Montlivet Part 26

"Keep close to the camp," I said hoa.r.s.ely. "No, I know of no danger.

But keep close to the camp."

Her glance came back to me. "Ah, you do think there is danger! But, monsieur, of yourself---- If there is peril for me there must be more for you."

She looked at me fully, with no fear in her eyes, but with quick, intelligent concern. She stood beside me in the dusk, as wife should stand with husband, and feared for my safety and forgot her own. Yet I dared not touch her hand. I lifted my sword and slammed it in its scabbard.

"There is no danger," I said, with stupid brusqueness. "I am over-anxious. I bid you good-night, madame."

I went to the Malhominis with haste pushing me, for I hoped for news of Starling. I pressed forward, yet I recoiled. There would be cross-threads to untangle when I met my wife's cousin.

It was wonderful voyaging to the Malhominis. Their village was near the mouth of a river, and they were close bound with great rice swamps that gave them their name. Our low canoe burrowed through a tunnel of green as we nosed our way up to their camp. Birds fluttered in the tangle, and fish bubbled to the surface under our paddles. I did not wonder that I found the tribe as well fed as summer beavers. But I learned nothing from them. They were a good-natured people, as running over with talk as idle women, and they a.s.sured me that I was the first white man they had seen since the moon of worms. We talked of the Huron situation at Michillimackinac, but they said nothing of having seen a warrior of that tribe, so I made sure that Pemaou had not been with them. I swallowed relief and disappointment. They said that a small company of Sacs was encamped to the north, and that Father Nouvel was with them. So after a few days I went on.

A waft of fetid air on a hot day will bring the smell of that Sac camp to me even now. The Sacs were a migratory, brutish people, who s.n.a.t.c.hed at life red-handed and growling, and as I squatted in their dirty hovels, I lost, like a dropped garment, all sense of the wonder and freedom of my wilderness life. Suddenly all the forest seemed squalid, and a longing for the soft ease and cleanliness of civilization came on me like a wave. But I hid the feeling, and lingered, though my welcome was but slight. Even my small cask of brandy failed to buy their smiles, and it was only when I talked of war that they listened. They were a useless people on the water, for they could not handle canoes, but land warfare was their meat. So I talked long.

I found Father Nouvel among them, his delicate old face shining white and serene amid their grime. I fell upon him eagerly, but he could tell me nothing. He had left the Pottawatamies the day after the wedding, and had heard no rumors of any Englishman. I did not take him into my confidence. He had outlived the time when the abstract terms "ambition" and "patriotism" had meaning to him. The story of my hopes would have tinkled in his ears like the blarings of a child's trumpet.

But in one matter he questioned me.

"Your wife,--should you not have brought her with you, monsieur?"

I felt piqued. "But her comfort, Father Nouvel!"

He looked me over. "I think somehow that she would prefer your company to her own comfort," he said, and when I did not answer he looked troubled. When he bade me good-by, he spoke again.

"Your wife came strangely near my heart. You are giving her a hard life. You will be patient with her, monsieur?"

I bowed, for I did not wish to answer. Mine was a real marriage to Father Nouvel. I thought of the look in the priest's eyes as he made us man and wife, and of the voices of the Indian women as they chanted of life and marriage, and I shut my teeth on a sudden feeling of bitterness. A man may be counted rich yet know himself to be a pauper.

I never saw Father Nouvel again. If he were living now I would go far to meet him.

It was a long day's travel back to Sturgeon Cove, and night had fallen before we wound our pa.s.sage around the curves of the bay and saw the clear eye of the evening fire burning steadily on the sh.o.r.e. Our double trip had taken eleven days, and for me the time had lagged. I had carried an unreasoning weight of oppression, and the shout that I gave at sight of the black figures around the blaze was an outburst of relief.

My company flung themselves at the sh.o.r.e, and all talked at once.

"For three days we have watched," Singing Arrow scolded.

The woman stood near, and I went to her. "Have you watched for three days?" I asked, with my lips on her hand.

"Yes," she said, and then I felt ashamed, for her eyes looked worn and troubled.

