The Grey Cloak Part 67

Far away madame discerned the Chevalier and Victor dragging logs toward the palisade. "To the ends of the world!" A fear settled upon her and darkened for the nonce her new-found gaiety. She was paying dearly for her mad caprice. All these months she might have been snug in the Bearn Chateau or in Spain. What lay behind the veil of days to come?

How she hated all these men!

At length Brother Jacques pushed the canoe into the water and came toward the women. He spoke to them cheerily, all the while his melancholy thoughts drawing deeper lines in his face. Madame noted his nervous fingers as they ran up and down his beads, and she was puzzled.

Indeed, this black gown had always puzzled her.

"I must go," he said presently. Whither did not matter; only to get away by himself. He strode rapidly into the eternal twilight of the forest, to cast himself down full length on the earth, to hide his face in his arms, to weep!

Ah, cursed heart to betray him thus! That he should tremble in the presence of a woman, become abstracted, to lose the vigor and continuity of thought . . . to love! Never he stood beside her but his flesh burned again beneath the cool of her arms; never he saw her lips move but he felt the sweet warm breath upon his throat. He wept. Who had loved him save Father Chaumonot? None. Like an eagle at sea, he was alone. G.o.d had given him a handsome face, but He had also given him an alternate--starvation or the robes. He was a beggar; the gown was his subsistence. By and by his sobs subsided, and he heard a voice.

"So the little Father grows weak?" And the Black Kettle leaned against a tree and looked curiously down upon the prostrate figure in black.

"Is he thinking of the house of his fathers; or, has he looked too long upon Onontio's daughter? I have seen; the eagle's eye is not keener than the Black Kettle's, nor his flight swifter than the Black Kettle's thought. Her cheeks are like the red ear; her eyes are like the small blue flower that grows hidden in the forest at springtime; her hair is like the corn that dries in the winter; but she is neither for the Black Kettle nor for his brother who weeps. Why do you wear the black robe, then? I have seen my brother weep! I have seen him face the torture with a smile--and a woman makes him weep!"

Brother Jacques was up instantly. He grasped the brawny arms of the Onondaga and drew him toward him.

"The little Father has lost none of his strength," observed the Onondaga, smiling.

"No, my son; and the tears in his eyes are of rage, not of weakness.

Let Dominique forget what he has seen."

"He has already forgotten. And when will my brother start out for the stone house of Onontio?"

"As soon as possible." Aye, how fared Monsieur le Marquis these days?

"But not alone," said the Black Kettle. "The silence will drive him mad, like a brother of his I knew."

"The Great Master of Breath wills it; I must go alone," said Brother Jacques. He was himself again. The tempest in his soul was past.

"I should like to see Onontio's house again;" and the Indian waited.

"Perhaps; if the good Fathers can spare you."

And together they returned to the sh.o.r.e of the lake. The vibrant song of the bugle stirred the hush. It was five o'clock. The soldiers had finished the day's work, and the settlers had thrown down the ax. All were mustered on the parade ground before the palisade. The lilies of France fluttered at the flagstaff. There were fifty muskets among the colonists, muskets of various makes and shapes. They shone dully in the mean light. Here and there a comparatively new uniform brightened the rank and file. They had been here for more than a year, and the seventeenth of May, the historic date of their departure from Quebec, seemed far away. Few and far between were the notes which came to their ears from the old world, the world they all hoped to see again some day. The drill was a brave sight; for the men went through their manoeuvers with all the pomp of the king's musketeers. A crowd of savages looked on, still awed. But some of the Onondagas laughed or smiled. There was something going on at the Long House in the hills which these Frenchmen knew nothing about. And other warriors watched the scene with the impa.s.siveness of a spider who sees a fly moving toward the web.

The pioneers were hardy men; that some wore skins of beasts, ragged silks and velvets which had once upon a time aired themselves among the fashionable in Paris, and patched and faded uniforms, mattered but little. They were men; and even the Iroquois were impressed by this fact more than any other. Du Puys and Nicot saw that there was no slipshod work; for while the drilling was at present only for show and to maintain awe, the discipline would prove effective in time of need.

Neither of these good soldiers had the faith in the Iroquois which made the Jesuit Fathers so trustful. Who could say that all this was not a huge trap, the lid of which might fall any day?

Madame had wandered off by herself to view the scene from a distance; but her interest soon died away and her thoughts became concerned with her strange fate. She regretted her beauty; for she was conscious that she possessed this physical attribute. It had been her undoing; she had used it in play, to this miserable end. It was only when large drops of rain splashed on her face that she realized where she was or that a storm had burst upon the valley.

