Heralds of Empire

by Agnes C. Laut

  CHAPTER VIII

  M. DE RADISSON COMES TO HIS OWN

  The sea was touched to silver by the rising sun--not the warm, red sunof southern climes, nor yet the gold light of the temperate zones, butthe cold, clear steel of that great cold land where all the warringelements challenge man to combat. Browned by the early frosts, with aglint of hoar rime on the cobwebs among the grasses, north, south, andwest, as far as eye could see, were boundless reaches of hill andvalley. And over all lay the rich-toned shadows of early dawn.

  The broad river raced not to meet the sea more swiftly than our pulsesleaped at sight of that unclaimed world. 'Twas a kingdom waiting forits king. And its king had come! Flush with triumph, sniffing thenutty, autumn air like a war-horse keen for battle, stood M. Radissonall impatience for the conquest of new realms. His jewelled sword-hiltglistened in the sun. The fire that always slumbered in the deep-seteyes flashed to life; and, fetching a deep breath, he said a queerthing to Jean and me.

  "'Tis good air, lads," says he; "'tis free!"

  And I, who minded that bloody war in which my father lost his all, knewwhat the words meant, and drank deep.

  But for the screaming of the birds there was silence of death. And,indeed, it was death we had come to disenthrone. M. Radisson issuedorders quick on top of one another, and the sailors swarmed from thehold like bees from a hive. The drum beat a roundelay that set ourblood hopping. There were trumpet-calls back and forth from our shipto the Ste. Anne. Then, to a whacking of cables through blocks, thegig-boats touched water, and all hands were racing for the shore.Godefroy waved a monster flag--lilies of France, gold-wrought on clothof silk--and Allemand kept beating--and beating--and beating the drum,rumbling out a "Vive le Roi!" to every stroke. Before the keelgravelled on the beach, M. Radisson's foot was on the gunwale, and heleaped ashore. Godefroy followed, flourishing the French flag andyelling at the top of his voice for the King of France. Behind, wadingand floundering through the water, came the rest. Godefroy planted theflag-staff. The two crews sent up a shout that startled those strange,primeval silences. Then, M. Radisson stepped forward, hat in hand,whipped out his sword, and held it aloft.

  "In the name of Louis the Great, King of France," he shouted, "in thename of His Most Christian Majesty, the King of France, I takepossession of all these regions!"

  At that, Chouart Groseillers shivered a bottle of wine against theflag-pole. Drums beat, fifes shrieked as for battle, and lusty cheersfor the king and Sieur Radisson rang and echoed and re-echoed from ourcrews. Three times did Allemand beat his drum and three times did wecheer. Then Pierre Radisson raised his sword. Every man dropped toknee. Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and infidels, andriff-raff adventurers who had no religion but what they swore by, bowedtheir heads to the solemn thanks which Pierre Radisson uttered for safedeliverance from perilous voyage. [1]

  That was my first experience of the fusion which the New World makes ofOld World divisions. We thought we had taken possession of the land.No, no, 'twas the land had taken possession of us, as the New Worldever does, fusing ancient hates and rearing a new race, of which--Iwot--no prophet may dare too much!

  "He who twiddles his thumbs may gnaw his gums," M. Radisson was wont tosay; and I assure you there was no twiddling of thumbs that morning.Bare had M. Radisson finished prayers, when he gave sharp command forGroseillers, his brother-in-law, to look to the building of theHabitation--as the French called their forts--while he himself would goup-stream to seek the Indians for trade. Jean and Godefroy and I weresent to the ship for a birch canoe, which M. Radisson had brought fromQuebec.

