Alice of Old Vincennes Part 34

"Long-Hair is friendly now; will white man be friendly?"

Beverley heard, but the speech seemed to come out of vastness and hollow distance; he could not realize it fairly. He felt as if in a dream, far off somewhere in loneliness, with a big, shadowy form looming before him. He heard the chill wind in the thickets round about, and beyond Long-Hair rose a wall of giant trees.

"Ugh, not understand?" the savage presently demanded in his broken English.

"Yes, yes," said Beverley, "I understand."

"Is the white man friendly now?" Long-Hair then repeated in his own tongue, with a certain insistence of manner and voice.

"Yes, friendly."

Beverley said this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness. His throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning to comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his own, was desirous of making a friends.h.i.+p between them. The thought was bewildering.

Long-Hair fumbled in his pouch and took out Alice's locket, which he handed to Beverley. "White man love little girl?" he inquired in a tone that bordered upon tenderness, again speaking in Indian.

Beverley clutched the disk as soon as he saw it gleam in the star-light.

"White man going to have little girl for his squaw--eh?"

"Yes, yes," cried Beverley without hearing his own voice. He was trying to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling. When at last he did open it he could not see the child face within, for now even the star-light was shut off by a scudding black cloud.

"Little girl saved Long-Hair's life. Long-Hair save white warrior for little girl."

A dignity which was almost n.o.ble accompanied these simple sentences.

Long-Hair stood proudly erect, like a colossal dark statue in the dimness.

The great truth dawned upon Beverley that here was a characteristic act. He knew that an Indian rarely failed to repay a kindness or an injury, stroke for stroke, when opportunity offered. Long-Hair was a typical Indian. That is to say, a type of inhumanity raised to the last power; but under his hideous atrocity of nature lay the indestructible sense of grat.i.tude so fixed and perfect that it did its work almost automatically.

It must be said, and it may or may not be to the white man's shame, that Beverley did not respond with absolute promptness and sincerity to Long-Hair's generosity. He had suffered terribly at the hands of this savage. His arms and legs were raw from the biting of the thongs; his body ached from the effect of blows and kicks laid upon him while bound and helpless. Perhaps he was not a very emotional man. At all events there was no sudden recognition of the favor he was receiving. And this pleased Long-Hair, for the taste of the American Indian delights in immobility of countenance and reserve of feeling under great strain.

"Wait here a little while," Long-Hair presently said, and without lingering for reply, turned away and disappeared in the wood. Beverley was free to run if he wished to, and the thought did surge across his mind; but a restraining something, like a hand laid upon him, would not let his limbs move. Down deep in his heart a calm voice seemed to be repeating Long-Hair's Indian sentence--"Wait here a little while."

A few minutes later Long-Hair returned bearing two guns, Beverley's and his own, the latter, a superb weapon given him by Hamilton. He afterward explained that he had brought these, with their bullet-pouches and powder-horns, to a place of concealment near by before he awoke Beverley. This meant that he had swum the cold river three times since night-fall; once over with the guns and accouterments; once back to camp, then over again with Beverley! All this with a broken arm, and to repay Alice for her kindness to him.

Beverley may have been slow, but at last his appreciation was, perhaps, all the more profound. As best he could he expressed it to Long-Hair, who showed no interest whatever in the statement. Instead of responding in Indian, he said "d.a.m.n" without emphasis. It was rather as if he had yawned absently, being bored.

Delay could not be thought of. Long-Hair explained briefly that he thought. Beverley must go to Kaskaskia. He had come across the stream in the direction of Vincennes in order to set his warriors at fault.

The stream must be recrossed, he said, farther down, and he would help Beverley a certain distance on his way, then leave him to s.h.i.+ft for himself. He had a meager amount of parched corn and buffalo meat in his pouch, which would stay hunger until they could kill some game. Now they must go.

The resilience of a youthful and powerful physique offers many a problem to the biologist. Vital force seems to find some mysterious reservoir of nourishment hidden away in the nerve-centers. Beverley set out upon that seemingly impossible undertaking with renewed energy. It could not have been the ounce of parched corn and bit of jerked venison from which he drew so much strength; but on the other hand, could it have been the miniature of Alice, which he felt pressing over his heart once more, that afforded a subtle stimulus to both mind and body? They flung miles behind them before day-dawn, Long-Hair leading, Beverley pressing close at his heels. Most of the way led over flat prairies covered with water, and they therefore left no track by which they could be followed.

Late in the forenoon Long-Hair killed a deer at the edge of a wood.

Here they made a fire and cooked a supply which would last them for a day or two, and then on they went again. But we cannot follow them step by step. When Long-Hair at last took leave of Beverley, the occasion had no ceremony. It was an abrupt, unemotional parting. The stalwart Indian simply said in his own dialect, pointing westward:

"Go that way two days. You will find your friends."

Then, without another look or word, he turned about and stalked eastward at a marvelously rapid gait. In his mind he had a good tale to tell his warrior companions when he should find them again: how Beverley escaped that night and how he followed him a long, long chase, only to lose him at last under the very guns of the fort at Kaskaskia.

But before he reached his band an incident of some importance changed his story to a considerable degree. It chanced that he came upon Lieutenant Barlow, who, in pursuit of game, had lost his bearings and, far from his companions, was beating around quite bewildered in a watery solitude. Long-Hair promptly murdered the poor fellow and scalped him with as little compunction as he would have skinned a rabbit; for he had a clever scheme in his head, a very audacious and outrageous scheme, by which he purposed to recoup, to some extent, the damages sustained by letting Beverley go.

