather see you dead than get your freedom over the body of this man."

That was an hour of storm. I am glad that I conquered the baser part of me; for, almost before I had grown calm again, the bolts of the dungeon doors shot back, and presently Gabord stepped inside, followed by a muffled figure.

"Voban the barber," said Gabord in a strange voice, and stepping again outside, he closed the door, but did not shoot the bolts.

I stood as one in a dream. Voban the barber? In spite of cap and great fur coat, I saw the outline of a figure that no barber ever had in this world. I saw two eyes shining like lights set in a rosy sky. A moment of doubt, of impossible speculation, of delicious suspense, and then the coat of Voban the barber opened, dropped away from the lithe, graceful figure of a young officer of marines, the cap flew off, and in an instant the dear head, the blushing, shining face of Alixe was on my breast.

In that moment, stolen from the calendar of hate, I ran into the haven where true hearts cast anchor and bless God that they have seen upon the heights, to guide them, the lights of home. The moment flashed by and was gone, but the light it made went not with it.

When I drew her blushing face up, and stood her off from me that I might look at her again, the colour flew back and forth on her cheek, as you may see the fire flutter in an uncut ruby when you turn it in the sun. Modestly drawing the cloak she wore more closely about her, she hastened to tell me how it was she came in such a guise; but I made her pause for a moment while I gave her a seat and sat down beside her. Then by the light of the flickering torch and flaring candles I watched her feelings play upon her face as the warm light of autumn shifts upon the glories of ripe fruits. Her happiness was tempered by the sadness of our position, and my heart smote me that I had made her suffer, had brought care to her young life. I could see that in the year she had grown older, yet her beauty seemed enhanced by that and by the trouble she had endured. I shall let her tell her story here unbroken by my questions and those interruptions which Gabord made, bidding her to make haste. She spoke without faltering, save here and there; but even then I could see her brave spirit quelling the riot of her emotions, shutting down the sluice-gate of tears.

"I knew," she said, her hand clasped in mine, "that Gabord was the only person like to be admitted to you, and so for days, living in fear lest the worst should happen, I have prepared for this chance. I have grown so in height that I knew an old uniform of my brothers would fit me, and I had it ready--small sword and all," she added, with a sad sort of humour, touching the weapon at her side. "You must know that we have for the winter a house here upon the ramparts near the Chateau. It was my mother's doings, that my sister Georgette and I might have no great journeyings in the cold to the festivities hereabouts. So I, being a favourite with the Governor, ran in and out of the Chateau at my will; of which my mother was proud, and she allowed me much liberty, for to be a favourite of the Governor is an honour. I knew how things were going, and what the chances were of the sentence being carried out on you. Sometimes I thought my heart would burst with the anxiety of it all, but I would not let that show to the world. If you could but have seen me smile at the Governor and Monsieur Doltaire--nay, do not press my hand so, Robert; you know well you have no need to fear monsieur--while I learned secrets of state, among them news of you. Three nights ago Monsieur Doltaire was talking with me at a ball--ah, those feastings while you were lying in a dungeon, and I shutting up my love and your danger close in my heart, even from those who loved me best! Well, suddenly he said, 'I think I will not have our English captain shifted to a better world.'

