The Reckoning Part 27

"What did they say?" I asked curiously.

"They said, 'Mr. Renault is a rich young man who thinks more of his clothes than he does of politics, and is safer than a guinea wig-stand!'"

His face was perfectly grave, but the astonished chagrin on my countenance set his keen eyes glimmering, and in a moment more we both went off into fits of laughter.

"Lord, sir!" he exclaimed, dusting his eyes with a lace handkerchief, "what a man we lost when you lost your head! Why on earth did you affront Walter Butler?"

I leaned forward, emphasizing every point with a noiseless slap on my knee, and recounted minutely and as frankly as I could every step which led to the first rupture between Walter Butler and myself. He followed my story, intelligent eyes fixed on me, never losing an accent, a shade of expression, as I narrated our quarrel concerning the matter of the Oneidas, and how I had forgotten myself and had turned on him as an Iroquois on a Delaware, a master on an insolent slave.

"From that instant he must have suspected me," I said, leaning back in my chair. "And now, Colonel Hamilton, my story is ended, and my usefulness, too, I fear, unless his Excellency will find for me some place--perhaps a humble commission--say in the dragoons of Major Talmadge----"

"You travel too modestly," said Hamilton, laughing. "Why, Mr. Renault, any bullet-headed, reckless fellow who has done as much as you have done may ask for a commission and have it, too. Look at me! I never did anything, yet they found me good enough for a gun captain, and they gave me a pair o' cannon, too. But, sir, there are other places with few to fill them--far too few, I a.s.sure you. Why, what a shame to set you with a noisy, galloping herd of helmets, chasing skinners and cowboys with a brace of gad-a-mercy pistols in your belt!--what a shame, I say, when in you there lie talents we seek in vain for among the thousand and one numskulls who can drill a battalion or maneuver a brigade!"

"What talents?" I asked, astonished.

"Lord! he doesn't even suspect them!" cried Hamilton gaily. "I wish you might meet a few of our talented brigadiers and colonels; _they_ have no doubts concerning their several abilities!" Then, suddenly serious: "Listen, sir. You know the north; you were bred and born to a knowledge of the Iroquois, their language, character, habits, their intimate social conditions, nay, you are even acquainted with what no other living white man comprehends--their secret rites, their clan and family laws and ties, their racial instincts, their most sacred rituals! You are a sachem! Sir William Johnson was one, but he is dead. Who else living, besides yourself, can speak to the Iroquois with clan authority?"

"I do not know," I said, troubled. "Walter Butler may know something of the Book of Rites, because he was raised up in place of some dead Delaware dog!--" I clinched my hand, and stood silent in angry meditation. Lifting my eyes I saw Hamilton watching me, amazed, interested, delighted.

"I ask your indulgence," I said, embarra.s.sed, "but when I think of the insolence of that fellow--and that he dared call me brother and claim clan kindred with a Wolf--the yellow Delaware mongrel!--" I laughed, glancing shamefacedly at Colonel Hamilton.

"In another moment," I said, "you will doubt there is white blood in me. It is strange how faithfully I cling to that dusky foster-mother, the nation that adopted me. I was but a lad, Colonel Hamilton, and what the Oneidas saw in me, or believed they saw, I never have accurately learned--I do not really know to this day!--but when a war-chief died they came to my father, asking that he permit them to adopt me and raise me up. The ceremony took place. I, of course, never lived with them--never even left my own roof--but I was adopted into the Wolf Clan, the n.o.ble clan of the Iroquois. And--I have never forgotten it--nor them. What touches an Oneida touches me!"

He nodded gravely, watching me with bright eyes.

"To-day the Long House is not the Five Nations," I continued. "The Tuscaroras are the Sixth Nation; the Delawares now have come in, and have been accepted as the Seventh Nation. But, as you know, the Long House is split. The Onondagas are sullenly neutral--or say they are--the Mohawks, Cayugas, Senecas, are openly leagued against us; the Oneidas alone are with us--what is left of them after the terrible punishment they received from the Mohawks and Senecas."

"And now you say that the Iroquois have determined to punish the Oneidas again?"

"Yes, sir, to annihilate them for espousing our cause. And," I added contemptuously, "Walter Butler dared believe that I would sit idle and never lift a warning finger. True, I am first of all a Wolf--but next am I an Oneida. And, as I may not sit in national council with my clan to raise my voice against this punishment, and, as the Long House is rent asunder forever, why, sir, I am an Oneida first of all--after my allegiance to my own country--and I shall so conduct that Walter Butler and the Delaware dogs of a cleft and yellow clan will remember that when an Oneida speaks, they remain silent, they obey!"

I began to pace the chamber, arms folded, busy with my thoughts.

Hamilton sat buried in meditation for a s.p.a.ce. Finally he arose, extending his hand with that winning frankness so endearing to all. I asked him to dine with us, but he excused himself, pleading affairs of moment.

