Alice of Old Vincennes Part 19

He pushed her from him with both hands and hastily crossed himself; but his eyes were laughing.

"You ought to have seen me; I waved the flag at them--at the English--and one young officer took off his hat to me! Oh, Father Beret, it was like what is in a novel. They'll get the fort, but not the banner! Not the banner! I've saved it, I've saved it!"

Her enthusiasm gave a splendor to her countenance, heightening its riches of color and somehow adding to its natural girlish expression an audacious sweetness. The triumphant success of her undertaking lent the dignity of conscious power to her look, a dignity which always sits well upon a young and somewhat immaturely beautiful face.

Father Beret could not resist her fervid eloquence, and he could not run away from her or stop up his ears while she went on. So he had to laugh when she said:

"Oh, if you had seen it all you would have enjoyed it. There was Oncle Jazon squatting behind the little swivel, and there were Captain Helm and Lieutenant Beverley holding their burning sticks over the big cannon ready to shoot--all of them so intent that they didn't see me--and yonder came the English officer and his army against the three.

When they got close to the gate the officer called out: 'Surrender!'

and then Captain Helm yelled back: 'd.a.m.ned if I do! Come another step and I'll blow you all to h.e.l.l in a second!' I was mightily in hopes that they'd come on; I wanted to see a cannon ball hit that English commander right in the face; he looked so arrogant."

Father Beret shook his head and tried to look disapproving and solemn.

Meantime down at the fort Hamilton was demanding the flag. He had seen Alice take it down, and supposed that it was lowered officially and would be turned over to him. Now he wanted to handle it as the best token of his bloodless but important victory.

"I didn't order the flag down until after I had accepted your terms,"

said Helm, "and when my man started to obey, we saw a young lady s.n.a.t.c.h it and run away with it."

"Who was the girl?"

"I do not inform on women," said Helm.

Hamilton smiled grimly, with a vexed look in his eyes, then turned to Captain Farnsworth and ordered him to bring up M. Roussillon, who, when he appeared, still had his hands tied together.

"Tell me the name of the young woman who carried away the flag from the fort. You saw her, you know every soul in this town. Who was it, sir?"

It was a hard question for M. Roussillon to answer. Although his humiliating captivity had somewhat cowed him, still his love for Alice made it impossible for him to give the information demanded by Hamilton. He choked and stammered, but finally managed to say:

"I a.s.sure you that I don't know--I didn't look--I didn't see--It was too far off for me to--I was some-what excited--I--"

"Take him away. Keep him securely bound," said Hamilton. "Confine him.

We'll see how long it will take to refresh his mind. We'll puncture the big windbag."

While this curt scene was pa.s.sing, the flag of Great Britain rose over the fort to the l.u.s.ty cheering of the victorious soldiers.

Hamilton treated Helm and Beverley with extreme courtesy. He was a soldier, gruff, unscrupulous and cruel to a degree; but he could not help admiring the daring behavior of these two officers who had wrung from him the best terms of surrender. He gave them full liberty, on parole of honor not to attempt escape or to aid in any way an enemy against him while they were prisoners.

Nor was it long before Helm's genial and sociable disposition won the Englishman's respect and confidence to such an extent that the two became almost inseparable companions, playing cards, brewing toddies, telling stories, and even shooting deer in the woods together, as if they had always been the best of friends.

Hamilton did not permit his savage allies to enter the town, and he immediately required the French inhabitants to swear allegiance to Great Britain, which they did with apparent heartiness, all save M.

Roussillon, who was kept in close confinement and bound like a felon, chafing lugubriously and wearing the air of a martyr. His prison was a little log pen in one corner of the stockade, much open to the weather, its gaping cracks giving him a dreary view of the frozen landscape through which the Wabash flowed in a broad steel-gray current. Helm, who really liked him, tried in vain to procure his release; but Hamilton was inexorable on account of what he regarded as duplicity in M. Roussillon's conduct.

"No, I'll let him reflect," he said; "there's nothing like a little tyranny to break up a bad case of self-importance. He'll soon find out that he has over-rated himself!"

CHAPTER X

M. ROUSSILLON ENTERTAINS COLONEL HAMILTON

A day or two after the arrival of Hamilton the absent garrison of buffalo hunters straggled back to Vincennes and were duly sworn to demean themselves as lawful subjects of Great Britain. Rene de Ronville was among the first to take the oath, and it promptly followed that Hamilton ordered him pressed into service as a wood-chopper and log-hauler during the erection of a new blockhouse, large barracks and the making of some extensive repairs of the stockade. Nothing could have been more humiliating to the proud young Frenchman. Every day he had to report bright and early to a burly Irish Corporal and be ordered about, as if he had been a slave, cursed at, threatened and forced to work until his hands were blistered and his muscles sore. The bitterest part of it all was that he had to trudge past both Roussillon place and the Bourcier cabin with the eyes of Alice and Adrienne upon him.

