CHAPTER XVI.
THE DISMISSAL.
The Commandant tapped the dispatch on the table before him, with a_ruse_ smile.
"I was right then, after all, M. a Clive, in maintaining that yourcomrade carried a message from the General. My daughter has told mehow you came, between you, to discover it. That you should havepreserved the tunic is no less than providential; indeed, I had allalong supposed it to be your own."
John waited, with a glance at the document, which lay with the sealdownward, seemingly intact.
"It is addressed," the Commandant pursued, "in our ordinary cypher tothe Marquis de Vaudreuil at Montreal. In my own mind I have not theleast doubt that it instructs him--the pressure to the south havingbeen relieved by the victory at Fort Carillon--to send troops up tous and to M. de Noyan at Fort Frontenac. My good friend up there hasbeen sending down appeals for reinforcements at the rate of two aweek, and has only ceased of late in stark despair. It is evidentthat your comrade carried a message of some importance to Montreal;and I have sent for you, monsieur, to ask: Are you in a condition totravel?"
"You wish me to carry this dispatch, monsieur?"
"If you tell me that you are fit to travel. Indeed it is a privilegewhich you have a right to claim, and M. de Vaudreuil will doubtlessfind some reward for the bearer. Young men were ambitious in myday--eh, M. a Clive?"
John, averting his face, gazed out of window upon the emptycourtyard, the slope of the terrace and the line of embrasures aboveit. Diane was not there beside her accustomed gun, and he wonderedif he should see her again before departing. He wondered if hedesired to see her. To be sure he must accept this mission, havinggone so far in deceit. It would set him free from Fort Amitie; and,once free, he could devise with Menehwehna some plan of escapingsouthward. Within the fort he could devise nothing. He winced underthe Commandant's kindness; yet blessed it for offering, now at last,a term to his humiliation.
"M. de Vaudreuil will not be slow, I feel sure, to recognise yourservices," pursued the Commandant genially. "But, that there may beno mistake about it, I have done myself the pleasure to write him aletter commending you. Would you care to hear a sentence or two?No?"--for John's hand went up in protest--"Well, youth is never theworse for a touch of modesty. Be so good, then, monsieur, as to passme the seal yonder."
John picked up and handed the seal almost without glancing at it.His thoughts were elsewhere as the Commandant lit a taper, heated thewax, and let it drop upon the letter. But just as the seal wasimpressed, old Jeremie Tripier entered without knocking, and in astate of high perturbation. "Monseigneur! Monseigneur! A wholefleet of boats in sight--coming down the river!"
The Commandant pushed back his chair.
"Boats? Down the river? Nonsense, Jeremie, it is up the river youmean; you have the message wrong. They must be the relief fromMontreal!"
"Nay, Monseigneur, it is down the river they are approaching.The news came in from Sans Quartier, who is on sentry-go upstream.He has seen them from Mont-aux-Ours, and reports them no more thanthree miles away."
"Please God no ill has befallen de Noyan!" muttered the Commandant."Excuse me, M. a Clive; I must look into this. We will talk of ourbusiness later."
But John scarcely heard. His eyes had fallen on the seal of theCommandant's letter. It stared back at him--a facsimile of the onehidden in his pocket--a flying Mercury, with, cap, winged sandals,and caduceus.
He pulled his wits together to answer the Commandant politely, hescarcely knew how, and followed him out to the postern gate.Half a dozen of the garrison--all, in fact, who happened to be offduty--were hurrying along the ridge to verify Sans Quartier's news.John, still weak from his wound, could not maintain the pace.Halting on the slope for breath, while the Commandant with an apologyleft him and strode ahead, he turned, caught sight of Diane, andwaited for her.
She came as one who cannot help herself, with panting bosom and eyesthat supplicated him for mercy. But Love, not John a Cleeve, was themaster to grant her remission--and who can supplicate Love?
