The Hidden Children by Robert W. Chambers (books to improve english .TXT) 📗

she shall be brought back safely from the Vale Yndaia. I will tell Major Parr of this; he shall inform the General. Have no fear or doubt, dear maid. If she is there, and human power can save her, then is she saved already, by God's grace."

She said in a quiet voice:

"I must go with you. And that is why—or partly why—I asked you here tonight. Find me some way to go to Catharines-town. For I must go!"

"Why not inquire of me the road to hell?" I asked impatiently. She said between her teeth:

"Oh, any man might show me that. And guide me, too. Many have offered, Euan."

"What!"

"I ask your pardon. Two years of camps blunts any woman's speech."

"Lois," said I uneasily, "why do you wish to go to Catharines-town, when an armed force is going?"

She sat considering, then, in a low, firm voice:

"To tell you why, is why I asked you here.... And first I must show you what my packet held.... Shall I show you, Euan?"

"Surely, little comrade."

She drew the packet from her bosom, unlaced the thong, unrolled the deer-hide covering.

"Here is a roll of bark," she said. "This I have never had interpreted. Can you read it for me, Euan?"

And there in the lantern light I read it, while she looked down over my shoulder.

"KADON!

"Aesa-yat-yen-enghdon, Lois!
"Etho!
[And here was painted a white dog lying dead, its tongue hanging
out sideways.]
"Hen-skerigh-watonte.
"Jatthon-ten-yonk, Lois!
"Jin-isaya-dawen-ken-wed-e-wayen.
[Here was drawn in outline the foot and claws of a forest lynx.]
"Niyi-eskah-haghs, na-yegh-nyasa-kenra-dake, niya-wennonh!" [Then a
white symbol.]

For a long time I gazed at the writing in shocked silence. Then I asked her if she suspected what was written there in the Canienga dialect.

"I never have had it read. Indians refuse, shake their heads, and look askance at me, and tell me nothing; interpreters laugh at me, saying there is no meaning in the lines. Is there, Euan?"

"Yes," I said.

"You can interpret?"

"Yes."

"Will you?"

I was silent, pondering the fearful meaning which had been rendered plainer and more hideous by the painted symbols.

"It has to do with the magic of the Seneca priesthood," I muttered. "Here is a foul screed—and yet a message, too, to you."

Then, with an effort I found courage to read, as it was written:

"I speak! Thou, Lois, mightest have been destroyed! Thus! (Here the white dog.) But I will frustrate their purpose. Keep listening to me, Lois. That which has befallen you we place it here (or, 'we draw it here'—i. e., the severed foot and claws of a lynx). Being born white (literally, 'being born having a white neck'), this happened." And the ghastly sign of Leshi ended it.

"But what does it all signify?" she asked, bewildered.

And even as she spoke, out of the dull and menacing horror of the symbols, into my mind, leaped terrible comprehension.

I said coolly: "It must have been Amochol—and his Erie sorcerers! How came you in Catharines-town?"

"I? In Catharines-town!" she faltered. "Was I, then, ever there?"

I pointed at the drawing of the dead white dog.

"Somebody saved you from that hellish sacrifice. I tell you it is plain enough to read. The rite is practiced only by the red sorcerers of the Senecas.... Look! It was because your 'neck' was 'white'! Look again! Here is the symbol of the Cat-People—the Eries—the acolytes of Amochol—here! This spread lynx-pad with every separate claw extended! Yet, it is drawn severed—in symbol of your escape. Lois! Lois! It is plain enough. I follow it all—almost all—nearly—but not quite——"

I hesitated, studying the bark intently, pausing to look at her with a new and keenly searching question in my gaze.

"You have not shown me all," I said.

"All that is written in the Iroquois tongue. But there were other things in the packet with this bark letter." She opened it again upon her lap.

"Here is a soldier's belt-buckle," she said, offering it to me for my inspection.

It was made of silver and there were still traces of French gilt upon the device.