  Our leader took the bow; Godefroy, the stern; Jean and I, the middle.A poise of the steel-shod steering pole, we grasped our paddles, adownward dip, quick followed by Godefroy at the stern, and out shot thecanoe, swift, light, lithe, alert, like a racer to the bit, with agurgling of waters below the gunwales, the keel athrob to the swirl ofa turbulent current and a trail of eddies dimpling away on each side.A sharp breeze sprang up abeam, and M. Radisson ordered a blanket sailhoisted on the steersman's fishing-pole. But if you think that hepermitted idle paddles because a wind would do the work, you know notthe ways of the great explorer. He bade us ply the faster, till thecanoe sped between earth and sky like an arrow shot on the level. Theshore-line became a blur. Clumps of juniper and pine marched abreast,halted the length of time an eye could rest, and wheeled away. Theswift current raced to meet us. The canoe jumped to mount the glossywaves raised by the beam wind. An upward tilt of her prow, and we hadskimmed the swell like a winged thing. And all the while M. Radisson'seyes were everywhere. Chips whirled past. There were beaver, he said.Was the water suddenly muddied? Deer had flitted at our approach. Dida fish rise? M. Radisson predicted otter; and where there were otterand beaver and deer, there should be Indians.

  As for the rest of us, it had gone to our heads.

  We were intoxicated with the wine of the rugged, new, free life. Skyabove; wild woods where never foot had trod; air that drew through thenostrils in thirst-quenching draughts; blood atingle to the laughingrhythm of the river--what wonder that youth leaped to a fresh life fromthe mummified existence of little, old peoples in little, old lands?

  We laughed aloud from fulness of life.

  Jean laid his paddle athwart, ripped off his buckskin, and smiled back.

  "Ramsay feels as if he had room to stretch himself," said he.

  "Feel! I feel as if I could run a thousand miles and jump off the endsof the earth--"

  "And dive to the bottom of the sea and harness whales and playbowling-balls with the spheres, you young rantipoles," added M.Radisson ironically.

  "The fever of the adventurer," said Jean quietly. "My uncle knows it."

  I laughed again. "I was wondering if Eli Kirke ever felt this way," Iexplained.

  "Pardieu," retorted M. de Radisson, loosening his coat, "if peoplemoved more and moped less, they'd brew small bile! Come, lads! Come,lads! We waste time!"

  And we were paddling again, in quick, light strokes, silent from zest,careless of toil, strenuous from love of it.

  Once we came to a bend in the river where the current was so strongthat we had dipped our paddles full five minutes against the mill racewithout gaining an inch. The canoe squirmed like a hunter balking ahedge, and Jean's blade splintered off to the handle. But M. deRadisson braced back to lighten the bow; the prow rose, a sweep of thepaddles, and on we sped!

  "Hard luck to pull and not gain a boat length," observed Jean.

  "Harder luck not to pull, and to be swept back," corrected M. deRadisson.

  We left the main river to thread a labyrinthine chain of waterways,where were portages over brambly shores and slippery rocks, with thepace set at a run by M. de Radisson. Jean and I followed with the packstraps across our foreheads and the provisions on our backs. Godefroybrought up the rear with the bark canoe above his head.

  At one place, where we disembarked, M. de Radisson traced the sand withthe muzzle of his musket.

  "A boot-mark," said he, drawing the faint outlines of a footprint, "andegad, it's not a man's foot either!"

  "Impossible!" cried Jean. "We are a thousand miles from any white-man."

  "There's nothing impossible on this earth," retorted Radissonimpatiently. "But pardieu, there are neither white women in thiswilderness, nor ghosts wearing women's boots! I'd give my right handto know what left that mark!"

  After that his haste grew feverish. We snatched our meals by turnsbetween paddles. He seemed to grudge the waste of each night, campinglate and launching early; and it was Godefroy's complaint that eachportage was made so swiftly there was no time for that solace of thecommon voyageur--the boatman's pipe. For eight days we travelledwithout seeing a sign of human presence but that one vague footmark inthe sand.

  "If there are no Indians, how much farther do we go, sir?" askedGodefroy sulkily on the eighth day.

  "Till we find them," answered M. Radisson.

>   And we found them that night.