"My heart stood still; I felt an ache across my breast so that I could hardly breathe. 'Why will you not?' said I; 'was not the sentence just?' He paused a minute, and then replied, 'All sentences are just when an enemy is dangerous.' Then said I as in surprise, 'Why, was he no spy, after all?' He sat back, and laughed a little. 'A spy according to the letter of the law, but you have heard of secret history--eh?' I tried to seem puzzled, for I had a thought there was something private between you and him which has to do with your fate. So I said, as if bewildered, 'You mean there is evidence which was not shown at the trial?' He answered slowly, 'Evidence that would bear upon the morals, not the law of the case.' Then said I, 'Has it to do with you, monsieur?' 'It has to do with France,' he replied. 'And so you will not have his death?' I asked. 'Bigot wishes it,' he replied, 'for no other reason than that Madame Cournal has spoken nice words for the good-looking captain, and because that unsuccessful duel gave Vaudreuil an advantage over himself. Vaudreuil wishes it because he thinks it will sound well in France, and also because he really believes the man a spy. The Council do not care much; they follow the Governor and Bigot, and both being agreed, their verdict is unanimous.' He paused, then added, 'And the Seigneur Duvarney--and his daughter--wish it because of a notable injury to one of their name.' At that I cautiously replied, 'No, my father does not wish it, for my brother gave the offense, and Captain Moray saved his life, as you know. I do not wish it, Monsieur Doltaire, because hanging is a shameful death, and he is a gentle man, not a ruffian. Let him be shot like a gentleman. How will it sound at the Court of France that, on insufficient evidence, as you admit, an English gentleman was hanged for a spy? Would not the King say (for he is a gentleman), Why was not this shown me before the man's death? Is it not a matter upon which a country would feel as gentlemen feel?'

"I knew it the right thing to say at the moment, and it seemed the only way to aid you, though I intended, if the worst came to the worst, to go myself to the Governor at the last and plead for your life, at least for a reprieve. But it had suddenly flashed upon me that a reference to France was the thing, since the Articles of War which you are accused of dishonouring were signed by officers from France and England.

"Presently he turned to me with a look of curiosity, and another sort of look also that made me tremble, and said, 'Now, there you have put your finger on the point--my point, the choice weapon I had reserved to prick the little bubble of Bigot's hate and the Governor's conceit, if I so chose, even at the last. And here is a girl, a young girl just freed from pinafores, who teaches them the law of nations! If it pleased me I should not speak, for Vaudreuil's and Bigot's affairs are none of mine; but, in truth, why should you kill your enemy? It is the sport to keep him living; you can get no change for your money from a dead man. He has had one cheerful year; why not another, and another, and another? And so watch him fretting to the slow-coming end, while now and again you give him a taste of hope, to drop him back again into the pit which has no sides for climbing.' He paused a minute, and then added, 'A year ago I thought he had touched you, this Britisher, with his raw humour and manners; but, my faith, how swiftly does a woman's fancy veer!' At that I said calmly to him, 'You must remember that then he was not thought so base.' 'Yes, yes,' he replied; 'and a woman loves to pity the captive, whatever his fault, if he be presentable and of some notice or talent. And Moray has gifts,' he went on. I appeared all at once to be offended. 'Veering, indeed! a woman's fancy! I think you might judge women better. You come from high places, Monsieur Doltaire, and they say this and that of your great talents and of your power at Versailles, but what proof have we had of it? You set a girl down with a fine patronage, and you hint at weapons to cut off my cousin the Governor and the Intendant from their purposes; but how do we know you can use them, that you have power with either the unnoticeable woman or the great men?' I knew very well it was a bold move. He suddenly turned to me, in his cruel eyes a glittering kind of light, and said, 'I suggest no more than I can do with those "great men"; and as for the woman, the slave can not be patron--I am the slave. I thought not of power before; but now that I do, I will live up to my thinking. I seem idle, I am not; purposeless, I am not; a gamester, I am none. I am a sportsman, and I will not leave the field till all the hunt be over. I seem a trifler, yet I have persistency. I am no romanticist, I have no great admiration for myself, and yet when I set out to hunt a woman honestly, be sure I shall never back to kennel till she is mine or I am done for utterly. Not by worth nor by deserving, but by unending patience and diligence--that shall be my motto. I shall devote to the chase every art that I have learned or known by nature. So there you have me, mademoiselle. Since you have brought me to the point, I will unfurl my flag.... I am--your--hunter,' he went on, speaking with slow, painful emphasis, 'and I shall make you mine. You fight against me, but it is no use.' I got to my feet, and said with coolness, though I was sick at heart and trembling, 'You are frank. You have made two resolves. I shall give weight to one as you fulfill the other'; and, smiling at him, I moved away towards my mother.

