The Sun Of Quebec Part 25

"'Tis an extraordinary tale, Mr. Lennox."

"But a true one, Captain Whyte."

"I meant no insinuation that it wasn't. Extraordinary things happen in the world, and have been happening in these seas, ever since Columbus first came into them."

"Still mine is such an unusual story that it needs proof, and I give it.

Did you not last autumn pretend that yours was a merchant s.h.i.+p, have a sailor play the violin on deck while others danced about, and lure under your guns a pirate with the black flag at her masthead?"

Captain Whyte stared in astonishment.

"How do you know that?" he exclaimed.

"Did you not shatter the pirate s.h.i.+p with your broadsides but lose her afterwards in a great storm that came up suddenly?"

"Aye, so I did, and I've been looking for her many a time since then."

"You'll never find her, Captain. Your guns were aimed well enough, and they took the life out of her. She couldn't weather the storm. Of all the people who were aboard her then I'm the only survivor. Her captain escaped with me to this island, but he died of wounds and I buried him.

I can show you his grave."

"How do I know that you, too, are not one of the pirates?"

"By taking me back on your s.h.i.+p to the colonies, and proving my tale. If you don't find that every word I tell you is true you can hang me to your own yardarm."

Captain Whyte laughed. It was a fair and frank offer, but he was a reader of men, and he felt quite sure that the strange youth was telling the absolute truth.

"He's given me, sir, quite correct accounts of events that happened in the colonies last year," said Lanham. "He was at Ticonderoga and his narrative of the battle agrees fully with the accounts that we received."

And just at that moment coincidence stretched out her long arm again, as she does so often.

"I had a cousin at Ticonderoga," said Captain Whyte. "A splendid young fellow, name of Grosvenor. I've seen a letter from him in which he says 'twas a terrible fight, but that we threw away our chances before we went upon the field."

"Grosvenor! Grosvenor!" exclaimed Robert eagerly. "Why, I knew him! He was a friend of mine! We were in the forest together, in combat and escape. His first name was Alfred. Did he say nothing in his letter of Robert Lennox?"

"Of course he did! I was so much interested in you that I paid little attention to your name, and it glided past me as if I'd not heard it. He told of a friend of his, name of yours, who had been lost, murdered they all believed by some spy."

"And did he say nothing also of Tayoga, a wonderful Onondaga Indian, and of David Willet, a great hunter?"

"Aye, so he did. I recall those names too. Said the Indian was the most marvelous trailer the world had ever known, could trace the flight of a bird through the air, and a lot more that must have been pure romance."

"It's all true! every word of it. I'll see that you meet Tayoga, and then you'll believe, and you must know Willet, too, one of the grandest men that ever lived, soul of honor, true as steel, all those things."

"I believe you! Every word you say! But I can't keep you talking here with the water dripping from you. We really couldn't question your truth, either, after you'd saved our s.h.i.+p and all our lives. I see you have a naval uniform of ours. Well, we'll give you a dry one in its place. See that the best the _Hawk_ has is his, Lanham."

Robert was taken to a small cabin that was vacant and he exchanged into dry clothing. He went back a little later to the captain's room with Lanham, where they insisted upon his taking refreshment, and then Captain Whyte sent him to bed.

"I've a million questions to ask you, Mr. Lennox," he said, "but I won't ask 'em until to-morrow. You must sleep."

Robert's manner had been calm, but he found when he lay down that he was surcharged with excitement. It was inside him and wanted to get it out, but he kept it bottled up, and after an hour spent in quieting his nerves he fell asleep. When he awoke, dressed and went on deck, all trace of the storm had gone. The _Hawk_ swung quietly at anchor and to him she seemed the very finest s.h.i.+p that had ever sailed on any sea from the day of the galley to the day of the three-decker. He noticed with pleasure how trim everything was, how clean was the wood, how polished the bra.s.s, and how the flag of Britain snapped in the breeze overhead.

He noticed too the eighteen pounders and he knew these were what had done the business for the slaver and pirate. Lanham gave him a hearty welcome.

"It's half way to noon," he said, "and you slept long and well, as you had a right to do, after saving His Majesty's twenty-two gun sloop, _Hawk_, from the rocks. We had a boat's crew ash.o.r.e this morning, not because we doubted your word, but to see that everything was trim and snug on your island, and they found your house. On my word, quite a little castle, and well furnished. We didn't disturb a thing. It's yours, you know."

"I merely inherited it," said Robert. "The slaver and pirate who kidnapped me built it as a place for a refuge or a holiday, and he came back here to die. He furnished it partly, and the rest came from his wrecked s.h.i.+p."

After breakfast Robert went ash.o.r.e also with the captain and Lanham, and he showed them about the island. They even saw the old bull at the head of his herd, and Robert waved him a friendly farewell. The house and its contents they decided to leave exactly as they were.

"They may shelter some other castaway," said Robert.

"We'll even leave the guns and ammunition," said Captain Whyte. "We don't need 'em. You rescued 'em from the s.h.i.+p and they belong to you.

The _Hawk_ has no claim on 'em."

