Alice of Old Vincennes Part 16

"Well, sir, right or wrong, your, duty is to obey orders," said Helm with brutal severity.

"We had better not quarrel, Captain," Beverley replied. "I have not signified any unwillingness to obey your commands. Give them, and you will have no cause to grumble."

"Forgive me, old fellow," cried the impulsive commander. "I know you are true as steel. I s'pose I'm wound up too tight to be polite. But the time is come to do something. Here we are with but five or six men--"

He was interrupted by the arrival of two more half-breed scouts.

Only three miles away was a large flotilla of boats and canoes with cannon, a force of Indians on land and the British flag flying,--that was the report.

"They are moving rapidly," said the spokesman, "and will be here very soon. They are at least six hundred strong, all well armed."

"Push that gun to the gate, and load it to the muzzle, Lieutenant Beverley," Helm ordered with admirable firmness, the purple flush in his face giving way to a grayish pallor. "We are going to die right here, or have the honors of war."

Beverley obeyed without a word. He even loaded two guns instead of one--charging each so heavily that the last wad looked as if ready to leap from the grimy mouth.

Helm had already begun, on receiving the first report, a hasty letter to Colonel Clark at Kaskaskia. He now added a few words and at the last moment sent it out by a trusted man, who was promptly captured by Hamilton's advance guard. The missive, evidently written in installments during the slow approach of the British, is still in the Canadian archives, and runs thus:

"Dear Sir--At this time there is an army within three miles of this place; I heard of their coming several days beforehand. I sent spies to find the certainty--the spies being taken prisoner I never got intelligence till they got within three miles of town. As I had called the militia and had all a.s.surances of their integrity I ordered at the firing of a cannon every man to appear, but I saw but few. Captain Buseron behaved much to his honor and credit, but I doubt the conduct of a certain gent. Excuse haste, as the army is in sight. My determination is to defend the garrison, (sic) though I have but twenty-one men but what has left me. I refer you to Mr. Wmes (sic) for the rest. The army is within three hundred yards of the village. You must think how I feel; not four men that I really depend upon; but am determined to act brave--think of my condition. I know it is out of my power to defend the town, as not one of the militia will take arms, though before sight of the army no braver men. There is a flag at a small distance, I must conclude.

"Your humble servant,

"Leo'd Helm. Must stop."

"To Colonel Clark."

Having completed this task, the letter shows under what a nervous strain, Helm turned to his lieutenant and said:

"Fire a swivel with a blank charge. We'll give these weak-kneed parly-voos one more call to duty. Of course not a frog-eater of them all will come. But I said that a gun should be the signal. Possibly they didn't hear the first one, the d.a.m.ned, deaf, cowardly hounds!"

Beverley wheeled forth the swivel and rammed a charge of powder home.

But when he fired it, the effect was far from what it should have been.

Instead of calling in a fresh body of militia, it actually drove out the few who up to that moment had remained as a garrison; so that Captain Helm and his Lieutenant found themselves quite alone in the fort, while out before the gate, deployed in fine open order, a strong line of British soldiers approached with st.u.r.dy steps, led by a tall, erect, ruddy-faced young officer.

CHAPTER IX

THE HONORS OF WAR

Gaspard Roussillon was thoroughly acquainted with savage warfare, and he knew all the pacific means so successfully and so long used by French missionaries and traders to control savage character; but the emergency now upon him was startling. It confused him. The fact that he had taken a solemn oath of allegiance to the American government could have been pushed aside lightly enough upon pressing occasion, but he knew that certain confidential agents left in Vincennes by Governor Abbott had, upon the arrival of Helm, gone to Detroit, and of course they had carried thither a full report of all that happened in the church of St. Xavier, when Father Gibault called the people together, and at the fort, when the British flag was hauled down and la banniere d'Alice Roussillon run up in its place. His expansive imagination did full credit to itself in exaggerating the importance of his part in handing the post over to the rebels. And what would Hamilton think of this? Would he consider it treason? The question certainly bore a tragic suggestion.

M. Roussillon lacked everything of being a coward, and treachery had no rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the habit of fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills that he could not at first glance see any sudden presentment with a normal vision. He had no love for Englishmen and he did like Americans, but he naturally thought that Helm's talk of fighting Hamilton was, as his own would have been in a like case, talk and nothing more. The fort could not hold out an hour, he well knew. Then what? Ah, he but too well realized the result.

Resistance would inflame the English soldiers and madden the Indians.

There would be a ma.s.sacre, and the belts of savages would sag with b.l.o.o.d.y scalps. He shrugged his shoulders and felt a chill creep up his back.