"Masterful as he is, I felt that this would touch his vanity. There lay my great chance with him. If he had guessed the truth of what's between us, be sure, Robert, your life were not worth one hour beyond to-morrow's sunrise. You must know how I loathe deceitfulness, but when one weak girl is matched against powerful and evil men, what can she do? My conscience does not chide me, for I know my cause is just. Robert, look me in the eyes.... There, like that.... Now tell me. You are innocent of the dishonourable thing, are you not? I believe with all my soul, but that I may say from your own lips that you are no spy, tell me so."

When I had said as she had wished, assuring her she should know all, carrying proofs away with her, and that hidden evidence of which Doltaire had spoken, she went on:

"'You put me to the test,' said monsieur. 'Doing one, it will be proof that I shall do the other.' He fixed his eyes upon me with such a look that my whole nature shrank from him, as if the next instant his hateful hands were to be placed on me. Oh, Robert, I know how perilous was the part I played, but I dared it for your sake. For a whole year I have dissembled to every one save to that poor mad soul Mathilde, who reads my heart in her wild way, to Voban, and to the rough soldier outside your dungeon. But they will not betray me. God has given us these rough but honest friends.

"Well, monsieur left me that night, and I have not seen him since, nor can I tell where he is, for no one knows, and I dare not ask too much. I did believe he would achieve his boast as to saving your life, and so, all yesterday and to-day, I have waited with most anxious heart; but not one word! Yet there was that in all he said which made me sure he meant to save you, and I believe he will. Yet think: if anything happened to him! You know what wild doings go on at Bigot's chateau out at Charlesbourg; or, again, in the storm of yesterday he may have been lost. You see, there are the hundred chances; so I determined not to trust wholly to him. There was one other way--to seek the Governor myself, open my heart to him, and beg for a reprieve. To-night at nine o'clock--it is now six, Robert--we go to the Chateau St. Louis, my mother and my father and I, to sup with the Governor. Oh, think what I must endure, to face them with this awful shadow on me! If no word come of the reprieve before that hour, I shall make my own appeal to the Governor. It may ruin me, but it may save you; and that done, what should I care for the rest? Your life is more to me than all the world beside." Here she put both hands upon my shoulders and looked me in the eyes.

I did not answer yet, but took her hands in mine, and she continued: "An hour past, I told my mother I should go to see my dear friend Lucie Lotbiniere. Then I stole up to my room, put on my brother's uniform, and came down to meet Voban near the citadel, as we had arranged. I knew he was to have an order from the Governor to visit you. He was waiting, and to my great joy he put the order in my hands. I took his coat and wig and cap, a poor disguise, and came straight to the citadel, handing the order to the soldiers at the gate. They gave it back without a word, and passed me on. I thought this strange, and looked at the paper by the light of the torches. What was my surprise to see that Voban's name had been left out! It but gave permission to the bearer. That would serve with the common soldier, but I knew well it would not with Gabord or with the commandant of the citadel. All at once I saw the great risk I was running, the danger to us both. Still I would not turn back. But how good fortune serves us when we least look for it! At the commandant's very door was Gabord. I did not think to deceive him. It was my purpose from the first to throw myself upon his mercy. So there, that moment, I thrust the order into his hand. He read it, looked a moment, half fiercely and half kindly, at me, then turned and took the order to the commandant. Presently he came out, and said to me, 'Come, m'sieu', and see you clip the gentleman dainty fine for his sunrise travel. He'll get no care 'twixt posting-house and end of journey, m'sieu'.' This he said before two soldiers, speaking with harshness and a brutal humour. But inside the citadel he changed at once, and, taking from my head this cap and wig, he said quite gently, yet I could see he was angry, too, 'This is a mad doing, young lady.' He said no more, and led me straight to you. If I had told him I was coming, I know he would have stayed me. But at the dangerous moment he had not heart to drive me back.... And that is all my story, Robert."

