The Grey Cloak Part 73

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE EPIC OF THE HUNTING HUT

So the amiable dog became a lion, bold, impudent, mocking; the mask was gone forever, both from his face and his desires. He wore his empty scabbard with all the effrontery of a man who had fought and won his first duel. Du Puys had threatened to hang the man who gave the vicomte a sword. As the majority of the colonists were ignorant of what lay behind this remarkable quarrel, they naturally took sides with the man whose laugh was more frequent than his frown. Thus, the vicomte still shuffled the ebon dominoes of a night and sang out jovially, "Doubles!" Whenever the man he had so basely wronged pa.s.sed him, he spat contemptuously and cried: "See, Messieurs, what it is to be without a sword!" And as for Brother Jacques, it was: "And how is Monsieur Jacques's health this fine morning?" or "What a handsome rogue of a priest you are!" or "Can you tell me where I may find a sword?" He laughed at D'Herouville, and bantered the poet on his silence,--the poet whose finer sense and intuition had distrusted the vicomte from the first.

One day madame came out to feed the mission's chickens. Her hand swung to and fro, and like a stream of yellow gold the sh.e.l.led corn trailed through the air to the ground. The fowls cl.u.s.tered around her noisily.

She was unaware of the vicomte, who leaned against the posts of the palisade.

There was in his glance which said: "Madame, I offered to make you my wife; now I shall make you something less." And seeing the Chevalier stirring inside the fort, he mused: "My faith, but that old marquis must have had an eye. The fellow's mother must have been a handsome wench."

Once the vicomte came secretly upon D'Herouville, Fremin, Pauquet, and the woodsman named The Fox because of his fiery hair and beard, peaked face and beady eyes. When the party broke up, the vicomte emerged from his hiding place, wearing a smile which boded no good to whatever plot or plan D'Herouville had conceived. And that same night he approached each of D'Herouville's confederates and spoke. What pa.s.sed only they themselves knew; but when the vicomte left them they were irrevocably his.

"Eye of the bull!" murmured Corporal Fremin, "but this vicomte is much of a man. As for the Chevalier, what the devil! his fingers have been sunken into my throat."

A mile from the mission, toward the north, of the lake, stood a hut of Indian construction. It had been erected long before the mission. It served as a half-way to the savages after days of hunting in the northern confines of the country of the Onondagas. Here the savages would rest of a night before carrying the game to the village in the hills. It was well hidden from the eyes, thick foliage and vines obscuring it from the view of those at the mission. But there was a well worn path leading to it. It was here that tragedy entered into the comedy of these various lives.

Indian summer. The leaves rustled and sighed upon the damp earth. The cattails waved their brown ta.s.sels. Wild ducks pa.s.sed in dark flocks.

A stag sent a challenge across the waters. The lord-like pine looked lordlier than ever among the dismantled oak and maple. The brown nuts pattered softly to the ground, and the chatter of the squirrel was heard. The Chevalier stood at the door of the hunting hut, and all the varying glories of the dying year stirred the latent poetry in his soul. In his hand he held a slip of paper which he read and reread.

There was a mixture of joy and puzzlement in his eyes. Diane. It had a pleasant sound; what had she to say that necessitated this odd trysting place? He glanced at the writing again. Evidently she had written it in a hurry. What, indeed, had she to say? They had scarce exchanged a word since the day in the hills when he told her that she was not honest.

A leaf drifted lazily down from the overhanging oak, and another and still another; and he listened. There was in the air the ghostly perfume of summer; and he breathed. He was still young. Sorrow had aged his thought, not his blood; and he loved this woman with his whole being, dishonest though she might be. He carried the note to his lips.

She would be here at four. What she had to tell him must be told here, not at the settlement. There was the woman and the caprice. Strange that she had written when early that morning it had been simple to speak. And the Indian who had given him the note knew nothing.

He entered the hut and looked carelessly around. A rude table stood at one side. On the top of it Victor had carved his initials. The Chevalier's eyes filled. Brave poet! Always ready with the jest, light of heart and cheery, gentle and tender, brave as a lion, too.

Here was a man such as G.o.d intended all men to be. A beggar himself, he gave his last crown to the beggar; undismayed, he would borrow from his friend, paying the crown back in golden louis. How he loved the lad! Only that morning he had romped about the mess-room like a boy escaped from the school-room; imitated Mazarin, Uncle Gaston, the few great councillors, and the royal actors themselves. Even the austere visage of the Father Superior had relaxed and Du Puys had roared with laughter. What was this sudden chill? Or was it his fancy? He stepped into the open again, and found it warm.

"She will be here soon. It is after four. What can she have to say?"

Even as he spoke he heard a sound. It was madame, alone, and she was hurrying along the path. A moment later and they stood together before the threshold of the hut. There was mutual embarra.s.sment which was difficult to a.n.a.lyze. The exertion of the walk had filled her cheeks with a color as brilliant as the bunch of maple leaves which she had fastened at her throat. She was first to speak.