"Madame, will you do me the honor to accept my cloak?"

Drearily she inclined her head toward the voice, and became awake to the actualities of the moment. For the speaker was D'Herouville. It was the first opportunity he had found to address her, and he was determined to make the most of it.

"Will you accept my cloak, Madame?" he repeated. "It is raining."

"Accept your cloak? Touch anything which belongs to you? I think not, Monsieur!" She went on. She even raised her face toward the cold, sweet-smelling torrents.

"Madame!"

"Monsieur, is it not a grey cloak which you have to offer?" with sudden inspiration. For madame had been thinking lately of that garment which had played so large a part in her destiny. "Have you not the cloak to offer which made me a widow? Monsieur, the sight of you makes me ill.

Pray, go about your affairs and leave me in peace. Love you? I abhor you. I can not speak in plainer language."

He muttered an oath inarticulately.

"Take care, Madame!" standing in front of her. How easily he might crush the life from that delicate throat! He checked his rage. Within three hundred yards was the palisade. "I would not be here in these cursed wilds but for your sake. You know the persistence of my love; take heed lest you learn the quality of my hate."

"Neither your love nor your hate shall in the future disturb me. There are men yonder. Do you wish me to shame you by calling them?"

"I have warned you!"

He stepped aside, and she pa.s.sed on, the rain drenching her hair and face. His gaze, freighted with love and hate and despair, followed her. She was lost to him. He knew it. She had always been lost to him, only her laughter and her smiles had blinded him to the truth.

Suddenly all that was good in him seemed to die. This woman should be his; since not honestly, dishonestly. Revenge, upon one and all of them, priests, soldiers, and women, and the other three fools whom madame had tricked as she had him. One of his furies seized him. Some men die of rage; D'Herouville went mad. He looked wildly around for physical relief, something upon which to vent his rage. The blood gushed into his brain--something to break, to rend, to mangle. He seized a small sapling, bore it to the ground, put his foot on it and snapped it with ease. He did not care that he lacerated his hands or that the branches flying back scratched his face. He laughed fiercely.

The Chevalier first, that meddling son of the left-hand whom his father had had legitimatized; then the vicomte and the poet. As for madame . . . Yes, yes! That would be it. That would wring her proud heart. Agony long drawn out; agony which turns the hair grey in a single night. That would be it. He could not return to the fort yet; he must regain his calm. Money would buy what he wanted, and the ring on his finger was worth many louis, the only thing of value he had this side of France. But it was enough. A deer fled across his path, and a partridge blundered into his face. They had played him the man in the motley; let them beware of the fool's revenge.

At seven the storm had pa.s.sed. Around the mess-table sat the men, eating. Victor had thrown his grey cloak over the back of his chair.

Occasionally his glance wandered toward madame and Anne. Brother Jacques sat opposite, and the vicomte sat at his side. As they left the table to circle round the fire in the living-room, Victor forgot his cloak, and the vicomte threw it around his own shoulders, intending to follow the poet and join him in a game of dominoes. A spurt of flame crimson-hued his face and flashed over the garment.

Brother Jacques started, his mouth agape.

CHAPTER XXIX

A JOURNEY INTO THE HILLS AND THE TEN LIVRES OF CORPORAL FREMIN

"Madame, you have studiously avoided me." The vicomte twirled his hat.

"And with excellent reason, you will agree."

"You have been here six days, and you have not given me the barest chance of speaking to you." There was a suspicion of drollery in his reproachful tones.

"Monsieur," replied madame, who, finding herself finally trapped with no avenue of escape, quickly adapted herself to the situation, the battle of evasion, "our last meeting has not fully escaped my recollection."

"All is fair in love and war. It came near being a good trick,--that blank paper."

"Not quite so near as might be. It is true that I did not suspect your ruse; but it is also true that I had but one idea and one intention, to gain the paper."

"And supposing it had been real, genuine?"

"Why, then, I should have at least half of it, which would be the same thing as having all of it." Contact with this man always put a delicate edge to her wit and sense of defense. She could not deny a particle of admiration for this strange man, who proceeded toward his ends with the most intricate subterfuge, and who never drew a long face, who accepted rebuffs with smiles and banter.

"You know, Madame, that whatever I have done or shall do is out of love for you."

"I would you were out of love with me!"

"The quality of my love . . ."

"Ah, that is what disturbs me--the quality!" shrewdly.