As I have said, this tale was broken often by little questionings and exclamations, and was not told in one long narrative as I have written it here. When she had done I sat silent and overcome for a moment. There was one thing now troubling me sorely, even in the painful joy of having her here close by me. She had risked all to save my life--reputation, friends, even myself, the one solace in her possible misery. Was it not my duty to agree to Doltaire's terms, for her sake, if there was yet a chance to do so? I had made a solemn promise to Sir John Godric that those letters, if they ever left my hands, should go to the lady who had written them; and to save my own life I would not have broken faith with my benefactor. But had I the right to add to the misery of this sweet, brave spirit? Suppose it was but for a year or two: had I the right to give her sorrow for that time, if I could prevent it, even at the cost of honour with the dead? Was it not my duty to act, and at once? Time was short.

While in a swift moment I was debating, Gabord opened the door, and said, "Come, end it, end it. Gabord has a head to save!" I begged him for one minute more, and then giving Alixe the packet which held my story, I told her hastily the matter between Doltaire and myself, and said that now, rather than give her sorrow, I was prepared to break my word with Sir John Godric. She heard me through with flashing eyes, and I could see her bosom heave. When I had done, she looked me straight in the eyes.

"Is all that here?" she said, holding up the packet.

"All," I answered.

"And you would not break your word to save your own life?"

I shook my head in negation.

"Now I know that you are truly honourable," she answered, "and you shall not break your promise for me. No, no, you shall not; you shall not stir. Tell me that you will not send word to Monsieur Doltaire--tell me!"

When, after some struggle, I had consented, she said, "But I may act. I am not bound to secrecy. I have given no word or bond. I will go to the Governor with my love, and I do not fear the end. They will put me in a convent, and I shall see you no more, but I shall have saved you."

In vain I begged her not to do so; her purpose was strong, and I could only get her promise that she would not act till midnight. This was hardly achieved when Gabord entered quickly, saying, "The Seigneur Duvarney! On with your coat, wig, and cap! Quick, mademoiselle!"

Swiftly the disguise was put on, and I clasped her to my breast with a joyful agony, while Gabord hastily put out the candles and torch, and drew Alixe behind the dungeon door. Then standing himself in the doorway, he loudly commended me to sleep sound and be ready for travel in the morning. Taking the hint, I threw myself upon my couch, and composed myself. An instant afterwards the Seigneur appeared with a soldier, and Gabord met him cheerfully, looked at the order from the Governor, and motioned the Seigneur in and the soldier away. As Duvarney stepped inside, Gabord followed, holding up a torch. I rose to meet my visitor, and as I took his hand I saw Gabord catch Alixe by the sleeve and hurry her out with a whispered word, swinging the door behind her as she passed. Then he stuck the torch in the wall, went out, shut and bolted the dungeon door, and left us two alone.

I was glad that Alixe's safety had been assured, and my greeting of her father was cordial. But he was more reserved than I had ever known him. The duel with his son, which had sent the youth to France and left him with a wound which would trouble him for many a day, weighed heavily against me. Again, I think that he guessed my love for Alixe, and resented it with all his might. What Frenchman would care to have his daughter lose her heart to one accused of a wretched crime, condemned to death, an enemy of his country, and a Protestant? I was sure that should he guess at the exact relations between us, Alixe would be sent behind the tall doors of a convent, where I should knock in vain.

"You must not think, Moray," said he, "that I have been indifferent to your fate, but you can not guess how strong the feeling is against you, how obdurate is the Governor, who, if he should appear lax in dealing with you, would give a weapon into Bigot's hands which might ruin him in France one day. I have but this moment come from the Governor, and there seems no way to move him."