  A deer broke from the woods edging the sand where we camped and hadalmost bounded across our fire when an Indian darted out a hundredyards behind. Mistaking us for his own people, he whistled thehunter's signal to head the game back. Then he saw that we werestrangers. Pulling up of a sudden, he threw back his arms, uttered acry of surprise, and ran to the hiding of the bush.

  M. Radisson was the first to pursue; but where the sand joined thethicket he paused and began tracing the point of his rapier round theoutlines of a mark.

  "What do you make of it, Godefroy?" he demanded of the trader.

  The trader looked quizzically at Sieur de Radisson.

  "The toes of that man's moccasin turn out," says Godefroy significantly.

  "Then that man is no Indian," retorted M. Radisson, "and hang me, ifthe size is not that of a woman or a boy!"

  And he led back to the beach.

  "Yon ship was a pirate," began Godefroy, "and if buccaneers beabout----"

  "Hold your clack, fool," interrupted M. Radisson, as if the fellow'sprattle had cut into his mental plannings; and he bade us heap such afire as could be seen by Indians for a hundred miles. "If once I canfind the Indians," meditated he moodily, "I'll drive out a wholeregiment of scoundrels with one snap o' my thumb!"

  Black clouds rolled in from the distant bay, boding a stormy night; andGodefroy began to complain that black deeds were done in the dark, andwe were forty leagues away from the protection of our ships.

  "A pretty target that fire will make of us in the dark," whined thefellow.

  M. Radisson's eyes glistened sparks.

  "I'd as lief be a pirate myself, as be shot down by pirates," grumbledthe trader, giving a hand to hoist the shed of sheet canvas that was toshield us from the rains now aslant against the seaward horizon.

  At the words M. Radisson turned sharply; but the heedless fellowgabbled on.

  "Where is a man to take cover, an the buccaneers began shooting fromthe bush behind?" demanded Godefroy belligerently.

  M. Radisson reached one arm across the fire. "I'll show you," said he.Taking Godefroy by the ear, with a prick of the sword he led the lazyknave quick march to the beach, where lay our canoe bottom up.

  "Crawl under!" M. Radisson lifted the prow.

  From very shame--I think it was--Godefroy balked; but M. Radissonbrought a cutting rap across the rascal's heels that made him hop. Thecanoe clapped down, and Godefroy was safe. "Pardieu," muttersRadisson, "such cowards would turn the marrow o' men's bones to butter!"

  Sitting on a log, with his feet to the fire, he motioned Jean and me tocome into the shelter of the slant canvas; for the clouds were rollingoverhead black as ink and the wind roared up the river-bed with a wallof pelting rain. M. Radisson gazed absently into the flame. The steellights were at play in his eyes, and his lips parted.

  "Storm and cold--man and beast--powers of darkness and devil--knavesand fools and his own sins--he must fight them all, lads," says M.Radisson slowly.

  "Who must fight them all?" asks Jean.

  "The victor," answers Radisson, and warm red flashed to the surface ofthe cold steel in his eyes.

  "Jean," he began, looking up quickly towards the gathering darkness ofthe woods.

  "Sir?"

  "'Tis cold enough for hunters to want a fire."

  "Is the fire not big enough?"

  "Now, where are your wits, lad? If hunters were hiding in that bush,one could see this fire a long way off. The wind is loud. One couldgo close without being heard. Pardieu, I'll wager a good scout couldcreep up to a log like this"--touching the pine on which we sat---"andhear every word we are saying without a soul being the wiser!"

  Jean turned with a start, half-suspecting a spy. Radisson laughed.

  "Must I spell it out? Eh, lad, afraid to go?"

  The taunt bit home. Without a word Jean and I rose.

  "Keep far enough apart so that one of you will escape back with thenews," called Radisson, as we plunged into the woods.

  Of the one who might not escape Pierre Radisson gave small heed, and sodid we. Jean took the river side and I the inland thicket, feeling ourway blindly through the blackness of forest and storm and night. Thenthe rain broke--broke in lashing whip-cords with the crackle of fire.Jean whistled and I signalled back; but there was soon such a poundingof rains it drowned every sound. For all the help one could give theother we might have been a thousand miles apart. I looked back. M.Radisson's fire threw a dull glare into the cavernous upper darkness.That was guide enough. Jean could keep his course by the river.