They met without greeting, and for a while walked on in silence, hewith a flame in his veins and a weight of lead in his breast.
"Is papa sending you to Montreal?" she asked, scarcely above awhisper.
"He was giving me orders when this news came."
There was a long pause now, and when next she spoke he could hardlycatch her words. "You will come again?"
His heart answered, "My love! O my love!" But he could not speakit. He looked around upon sky, forest, sweeping river--all thelandscape of his bliss, the prison of his intolerable shame.A fierce peremptory longing seized him to kill his bliss and hisshame at one stroke. Four words would do it. He had but to stand upand cry aloud, "I am an Englishman!" and the whole beautiful hideousdream would crack, shiver, dissolve. Only four words! Almost heheard his voice shouting them and saw through the trembling heat herbody droop under the stab, her love take the mortal hurt and die witha face of scorn. Only four words, and an end desirable as death!What kept him silent then? He checked himself on the edge of ahorrible laugh. The thing was called Honour: and its service steepedhim in dishonour to the soul.
"You will come again?" her eyes repeated.
He commanded himself to say, "It may be that there is now no need togo. If Fort Frontenac has fallen--"
"Why should you believe that Fort Frontenac has fallen?" she brokein; and then, clasping her hands, added in a sort of terror, "Do youknow that--that now--I hardly seem able to think about FortFrontenac, or to care whether it has fallen or not? What wickednesshas come to me that I should be so cruelly selfish?"
He set his face. Even to comfort her he must not let his look orvoice soften; one touch of weakness now would send him over theabyss.
"Let us go forward," said he. "At the next bend we shall know whathas happened."
But around the bend came a procession which told plainly enough whathad happened; a procession of boats filled with dark-coatedprovincial soldiers, a few white-coats, many women and children.No flags flew astern; the very lift of the oars told of disgrace andhumiliation. Thus came Payan de Noyan with his garrison, prisonerson _parole_, sent down by the victorious British to report the fallof Frontenac and be exchanged for prisoners taken at Ticonderoga.
Already the Commandant and his men had surmised the truth, and werehurrying back along the ridge to meet the unhappy procession at thequay. John and Diane turned with them and walked homeward insilence.
The flotilla passed slowly beneath their eyes, but did not head intoward the quay. An old man in the leading boat waved an arm frommid-stream--or rather, lifted it in salutation and let it fall againdejectedly.
This was de Noyan himself, and apparently his _parole_ forbade him tohold converse with his countrymen before reaching Montreal. On themnext, for aught the garrison of Fort Amitie could learn, the enemywere even now descending.
Diane, halting on the slope, heard her father call across the waterto de Noyan, who turned, but shook his head and waved a hand oncemore with a gesture of refusal.
"He was asking him to carry the dispatch to Montreal. Since he willnot, or cannot, you must follow with it."
"For form's sake," John agreed. "It can have no other purpose now."
They were standing at the verge of the forest, and she half turnedtowards him with a little choking cry that asked, as plainly aswords, "Is this all you have to say? Are you blind, that you cannotsee how I suffer?"
He stepped back a pace into the shadow of the trees. She lifted herhead and, as their eyes met, drooped it again, faint with love.He stretched out his arms.
"Diane!"
But as she ran to him he caught her by the shoulders and held her atarms' length. Her eyes, seeking his, saw that his gaze travelledpast her and down the slope. And turning in his grasp she sawMenehwehna running towards them across the clearing from the posterngate, and crouching as he ran.
He must have seen them; for he came str
aight to where they stood, andgripping John by the arm pointed towards the quay, visible beyond theedge of the flagstaff tower.
"Who are these newcomers?" cried Diane, recovering herself."Why, yes, it is Father Launoy and Dominique Guyon! Yes, yes--andBateese!--whom you have never seen."
John turned to her quietly, without haste.