"I'd like for 'em to stay here," said Robert. "n.o.body may ever be cast away on this island again, and on the other hand it might happen next week. You can't tell. But it's been a good island to me, and, though I say farewell, I won't forget it."

"You take the right view of it," said Captain Whyte, "and even if I didn't feel your way about it, although I do, I'd be bound to give you your wish since you saved us. You've also taken quite a burden off my mind. It's always been a source of grief to me that the pirate eluded us in the storm, but since you've shown me that we were really responsible for her sinking I feel a lot better about it."

On the _Hawk_ Lanham told him what had been pa.s.sing in the world.

"There's a great expedition out from England under that young general, Wolfe, who distinguished himself at Louisbourg," he said. "It aims at the taking of Quebec, and we're very hopeful. The rendezvous is Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island and army and navy, I suppose, are already there. Your own Royal Americans will be in it, and what we lost at Ticonderoga we propose to regain--and more--before Quebec. The _Hawk_ is bound for Louisbourg to join the fleet, but she puts in at Boston first. If you choose to go on to Louisbourg with us you won't fare ill, because the captain has taken a great fancy for you."

"I thank you much," said Robert, gratefully. "I'm almost tempted to join the great expedition from Louisbourg into the St. Lawrence, but I feel that I must leave the s.h.i.+p at Boston. I'm bound to hunt up Willet and Tayoga, and we'll come by land. We'll meet you before the heights of Quebec."

Everything seemed to favor the northward voyage of the _Hawk_. Good winds drove her on, and Robert's heart leaped within him at the thought that he would soon be back in his own country. Yet he made little outward show of it. The gravity of mind and manner that he had acquired on the island remained with him. Habits that he had formed there were still very powerful. It was difficult for him to grow used to the presence of other people, and at times he longed to go out on his peak of observation, where he might sit alone for hours, with only the rustling of the wind among the leaves in his ears. The sound of the human voice was often strange and harsh, and now and then only his will kept him from starting when he heard it, as one jumps at the snarl of a wild animal in the bush.

But the friends.h.i.+p between him, Captain Whyte, Lieutenant Lanham and the other young officers grew. People instinctively liked Robert Lennox.

Whether in his gay mood or his grave he had a charm of manner that few could resist, and his story was so strange, so picturesque that it invested him with compelling romance. He told all about his kidnapping and his life upon the island, but he said nothing of Adrian Van Zoon. He let it be thought that the motive of the slaver in seizing him was merely to get a likely lad for sale on a West India plantation. But his anger against Van Zoon grew. He was not one to cherish wrath, but on this point it was concentrated, and he intended to have a settlement. It was not meant that he should be lost, it was not meant that Adrian Van Zoon should triumph. He had been seized and carried away twice, and each time, when escape seemed impossible, a hand mightier than that of man had intervened in his favor.

He spoke a little of his thought once or twice when he stood on the deck of the _Hawk_ on moonlight nights with Captain Whyte and Lieutenant Lanham.

"You can't live with the Indians as much as I have," he said, "especially with such a high type of Indian as the Iroquois, without acquiring some of their beliefs which, after all, are about the same as our own Christian religion. The difference is only in name. They fill the air with spirits, good and evil, and have 'em contending for the mastery. Now, I felt when I was on the island and even before that I was protected by the good spirits of the Iroquois, and that they were always fighting for me with the bad."

"I take it," said Captain Whyte, "that the Indian beliefs, as you tell them, are more like the mythology of the old Greeks and Romans. I'm a little rusty on my cla.s.sics, but they had spirits around everywhere, good and bad, always struggling with one another, and their G.o.ds themselves were mixtures of good and evil, just like human beings. But I'm not prepared to say, Mr. Lennox, that you weren't watched over. It seems strange that of all the human beings on the slaver you should have been the only one saved and you the only one not stained with crime.

It's a fact I don't undertake to account for. And you never found out the name of the pirate captain?"

"Neither his nor that of his s.h.i.+p. It had been effaced carefully from the schooner and all her boats."

"I suppose it will remain one of the mysteries of the sea. But tell me more about my cousin, Grosvenor. He was really becoming a trailer, a forest runner?"

"He was making wonderful progress. I never saw anybody more keen or eager."

"A fine lad, one of our best. I'm glad that you two met. I'd like to meet too that Frenchman, St. Luc, of whom you've spoken so often. We Englishmen and Frenchmen have been fighting one another for a thousand years, and it seems odd, doesn't it, Mr. Lennox, that it should be so?

Why, the two countries can see each other across the Channel on clear days, and neighbors ought to be the best of friends, instead of the most deadly enemies. It seems that the farther a nation is from another the better they get along together. What is there in propinquity, Mr.

Lennox, to cause hostility?"

"I don't know, but I suppose it's rivalry, the idea that if your neighbor grows he grows at your expense. Your hostility carries over to us in America also. We're your children and we imitate our parents. The French in Canada hate the English in the Provinces and the English in the Provinces hate the French in Canada, when there's so much of the country of each that they're lost in it."

"It's a queer world, Mr. Lennox. In spite of what you say and which I endorse, I'm going with an eager heart in the great expedition against Quebec, and so will you. I'll be filled with joy if it succeeds and so will you."

Robert admitted the fact.