The Shadow of the North Part 22

"Correct. I see that you remember what I told you, as you have quoted almost my exact words. And now, lads, be seated, while I order refreshments for you."

"We thank you, sir," said Robert, "but 'tis less than an hour since we almost ate ourselves to death at the house of Mynheer Jacobus Huysman."

"A good man, Jacob, but too fat, and far too brusque in speech, especially to the young. I'll warrant me he has been addressing upbraiding words to you, finding fault, perhaps, with your manners and your parts of speech."

The two youths hid their smiles.

"Mynheer Jacobus was very good to us," said Robert. "Just as you are, Master McLean."

"I am not good to you, if you mean by it weakness and softness of heart. Never spoil the young. Speak sternly to them all the time. Use the strap and the rod freely upon them and you may make men of them."

Again Robert and Tayoga hid their smiles, but each knew that he had a soft place in the heart of the crusty teacher, and they spent a pleasant hour with him. That night they slept in their old room at Mynheer Huysman's and two days later they and Willet went on board a sloop for New York, where they intended to see Governor de Lancey. Before they left many more alarming reports about the French and Indians had come to Albany. They had made new ravages in the north and west, and their power was spreading continually. France was already helping her colonists. When would England help hers?

But Robert forgot all alarm in the pleasure of the voyage. It was a good sloop, it had a stout Dutch captain, and with a favoring wind they sped fast southward. Pride in the splendid river swelled in Robert's soul and he and Tayoga, despite the cold, sat together on the deck, watching the lofty sh.o.r.es and the distant mountains.

But Willet, anxious of mind, paced back and forth. He had seen much at Albany that did not please him. The Indian Commissioners were doing little to cement the alliance with the Hodenosaunee. The Mohawks, alone of the great League, were giving aid against the French. The others remained in their villages, keeping a strict neutrality. That was well as far as it went, but the hunter had hoped that all the members of the Hodenosaunee would take the field for the English. He believed that Father Drouillard would soon be back among the Onondagas, seeking to sway his converts to France, and he dreaded, too, the activity and persistency of St. Luc.

But he kept his anxieties from Robert, knowing how eagerly the lad antic.i.p.ated his arrival in New York, and not blaming him at all for it, since New York, although inferior in wealth, size and power to Philadelphia, and in leadership to Boston, was already, in the eye of the prophets, because of its situation, destined to become the first city of America. And Willet felt his own pulses beat a little faster at the thought of New York, a town that he knew well, and already a port famous throughout the world.

Tayoga, although he wore his Indian dress, attracted no particular attention from Captain Van Zouten and his crew. Indians could be seen daily at Albany, and along the river, and they had been for generations a part of American life. Captain Van Zouten, in truth, noticed the height and fine bearing of the Onondaga, but he was a close mouthed Dutchman, and if he felt like asking questions he put due Dutch restraint upon himself.

The wind held good all day long, and the sloop flew southward, leaving a long white trail in the blue water, but toward night it rose to a gale, with heavy clouds that promised snow. Captain Hendrick Van Zouten looked up with some anxiety at his sails, through which the wind was now whistling, and, after a consultation with his mate, decided to draw into a convenient cove and anchor for the night.

"I'm sorry," he said to Willet, "that our voyage to New York will be delayed, but there'll be nasty weather on the river, and I don't like to risk the sloop in it. But I didn't promise you that I'd get you to the city at any particular time."

"We don't blame wind, weather and water upon you, Captain Van Zouten,"

laughed Willet, "and although I'm no seaman if you'd have consulted me I too would have suggested shelter for the night."

Captain Van Zouten breathed his relief.

"If my pa.s.sengers are satisfied," he said, "then so am I."

All the sails were furled, the sloop was anch.o.r.ed securely in a cove where she could not injure herself, no matter how fiercely the wind might beat, and Robert and Tayoga, wrapped in their fur cloaks, stood on her deck, watching the advance of the fierce winter storm, and remembering those other storms they had pa.s.sed through on Lake Champlain, although there was no danger of Indians here.

It began to snow heavily, and a fierce wind whistled among the mountains behind them, lashing the river also into high waves, but the sloop was a tight, strong craft, and it rocked but little in its snug cove. Despite snow, wind and darkness Robert, Tayoga and the hunter remained a long, time on deck. The Onondaga's feather headdress had been replaced by a fur cap, similar to those now worn by Robert and Willet, and all three were wrapped in heavy cloaks of furs.

