The Forge in the Forest

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

  Chapter XXII

  The Black Abbe Strikes in the Dark

  I was awakened to consciousness by some one gently lifting me. Istruggled at once to my feet, leaning upon him. It was Big Etienne.

  "You much hurt?" he queried, in great concern.

  "Why, no!" said I, presently. "Head feels sore. I think I'll be allright in a minute."

  It was in the red and saffron of dawn. The snow had stopped falling.The muskets had stopped clattering. The battle was apparently at anend. All around lay bodies, or rather parts of bodies; for they weremore or less hidden in the snow. Close by me just a pair of knees wasvisible, thrust up through a drift into which the man had plunged infalling.

  The snow was all mottled with blood and powder, a very hideous colourto look upon. I stood erect and stretched myself.

  "Why, brother," I exclaimed, in great relief, "I am as good as new.Where is the commander?"

  Big Etienne pointed in silence to the street before the three houses.There I saw our men drawn up in menacing array. In and behind thehouses were crowded the dark masses of the New Englanders, punctuatedhere and there with the scarlet of an officer's coat.

  De Villiers greeted me as one recovered from the grave. I askedeagerly how he had sped, and how the matter now rested.

  "Success, everywhere success, Briart!" he answered, with a sort ofcontrolled elation. "You held these fellows, while we wiped out thoseyonder. But it was a cruel and bloody affair, and I would the times,and the straits of New France, required not such killing in the dark.But they set fire to a house and barn that they might fight in thelight, and so a band of them escaped us and cut their way throughhere,--what was left of them, at least, after they got done with you!And now their remnant is hemmed in yonder."

  "We've got them, then," said I.

  "Surely," he answered. "But it will cost our best blood to end it.They have fought like heroes, though they kept guard like fools. Andthey will battle it out, I think, while a man of them stands."

  "Yes, 'tis the breed of them!" said I, looking across with admirationat the silent and dangerous ranks. "But they have done all that bravemen could do. They will accept honourable terms, I think; and such wemay offer them without any touch of discredit. What do you say?"

  This was, indeed what de Villiers had in his heart. He withdrew histroops some little distance, that negotiations might be the lessembarrassed; and I myself, feeling a fresh dizziness, retired to acottage where I might have my wound properly tended. But barely had Igot the bandage loosened,--a black-eyed Acadian maid standing by, withface of deep commiseration and holding a basin of hot water forme,--when there broke out a sudden firing. I clapped the bloodybandage to my head, and ran forth; but I saw there was no need of me.The English had sallied with a fierce heat, hoping to retrieve theirfortunes. But the deep snow was like an army to shut them in. Beforethey could come at us they were exhausted, and our muskets dropped themswiftly in the drifts. Sullenly they fell back again upon theirhouses. I turned to my basin and my bandaging.

  "That settles that!" said I to the damsel.

  "Settles what, Monsieur?" she asked. But as she spoke I saw a look ofsudden concern cross her face, a faintness came over me, and I laydown, feeling her arm support me as I sank.

  Sleep is the best of medicines for me. I woke late in the afternoon tofind my head neatly bandaged, and the dizziness all gone. Men came andwent softly. I found that de Villiers was lying in the same house,having got a serious wound just after I left him. La Corne, a braveCanadian, was in command. The English had capitulated toward noon, andhad pledged themselves to depart for Annapolis within forty-eighthours, not to bear arms again in Acadie within six months. We hadredeemed at Grand Pre our late failure at Annapolis.

  My first act was to send a runner, on snow-shoes, to Canard, with ascrawled note to Mizpah. Explaining nothing, I merely begged that sheand Prudence, with Marc and Father Fafard, should meet me at the Forgeabout noon of the following day. In the case of Marc not being yetstrong enough to journey so far, I prayed Mizpah herself, in any event,to come without fail. My next was to send a messenger for Xavier andPhilip. My heart had fallen to aching curiously for thechild,--insomuch that I marvelled at it, till at length I set it downas a mere whimsical counterfeit of my longing for his mother.