I saw that he was troubled greatly, and I felt his helplessness. He went on: "There is but one man who could bend the Governor, but he, alas! is no friend of yours. And what way there is to move him I know not; he has no wish, I fancy, but that you shall go to your fate."

"You mean Monsieur Doltaire?" said I quietly.

"Doltaire," he answered. "I have tried to find him, for he is the secret agent of La Pompadour, and if I had one plausible reason to weigh with him--- But I have none, unless you can give it. There are vague hints of things between you and him, and I have come to ask if you can put any fact, any argument, in my hands that would aid me with him. I would go far to serve you."

"Think not, I pray you," returned I, "that there is any debt unsatisfied between us."

He waved his hand in a melancholy way. "Indeed, I wish to serve you for the sake of past friendship between us, not only for that debt's sake."

"In spite of my quarrel with your son?" asked I.

"In spite of that, indeed," he said slowly, "though a great wedge was driven between us there."

"I am truly sorry for it," said I, with some pride. "The blame was in no sense mine. I was struck across the face; I humbled myself, remembering you, but he would have me out yes or no."

"Upon a wager!" he urged, somewhat coldly.

"With the Intendant, monsieur," I replied, "not with your son."

"I can not understand the matter," was his gloomy answer.

"I beg you not to try," I rejoined; "it is too late for explanations, and I have nothing to tell you of myself and Monsieur Doltaire. Only, whatever comes, remember I have begged nothing of you, have desired nothing but justice--that only. I shall make no further move; the axe shall fall if it must. I have nothing now to do but set my house in order, and live the hours between this and sunrise with what quiet I may. I am ready for either freedom or death. Life is not so incomparable a thing that I can not give it up without pother."

He looked at me a moment steadily. "You and I are standing far off from each other," he remarked. "I will say one last thing to you, though you seem to wish me gone and your own grave closing in. I was asked by the Governor to tell you that if you would put him in the way of knowing the affairs of your provinces from the letters you have received, together with estimate of forces and plans of your forts, as you have known them, he will spare you. I only tell you this because you close all other ways to me."

"I carry," said I, with a sharp burst of anger, "the scars of wounds an insolent youth gave me. I wish now that I had killed the son of the man who dares bring me such a message."

For a moment I had forgotten Alixe, everything, in the wildness of my anger. I choked with rage; I could have struck him.

"I mean nothing against you," he urged, with great ruefulness. "I suggest nothing. I bring the Governor's message, that is all. And let me say," he added, "that I have not thought you a spy, nor ever shall think so."

I was trembling with anger still, and I was glad that at the moment Gabord opened the door, and stood waiting.

"You will not part with me in peace, then?" asked the Seigneur slowly.

"I will remember the gentleman who gave a captive hospitality," I answered. "I am too near death to let a late injury outweigh an old friendship. I am ashamed, but not only for myself. Let us part in peace--ay, let us part in peace," I added with feeling, for the thought of Alixe came rushing over me, and this was her father!

"Good-by, Moray," he responded gravely. "You are a soldier, and brave; if the worst comes, I know how you will meet it. Let us waive all bitter thoughts between us. Good-by."

We shook hands then, without a word, and in a moment the dungeon door closed behind him, and I was alone; and for a moment my heart was heavy beyond telling, and a terrible darkness settled on my spirit. I sat on my couch and buried my head in my hands.

XI

THE COMING OF DOLTAIRE

At last I was roused by Gabord's voice.

He sat down, and drew the leaves of faded corn between his fingers. "'Tis a poor life, this in a cage, after all--eh, dickey-bird? If a soldier can't stand in the field fighting, if a man can't rub shoulders with man, and pitch a tent of his own somewhere, why not go travelling with the Beast--aho? To have all the life sucked out like these--eh? To see the flesh melt and the hair go white, the eye to be one hour bright like a fire in a kiln, and the next like mother on working vinegar--that's not living at all--no."