Robert was still thinking of New York, a town that he knew to some extent, and yet he was traveling toward it with a feeling akin to that with which he had approached Quebec. It was in a way and for its time a great port, in which many languages were spoken and to which many ships came. Despite its inferiority in size it was already the chief window through which the New World looked upon the Old. He expected to see life in the seething little city at the mouth of the Hudson and he expected also that a crisis in his fortunes would come there.

"Dave," he said to the hunter, "have you any plans for us in New York?"

"They've not taken very definite shape," replied Willet, "but you know you want to serve in the war, and so do I. A great expedition is coming out from England, and in conjunction with a Colonial force it will march against Fort Duquesne. The point to which that force advances is bound to be the chief scene of action."

"And that, Dave, is where we want to go."

"With proper commissions in the army. We must maintain our dignity and station, Robert."

"Of course, Dave. And you, Tayoga, are you willing to go with us?"

"It is far from the vale of Onondaga," replied the young Indian, "but I have already made the great journey to Quebec with my comrades, Dagaeoga and the Great Bear. I am willing to see more of the world of which I read in the books at Albany. If the fortunes of Dagaeoga take him on another long circle I am ready to go with him."

"Spoken like a warrior, Tayoga," said the hunter. "I have some influence, and if we join the army that is to march against Fort Duquesne I'll see that you receive a place befitting your Onondaga rank and your quality as a man."

"And so that is settled," said Robert. "We three stand together no matter what may come."

"Stand together it is, no matter what may come," said Willet.

"We are, perhaps, as well in one place as in another," said Tayoga philosophically, "because wherever we may be Manitou holds us in the hollow of his hand."

A great gust of wind came with a shriek down one of the gorges, and the snow was whipped into their faces, blinding them for a moment.

"It is good to be aboard a stout sloop in such a storm," said Robert, as he wiped his eyes clear. "It would be hard to live up there on those cliffs in all this driving white winter."

A deep rumbling sound came back from the mountains, and he felt a chill that was not of the cold creep into his bones.

"It is the wind in the deep gorges," said Tayoga, "but the winds themselves are spirits and the mountains too are spirits. On such a wild night as this they play together and the rumbling you hear is their voices joined in laughter."

Robert's vivid mind as usual responded at once to Tayoga's imagery, and his fancy went as far as that of the Onondaga, and perhaps farther. He filled the air with spirits. They lined the edge of the driving white storm. They flitted through every cleft and gorge, and above every ridge and peak. They were on the river, and they rode upon the waves that were pursuing one another over its surface. Then he laughed a little at himself.

"My fancy is seeing innumerable figures for me," he said, "where my eyes really see none. No human being is likely to be abroad on the river on such a night as this."

"And yet my own eyes tell me that I do see a human being," said Tayoga, "one that is living and breathing, with warm blood running in his veins."

"A living, breathing man! where, Tayoga?"

"Look at the sloping cliff above us, there where the trees grow close together. Notice the one with the boughs hanging low, and by the dark trunk you will see the figure. It is a tall man with his hat drawn low over his eyes, and a heavy cloak wrapped closely around his body."

"I see him now, Tayoga! What could a man want at such a place on such a night? It must be a farmer out late, or perhaps a wandering hunter!"

"Nay, Dagaeoga, it is not a farmer, nor yet a wandering hunter. The shoulders are set too squarely. The figure is too upright. And even without these differences we would be sure that it is not the farmer, nor yet the wandering hunter, because it is some one else whom we know."

"What do you mean, Tayoga?"

"Look! Look closely, Dagaeoga!"

"Now the wind drives aside the white veil of snow and I see him better. His figure is surely familiar!"

"Aye, Dagaeoga, it is! And do you not know him?"

"St. Luc! As sure as we live, Tayoga, it's St. Luc."

"Yes," said the hunter, who had not spoken hitherto. "It's St. Luc, and I could reach him from here with a rifle shot."

"But you must not! You must not fire upon him!" exclaimed Robert.

Willet laughed.

"I wasn't thinking of doing so," he said. "And now it's too late. St. Luc has gone."