"Listen, Mr. Renault. I understand that his Excellency has certain designs upon your amiability, and he most earnestly desires you to remain here at the Blue Fox until such time as he summons you or sends you orders. You are an officer of Tryon County militia, are you not?"

"Only ensign in the Rangers, but I never have even seen their colors, much less carried them."

"You know Colonel Willett?"

"I have that very great honor," I said warmly.

"It _is_ an honor to know such a man. Excepting Schuyler, I think he is the bravest, n.o.blest gentleman in County Tryon." He walked toward the door, head bowed in reflection, turned, offered his hand again with a charming freedom, and bowed himself out.

Pride and deepest grat.i.tude possessed my heart that his Excellency should have found me worthy of his august commendation. In my young head rang the words of Colonel Hamilton. I stood in the center of the sunny room, repeating to myself the wonderful message, over and over, until it seemed my happiness was too great to bear alone; and I leaned close to the dividing door, calling "Elsin! Elsin! Are you awake?"

A sleepy voice bade me enter, and I opened the door and stood at the sill, while the brightly flowered curtains of her bed rustled and twitched. Presently she thrust a sleepy head forth, framed in chintz roses--the flushed face of a child, drowsy eyes winking at the sunbeams, powdered hair twisted up in a heavy knot.

"Goodness me," she murmured, "I am so hungry--so sleepy--" She yawned shamelessly, blinked with her blue eyes, looked at me, and smiled.

"What o'clock is it, Carus?" she began; then a sudden consternation sobered her, and she cried, "Oh, I forgot where we are! Mercy! To think that I should wake to find myself a runaway! Carus, Carus, what in the world is to become of me now? Where are we, Carus?"

"At the Blue Fox, near North Castle," I said gaily. "Why, Elsin--why, child, what on earth is the matter?"--for the tears had rushed to her eyes, and her woful little face quivered. A single tear fell, then the wet lashes closed.

"O Carus! Carus!" she said, "what will become of me? You did it--you made me do it! I've run away with you--why did you make me do it? Oh, why, why?"

Dumb, miserable, I could only look at her, finding no word of comfort--amazed, too, that the feverish spirit, the courage, the amazing energy of the night before had exhaled, distilling now in the tears which dazed me.

"I don't know why I came here with you," she whimpered, eyes closed on her wet cheeks--"I must have been mad to do so. What will they say?--what will Rosamund say? Why don't you speak to me, Carus? Why don't you tell me what to do?"

And this from that high-strung, nerveless maid who had matured to womanhood in the crisis of the night before--seizing command of a menacing situation through sheer effrontery and wit, compelling fate itself to swerve aside as she led our galloping horses through the slowly closing gates of peril.

Her head drooped and lay on the edge of the bed pillowed by the flowered curtains; she rubbed the tears from her eyes with white fingers, drawing a deep, unsteady breath or two.

I had found my voice at last, a.s.suring her that all was well, that she should have a flag when she desired it, that here n.o.body knew who she was, and that when she was dressed I was ready to discuss the situation and do whatever was most advisable.

"If there's a scandal," she said dolefully, "I suppose I must ask a flag at once."

"That would be best," I admitted.

"But there's no scandal yet," she protested.

"Not a breath!" I cried cheerfully. "You see, we have the situation in our own hands. Where is that wit, where is that gay courage you wore like magic armor through the real perils of yesterday?"

"Gone," she said, looking up at me. "I don't know where it is--I--I was not myself yesterday. I was frightened--terror spurred me to things I never dreamed of when I thought of you hanging there on the Common----"

"You blessed child!" I cried, dropping on one knee beside her.

She laid her hand on my head, looking at me for a long while in silence.

"I can not help it," she said. "I really care nothing for what folk say. All this that we have done--and my indiscretion--nay, that we have run away and I am here with you--all this alarms me not at all.

Indeed," she added earnestly, "I do truly find you so agreeable that I should have fretted had you gone away alone. Now I am honest with myself and you, Carus--this matter has sobered me into gravest reflection. I have the greatest curiosity concerning you--I had from the very first--spite of all that childish silliness we committed. I don't know what it is about you that I can not let you go until I learn more of you. Perhaps I shall--we have a week here before a flag goes north, have we not?" she asked navely.

"The flag goes at your pleasure, Elsin."

"Then it is my pleasure that we remain a while--and see--and see--" she murmured, musing eyes fixed on the sunny window. "I would we could fall in love, Carus!"

"We are pledged to try," I said gaily.

"Aye, we must try. Lord-a-mercy on me, for my small head is filled with silliness, and my heart beats only for the vain pleasure of the moment.

A hundred times since I have known you, Carus, I would have sworn I loved you--then something that you say or do repels me--or something, perhaps, of my own inconstancy--and only that intense curiosity concerning you remains. That is not love, is it?"

"I think not."

"Yet look how I set my teeth and drove blindly full tilt at Destiny when I thought you stood in peril! Do women do such things for friendship's sake?"

"Men do--I don't know. You are a faultless friend, at any rate. And on that friendship we must build."