Therefore, when he rejoined his somewhat disheartened and demoralized band he showed them the scalp and gave them an eloquent account of how he tore it from Beverley's head after a long chase and a b.l.o.o.d.y hand to hand fight. They listened, believed, and were satisfied.

CHAPTER XVI

FATHER BERET'S OLD BATTLE

The room in which Alice was now imprisoned formed part of the upper story of a building erected by Hamilton in one of the four angles of the stockade. It had no windows and but two oblong port-holes made to accommodate a small swivel, which stood darkly scowling near the middle of the floor. From one of these apertures Alice could see the straggling roofs and fences of the dreary little town, while from the other a long reach of watery prairie, almost a lake, lay under view with the rolling, muddy Wabash gleaming beyond. There seemed to be no activity of garrison or townspeople. Few sounds broke the silence of which the cheerless prison room seemed to be the center.

Alice felt all her courage and cheerfulness leaving her. She was alone in the midst of enemies. No father or mother, no friend--a young girl at the mercy of soldiers, who could not be expected to regard her with any sympathy beyond that which is accompanied with repulsive leers and hints. Day after day her loneliness and helplessness became more agonizing. Farnsworth, it is true, did all he could to relieve the strain of her situation; but Hamilton had an eye upon what pa.s.sed and soon interfered. He administered a bitter reprimand, under which his subordinate writhed in speechless anger and resentment.

"Finally, Captain Farnsworth," he said in conclusion, "you will distinctly understand that this girl is my prisoner, not yours; that I, not you, will direct how she is to be held and treated, and that hereafter I will suffer no interference on your part. I hope you fully understand me, sir, and will govern yourself accordingly."

Smarting, or rather smothering, under the outrageous insult of these remarks, Farnsworth at first determined to fling his resignation at the Governor's feet and then do whatever desperate thing seemed most to his mood. But a soldier's training is apt to call a halt before the worst befalls in such a case. Moreover, in the present temptation, Farnsworth had a special check and hindrance. He had had a conference with Father Beret, in which the good priest had played the part of wisdom in slippers, and of gentleness more dove-like than the dove's. A very subtle impression, illuminated with the "hope that withers hope," had come of that interview; and now Farnsworth felt its restraint. He therefore saluted Hamilton formally and walked away.

Father Beret's paternal love for Alice,--we cannot characterize it more nicely than to call it paternal,--was his justification for a certain mild sort of corruption insinuated by him into the heart of Farnsworth.

He was a crafty priest, but his craft was always used for a good end.

Unquestionably Jesuitic was his mode of circ.u.mventing the young man's military scruples by offering him a puff of fair weather with which to sail toward what appeared to be the sh.o.r.e of delight. He saw at a glance that Farnsworth's love for Alice was a consuming pa.s.sion in a very ardent yet decidedly weak heart. Here was the worldly lever with which Father Beret hoped to raze Alice's prison and free her from the terrible doom with which she was threatened.

The first interview was at Father Beret's cabin, to which, as will be remembered, the priest and Farnsworth went after their meeting in the street. It actually came to nothing, save an indirect understanding but half suggested by Father Beret and never openly sanctioned by Captain Farnsworth. The talk was insinuating on the part of the former, while the latter slipped evasively from every proposition, as if not able to consider it on account of a curious obtuseness of perception. Still, when they separated they shook hands and exchanged a searching look perfectly satisfactory to both.

The memory of that interview with the priest was in Farnsworth's mind when, boiling with rage, he left Hamilton's presence and went forth into the chill February air. He pa.s.sed out through the postern and along the sodden and queachy aedge of the prairie, involuntarily making his way to Father Beret's cabin. His indignation was so great that he trembled from head to foot at every step. The door of the place was open and Father Beret was eating a frugal meal of scones and sour wine (of his own make, he said), which he hospitably begged to share with his visitor. A fire smouldered on the hearth, and a flat stone showed, by the grease smoking over its hot surface, where the cakes had been baked.

"Come in, my son," said the priest, "and try the fare of a poor old man. It is plain, very plain, but good." He smacked his lips sincerely and fingered another scone. "Take some, take some."

Farnsworth was not tempted. The acid bouquet of the wine filled the room with a smack of vinegar, and the smoke from rank scorching fat and wheat meal did not suggest an agreeable feast.

"Well, well, if you are not hungry, my son, sit down on the stool there and tell me the news."

Farnsworth took the low seat without a word, letting his eyes wander over the walls. Alice's rapier, the mate to that now worn by Hamilton, hung in its curiously engraved scabbard near one corner. The sight of it inflamed Farnsworth.

"It's an outrage," he broke forth. "Governor Hamilton sent a man to Roussillon place with orders to bring him the scabbard of Miss Roussillon's sword, and he now wears the beautiful weapon as if he had come by it honestly. d.a.m.n him!"

"My dear, dear son, you must not soil your lips with such language!"

Father Beret let fall the half of a well bitten cake and held up both hands.

"I beg your pardon, Father; I know I ought to be more careful in your presence; but--but--the beastly, h.e.l.lish scoundrel--"

"Bah! doucement, mon fils, doucement." The old man shook his head and his finger while speaking. "Easy, my son, easy. You would be a fine target for bullets were your words to reach Hamilton's ears. You are not permitted to revile your commander."

"Yes, I know; but how can a man restrain himself under such abominable conditions?"

Father Beret shrewdly guessed that Hamilton had been giving the Captain fresh reason for bitter resentment. Moreover, he was sure that the moving cause had been Alice. So, in order to draw out what he wished to hear, he said very gently:

"How is the little prisoner getting along?"

Farnsworth ground his teeth and swore; but Father Beret appeared not to hear; he bit deep into a scone, took a liberal sip of the muddy red wine and added: