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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Trail of the Sword, Complete Author: Gilbert Parker Release Date: May 4, 2009 [EBook #6210] Last Updated: August 27, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD, COMPLETE *** Produced by David Widger THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD Complete By Gilbert Parker CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A NOTE THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI EPOCH THE SECOND CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII EPOCH THE THIRD CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII EPOCH THE FOURTH CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV WHEREIN IS SET FORTH THE HISTORY OF JESSICA LEVERET, AS ALSO THAT OF PIERRE LE MOYNE OF IBERVILLE, GEORGE GERING, AND OTHER BOLD SPIRITS; TOGETHER WITH CERTAIN MATTERS OF WAR, AND THE DEEDS OF ONE EDWARD BUCKLAW, MUTINEER AND PIRATE DEDICATION My Dear Father: Once, many years ago, in a kind of despair, you were impelled to say that I would “never be anything but a rascally lawyer.” This, it may be, sat upon your conscience, for later you turned me gravely towards Paley and the Thirty-nine Articles; and yet I know that in your deepest soldier’s heart, you really pictured me, how unavailingly, in scarlet and pipe-clay, and with sabre, like yourself in youth and manhood. In all I disappointed you, for I never had a brief or a parish, and it was another son of yours who carried on your military hopes. But as some faint apology—I almost dare hope some recompense for what must have seemed wilfulness, I send you now this story of a British soldier and his “dear maid,” which has for its background the old city of Quebec, whose high ramparts you walked first sixty years ago; and for setting, the beginning of those valiant fightings, which, as I have heard you say, “through God’s providence and James Wolfe, gave England her best possession.” You will, I feel sure, quarrel with the fashion of my campaigns, and be troubled by my anachronisms; but I beg you to remember that long ago you gave my young mind much distress when you told that wonderful story, how you, one man, “surrounded” a dozen enemies, and drove them prisoners to headquarters. “Surrounded” may have been mere lack of precision, but it serves my turn now, as you see. You once were—and I am precise here—a gallant swordsman: there are legends yet of your doings with a crack Dublin bully. Well, in the last chapter of this tale you shall find a duel which will perhaps recall those early days of this century, when your blood was hot and your hand ready. You would be distrustful of the details of this scene, did I not tell you that, though the voice is Jacob’s the hand is another’s. Swordsmen are not so many now in the army or out of it, that, among them, Mr. Walter Herrim Pollock’s name will have escaped you: so, if you quarrel, let it be with Esau; though, having good reason to be grateful to him, that would cause me sorrow. My dear father, you are nearing the time-post of ninety years, with great health and cheerfulness; it is my hope you may top the arch of your good and honourable life with a century key-stone. Believe me, sir, Your affectionate son, GILBERT PARKER. 15th September, 1894, 7 Park Place, St. James’s S.W. INTRODUCTION THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD This book, like Mrs. Falchion, was published in two volumes in January. That was in 1894. It appeared first serially in the Illustrated London News, for which paper, in effect, it was written, and it also appeared in a series of newspapers in the United States during the year 1893. This was a time when the historical novel was having its vogue. Mr. Stanley Weyman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a good many others were following the fashion, and many of the plays at the time were also historical—so-called. I did not write The Trail of the Sword because it was in keeping with the spirit of the moment. Fashion has never in the least influenced my writing or my literary purposes. Whatever may be thought of my books, they represent nothing except my own bent of mind, my own wilful expression of myself, and the setting forth of that which seized my imagination. I wrote The Trail of the Sword because the early history of the struggles between the French and English and the North American Continent interested me deeply and fascinated my imagination. Also, I had a most intense desire to write of the Frenchman of the early days of the old regime; and I have no idea why it was so, because I have no French blood in my veins nor any trace of French influence in my family. There is, however, the Celtic strain, the Irish blood, immediate of the tang, as it were, and no doubt a sympathy between the Celtic and the Gallic strain is very near, and has a tendency to become very dear. It has always been a difficulty for me to do anything except show the more favourable side of French character and life. I am afraid that both in The Trail of the Sword, which was the forerunner of The Seats of the Mighty, the well sunk, in a sense, out of which the latter