Alice of Old Vincennes Part 17

"Take the chances of war," she said, smiling gravely. "It will all come out well, no doubt."

"I hope so, but--but I fear not."

His face was gray with trouble. "Helm is determined to fight, and that means--"

"Good!" she interrupted with spirit. "I am so glad of that. I wish I could go to help him! If I were a man I'd love to fight! I think it's just delightful."

"But it is reckless bravado; it is worse than foolishness," said Beverley, not feeling her mood. "What can two or three men do against an army?"

"Fight and die like men," she replied, her whole countenance lighting up. "Be heroic!"

"We will do that, of course; we--I do not fear death; but you--you--"

His voice choked him.

A gun shot rang out clear in the distance, and he did not finish speaking.

"That's probably the beginning," he added in a moment, extending both hands to her. "Good bye. I must hurry to the fort. Good bye."

She drew a quick breath and turned so white that her look struck him like a sudden and hard blow. He stood for a second, his arms at full reach, then:

"My G.o.d, Alice, I cannot, cannot leave you!" he cried, his voice again breaking huskily.

She made a little movement, as if to take hold of his hands: but in an instant she stepped back a pace and said:

"Don't fear about me. I can take care of myself. I'm all right. You'd better return to the fort as quickly as you can. It is your country, your flag, not me, that you must think of now."

She folded her arms and stood boldly erect.

Never before, in all his life, had he felt such a rebuke. He gave her a straight, strong look in the eyes.

"You are right, Alice." he cried, and rushed from the house to the fort.

She held her rigid att.i.tude for a little while after she heard him shut the front gate of the yard so forcibly that it broke in pieces, then she flung her arms wide, as if to clasp something, and ran to the door; but Beverley was out of sight. She turned and dropped into a chair.

Jean came to her out of the next room. His queer little face was pale and pinched; but his jaw was set with the expression of one who has known danger and can meet it somehow.

"Are they going to scalp us?" he half whispered presently, with a shuddering lift of his distorted shoulders.

Her face was buried in her hands and she did not answer. Childlike he turned from one question to another inconsequently.

"Where did Papa Roussillon go to?" he next inquired. "Is he going to fight?"

She shook her head.

"They'll tear down the fort, won't they?"

If she heard him she did not make any sign.

"They'll kill the Captain and Lieutenant and get the fine flag that you set so high on the fort, won't they, Alice?"

She lifted her head and gave the cowering hunchback such a stare that he shut his eyes and put up a hand, as if afraid of her. Then she impulsively took his little misshapen form in her arms and hugged it pa.s.sionately. Her bright hair fell all over him, almost hiding him.

Madame Roussillon was lying on a bed in an adjoining room moaning diligently, at intervals handling her rosary and repeating a prayer.

The whole town was silent outside.

"Why don't you go get the pretty flag down and hide it before they come?" Jean murmured from within the silken meshes of Alice's hair.

In his small mind the gaudy banner was the most beautiful of all things. Every day since it was set up he had gone to gaze at it as it fluttered against the sky. The men had frequently said in his presence that the enemy would take it down if they captured the fort.

Alice heard his inquisitive voice; but it seemed to come from far off; his words were a part of the strange, wild swirl in her bosom.

Beverley's look, as he turned and left her, now shook every chord of her being. He had gone to his death at her command. How strong and true and brave he was! In her imagination she saw the flag above him, saw him die like a panther at bay, saw the gay rag s.n.a.t.c.hed down and torn to shreds by savage hands. It was the tragedy of a single moment, enacted in a flashlight of antic.i.p.ation.

She released Jean so suddenly that he fell to the floor. She remembered what she had said to Beverley on the night of the dance when they were standing under the flag.

"You made it and set it up," he lightly remarked; "you must see that no enemy ever gets possession of it, especially the English."

"I'll take it down and hide it when there's danger of that," she said in the same spirit.

And now she stood there looking at Jean, without seeing him, and repeated the words under her breath.

"I'll take it down and hide it. They shan't have it."

Madame Roussillon began to call from the other room in a loud, complaining voice; but Alice gave no heed to her querulous demands.

"Stay here, Jean, and take care of Mama Roussillon," she presently said to the hunchback. "I am going out; I'll be back soon; don't you dare leave the house while I'm gone; do you hear?"

She did not wait for his answer; but s.n.a.t.c.hing a hood-like fur cap from a peg on the wall, she put it on and hastily left the house.

Down at the fort Helm and Beverley were making ready to resist Hamilton's attack, which they knew would not be long deferred. The two heavily charged cannon were planted so as to cover the s.p.a.ce in front of the gate, and some loaded muskets were ranged near by ready for use.

"We'll give them one h.e.l.l of a blast," growled the Captain, "before they overpower us."

Beverley made no response in words; but he was preparing a bit of tinder on the end of a stick with which to fire the cannon. Not far away a little heap of logs was burning in the fort's area.

The British officer, already mentioned as at the head of the line advancing diagonally from the river's bank, halted his men at a distance of three hundred yards from the fort, and seemed to be taking a deliberately careful survey of what was before him.

"Let 'em come a little nearer, Lieutenant," said Helm, his jaw setting itself like a lion's. "When we shoot we want to hit."

He stooped and squinted along his gun.

"When they get to that weedy spot out yonder," he added, "just opposite the little rise in the river bank, we'll turn loose on 'em."

Beverley had arranged his primitive match to suit his fancy, and for probably the twentieth time looked critically to the powder in the beveled touch-hole of his old cannon. He and Helm were facing the enemy, with their backs to the main area of the stockade, when a well known voice attracted their attention to the rear.

"Any room for a feller o' my size in this here crowded place?" it demanded in a cracked but cheerful tenor. "I'm kind o' outen breath a runnin' to git here."

They turned about. It was Oncle Jazon with his long rifle on his shoulder and wearing a very important air. He spoke in English, using the backwoods lingo with the ease of long practice.

"As I's a comin' in f'om a huntin' I tuck notice 'at somepin' was up. I see a lot o' boats on the river an' some fellers wi' guns a scootin'

around, so I jes' slipped by 'em all an' come in the back way. They's plenty of 'em, I tell you what! I can't shoot much, but I tuck one chance at a buck Indian out yander and jes' happened to hit 'im in the lef' eye. He was one of the gang 'at scalped me down yander in Kaintuck."