Montlivet Part 30

"I will let you go when you tell me the truth. Remember, your men pa.s.sed me this morning."

"I tell you, I came alone."

"Where are your Indians that Cadillac sent with you?"

"I sprained my ankle and they left me."

"Where did they go?"

"How should I know? I tell you they left me."

"Was Pemaou, the Huron, one of them?"

"He was guide. Monsieur, what do you mean?"

I could not answer. My throat was dry as if I breathed a furnace blast. I looked at the canoe under my hands. It was not seaworthy.

"Will your canoe carry two?" I cried.

He nodded. His great rough face was sickly with suspense. "Monsieur, what does this mean?"

I swore at him and at the hour he had made me lose. "Men pa.s.sed me in a fog. They have been hiding here for a day at least. Show me your canoe. We must get to camp. Yes, come with me. Come, show me your canoe."

CHAPTER XX

WHAT I FOUND

Once in the canoe I bade Lord Starling crouch low, and I paddled fiercely. I breathed hard not from exertion, but like a swimmer fighting for his breath. I was submerged in waves of terror, yet I had no name for what I feared. I learned then that there is but one real terror in the world,--fear of the unseen. The man who feels terror of an open foe must be a strange craven.

Lord Starling respected my mood and was silent. He sat warily, shifting his weight to suit the plunging canoe.

"The fog chokes me," he said at length. "How large a camp have you?

Whom did you leave on guard?"

I told him.

"That should be sufficient."

"Not for a concerted attack."

"But who would make a concerted attack?"

I lengthened my stroke till the canoe quivered. "I am not sure. I have been shadowed. I thought it was by your order. I cannot talk and paddle, monsieur."

But I could paddle and think. And always I saw the meadow as we had found it that first day with drifts of white b.u.t.terflies over the flowers, and the woods warm and beckoning. How would the meadow look now?

But when we came to it I thought it looked unchanged, save that the fog made all things sinister. We crashed through the guarding reeds, and I let the canoe drive hard upon the sand. No one was in sight, and a wolf was whining at the edge of the timber. I leaped to the sh.o.r.e.

I think that I called as I stumbled forward. I saw the ashes of a dead fire, and a cask that had held rum lying with the sides and end knocked in. Then I saw a dead body.

I did not hasten then. My feet crawled. The body lay sprawled and limp with its out-stretched fingers clutching. One hand pointed toward the woman's cabin.

I turned the corpse over. It was Simon. His scarlet head was still dripping, but his face was untouched. I saw that he had died despairing, and I laid him back with a prayer on my lips but with the l.u.s.t to kill in my heart.

I went through the cabins quickly but methodically. I think that I made no sound of grief or excitement, but I knew indefinitely that Lord Starling was following me, and that, at horribly measured intervals, he gave short, panting groans. But I did not speak to him, nor he to me.

I spoke for the first time at the woman's cabin. I looked within and saw that it was untouched; then I put out my arm and barred Lord Starling's way.

"I have never stepped in here, and you shall not," I told him with my jaws set, and I think that I struck him across the face, though of that I have never been quite sure.

In my own lodge I found havoc. Bales had been broken open, and my papers were thrown and trampled. Many of the papers were blood-smeared.

I examined every cabin and every bale, then went to the ashes of the camp fire and stood still. Lord Starling followed, and I heard his smothered groan. I took out my knife.

"I shall kill you if you make that noise again," I said.

I think that I spoke quietly, but he stepped back. I saw that he was afraid,--afraid of losing his miserable, mistaken life,--and I laughed.

I laughed for a long time. Hearing myself laugh, I knew that it sounded as if I were near insanity, but I was not. My head had never been clearer.

Perhaps Lord Starling conquered his fear. He came nearer and lifted his magnificent, compelling bulk above me.

"Listen!" he began. "We have been foes; we shall be again; but now we are knit closer than eye and brain in a common cause. I will deal with you with absolute truth as with my own right hand. Tell me. Tell me, in G.o.d's mercy! What do you know? Who did this? What can we do?"

His voice was judicial, but I saw his great frame swaying like a shambling ox. I marveled that he could show emotion. My own body felt dead.

"The woman has been taken away," my stiff, strange voice explained.

"So far they have not harmed her."

"How do you know?"

"There are no marks of struggle. Simon resisted, and they killed him.

The other men surrendered. The Indians wanted prisoners, not scalps."

"Was it Pemaou and his Hurons?"

"Yes."

"You are sure?"

"He left a broken spear in my lodge. There was bad blood between us once, and I broke the spear in two and tossed the pieces at him, telling him to keep them,--to keep them, for we should meet again. I humbled him. Now it is his jest. He is a capable Indian. He seems to have outwitted even you, monsieur."

Because I spoke as one dead he thought I needed leading. He took me by the arm and would have guided me gently to the canoe.

"Come, Monsieur de Montlivet, you must rouse yourself. We must start in pursuit."

I shook him off. "Sit here where it is dry. You need your strength.