was drawn, I gave my Frenchman the advantage over his English rival. In The Trail of the Sword, the gallant French adventurer’s chivalrous but somewhat merciless soul, makes a better picture than does his more phlegmatic but brave and honourable antagonist, George Gering. Also in The Seats of the Mighty, Doltaire, the half-villain, overshadows the good English hero from first to last; and yet, despite the unconscious partiality for the individual in both books, English character and the English as a race, as a whole, are dominant in the narrative. There is a long letter, as a dedication to this book, addressed to my father; there is a note also, which explains the spirit in which the book was written, and I have no desire to enlarge this introduction in the presence of these prefaces to the first edition. But I may say that this book was gravely important to me, because it was to test all my capacity for writing a novel with an historical background, and, as it were, in the custom of a bygone time. It was not really the first attempt at handling a theme belonging to past generations, because I had written for Good Words, about the year 1890, a short novel which I called The Chief Factor, a tale of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It was the first novel or tale of mine which secured copyright under the new American copyright act of 1892. There was a circumstance connected with this publication which is interesting. When I arrived in New York, I had only three days in which to have the book printed in order to secure the copyright before Good Words published the novel as its Christmas annual in its entirety. I tried Messrs. Harper & Brothers, and several other publishers by turn, but none of them could undertake to print the book in the time. At last some kind friend told me to go to the Trow Directory Binding Company, which I did. They said they could not print the story in the time. I begged them to reconsider. I told them how much was at stake for me. I said that I would stay in the office and read the proofs as they came from the press, and would not move until it was finished. Refusal had been written on the lips and the face of the manager at the beginning, but at last I prevailed. He brought the foreman down there and then. Each of us, elated by the conditions of the struggle, determined to pull the thing off. We printed that book of sixty-five thousand words or so, in forty-eight hours, and it arrived in Washington three hours before the time was up. I saved the copyright, and I need hardly say that my gratitude to the Trow Directory Binding Company was as great as their delight in having done a really brilliant piece of work. The day after the copyright was completed, I happened to mention the incident to Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter, author of Mr. Barnes of New York, who had a publishing house for his own books. He immediately made me an offer for The Chief Factor. I hesitated, because I had been dealing with great firms like Harpers, and, to my youthful mind, it seemed rather beneath my dignity to have the imprint of so new a firm as the Home Publishing Company on the title-page of my book. I asked the advice of Mr. Walter H. Page, then editor of The Forum, now one of the proprietors of The World’s Work and Country Life, and he instantly said: “What difference does it make who publishes your book? It is the public you want.” I did not hesitate any longer. The Chief Factor went to Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter and the Home Publishing Company, and they made a very large sale of it. I never cared for the book however; it seemed stilted and amateurish, though some of its descriptions and some of its dialogues were, I think, as good as I can do; so, eventually, in the middle nineties, I asked Mr. Gunter to sell me back the rights in the book and give me control of it. This he did. I thereupon withdrew it from publication at once, and am not including it in this subscription edition. I think it better dead. But the writing of it taught me better how to write The Trail of the Sword; though, if I had to do this book again, I could construct it better. I think it fresh and very vigorous, and I think it does not lack distinction, while a real air of romance—of refined romance—pervades it. But I know that Mr. W. E. Henley was right when, after most generously helping me to revise it, with a true literary touch wonderfully intimate and affectionate, he said to me: “It is just not quite big, but the next one will get home.” He was right. The Trail of the Sword is “just not quite,” though I think it has charm; but it remained for The Seats of the Mighty to get home, as “W. E. H.”, the most exacting, yet the most generous, of critics, said. This book played a most important part in a development of my literary work, and the warm reception by the public—for in England it has been through its tenth edition, and in America through proportionate thousands—was partly made possible by the very beautiful illustrations which accompanied its publication in The Illustrated London News. The artist was A. L. Forestier, and never before or since has my