The Crossing Part 82

"Let us drink first, General," I said, "to the old friends.h.i.+p between us."

"Good!" he cried. Tossing off his liquor, he set down the gla.s.s and began what seemed a fruitless search among the thousand papers on the table. But at length, with a grunt of satisfaction, he produced a form and held it under my eyes. At the top of the sheet was that much-abused and calumniated lady, the G.o.ddess of Liberty.

"Now," he said, drawing up a chair and dipping his quill into an almost depleted ink-pot, "I have decided to make you, David Ritchie, with full confidence in your ability and loyalty to the rights of liberty and mankind, a captain in the Legion on the Mississippi."

I crossed the room swiftly, and as he put his pen to paper I laid my hand on his arm.

"General, I cannot," I said. I had seen from the first the futility of trying to dissuade him from the expedition, and I knew now that it would never come off. I was willing to make almost any sacrifice rather than offend him, but this I could not allow. The General drew himself up in his chair and stared at me with a flash of his old look.

"You cannot?" he repeated; "you have affairs to attend to, I take it."

I tried to speak, but he rode me down.

"There is money to be made in that prosperous town of Louisville." He did not understand the pain which his words caused me. He rose and laid his hands affectionately on my shoulders. "Ah, Davy, commerce makes a man timid. Do you forget the old days when I was the father and you the son? Come! I will make you a fortune undreamed of, and you shall be my fianancier once more."

"I had not thought of the money, General," I answered, "and I have always been ready to leave my business to serve a friend."

"There, there," said the General, soothingly, "I know it. I would not offend you. You shall have the commission, and you may come when it pleases you."

He sat down again to write, but I restrained him.

"I cannot go, General," I said.

"Thunder and fury," cried the General, "a man might think you were a weak-kneed Federalist." He stared at me, and stared again, and rose and recoiled a step. "My G.o.d," he said, "you cannot be a Federalist, you can't have marched to Kaskaskia and Vincennes, you can't have been a friend of mine and have seen how the government of the United States has treated me, and be a Federalist!"

It was an argument and an appeal which I had foreseen, yet which I knew not how to answer. Suddenly there came, unbidden, his own counsel which he had given me long ago, "Serve the people, as all true men should in a Republic, but do not rely upon their grat.i.tude." This man had bidden me remember that.

"General," I said, trying to speak steadily, "it was you who gave me my first love for the Republic. I remember you as you stood on the heights above Kaskaskia waiting for the sun to go down, and you reminded me that it was the nation's birthday. And you said that our nation was to be a refuge of the oppressed of this earth, a nation made of all peoples, out of all time. And you said that the lands beyond," and I pointed to the West as he had done, "should belong to it until the sun sets on the sea again."

I glanced at him, for he was silent, and in my life I can recall no sadder moment than this. The General heard, but the man who had spoken these words was gone forever. The eyes of this man before me were fixed, as it were, upon s.p.a.ce. He heard, but he did not respond; for the spirit was gone. What I looked upon was the tortured body from which the genius--the spirit I had wors.h.i.+pped--had fled. I turned away, only to turn back in anger.

"What do you know of this France for which you are to fight?" I cried.

"Have you heard of the thousands of innocents who are slaughtered, of the women and children who are butchered in the streets in the name of Liberty? What have those blood-stained adventurers to do with Liberty, what have the fish-wives who love the sight of blood to do with you that would fight for them? You warned me that this people and this government to which you have given so much would be ungrateful,--will the butchers and fish-wives be more grateful?"

He caught only the word GRATEFUL, and he rose to his feet with something of the old straightness and of the old power. And by evil chance his eye, and mine, fell upon a sword hanging on the farther wall. Well I remembered when he had received it, well I knew the inscription on its blade, "Presented by the State of Virginia to her beloved son, George Rogers Clark, who by the conquest of Illinois and St. Vincennes extended her empire and aided in the defence of her liberties." By evil chance, I say, his eye lighted on that sword. In three steps he crossed the room to where it hung, s.n.a.t.c.hed it from its scabbard, and ere I could prevent him he had snapped it across his knee and flung the pieces in a corner.

"So much for the grat.i.tude of my country," he said.

I had gone out on the little porch and stood gazing over the expanse of forest and waters lighted by the afterglow. Then I felt a hand upon my shoulder, I heard a familiar voice calling me by an old name.

"Yes, General!" I turned wonderingly.

"You are a good lad, Davy. I trust you," he said. "I--I was expecting some friends."

He lifted a hand that was not too steady to his brow and scanned the road leading to the fort. Even as he spoke four figures emerged from the woods,--undoubtedly the gentlemen who had held the council at the inn that afternoon. We watched them in silence as they drew nearer, and then something in the walk and appearance of the foremost began to bother me.

