Alice of Old Vincennes Part 42

Beverley leaned upon a rude fence, and for a time neglected to reload his hot rifle. Of course he was thinking of Alice,--he really could not think in any other direction; but it gave him a shock and a start when he presently heard her name mentioned by a little Frenchman near him on the left.

"There'll never be another such a girl in Post Vincennes as Alice Roussillon," the fellow said in the soft creole patois, "and to think of her being shot like a dog!"

"And by a man who calls himself a Governor, too!" said another. "Ah, as for myself, I'm in favor of burning him alive when we capture him.

That's me!"

"Et moi aussi," chimed in a third voice. "That poor girl must be avenged. The man who shot her must die. Holy Virgin, but if Gaspard Roussillon were only here!"

"But he is here; I saw him just after dark. He was in great fighting temper, that terrible man. Ouf! but I should not like to be Colonel Hamilton and fall in the way of that Gaspard Roussillon!"

"Morbleu! I should say not. You may leave me out of a chance like that!

I shouldn't mind seeing Gaspard handle the Governor, though. Ah, that would be too good! He'd pay him up for shooting Mademoiselle Alice."

Beverley could scarcely hold himself erect by the fence; the smoky, foggy landscape swam round him heavy and strange. He uttered a groan, which brought Oncle Jazon to his side in a hurry.

"Qu' avez-vous? What's the matter?" the old man demanded with quick sympathy. "Hev they hit ye? Lieutenant, air ye hurt much?"

Beverley did not hear the old man's words, did not feel his kindly touch.

"Alice! Alice!" he murmured, "dead, dead!"

"Ya-as," drawled Oncle Jazon, "I hearn about it soon as I got inter town. It's a sorry thing, a mighty sorry thing. But mebby I won't do a little somepin' to that--"

Beverley straightened himself and lifted his gun, forgetting that he had not reloaded it since firing last. He leveled it at the fort and touched the trigger. Simultaneously with his movement an embrasure opened and a cannon flashed, its roar flanked on either side by a crackling of British muskets. Some bullets struck the fence and flung splinters into Oncle Jazon's face. A cannon ball knocked a ridge pole from the roof of a house hard by, and sent it whirling through the air.

"Ventrebleu!--et apres? What the devil next? Better knock a feller's eyes out!" the old man cried. "I ain't a doin' nothin' to ye!"

He capered around rubbing his leathery face after the manner of a scalded monkey. Beverley was struck in the breast by a flattened and spent ball that glanced from a fence-picket. The shock caused him to stagger and drop his gun; but he quickly picked it up and turned to his companion.

"Are you hurt, Oncle Jazon?" he inquired. "Are you hurt?"

"Not a bit--jes' skeert mos' into a duck fit. Thought a cannon ball had knocked my whole dang face down my throat! Nothin' but a handful o'

splinters in my poorty count'nance, makin' my head feel like a porc'-pine. But I sort o' thought I heard somepin' give you a diff."

"Something did hit me," said Beverley, laying a hand on his breast, "but I don't think it was a bullet. They seem to be getting our range at last. Tell the men to keep well under cover. They must not expose themselves until we are ready to charge."

The shock had brought him back to his duty as a leader of his little company, and with the funeral bell of all his life's happiness tolling in his agonized heart he turned afresh to directing the fire upon the block-house.

About this time a runner came from Clark with an order to cease firing and let a returning party of British scouts under Captain Lamothe re-enter the fort unharmed. A strange order it seemed to both officers and men; but it was implicitly obeyed. Clark's genius here made another fine strategic flash. He knew that unless he let the scouts go back into the stockade they would escape by running away, and might possibly organize an army of Indians with which to succor Hamilton. But if they were permitted to go inside they could be captured with the rest of the garrison; hence his order.

A few minutes pa.s.sed in dead silence; then Captain Lamothe and his party marched close by where Beverley's squad was lying concealed. It was a difficult task to restrain the creoles, for some of them hated Lamothe. Oncle Jazon squirmed like a snake while they filed past all unaware that an enemy lurked so near. When they reached the fort, ladders were put down for them and they began to clamber over the wall, crowding and pushing one another in wild haste. Oncle Jazon could hold in no longer.

"Ya! ya! ya!" he yelled. "Look out! the ladder is a fallin' wi' ye!"

Then all the lurking crowd shouted as one man, and, sure enough, down came a ladder--men and all in a crashing heap.

"Silence! silence!" Beverley commanded; but he could not check the wild jeering and laughing, while the bruised and frightened scouts hastily erected their ladder again, fairly tumbling over one another in their haste to ascend, and so cleared the wall, falling into the stockade to join the garrison.

