Forge In The Forest Part 16

The river soon became a wide estuary, with arms and indentations, -- a harbour fit to hold a hundred fleets. Straight down mid-channel I steered, the shortest course to the mouth. But by and by there sprang up a light head-wind, delaying me.

"Wake up, comrade," I cried. "I need your good arm now, against this breeze!"

She had slept there an hour, and she woke now with a childlike flush in her cheeks.

"How good of you to let me sleep so," she exclaimed, turning to give me a grateful glance. But the expression upon her face changed instantly to one of fear, and the colour all went out.

"Oh, look behind us!" she gasped. I had not indeed waited for her words. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught sight of a large canoe, with four savages paddling furiously. The one glimpse was enough.

"Now, comrade, work!" said I. "But steady! not too hard! This is a long chase, remember!" and I bent mightily to the paddle.

Our pursuers were a good half-mile behind; and had we not been already wearied, I believe we could have held our own with them all day. Our canoe was light and swift, Mizpah paddled rarely, and for myself, I have never yet been beaten, by red man or white, in a fair canoe-race. But as it was, I felt that we must win by stratagem, if the saints should so favour us as to let us win at all. Half a mile ahead, on our right, was a high point. Behind it, as I knew, was a winding estuary of several branches, each the debouchement of a small stream. It was an excellent place in which to evade pursuers. I steered for the high point.

As we darted behind its shelter, a backward glance told me that our enemies had not gained upon us. The moment we were hidden from their view I put across to the other side of the channel, ran the canoe behind a jutting boulder, and leapt out. Not till we were concealed, canoe and all, behind a safe screen of rocks and underbrush, did Mizpah ask my purpose, though she plainly marvelled that I should hide so close to the entrance.

"A poor and something public hiding-place is often the most secret," said I. "The Indians know that up this water there are a score of turns, and backwaters, and brook-mouths, wherein we might long evade them. As soon as they saw us turn in here, they doubtless concluded that the water was well known to me, and that I would hope to baffle them in the inner labyrinths and escape up one of the streams. They will never dream of us stopping here."

"I see!" she exclaimed eagerly. "When they have pa.s.sed in to look for us, we will slip out, and push on." It was haste she thought of rather than escape. No moment pa.s.sed, I think, when her whole will, her whole being, were not focussed upon the finding of the child. And the more I realized the intensity of her love and her pain, the more I marvelled at the heroic self-control which forbade her to waste her strength in tears and wailings. The conclusion at which she had now arrived, as to my plan, was one I had not thought of, and I considered it before replying.

"No," said I, presently; "that is not quite my purpose, though I confess it is a good one. But, comrade, this is a safe ambush! They must pa.s.s within close gunshot of us!"

"Oh," she cried, paling, and clasping her hands, "must there be more blood? But yes, they bring it on themselves," she went on with a sudden fierceness, flushing again, and her mouth growing cruel. "They would keep us from finding him. Their blood be on their own heads!"

"I am glad you think of that," said I. "They would have no mercy for us if they should take us now. But indeed, if it will please you to have it so, we need not shoot them down. We can treat them to such a medicine as they had before of me, sink their canoe, and leave them like drowned rats on the other sh.o.r.e."

"Yes," said Mizpah, quietly; "if that will do as well, it will please me much better."

And so it was agreed. A very few minutes later the canoe appeared, rounding into the estuary. The savages scanned both sh.o.r.es minutely, but rather from the habit of caution than from any thought that we might have gone to land. If, however, I had not taken care to make my landing behind a boulder, those keen eyes would have marked some splashed spots on the shingle, and we would have been discovered.

But no such evil fortune came about. The four paddles flashed onward swiftly. The four fierce, painted and feathered heads thrust forward angrily, expecting to overtake us in one of the inner reaches. I took up Mizpah's musket (which was loaded with slugs, while my own carried a bullet, in case I should be called upon for a long and delicate shot), and waited until the canoe was just a little more than abreast of us. Then, aiming at the waterline, just in front of the bow paddle, I fired.

The effect was instant and complete. The savage in the bow threw up his paddle with a scream and sprang over-board.

He was doubtless wounded, and feared a second shot. We saw him swimming l.u.s.tily toward the opposite sh.o.r.e. The others paddled desperately in the same direction, but before they had gone half-way the canoe was so deep in the water that she moved like a log.

Then they, too, seized with the fear of a second shot, sprang overboard. By this time I had the musket reloaded.