  It was plunging into a black nowhere. The trees thinned. I seemed tobe running across the open, the rain driving me forward like a wetsail, a roar of wind in my ears and the words of M. Radisson ringingtheir battle-cry--"Storm and cold--man and beast--powers of darknessand devil--knaves and fools and his own sins--he must fight themall!"--"Who?"--"The victor!"

  Of a sudden the dripping thicket gave back a glint. Had I run in acircle and come again on M. Radisson's fire? Behind, a dim glare stillshone against the sky.

  Another glint from the rain drip, and I dropped like a deer hit on therun. Not a gunshot away was a hunter's fire. Against the fire werethree figures. One stood with his face towards me, an Indian dressedin buckskin, the man who had pursued the deer. The second was hid byan intervening tree; and as I watched, the third faded into thephaseless dark. Who were these night-watchers? I liked not thatbusiness of spying--though you may call it scouting, if you will, but Imust either report nothing to M. Radisson, or find out more.

  I turned to skirt the group. A pistol-shot rang through the wood. Asword flashed to light. Before I had time to think, but not--thanks toM. Picot's lessons long ago--not before I had my own rapier out, anassassin blade would have taken me unawares.

  I was on guard. Steel struck fire in red spots as it clashed againststeel. One thrust, I know, touched home; for the pistol went whirlingout of my adversary's hand, and his sword came through the dark withthe hiss of a serpent. Again I seemed to be in Boston Town; but thehunting room had become a northland forest, M. Picot, a bearded manwith his back to the fire and his face in the dark, and our slim foils,naked swords that pressed and parried and thrust in many a foul such asthe French doctor had taught me was a trick of the infamous Blood!Indeed, I could have sworn that a woman's voice cried out through thedark; but the rain was in my face and a sword striking red against myown. Thanks, yes, thanks a thousand times to M. Picot's lessons; foragain and yet again I foiled that lunge of the unscrupulous swordsmantill I heard my adversary swearing, between clinched teeth. Heretreated. I followed. By a dexterous spring he put himself undercover of the woods, leaving me in the open. My only practice inswordsmanship had been with M. Picot, and it was not till long yearsafter that I minded how those lessons seemed to forestall and counterthe moves of that ambushed assassin. But the baffling thing was thatmy enemy's moves countered mine in the very same way.

  He had not seen my face, for my back was turned when he came up, and myface in the shade when I whirled. But I stood between the dark and thefire. Every motion of mine he could forecast, while I could but parryand retreat, striving in vain to lure him out, to get into the dark, tostrike what I could not see, pushed back and back till I felt the rushthat aims not to disarm but to slay.

  Our weapons rang with a glint of green lightnings. A piece of steelflew up. My rapier had snapped short at the hilt. A cold point was atmy throat pressing me down and back as the foil had caught me thatnight in M. Picot's house. To right, to left, I swerved, the lastblind rushes of the fugitive man. . . .

  "Storm and cold--man and beast--powers of darkness and devil--he mustfight them all----"

  The memory of those words spurred like a battle-cry. Beaten? Not yet!"Leap to meet it! Leap to meet it!"

  I caught the blade at my throat with a naked hand. Hot floods drenchedmy face. The earth swam. We were both in the light now, a bearded
manpushing his sword through my hand, and I falling down. Then myantagonist leaped back with a shivering cry of horror, flung the weaponto the ground and fled into the dark.

  And when I sat up my right hand held the hilt of a broken rapier, theleft was gashed across the palm, and a sword as like my own as two peaslay at my feet.

  The fire was there. But I was alone.

  [1] Reference to M. Radisson's journal corroborates Mr. Stanhope inthis observance, which was never neglected by M. Radisson after seasonof peril. It is to be noted that he made his prayers after not at theseason of peril.