The Road to Frontenac Part 26

"And Mademoiselle?"

"I have heard no sound. I think that she still sleeps."

"Softly, then. There has been no disturbance?"

"None. The singing has died down during the last hour. There, you can hear it, M'sieu."

"Yes. But it is only a few voices. It must be that the others are sleeping off the liquor. They will soon awaken."

"Listen."

A musket was fired, and another.

"That is the signal."

The song, which one group after another had taken up all through the night, rose again and grew in volume as one at a time the sleepers aroused and joined the dance. The only sign of the fire was a pillar of thin smoke that rolled straight upward in the still air.

"Father," said Menard, "are the guards about?"

"I have not seen them. I suppose they are wandering within call."

"Then, quickly, before we are seen, help me with this log."

"I do not understand, M'sieu."

"Into the hut with it, and the others, there. If a chance does come,--well, it may be that we shall yet be reduced to holding the hut. These will serve to barricade the door."

They were not disturbed while they rolled the short logs within and piled them at one side of the door, where they could not be seen from the path.

"Quietly, Father," whispered the Captain. He knew that the maid lay sleeping, back among the shadows. "And the presents,--you have packed them away?"

"In my bundle, M'sieu. They will not be harmed."

They returned to the open air, and looked about anxiously for signs of a movement toward the hut; but the irregular street was silent. Here and there, from the opening in the roof of some low building of bark and logs, rose a light smoke.

"They are all at the dance," said Menard. His memory supplied the picture: the great fire, now sunk to heaps of gray ashes, spread over the ground by the feet of those younger braves who had wished to show their hardihood by treading barefoot on the embers; the circle of grunting figures, leaning forward, hatchet and musket in hand, moving slowly around the fire with a shuffling, hopping step; the outer circle of sitting or lying figures, men, women, and children, drunken, wanton, quarrelsome, dreaming of the blood that should be let before the sun had gone; and at one side the little group of old men, beating their drums of wood and skin with a rhythm that never slackened.

The song grew louder, and broke at short intervals into shouts and cries, punctuated with musket-shots.

"They are coming, M'sieu."

The head of the line, still stepping in the slow movement of the dance, appeared at some distance up the path. The Long Arrow was in front, in full war-paint, and wearing the collar of wampum beads.

Beside him was the Beaver. The line advanced, two and two, steadily toward the lodge of the white men.

Menard leaned against the door-post and watched them. His figure was relaxed, his face composed.

"Here are the doctors, Father."

A group of medicine men, wildly clad in skins of beasts and reptiles, with the heads of animals on their shoulders, came running along beside the line, leaping high in the air, and howling.

Menard turned to the priest. "Father, which shall it be,--shall we fight?"

"I do not know, M'sieu. We have no weapons, and it may be, yet, that the Big Throat--"

"Yes, I know."

"And there is the maid, M'sieu."

For the first time since the sunrise the quiet expression left the Captain's face. He was silent for a moment. Then he said:--

"I will go, Father. You must protect her. If anything--if they should dare to touch her, you will--?"

"I will fight them, M'sieu."

"Thank you." Menard held out his hand. They gripped in silence, and turned again toward the Indians, who were now but a hundred yards away.

"They will stop in a moment," said Menard, "and form for the gantlet.

Yes,--see, the Long Arrow holds up his hands." He stood irresolute, looking at the fantastic picture; then he stepped back into the hut.

The maid lay in her blanket on the bench. He stood over her, looking at the peaceful face that rested on her outstretched arm. He took her hand, and said gently:--

"Mademoiselle."

She stirred, and slowly opened her eyes; she did not seem surprised that he should be there clasping tightly her slender hand. He wondered if he had been in her dreams.

"Good-bye, Mademoiselle."

"You--you are going, M'sieu?"

"Yes."

She looked up at him with half-dazed eyes. She was not yet fully awake.

"You must not fear," he said. "They cannot hurt you. You will soon be safe at--at Frontenac."

She was beginning to understand. Then all at once the light came into her eyes, and she clung to his arm, which was still wet with the dew.

"You are not going? They will not take you? Oh, M'sieu, I cannot--you must not!"

She would have said more, but he bent down and kissed her forehead.

Then, with his free hand he unclasped her fingers and went away. At the door he turned. She was sitting on the bench, gazing after him with a look that he never forgot. For all of the unhappiness, the agony, that came to him from those eyes, it was with a lighter heart that he faced the warriors who rushed to seize him.

Every brave, woman, and child that the village could supply was in the double line that stretched away from a point on the path not a hundred yards distant to the long council house, which stood on a slight rise of ground. They were armed with muskets, clubs, knives,--with any instrument which could bruise or, mutilate the soldier as he pa.s.sed, and yet leave life in him for the harder trials to follow. Five warriors, muskets in hand, had come to the hut. They sprang at Menard as he stepped out through the doorway, striking him roughly and holding his elbows behind his back.

A shout went up from the waiting lines, and muskets and clubs were waved in the air. The Captain stepped forward briskly with head erect, scorning to glance at the braves who walked on either side. He knew that they would not kill him in the gantlet; they would save him for the fire. He had pa.s.sed through this once, he could do it again, conscious that every moment brought nearer the chance of a rescue by the Big Throat. Perhaps twenty paces had been covered, and his guardians were prodding him and trying to force him into a run, when he heard a shout from the priest, and then the sounds of a struggle at the hut. He turned his head, but a rude hand knocked it back. Again he heard the priest's voice, and this time, with it, a woman's scream.

The Captain hesitated for a second. The warriors prodded him again, and before they could raise their arms he had jerked loose, s.n.a.t.c.hed a musket from one, and swinging it around his head, sent the two to the ground, one with a cracked skull. Before those in the lines could fairly see what had happened, he was running toward the hut with two captured muskets and a knife. In front of the hut the three other Indians were struggling with Father Claude, who was fighting in a frenzy, and the maid. She was hanging back, and one redskin had crushed her two wrists together in his hand and was dragging her.