"Mademoiselle," said he in a voice low and firm, and not altogetherunhappy, "I have met Bateese Guyon before now. And these men bringdeath to me. Run, Menehwehna! For me, I return to the Fort withmademoiselle."
She stared at him. "Death?" she echoed, wondering.
"Death," he repeated, "and I deserve it. On many accounts I havedeserved it, but most of all for having stolen your trust. I am anEnglishman."
For a moment she did not seem to hear. Then slowly, very slowly, sheput out both hands and cowered from him.
"Return, Menehwehna!" commanded John firmly. "Yes, mademoiselle, Icannot expiate what I have done. But I go to expiate what I can."
He took a step forward; but she had straightened herself up and stoodbarring his path with her arm, fronting him with terrible scorn.
"Expiate! What can you expiate? You can only die; and are you somuch afraid of death that you think it an atonement? You can onlydie, and--and--" she hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Menehwehna,help me! He can only die, and I cannot let him die!"
Menehwehna stepped forward with impassive face. "If my brother goesdown the hill, I go with him," he announced calmly.
"You see?" Diane turned on John wildly. "You will only kill yourfriend--and to what purpose? The wrong you have done you cannotremedy; the remedy you seek would kill me surely. Ah, go! go!Do not force me to kneel and clasp your knees--you that have alreadybrought me so low! Go, and let me learn to hate as well as scornyou. You wish to expiate? This only will I take for expiation."
"Come, brother!" urged Menehwehna, taking him by the arm.
Diane bent close to the Indian, whispered a word in his ear, and,turning about, looked John in the face.
"Are you sorry at all? If you are sorry, you will obey me now."
With one long searching look she left him and walked down the slope.Menehwehna dragged him back into the undergrowth as the postern dooropened, and M. Etienne came through it, followed by Father Launoy,Dominique, and Bateese.
Peering over the bushes Menehwehna saw Diane descend to meet them--hecould not see with what face.
Marvellous is woman. She met them with a gay and innocent smile.
Her whispered word to Menehwehna had been to keep by the waterside.And later that night, when the garrison had given over beating thewoods for the fugitives, a canoe stole up the river, close under thenorth bank. One man sat in it; and after paddling for a couple ofmiles up-stream he began to sing as he went--softly at first, butraising his voice by little and little--
"Chante, rossignol, chante, Toi qui as le coeur gai; Tu as le coeur a rire, Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer."
No answer came from the dark forest. He took up his chant again, moreboldly:
"Tu as le coeur a rire, Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer; J'ai perdu ma maitresse Sans pouvoir la trouver. --Lui y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
He listened. A low call sounded from the trees on his right, and hebrought the canoe under the bank.
"Is that you, Bateese?"
"Monsieur, forgive me! I said as little as I could, but the ReverendFather and Dominique were too clever for me. And how was I to haveknown? . . . . Take the canoe and travel fast, my friends; they willbe searching again at dawn."
"Did mademoiselle send the canoe?"
"Yes; and she charged you to answer one question. It was herbrother--M. Armand--whom the Iroquois slew in the Wilderness.Ah, that cry! Can one ever forget?"
"Her brother!" John's hand went to his breast in the darkness.
"Monsieur did not know, then? I was sure that monsieur could nothave known! For myself I did not know until four days ago.The Iroquois had not seen us, and we escaped back to the Richelieu--to Sorel--to Montreal, where I left my wounded man. Ah, monsieur,but we suffered on the way! And from Montreal I made for Boisveyrac,and there my tongue ran loose--but in all innocence. And there Iheard that M. Armand had been crossing the Wilderness . . . butmonsieur did not know it was her brother?"
"That, at least, I never knew nor guessed, Bateese. Was this thequestion Mademoiselle Diane desired you to ask me?"
"It was, monsieur. And, according to your answer, I was to give youher word."
"What is her word, Bateese?"
"She commends you to God, monsieur, and will pray for you."
"Take back my word that I will pray to deserve her prayers, who cannever deserve her pardon."