"Well, Monsieur," not over warmly, "what is it you have to say to me which necessitates my coming so far? I believed we had not much more to say." There was no distrust in her eyes, only a cold inquiry. "Are you going to apologize for applying to me the term 'dishonest'?"

The joy vanished from his face, to be replaced by an anxiety which lightened the tan on his cheeks. "Madame, it was your note which brought me here. Read it."

"A clumsy imitation," quickly; "it is not my writing. I suppose, then, that this is also a forgery?" handing him a note which was worded identically the same as his own, "Some one has been playing us a sorry trick." She was angered.

"Let us go back immediately, Madame. We stand in the midst of some secret danger."

But even as he spoke she uttered a suppressed cry and clutched his arm.

The Chevalier saw four men advancing with drawn swords. They formed a semicircle around the hut, cutting off all avenues of escape. Quickly he thrust madame into the hut, whipped out his blade, bared his arm, and waited just inside the doorway. Everything was plain to him. Eh!

well, some one would take the journey with him; he would not set out alone. And madame! He was unnerved for a moment.

"Diane," he said, "forgive me as easily as I forgive you," he said quietly. "And pray for us both. I shall be too busy."

She fell upon her knees, folding her hands across her heaving bosom.

Her lips moved, but without sound. She saw, possibly, farther into this dark design than the Chevalier. Women love brave men, even as brave men love woman's beauty; and persistently into her prayers stole the thought that this man who was about to defend her honor with his life was among the bravest. A sob choked her.

"D'Herouville, you black scoundrel, why do you come so slowly?"

challenged the Chevalier. "The single window is too small for a man to crawl through. Think you to pa.s.s this way?"

"I am going to try!" cried D'Herouville, triumphantly. How well everything had turned out. "Now, men, stand back a little; there will be some sword play."

"I'll engage the four of you in the open, if madame is permitted to go free." The Chevalier urged, this simply to gain time. He knew what the answer would be.

D'Herouville appealed to Corporal Fremin. "Is that not an excellent joke, my Corporal?"

"Eye of the bull, yes!"

"Ho! D'Herouville, wait for me!"

Madame sprang to her feet screaming: "Vicomte, save us!" She flew to the door.

"Back, Madame," warned the Chevalier, "or you will have me killed."

With his left arm he barred the door.

"Have patience, sweet bird, whom I shall soon take to an eery nest. To be sure I shall save you!" From behind a clumb of hazel the vicomte came forth, a sword in his hand.

It was the tone, not the words, which enveloped madame's heart in a film of ice. One way or the other, it did not matter, she was lost.

"Guard the Chevalier, men!" cried D'Herouville, wheeling. "We shall wipe out all bad debts while we are at it. D'Halluys, look to yourself!"

"You fat head!" laughed the vicomte, parrying in a circle. "Did I not tell you that I should kill you?"

Had he been alone the Chevalier would have rushed his opponents. G.o.d help madame when he fell, for he could not kill all these men; sooner or later he must fall. The men made no attempt to engage him. They merely held ready in case he should make a rush.

With the fury of a maddened bull, D'Herouville engaged the vicomte. He was the vicomte's equal in all save generalship. The vicomte loved, next to madame, the game of fence, and he loved it so thoroughly that his coolness never fell below the level of his superb courage.

Physically, there was scarce a hair's difference in the weight of the two men. But a parried stroke, or a nicely balked a.s.sault, stirred D'Herouville's heat; if repeated the blood surged into his head, and he was often like to throw caution to the winds. Once his point scratched the vicomte's jaw.

"Very good," the vicomte admitted, lunging in flanconade. His blade grated harshly against D'Herouville's hilt. It was close work.

They disengaged. D'Herouville's weapon flashed in a circle. The vicomte's parry was so fine that his own blade lay flat against his side.

"Count, you would be wonderful if you could keep cool that fat head of yours. That is as close as I ever expect to come and pull out."

Presently the end came. D'Herouville feinted and thrust for the throat. Quick as a wind-driven shadow the vicomte dropped on a knee; his blade taking an acute angle, glided under D'Herouville's arm and slid noiselessly into the broad chest of his opponent, who opened his mouth as if to speak, gasped, stumbled and fell upon his face, dead.

The vicomte sank his blade into the earth to cleanse it.

Madame had covered her eyes. The Chevalier, however, had watched the contest, but without any sign of emotion on his face. He had nothing to do but wait. He had gained some advantage; one of these men would be tired.

The vicomte came within a yard of the hut, and stopped. He smiled evilly and twisted his mustache. By the att.i.tude of the men, the Chevalier could see that the vicomte had outplanned D'Herouville.

"Chevalier," the vicomte began softly, "for me this is the hour of hours. You will never learn who your mother was. Gabrielle, sweet one with the shadowful eyes, you once asked me why this fellow left France.

I will tell you. His father is Monsieur le Marquis de Perigny, but his mother . . . who can say as to that?"

He could see the horror gather and grow in madame's eyes, but he misinterpreted it.