  Being now refreshed and altogether myself again, I went to visit thelane wherein the fight had opened. The very first house, whoseshattered door and windows, blood-smeared threshold, and drippingwindow-sills, showed that the fight had there raged long and madly, hadone great apple tree beside its garden gate. A chill of forebodingsmote me as I marked it. I approached with a curious and painfulexpectancy, the words of the Black Abbe ringing again in my ears. Atthe foot of the apple tree the snow was drifted deep. It half covereda pitifully huddled body.

  I lifted the body. It was Tamin.

  He had been shot through the lungs, and his blood, melting the snow,had gathered in a crimson pool beneath him. Here was one grim prophecyfulfilled. Carrying him into the house, I laid him gently on a bed.Then I turned away with a very sorrowful heart; for there was much todo, and the dead are not urgent.

  Even as I turned, my heart jumped with a new and sickening dread.Xavier stood before me--Xavier, with wild eyes, and face darkly clottedwith blood. The next instant he threw himself at my feet.

  "The child!" he muttered, covering his face. "They have carried himaway. They have carried Philip away!"

  "What do you mean?" I cried, in a voice which my fear made harsh, whileat the same time I dragged him to his feet. "Who have carried himaway? Who?"

  But I knew the answer ere he could speak it,--I knew my enemy hadseized the chances of the battle and the night.

  "The Black Abbe," wailed the lad, in a voice of poignant sorrow. "Hecame in the night, with two Chepody Acadians dressed up like Indians,and seized me asleep, and bound me."

  "But Philip!" I cried. "Where have they taken him?" And even as Ispoke I was planning swiftly.

  "The Abbe started westward with him," answered Xavier. "From what Iheard say, he would go to Pereau; but which way after, I could not findout."

  "Come!" I ordered roughly, "we must follow them!" But as I spoke I sawthe lad totter. I caught him by the arm and held him up, perceivingnow for the first time how he was both wounded and utterly spent.

  "Let us go first to your father," I said more gently, leading him, andputting what curb I could upon the fierceness of my haste.

  "How did you get here?" I asked him presently.

  A gleam came into the lad's faint eyes.

  "The Chepody men stayed till morning," said he, "and then set out onthe road toward Piziquid, taking me with them. They thought I wasnothing but a boy. As we went, I got my hands loose, so,--and waited.At noon one man went into a house,--and--so!--I was free, and had theother dog by the throat. He make no noise; but he fight hard, and hurtme. I got away, and left him in the snow, and ran back all the way totell you the Black Abbe--"

  But here the poor lad's voice failed, and he hung upon me with all hisweight. He had fainted, indeed; and now that I thought of his wound,his hunger, his grief, and his prodigious exertions, I wondered not athis swooning. Picking him up in my arms, I carried him to the cottagewhere the kind damsel had so compassionately tended my own bruises.

  As I entered the thronged cottage with my burden, men came about mewith many questions; but I kept my own counsel, not knowing whom Icould trust, or where the Black Abbe might not have his spies posted.Moreover, I was so distracted with anxiety about the child, that I hadsmall patience wherewith to take questioning civilly. Every bed andevery settle being occupied with our wounded, I laid Xavier on thefloor, with his head upon a blue petticoat which the kind damsel--whocame to me as soon as she saw me enter--fetched from a cupboard androlled up deftly for me. After a careful examination I found no woundupon the lad save two shallow flesh cuts, one across his forehead andone down his chest. I thereupon conclud
ed that exhaustion, togetherwith the loss of blood, had brought him to this pass, and that with afew days' care he would be altogether restored. Having put some brandybetween his lips, and seen his eyelids tremble with recoveringconsciousness, I turned to the maiden and said:--

  "Take care of him for me, Cherie. He deserves your best care; and Itrust him to your good heart. Give him something to eat now,--soup,hot milk, at first. And I will come back in two days from now, atfurthest."