"Regiment de la Reine," I read. "What regiment is that, Lois? I'm sure I've heard of it somewhere. Oh! Now I remember. It was a very celebrated French regiment—cut all to pieces at Lake George by Sir William Johnson in '55. This is an officer's belt-buckle."

"Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?"

"Utterly. In France they made the regiment again with new men and new officers, and call it still by the same celebrated name."

"You say Sir William Johnson's men cut it to pieces—the Regiment de la Reine?" she asked.

"His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it after that bloody day."

She sat thoughtful for a while, then, bestirring herself, drew from the deerhide packet a miniature on ivory, cracked across, and held together only by the narrow oval frame of gold.

There was no need to look twice. This man, whoever he might be, was this girl's father; and nobody who had ever seen her and this miniature could ever doubt it.

She did not speak, nor did I, conscious that her eyes had never left my face and must have read my startled mind with perfect ease.

Presently I turned the portrait over. There was a lock of hair there under the glass—bright, curly hair exactly like her own. And at first I saw nothing else. Then, as the glass-backed locket glanced in the lantern-light, I saw that on the glass something had been inscribed with a diamond. This is what I read, written across the glass:

"Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri."

I looked up at her.

"Jean Coeur," I repeated. "That is no name for a man——" Suddenly I remembered, years ago—years and years since—hearing Guy Johnson cursing some such man. Then in an instant all came back to me; and she seemed to divine it, for her small hand clutched my arm and her eyes were widening as I turned to meet them.

"Lois," I said unsteadily, "there was a man called Jean Coeur, deputy to the adventurer, Joncaire. Joncaire was the great captain who all but saved this Western Continent to France. Captain Joncaire was feared, detested, but respected by Sir William Johnson because he held all Canada and the Hurons and Algonquins in the hollow of his hand, and had even gained part of the Long House—the Senecas. His clever deputy was called Jean Coeur. Never did two men know the Indians as these two did."

I thought a moment, then: "Somewhere I heard that Captain Joncaire had a daughter. But she married another man—one Louis de Contrecoeur——" I hesitated, glanced again at the name scratched on the glass over the lock of hair, and shook my head.

"Jean Coeur—Louis de Contrecoeur. The names scarce hang together—yet——"

"Look at this!" she whispered in a low, tense voice, and laid a bit of printing in my hand.

It was a stained and engraved sheet of paper—a fly-leaf detached from a book of Voltaire. And above the scroll-encompassed title was written in faded ink: "Le Capitaine Vicomte Louis Jean de Contrecoeur du Regiment de la Reine." And under that, in a woman's fine handwriting: "Mon coeur, malgre; mon coeur, se rendre a Contrecoeur, dit Jean Coeur; coeur contre coeur."

"That," she said, "is the same writing that the birch bark bears, sewed in my moccasins."

"Then," I said excitedly, "your mother was born Mademoiselle Joncaire, and you are Lois de Contrecoeur!"

She sat with eyes lowered, fingering the stained and faded page. After a moment she said:

"I wrote to France—to the Headquarters of the Regiment de la Reine—asking about my—father."

"You had an answer?"

"Aye, the answer came.... Merely a word or two.... The Vicomte Louis Jean de Contrecoeur fell at Lake George in '55——" She lifted her clear eyes to mine. "And died—unmarried."

A chill passed through me, then the reaction came, taking me by the throat, setting my veins afire.

"Then—by God!" I stammered. "If de Contrecoeur died unmarried, his child shall not!"

"Euan! I do not credit what they wrote. If my father married here perhaps they had not heard."

"Lois! Dearest of maids—whichever is the truth I wish to marry you!"

But she stopped her ears with both palms, giving me a frightened look; and checked, but burning still, I stared at her.

"Is that then all you are?" she asked. "A wisp of tow to catch the first spark that flies? A brand ever smouldering, which the first breath o' woman stirs to flame?"