"Forgive me, madame," I murmured, though I scarcely knew for what, and I felt embarra.s.sed and without words.

"I will stay here to-morrow," I said stupidly, and when she said that she was glad, it did not seem to me that she meant it. I saw her no more that night.

But with the fresh morning I forgot all chill. We lingered over a breakfast of broiled ba.s.s, and the woman showed me a canoe that Simon had made for her. Simon was the deft-fingered member of my crew, and he had fashioned a fairy craft. I saw that it would carry two, and I said to the woman that we would take it, and have a day of idleness together. I feared she might demur, but she did not. Indeed, she suddenly laughed out like a child without much reason, and there was that in the sound that satisfied me, until I swore at the men and their blundering to keep down my own joy.

We took materials for lunch and started before the dew was dry. The woman showed me her new skill with the paddle, and I praised her without care for my conscience. We went slowly and we talked much.

Yet we talked only of the birds and the woods and the paddling. Never of ourselves.

At noon we landed in a pocket of an inlet on the south side of the cove toward its mouth. There was a wonderful meadow there with tiger lilies burning like blood and a giant sycamore leaning to the water. I cooked a venison steak on hot stones, and we had maize cakes and wild berries and water from a spring. We sat alone at meat as we had never done.

After lunch the woman sat under the sycamore and I lay at her feet. I looked up at her till her eyes dropped.

"Madame," I whispered, "madame, you were vexed with me last night."

She forced her glance to mine. "Monsieur, I had been terribly anxious for three days. When I saw you"----

A sun ray fell across her face, and I took my hat and held it between her and the light. "You did not finish," I said. "I will help you.

When you saw that I was safe you were vexed that I had not come earlier and so saved you anxiety? Is that what you were about to say, madame?"

She turned to smile and shake her head at my seriousness. She fought down her rising color and held her head like a gallant boy.

"I was unreasonable," she said. "Please forget it. Did your trading prosper, monsieur?"

But I would not shift my eyes. "I shall try not to vex you again in that way. I did not think--except of my own anxiety. Let me tell you what I have been doing. I have been trading, yes, but I have also"----

"Careful, monsieur!"

"I wish you to know. Madame, I am succeeding in my intriguing among the tribes. I talk more than I trade. You would smile at my rhetoric and call me a mountebank, but I am succeeding. I tell the tribes that when more than one Englishman reaches here the whole race will follow and will overflow the hunting grounds as a torrent does the lowlands.

I tell them the English will bring the Iroquois. I show them that the French are their only protection. They listen, for what I say is not new. It has been talked around their fires for a long time, but the tribes are not powerful enough to act alone, and they have lacked a leader who could unite them. I think that they will follow me if I call them to war, madame!"

She looked at me steadily. "War upon whom, monsieur?"

"War upon the Iroquois. Upon the English if they venture near."

"And you tell me this because"----

"Because I wish sincerity between us."

My hat lay at her feet, and she pressed its sorry plume between her fingers. "Monsieur, if you had heard news of Lord Starling during this last week you would have told me at once."

"I should have told you at once, madame. I am glad you introduced this matter. Does your mind still hold? Or do you now think that we should seek your cousin?"

Again she lowered her eyes, but I did not miss the sudden flash in them. "My cousin chose his path. Why need we interfere? Have you--have you theories as to where he can be?"

I flicked my finger at a wandering robin. "I am as guiltless of theories as that bird. It is pa.s.sing strange. Your cousin and our ghostly Huron seem to have gone up in vapor."

"Our ghostly Huron, monsieur?"

I planted my elbows on the gra.s.s that I might face her. "Listen, madame. It is time you knew the story of Pemaou." And thereupon I recited all that had happened between the Huron and myself from the day when we had played at shuttlec.o.c.k with spears till the night when he had shadowed us at the Pottawatamie camp,--the night before our wedding. I even told her of the profile in his pouch.

She winced at that. "Why did you not tell me before?"

"It seemed useless to alarm you."

"But you tell me now."

I smiled at her. "I know you better. It seems fitting to tell you everything now, madame."

She looked at me with a frown of worry. "Monsieur, you are in danger from that Huron. He hates you if you humbled him."