"Ventrebleu!" shrieked Oncle Jazon. "They've gone to bed; but we'll wake 'em up at the crack o' day an' give 'em a breakfas' o' hot lead!"

Now the fighting was resumed with redoubled spirit and noise, and when morning came, affording sufficient light to bring out the "bead sights"

on the Kentucky rifles, the matchless marksmen in Clark's band forced the British to close the embrasures and entirely cease trying to use their cannon; but the fight with small arms went merrily on until the middle of the forenoon.

Meantime Gaspard Roussillon had tied Francis Maisonville's hands fast and hard with the strap of his bullet-pouch.

"Now, I'll scalp you," he said in a rumbling tone, terrible to hear.

And with his words out came his hunting knife from its sheath.

"O have mercy, my dear Monsieur Roussillon!" cried the panting captive; "have mercy!"

"Mercy! yes, like your Colonel's, that's what you'll get. You stand by that forban, that scelerat, that bandit, and help him. Oh, yes, you'll get mercy! Yes, the same mercy that he showed to my poor little Alice!

Your scalp, Monsieur, if you please! A small matter; it won't hurt much!"

"But, for the sake of old friendship, Gaspard, for the sake--"

"Ziff! poor little Alice!"

"But I swear to you that I--"

"Tout de meme, Monsieur, je vais vous scalper maintenant."

In fact he had taken off a part of Maisonville's scalp, when a party of soldiers, among whom was Maisonville's brother, a brave fellow and loyal to the American cause, were attracted by his cries and came to his rescue.

M. Roussillon struggled savagely, insisting upon completing his cruel performance; but he was at last overpowered, partly by brute force and partly by the pleading of Maisonville's brother, and made to desist.

The big man wept with rage when he saw the bleeding prisoner protected.

"Eh bien! I'll keep what I've got," he roared, "and I'll take the rest of it next time."

He shook the tuft of hair at Maisonville and glared like a mad bull.

Two or three other members of Lamothe's band were captured about the same time by some of the French militiamen; and Clark, when on his round cheering and directing his forces, discovered that these prisoners were being used as shields. Some young creoles, gay with drink and the stimulating effect of fight, had bound the poor fellows and were firing from behind them! Of course the commander promptly put an end to this cruelty; but they considered it exquisite fun while it lasted. It was in broad daylight, and they knew that the English in the fort could see what they were doing.

"It's shameful to treat prisoners in this way," said Clark. "I will not permit it. Shoot the next man that offers to do such a thing!"

One of the creole youths, a handsome, swarthy Adonis in buckskin, tossed his shapely head with a debonair smile and said:

"To be sure, mon Colonel! but what have they been doing to us? We have amused them all winter; it's but fair that they should give us a little fun now."

Clark shrugged his broad shoulders and pa.s.sed on. He understood perfectly what the people of Vincennes had suffered under Hamilton's brutal administration.

At nine o'clock an order was pa.s.sed to cease firing, and a flag of truce was seen going from Clark's headquarters to the fort. It was a peremptory demand for unconditional surrender. Hamilton refused, and fighting was fiercely resumed from behind rude breastworks meantime erected. Every loop-hole and opening of whatever sort was the focus into which the unerring backwoods rifles sent their deadly bullets. Men began to fall in the fort, and every moment Hamilton expected an a.s.sault in force on all sides of the stockade. This, if successful, would mean inevitable ma.s.sacre. Clark had warned him of the terrible consequences of holding out until the worst should come. "For," said he in his note to the Governor, "if I am obliged to storm, you may depend upon such treatment as is justly due to a murderer."

Historians have wondered why Hamilton became so excited and acted so strangely after receiving the note. The phrase, "justly due to a murderer," is the key to the mystery. When he read it his heart sank and a terrible fear seized him. "Justly due to a murderer!" ah, that calm, white, beautiful girlish face, dead in the moonlight, with the wisp of shining hair across it! "Such treatment as is justly due to a murderer!" Cold drops of sweat broke out on his forehead and a shiver went through his body.

During the truce Clark's weary yet still enthusiastic besiegers enjoyed a good breakfast prepared for them by the loyal dames of Vincennes.

Little Adrienne Bourcier was one of the handmaidens of the occasion.

She brought to Beverley's squad a basket, almost as large as herself, heaped high with roasted duck and warm wheaten bread, while another girl bore two huge jugs of coffee, fragrant and steaming hot. The men cheered them l.u.s.tily and complimented them without reserve, so that before their service was over their faces were glowing with delight.

And yet Adrienne's heart was uneasy, and full of longing to hear something of Rene de Ronville. Surely some one of her friends must know something about him. Ah, there was Oncle Jazon! Doubtless he could tell her all that she wanted to know. She lingered, after the food was distributed, and shyly inquired.