The speech had evidently cost him much thinking, and when he ended, his cheeks puffed out and a soundless laugh seemed to gather, but it burst in a sort of sigh. I would have taken his hand that moment, if I had not remembered when once he drew back from such demonstrations. I did not speak, but nodded assent, and took to drawing the leaves of corn between my fingers as he was doing.

After a moment, cocking his head at me as might a surly schoolmaster in a pause of leniency, he added, "As quiet, as quiet, and never did he fly at door of cage, nor peck at jailer--aho!"

I looked at him a minute seriously, and then, feeling in my coat, handed to him the knife which I had secreted, with the words, "Enough for pecking with, eh?"

He looked at me so strangely, as he weighed the knife up and down in his hand, that I could not at first guess his thought; but presently I understood it, and I almost could have told what he would say. He opened the knife, felt the blade, measured it along his fingers, and then said, with a little bursting of the lips, "Poom! But what would ma'm'selle have thought if Gabord was found dead with a hole in his neck--behind? Eh?"

He had struck the very note that had sung in me when the temptation came; but he was gay at once again, and I said to him, "What is the hour fixed?"

"Seven o'clock," he answered, "and I will bring your breakfast first."

"Good-night, then," said I. "Coffee and a little tobacco will be enough."

When he was gone, I lay down on my bag of straw, which, never having been renewed, was now only full of worn chaff, and, gathering myself in my cloak, was soon in a dreamless sleep.

I waked to the opening of the dungeon door, to see Gabord entering with a torch and a tray that held my frugal breakfast. He had added some brandy, also, of which I was glad, for it was bitter cold outside, as I discovered later. He was quiet, seeming often to wish to speak, but pausing before the act, never getting beyond a stumbling aho! I greeted him cheerfully enough. After making a little toilette, I drank my coffee with relish. At last I asked Gabord if no word had come to the citadel for me; and he said, none at all, nothing save a message from the Governor, before midnight, ordering certain matters. No more was said, until, turning to the door, he told me he would return to fetch me forth in a few minutes. But when halfway out he suddenly wheeled, came back, and blurted out, "If you and I could only fight it out, m'sieu'! 'Tis ill for a gentleman and a soldier to die without thrust or parry."

"Gabord," said I, smiling at him, "you preach good sermons always, and I never saw a man I'd rather fight and be killed by than you!" Then, with an attempt at rough humour, I added, "But as I told you once, the knot is'nt at my throat, and I'll tie another one yet elsewhere, if God loves honest men."

I had no hope at all, yet I felt I must say it. He nodded, but said nothing, and presently I was alone.

I sat down on my straw couch and composed myself to think; not upon my end, for my mind was made up as to that, but upon the girl who was so dear to me, whose life had crept into mine and filled it, making it of value in the world. It must not be thought that I no longer had care for our cause, for I would willingly have spent my life a hundred times for my country, as my best friends will bear witness; but there comes a time when a man has a right to set all else aside but his own personal love and welfare, and to me the world was now bounded by just so much space as my dear Alixe might move in. I fastened my thought upon her face as I had last seen it. My eyes seemed to search for it also, and to find it in the torch which stuck out, softly sputtering, from the wall. I do not pretend, even at this distance of time, after having thought much over the thing, to give any good reason for so sudden a change as took place in me there. All at once a voice appeared to say to me, "When you are gone, she will be Doltaire's. Remember what she said. She fears him. He has a power over her."

Now, some will set it down to a low, unmanly jealousy and suspicion; it is hard to name it, but I know that I was seized with a misery so deep that all my past sufferings and disappointments, and even this present horror were shadowy beside it. I pictured to myself Alixe in Doltaire's arms, after I had gone beyond human call. It is strange how an idea will seize us and master us, and an inconspicuous possibility suddenly stand out with huge distinctness. All at once I felt in my head "the ring of fire" of which Mathilde had warned me, a maddening heat filled my veins, and that hateful picture grew more