Hamilton did not forget M. Roussillon in this connection. The giant orator soon found himself face to face with a greater trial even than Rene's. He was calmly told by the English commander that he could choose between death and telling who it was that stole the flag.

"I'll have you shot, sir, to-morrow morning if you prevaricate about this thing any longer," said Hamilton, with a right deadly strain in his voice. "You told me that you knew every man, woman and child in Vincennes at sight. I know that you saw that girl take the flag--lying does not serve your turn. I give you until this evening to tell me who she is; if you fail, you die at sunrise to-morrow."

In fact, it may be that Hamilton did not really purpose to carry out this blood-thirsty threat; most probably he relied upon M. Roussillon's imagination to torture him successfully; but the effect, as time proved, could not be accurately foreseen.

Captain Farnsworth had energy enough for a dozen ordinary men. Before he had been in Vincennes twelve hours he had seen every nook and corner of its surface. Nor was his activity due altogether to military ardor, although he never let pa.s.s an opportunity to serve the best interests of his commander; all the while his mind was on the strikingly beautiful girl whose saucy countenance had so dazzled him from the roof-top of the fort, what time she wrenched away the rebel flag.

"I'll find her, high or low," he thought, "for I never could fail to recognize that face. She's a trump."

It was not in Alice's nature to hide from the English. They had held the town and fort before Helm came, and she had not found them troublesome under Abbott. She did not know that M. Roussillon was a prisoner, the family taking it for granted that he had gone away to avoid the English. Nor was she aware that Hamilton felt so keenly the disappearance of the flag. What she did know, and it gladdened her greatly, was that Beverley had been well treated by his captor. With this in her heart she went about Roussillon place singing merry s.n.a.t.c.hes of Creole songs; and when at the gate, which still hung lop-sided on account of Beverley's force in shutting it, she came unexpectedly face to face with Captain Farnsworth, there was no great surprise on her part.

He lifted his hat and bowed very politely; but a bold smile broke over his somewhat ruddy face. He spoke in French, but in a drawling tone and with a bad accent:

"How do you do, Mademoiselle; I am right glad to see you again."

Alice drew back a pace or two. She was quick to understand his allusion, and she shrank from him, fearing that he was going to inquire about the flag.

"Don't be afraid," he laughed. "I am not so dangerous. I never did hurt a girl in all my life. In fact, I am fond of them when they're nice."

"I am not in the least afraid," she replied, a.s.suming an air of absolute dismissal, "and you don't look a bit ferocious, Monsieur. You may pa.s.s on, if you please."

He flushed and bit his lip, probably to keep back some hasty retort, and thought rapidly for a moment. She looked straight at him with eyes that stirred and dazzled him. He was handsome in a coa.r.s.e way, like a fine young animal, well groomed, well fed, magnetic, forceful; but his boldness, being of a sort to which she had not been accustomed, disturbed her vaguely and strangely.

"Suppose that I don't pa.s.s on?" he presently ventured, with just a suspicion of insolence in his att.i.tude, but laughing until he showed teeth of remarkable beauty and whiteness. "Suppose that I should wish to have a little chat with you, Mademoiselle?"

"I have been told that there are men in the world who think themselves handsome, and clever, and brilliant, when in fact they are but conceited simpletons," she remarked, rather indifferently, m.u.f.fling herself in her fur wrap. "You certainly would be a fairly good hitching-post for our horses if you never moved." Then she laughed out of the depth of her hood, a perfectly merry laugh, but not in the least flattering to Captain Farnsworth's vanity. He felt the scorn that it conveyed.

His face grew redder, while a flash from hers made him wish that he had been more gracious in his deportment. Here, to his surprise, was not a mere creole girl of the wild frontier.

Her superiority struck him with the force of a captivating revelation, under the light of which he blinked and winced.

She laid a shapely hand on the broken gate and pushed it open.

"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle;" his manner softened as he spoke; "I beg your pardon; but I came to speak to you about the flag--the flag you took away from the fort."

She had been half expecting this; but she was quite unprepared, and in spite of all she could do showed embarra.s.sment.

"I have come to get the flag; if you will kindly bring it to me, or tell me where it is I--"

She quickly found words to interrupt him with, and at the same time by a great effort pulled herself together.

"You have come to the wrong place," she flung in. "I a.s.sure you that I haven't the flag."