"If they get the canoe ash.o.r.e, with their weapons aboard her," said I, "they will soon get her patched up, and we will have it all to do over again. Here goes for another try, whatever heads may be in the way!"

Mizpah averted her face, but made no protest, and I fired at the stern of the canoe, which was directly toward me. A swimmer's head, close by, went down; and in a minute more the canoe did likewise. Three feathered heads remained in sight; and presently three dark figures dragged themselves ash.o.r.e -- one of them limping badly -- and plunged into the woods.

"Without canoe or guns," said I, "they are fairly harmless for a while." But Mizpah, as we re-embarked and headed again for the sea, said nothing. I think that in her bosom, at this time, womanly compa.s.sion was striving, and at some disadvantage, with the vindictiveness of outraged motherhood. I think -- and I loved her the better for it -- she was glad I had killed one more of her child's enemies; but I think, too, she was filled with shame at her gladness.

Chapter XVII.

A Night in the Deep.

ONCE fairly out again into the harbour, I saw two things that were but little to my satisfaction. Far away up the river were three more canoes. I understood at once that the savages whom we had just worsted were the mere vanguard of the Black Abbe's attack. The newcomers, however, were so far behind that I had excellent hopes of eluding them. The second matter that gave me concern was the strong head-wind that had suddenly arisen. The look of the sky seemed to promise, moreover, that what was now a mere blow might soon become a gale. It was already kicking up a sea that hindered us. Most women would have been terrified at it, but Mizpah seemed to have no thought of fear. We pressed on doggedly. There was anger ahead, I knew, -- a very serious anger, which would tax all my skill to overcome. But the danger behind us was the more menacing. I felt that there was nothing for it but to face the storm and force a pa.s.sage around the cape.

This accomplished, -- if we could accomplish it, -- I knew our pursuers would not dare to follow.

About sundown, though the enemy had drawn perceptibly nearer, I concluded that we must rest and gather our strength. I therefore ran in behind a little headland, the last shelter we could hope for until we should get around the cape. There we ate a hearty meal, drank from a tiny spring, and lay stretched flat on the sh.o.r.e for a quarter of an hour. Then, after an apprehensive look at the angry sea, and a prayer that was earnest enough to make up for some scantness in length, I cried:-

"Come now, comrade, and be brave."

"I am not afraid, Monsieur," she answered quietly.

"If anything happens, I know It will not be because you have failed in anything that the bravest and truest of men could hope to do."

"I think that G.o.d will help us," said I. That some one greater than ourselves does sometimes help us in such perils, I know, whatever certain hasty men who speak out of a plentiful lack of experience may declare to the contrary. But whether this help be a direct intervention of G.o.d himself, or the succour of the blessed saints or the watchful care of one's guardian spirit, I have never been able to conclude to my own satisfaction: And very much thought have I given to the matter by times, lying out much under the stars night after night, and carrying day by day my life in my hands. However it might be, I felt sustained and comforted as we put out that night. The storm was now so wild that it would have been perilous to face in broad daylight and with a strong man at the bow paddle.

Yet I believed that we should win through. I felt that my strength, my skill, my sureness of judgment, were of a sudden made greater than I could commonly account them.

But whatever strength may have been graciously vouchsafed to me that night, I found that I needed it all. The night fell not darkly, but with a clear sky, and the light of stars, and a diffused glimmer from the white crests of the waves. The gale blew right on sh.o.r.e, and the huge roar of the surf thundering in our ears seemed presently to blunt our sense of peril.

The great waves now hung above us, white-crested and hissing, till one would have said we were in the very pit of doom. A moment more, and the light craft would seem to soar upward as the wave slipped under it, a wrenching turn of my wrist would drive her on a slant through the curling top of foam, and then we would slide swiftly into the pit again, down a steep slope of purplish blackness all alive with fleeting eyes of white light. The strain upon my wrist, the mighty effort required at each wave lest we should broach to and be rolled over, were something; that I had never dreamed to endure. Yet I did endure it. And as for the brave woman in the bow, she simply paddled on, steadily, strongly, without violence, so that I learned to depend on her for just so much force at each swift following crisis. For there was a new crisis every moment, -- with a moment's grace as we slipped into each succeeding pit. At last we found ourselves off the cape, -- and then well out into the open Strait, yet not engulfed. A little, -- just as much as I durst, and that was very little, -- I shifted our course toward south. This brought a yet heavier strain upon my wrist, but there was no help for it if we would hope to get beyond the cape. How long we were I know not. I lost the sense of time. I had no faculty left save those that were in service now to battle back destruction.