He wore a long, double-breasted, claret-colored redingote that fitted his slim figure to perfection, and his gait was the easy gait of a man who goes through the world careless of its pitfalls. So intently did I stare that I gave no thought to those who followed him. Suddenly, when he was within fifty paces, a cry escaped me,--I should have known that smiling, sallow, weakly handsome face anywhere in the world.

The gentleman was none other than Monsieur Auguste de St. Gre. At the foot of the steps he halted and swept his hand to his hat with a military salute.

"Citizen General," he said gracefully, "we come and pay our respec's to you and mek our report, and ver' happy to see you look well. Citoyens, Vive la Republique!--Hail to the Citizen General!"

"Vive la Republique! Vive le General!" cried the three citizens behind him.

"Citizens, you are very welcome," answered the General, gravely, as he descended the steps and took each of them by the hand. "Citizens, allow me to introduce to you my old friend, Citizen David Ritchie--"

"Milles diables!" cried the Citizen St. Gre, seizing me by the hand, "c'est mon cher ami, Monsieur Reetchie. Ver' happy you have this honor, Monsieur;" and s.n.a.t.c.hing his wide-brimmed military c.o.c.ked hat from his head he made me a smiling, sweeping bow.

"What!" cried the General to me, "you know the Sieur de St. Gre, Davy?"

"He is my guest once in Louisiane, mon general," Monsieur Auguste explained; "my family knows him."

"You know the Sieur de St. Gre, Davy?" said the General again.

"Yes, I know him," I answered, I fear with some brevity.

"Podden me," said Auguste, "I am now Citizen Captain de St. Gre. And you are also embark in the glorious cause--Ah, I am happy," he added, embracing me with a winning glance.

I was relieved from the embarra.s.sment of denying the impeachment by reason of being introduced to the other notables, to Citizen Captain Sullivan, who wore an undress uniform consisting of a cotton b.u.t.ternut hunting s.h.i.+rt. He had charge on the Bear Gra.s.s of building the boats for the expedition, and was likewise a prominent member of that august body, the Jacobin Society of Lexington. Next came Citizen Quartermaster Depeau, now of k.n.o.b Licks, Kentucky, sometime of New Orleans. The Citizen Quartermaster wore his hair long in the backwoods fas.h.i.+on; he had a keen, pale face and sunken eyes.

"Ver' glad mek you known to me, Citizen Reetchie."

The fourth gentleman was likewise French, and called Gignoux. The Citizen Gignoux made some sort of an impression on me which I did not stop to a.n.a.lyze. He was a small man, with a little round hand that wriggled out of my grasp; he had a big French nose, bright eyes that popped a little and gave him the habit of looking sidewise, and grizzled, chestnut eyebrows over them. He had a thin-lipped mouth and a round chin.

"Citizen Reetchie, is it? I laik to know citizen's name glorified by gran' cause. Reetchie?"

"Will you enter, citizens?" said the General.

I do not know why I followed them unless it were to satisfy a devil-prompted curiosity as to how Auguste de St. Gre had got there.

We went into the room, where the General's slovenly negro was already lighting the candles and the General proceeded to collect and fill six of the gla.s.ses on the table. It was Citizen Captain Sullivan who gave the toast.

"Citizens," he cried, "I give you the health of the foremost apostle of Liberty in the Western world, the General who tamed the savage tribes, who braved the elements, who brought to their knees the minions of a despot king." A slight suspicion of a hiccough filled this gap. "Cast aside by an ungrateful government, he is still unfaltering in his allegiance to the people. May he lead our Legion victorious through the Spanish dominions.

"Vive la Republique!" they shouted, draining their gla.s.ses. "Vive le citoyen general Clark!"

"Louisiana!" shouted Citizen Sullivan, warming, "Louisiana, groaning under oppression and tyranny, is imploring us with uplifted hands. To those remaining veteran patriots whose footsteps we followed to this distant desert, and who by their blood and toil have converted it into a smiling country, we now look. Under your guidance, Citizen General, we fought, we bled--"

How far the Citizen Captain would have gone is problematical. I had noticed a look of disgust slowly creeping into the Citizen Quartermaster's eyes, and at this juncture he seized the Citizen Captain and thrust him into a chair.

"Sacre vent!" he exclaimed, "it is the proclamation--he recites the proclamation! I see he have partic.i.p.ate in those handbill. Poof, the world is to conquer,--let us not spik so much."

"I give you one toast," said the little Citizen Gignoux, slyly, "we all bring back one wife from Nouvelle Orleans!

"Ha," exclaimed the Sieur de St. Gre, laughing, "the Citizen Captain Depeau--he has already one wife in Nouvelle Orleans."(1)

(1) It is unnecessary for the editor to remind the reader that these are not Mr. Ritchie's words, but those of an adventurer. Mr. Depeau was an honest and worthy gentleman, earnest enough in a cause which was more to his credit than to an American's. According to contemporary evidence, Madame Depeau was in New Orleans.