The first thing M. Roussillon did was to see Father Beret and take counsel of him; then he hurried home to dig a great pit under his kitchen floor in which he buried many bales of fur and all his most valuable things. He worked like a giant beaver all night long. Meantime Father Beret went about over the town quietly notifying the inhabitants to remain in their houses until after the fort should surrender, which he was sure would happen the next day.

"You will be perfectly safe, my children," he said to them. "No harm can come to you if you follow my directions."

Relying implicitly upon him, they scrupulously obeyed in every particular.

He did not think it necessary to call at Roussillon place, having already given M. Roussillon the best advice he could command.

Just at the earliest break of day, while yet the gloom of night scarcely felt the sun's approach, a huge figure made haste along the narrow streets in the northern part of the town. If any person had been looking out through the little holes, called windows, in those silent and rayless huts, it would have been easy to recognize M. Roussillon by his stature and his gait, dimly outlined as he was. A thought, which seemed to him an inspiration of genius, had taken possession of him and was leading him, as if by the nose, straight away to Hamilton's lines.

He was freighted with eloquence for the ear of that commander, and as he strode along facing the crisp morning air he was rehearsing under his breath, emphasizing his periods in tragic whispers with sweeping gestures and liberal facial contortions. So absorbed was he in his oratorical soliloquy that he forgot due military precaution and ran plump into the face of a savage picket guard who, without respect for the great M. Roussillon's dignity, sprang up before him, grunted cavernously, flourished a tomahawk and spoke in excellent and exceedingly guttural Indian:

"Wah, surrender!"

It is probable that no man ever complied with a modest request in a more docile spirit than did M. Roussillon upon that occasion. In fact his promptness must have been admirable, for the savage grunted approval and straightway conducted him to Hamilton's headquarters on a batteau in the river.

The British commander, a hale man of sandy complexion and probably under middle age, was in no very pleasant humor. Some of his orders had been misunderstood by the chief of his Indian allies, so that a premature exposure of his approach had been made to the enemy.

"Well, sir, who are you?" he gruffly demanded, when M. Roussillon loomed before him.

"I am Gaspard Roussillon, the Mayor of Vincennes," was the lofty reply.

"I have come to announce to you officially that my people greet you loyally and that my town is freely at your command." He felt as important as if his statements had been true.

"Humph, that's it, is it? Well, Mr. Mayor, you have my congratulations, but I should prefer seeing the military commander and accepting his surrender. What account can you give me of the American forces, their numbers and condition?"

M. Roussillon winced, inwardly at least, under Hamilton's very undeferential air and style of address. It piqued him cruelly to be treated as a person without the slightest claim to respect. He somehow forgot the rolling and rhythmical eloquence prepared for the occasion.

"The American commander naturally would not confide in me, Monsieur le Gouverneur, not at all; we are not very friendly; he ousted me from office, he offended me--" he was coughing and stammering.

"Oh, the devil! what do I care? Answer my question, sir," Hamilton gruffly interrupted. "Tell me the number of American troops at the fort, sir."

"I don't know exactly. I have not had admittance to the fort. I might be deceived as to numbers; but they're strong, I believe, Monsieur le Gouverneur, at least they make a great show and much noise."

Hamilton eyed the huge bulk before him for a moment, then turning to a subaltern said:

"Place this fellow under guard and see that he doesn't get away. Send word immediately to Captain Farnsworth that I wish to see him at once."

The interview thereupon closed abruptly. Hamilton's emissaries had given him a detailed account of M. Roussillon's share in submitting Vincennes to rebel dominion, and he was not in the least inclined toward treating him graciously.

"I would suggest to you, Monsieur le Gouverneur, that my official position demands--" M. Roussillon began; but he was fastened upon by two guards, who roughly hustled him aft and bound him so rigidly that he could scarcely move finger or toe.

Hamilton smiled coldly and turned to give some orders to a stalwart, ruddy young officer who in a canoe had just rowed alongside the batteau.

"Captain Farnsworth," he said, acknowledging the military salute, "you will take fifty men and make everything ready for a reconnaissance in the direction of the fort. We will move down the river immediately and choose a place to land. Move lively, we have no time to lose."

In the meantime Beverley slipped away from the fort and made a hurried call upon Alice at Roussillon place. There was not much they could say to each other during the few moments at command. Alice showed very little excitement; her past experience had fortified her against the alarms of frontier life; but she understood and perfectly appreciated the situation.

"What are you going to do?" Beverley demanded in sheer despair. He was not able to see any gleam of hope out of the blackness which had fallen around him and into his soul.

"What shall you do?" he repeated.