The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis by Joseph A. Altsheler (top novels to read txt) 📗

he had brave officers, but every one of them had despaired, until suddenly a light, a pillar of fire, rose in the darkness and the storm, almost from the heart of the ocean, as if it had been evoked by his own signal guns. Then, by this marvelous beacon, they had scraped between the rocks and into safety. Clearly it was a miracle, and young Captain Whyte felt a deep and devout gratitude. He had then sent one of his best officers ashore to see the man who had saved them, and, meanwhile, he had stood by, watching through his glasses.

He saw the man of the island get into the boat with [Pg 194] Lanham and approach the sloop. The storm had now sunk much, and it was not difficult to come aboard, but Captain Whyte, still intensely curious, but with a proper sense of his own dignity, withdrew to his cabin where he might receive the lord of the isle in state.

He rose politely, and then stared at the tall youth who came in with Lieutenant Lanham, the water running from his clothes. Yet the stranger had a dignity fully equal to his own, and there was also something very uncommon about him, a look of strength and confidence extraordinary in one so young.

"Won't you sit down?" said Captain Whyte.

Robert glanced at his clothes.

"I bring the storm with me," he said—he often spoke in the language that he had unconsciously imbibed in much reading of the Elizabethans.

"Never mind that. Water won't hurt my cabin, and if it did you're welcome just the same. I suppose you represent the people of the island, to whom my crew and I owe so much."

"I am the people of the island."

"You mean that you're here alone?"

"Exactly that. But tell me, before we go any further, Captain, what month this is."

"May."

"And the year?"

"1759."

"I wanted to be sure. I see that I've been on the island eight or nine months, but I lost all count of time, and, now and then it seemed like eight or nine years. As I've already told Lieutenant Lanham, I'm Robert Lennox, of Albany, the Province of New York, and the wilderness. I was kidnapped at Albany and carried down the Hudson and out to sea by a slaver and pirate."[Pg 195]

"'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 ship, 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 ship 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 ship 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.[Pg 196] "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 ship and all our lives. I see you have a naval uniform of ours. Well, we'll give you a dry one[Pg 197] 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 ship 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 brass, 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 ashore 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."[Pg 198]

"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 ship."

After breakfast Robert went ashore 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 ship and they belong to you. The Hawk has no claim on 'em."

"I'd like for 'em to stay here," said Robert. "Nobody 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 passing 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,[Pg 199] 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 ship 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 friendship 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 pic[Pg 200]turesque 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