But at last I came to realize that we were well clear of the cape, that the sound of the breakers had dwindled, and that the time had come to turn. To turn?

Ay, but could it be done?

It could but be tried. To go on thus much longer was, I knew, impossible. My strength would certainly fail by and by.

"Comrade," said I, -- and my voice sounded strange, as if long unused, -- "keep paddling steadily as you are, but the moment I say 'change,' paddle _hard_ on the other side."

"Yes, Monsieur!" she answered as quietly as if we had been walking in a garden.

I watched the approach of one of those great waves which would, as I knew, have as vast a fellow to follow upon it. As soon as we were well over the crest I began to turn.

"Change!" I shouted. And Mizpah's paddle flashed to the other side. Down we slanted into the pit. We lay at the bottom for a second, broadside on, -- then we got the little craft fairly about as she rose. A second more, and the wind caught us, and completed the turn, -- and the next crest was fairly at my back. I drew a huge breath, praising G.o.d and St. Joseph; and we ran in toward the hollow of the land before us. That part of the coast was strange to me, save as seen when pa.s.sing by ship; but I trusted there would be some estuary or some winding, within which we might safely come to land.

The strain was now different, and therefore my nerves and muscles felt a temporary relief; but it was still tremendous. There was still the imminent danger of broaching to as each wave-crest seized and twisted the frail craft. But having the wind behind me, I had of course more steerage way; and therefore a more instant and effective control. We ran on straight before the wind, but a few points off; and with desperate anxiety I peered ahead for some hint of shelter on that wild lee sh.o.r.e. Mizpah, of course, knew the unspeakable strain of wielding the stern paddle in such a sea.

"Are you made of steel, Monsieur?" she presently asked.

"I can hardly believe it possible that the strength of human sinews should endure so long."

"Mine, alas, will not endure much longer, comrade,"

said I.

"And what then?" she asked, in a steady voice.

"I do not know," said I; "but there is lope. I think we have not been brought through all this for nothing."

The roar of the breakers grew louder and louder again, as we gradually neared the high coast which seemed to slip swiftly past on our right hand. It was black and appalling, serried along the crest with tops of fir trees, white along the base with the great gnashing of the breakers. As we ran into the head of the bay, with yet no sign of a shelter, the seas got more perilous, being crowded together and broken so that I could not calculate upon them. Soon they became a mad smother; and I knew my strength for this bout had but little longer to last.

"The end!" said I; "but we may win through! I will catch you when the crash comes." And some blind prayer, I know not what, kept repeating and repeating in the inward silence of my soul. New strength seemed then to flow upon nerve and sinew, -- and I descried, almost ahead of us, a s.p.a.ce of smooth and sloping beach up which the seas rushed without rock to shatter them.

"This is our chance," I shouted. A wave came, smoother and more whole than most, and paddling desperately I kept awhile upon the crest of it. Then like a flash it curled thinly, rolled the canoe over, and hurled us far up on the beach. Half blinded, half stunned, and altogether choking, I yet kept my wits; and catching Mizpah by the arm, I dragged her violently forward beyond reach of the next wave. Dropping her without a word, I turned back, and was just in time to catch the rolling canoe. It, too, I succeeded in dragging to a place of safety; but it was so shattered and crushed as to be useless. The muskets however, were in it; for I had taken care to lash them under the bars before leaving the shelter of the inlet.

The remnants of the canoe I hauled far up on the beach, and then I returned to Mizpah, who lay in utter exhaustion just where I had dropped her, so close to the water's edge that she was splashed by the spray of every wave.

"Come, comrade," I said, lifting her gently. "The saints have indeed been kind to us." But she made no reply. Leaning heavily upon me, and moving as if in a dream, she let me lead her to the edge of the wood, where the herbage began behind a sort of windrow of rocks. There, seeing that the rocks shut off the wind, I released her, and dropping on the spot, she went at once to sleep. Then I felt myself suddenly as weak as a baby. I had no more care for anything save to sleep.

I tried to pluck a bunch of herbage to put under Mizpah's head for a pillow; but even as I stooped to gather it, I forgot where I was, and the tide of dreams flowed over me.

Chapter XVIII.