"Never have I loved before——"

"Love! Euan, are you mad?"

We both were breathing fast and brokenly.

"What is it then, if it be not love!" I asked angrily.

"What is it?" she repeated slowly. Yet I seemed to feel in her very voice a faint, cool current of contempt. "Why, it is what always urges men to speak, I fancy—their natural fire—their easily provoked emotions.... I had believed you different."

"Did you not desire my friendship?" I asked in hot chagrin.

"Not if it be of this kind, Euan."

"You would not have me love you?"

"Love!" And the fine edge of her contempt cut clean. "Love!" she repeated coolly. "And we scarcely know each other; have never passed a day together; have never broken bread; know nothing, nothing of each other's minds and finer qualities; have awakened nothing in each other yet except emotions. Friendships have their deeps and shallows, but are deathless only while they endure. Love hath no shallows, Euan, and endures often when friendship dies.... I speak, having no knowledge. But I believe it. And, believing nobly of true love—in ignorance of it, but still in awe—and having been assailed by clamours of a shameful passion calling itself love—and having builded in my heart and mind a very lofty altar for the truth, how can I feel otherwise than sorry that you spoke—hotly, unthinkingly, as you did to me?"

I was silent.

She rose, lifted the lantern, laid open the trap-door.

"Come," she whispered, beckoning.

I followed her as she descended, took the lantern from her hand, glanced at the shadowy heap, asleep perhaps, on the corner settle, then walked to the door and opened it. A thousand, thousand stars were sparkling overhead.

On the sill she whispered:

"When will you come again?"

"Do you want me?" I said sullenly.

She made no answer for a moment; suddenly she caught my hand and pressed it, crushing it between both of hers; and turning I saw her almost helpless with her laughter.

"Oh, what an infant have I found in this tall gentleman of Morgan's corps!" said she. "A boy one moment and a man the next—silly and wise in the same breath—headlong, headstrong, tender, and generous, petty and childish, grave and kind—the sacred and wondrous being, in point of fact, known to the world as man! And now he asks, with solemn mien and sadly ruffled and reproachful dignity whether a poor, friendless, homeless, nameless girl desires his company again!"

She dropped my hand, caught at her skirt's edge, and made me a mocking reverence.

"Dear sir," she said, "I pray you come again to visit me tomorrow, while I am mending regimental shirts at tuppence each——"

"Lois!" I said sadly. "How can you use me so!"

She began to laugh again.

"Oh, Euan, I can not endure it if you're solemn and sorry for yourself——"

"That is too much!" I exclaimed, furious, and marched out, boiling, under the high stars. And every star o' them, I think, was laughing at the sorriest ass who ever fell in love.

Nevertheless, that night I wrote her name in my letter to Mr. Hake; and the ink on it was scarce sanded when an Oneida runner had it and was driving his canoe down the Mohawk River at a speed that promised to win for him the bonus in hard money which I had promised for a swift journey and a swift return.

And far into the July morning I talked with the Sagamore of Amochol and of Catharines-town; and he listened while he sat tirelessly polishing his scalping-knife and hatchet.

CHAPTER VIII OLD FRIENDS

The sunrise gun awoke me. I rolled out of my blanket, saw the white cannon-smoke floating above the trees, ran down to the river, and plunged in.

When I returned, the Sagamore had already broken his fast, and once more was engaged in painting himself—this time in a most ghastly combination of black and white, the startling parti-coloured decorations splitting his visage into two equal sections, so that his eyes gleamed from a black and sticky mask, and his mouth and chin and jaw were like the features of a weather-bleached skull.

"More war, O Mayaro, my brother?" I asked in a bantering voice. "Every day you prepare for battle with a confidence forever new; every night the army snores in peace. Yet, at dawn, when you have greeted the sun, you renew your war-paint. Such praiseworthy perseverance ought to be rewarded."

"It has already been rewarded," remarked the Indian, with quiet humour.

"In