  "But Monsieur must rest!"

  "No rest for me to-night!" I interrupted, in a low voice, as Istraightened myself up. "Do you know where I may find the lad'sfather, the chief, Big--"

  But there was no need for me to finish the question. There, closebehind me, stood the tall Indian, looking down at Xavier, with troublein his eyes. He had just entered, in his silent fashion.

  "There is no danger! He is worn out!" I whispered. "He has done all abrave man could do; but the child is stolen! Come outside with me."

  Big Etienne stooped quickly and laid his hand upon the lad's breast,and then, most gently, upon his lips. A second later he had followedme out into the deepening twilight.

  In few words I told him what had happened, and my purpose of goinginstantly in pursuit. Without a word he strode off toward a smallcabin about a stone's throw from the cottage which we had just left.

  "Where are you going?" I asked, astonished at this abruptness.

  "My snow-shoes!" he replied. "And bread. I go with you, my brother!"

  This, in very truth, was just what I had hoped for. But, in my haste,I had forgotten the need of eating; and, as for my snow-shoes, usuallystrapped at my back, they had been left at the outskirts of the villagethe night before in order that my sword arm might have the freer play.It was no time now to go back for them. I slipped into the cottage,borrowed a pair, and was presently forth again to meet Big Etienne.The Indian, instead of bread, had brought a goodly lump of dried beef.Side by side, and in silence, we set out for the cabin on the Gaspereauwhere Philip and Xavier had been captured.

  We found the place deserted. Either the man of the house had been atool of La Garne, or he feared that I would hold him responsible.Which it was, I know not to this day; and, at the time, we gave smallthought to the question, merely commending the fellow's wisdom inremoving himself from our indignation. What engaged our concern was asingle snow-shoe track making westward, followed by the trail of alittle sledge.

  "Yes," said I; "Xavier is surely right. The Abbe has gone to cross theHabitants and the Canard where they are little, and will then, belike,turn down the valley to Pereau!"

  "Very like!" grunted my companion; and, at a long lope, we started upthe trail.

  This pace, however, soon told upon me, and brought it into my mind thatI had, that day, eaten nothing but a bowl of broth. We halted,therefore, and rested half an hour in the warmth of a dense sprucecoppice, and ate abundantly of that very savoury beef. Then, muchrevived, we set out again. Treading one behind the other, we marched,in silence, through the glimmering dark; for Big Etienne was no talker,while I, for my part, was gnawing my heart with rage, and hopefrustrated, and the picture of Mizpah's anguish. We never stayed ourpace till we came, at the edge of dawn, to the spot where the trailwent over the dwindled upper current of the Habitants.

  Here, to our astonishment, the trail turned eastward, following downthe course of the river.

  I looked at the Indian in wondering consternation. "What can it mean?"I cried. "Can there be any new plot of his hatching at Canard?"

  "Maybe!" said Big Etienne.

  At thought of further perils threatening Mizpah and Marc, the wearinesswhich had been growing upon me vanished, and I sprang forward asbriskly as if we had but just set out. Even Big Etienne, though he hadno such incentive as mine, seemed to win new vigour with thecontemplation of this new coil of the enemy's. If, indeed, he appearedsomewhat fresher than I throughout the latter half of this hard march,it is but justice to myself to say that he bore no wound from the latebattle.

  At last, when it was well past ten of the morning, the trail led us outupon the main Canard track, and turned toward the settlement.

  "Yes," said I, with bitter conviction; "he has gone to Canard. Hewould never go there had he not some deep scheme of mischief afoot.God grant we be in time!"

  In less than half an hour we came within sight of the Forge in theForest. To my astonishment, the smoke was pouring in furious volumefrom the forge chimney.

  "What can Babin be about? Or can Mizpah and Marc be there already?" Iwondered aloud; but got no answer from my companion. A moment later, aturn of the track brought us to a post of vantage whence we could seestraight into the forge. The sight which met our eyes brought us to aninstant stop from sheer amazement.