work received such distinguished pictorial exposition, save, perhaps, in The Weavers, when Andre Castaigne did such triumphant work. It is a joy still to look at the illustrations of The Trail of the Sword, for, absolutely faithful to the time, they add a note of verisimilitude to the tale. A NOTE The actors in this little drama played their parts on the big stage of a new continent two hundred years ago. Despots sat upon the thrones of France and England, and their representatives on the Hudson and the St. Lawrence were despots too, with greater opportunity and to better ends. In Canada, Frontenac quarreled with his Intendant and his Council, set a stern hand upon the Church when she crossed with his purposes, cajoled, treated with, and fought the Indians by turn, and cherished a running quarrel with the English Governor of New York. They were striving for the friendship of the Iroquois on the one hand, and for the trade of the Great West on the other. The French, under such men as La Salle, had pushed their trading posts westward to the great lakes and beyond the Missouri, and north to the shores of Hudson’s Bay. They traded and fought and revelled, hot with the spirit of adventure, the best of pioneers and the worst of colonists. Tardily, upon their trail, came the English and the Dutch, slow to acquire but strong to hold; not so rash in adventure, nor so adroit in intrigue, as fond of fighting, but with less of the gift of the woods, and much more the faculty for government. There was little interchange of friendliness and trade between the rival colonists; and Frenchmen were as rare on Manhattan Island as Englishmen on the heights of Quebec—except as prisoners. G. P. THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD CHAPTER I AN ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY One summer afternoon a tall, good-looking stripling stopped in the midst of the town of New York, and asked his way to the governor’s house. He attracted not a little attention, and he created as much astonishment when he came into the presence of the governor. He had been announced as an envoy from Quebec. “Some new insolence of the County Frontenac!” cried old Richard Nicholls, bringing his fist down on the table. For a few minutes he talked with his chamberfellow; then, “Show the gentleman in,” he added. In the room without, the envoy from Quebec had stood flicking the dust from his leggings with a scarf. He was not more than eighteen, his face had scarcely an inkling of moustache, but he had an easy upright carriage, with an air of self-possession, the keenest of grey eyes, a strong pair of shoulders, a look of daring about his rather large mouth, which lent him a manliness well warranting his present service. He had been left alone, and the first thing he had done was to turn on his heel and examine the place swiftly. This he seemed to do mechanically, not as one forecasting danger, not as a spy. In the curve of his lips, in an occasional droop of his eyelids, there was a suggestion of humour: less often a quality of the young than of the old. For even in the late seventeenth century, youth took itself seriously at times. Presently, as he stood looking at the sunshine through the open door, a young girl came into the lane of light, waved her hand, with a little laugh, to some one in the distance, and stepped inside. At first she did not see him. Her glances were still cast back the way she had come. The young man could not follow her glance, nor was he anything curious. Young as he was, he could enjoy a fine picture. There was a pretty demureness in the girl’s manner, a warm piquancy in the turn of the neck, and a delicacy in her gestures, which to him, fresh from hard hours in the woods, was part of some delightful Arcady—though Arcady was more in his veins than of his knowledge. For the young seigneur of New France spent far more hours with his gun than with his Latin, and knew his bush-ranging vassal better than his tutor; and this one was too complete a type of his order to reverse its record. He did not look to his scanty lace, or set himself seemingly; he did but stop flicking the scarf held loose in his fingers, his foot still on the bench. A smile played at his lips, and his eyes had a gleam of raillery. He heard the girl say in a soft, quaint voice, just as she turned towards him, “Foolish boy!” By this he knew that the pretty picture had for its inspiration one of his own sex. She faced him, and gave a little cry of surprise. Then their eyes met. Immediately he made the most elaborate bow of all his life, and she swept a graceful courtesy. Her face was slightly flushed that this stranger should have seen, but he carried such an open, cordial look that she paused, instead of hurrying into the governor’s room, as she had seemed inclined to do. In the act the string of her hat, slung over her arm, came loose, and the hat fell to the floor. Instantly he picked it up and returned it. Neither had spoken a word. It seemed another act of the light pantomime at the door. As if they had both thought on the instant how droll it was, they laughed, and she said to him naively: “You have come to visit the governor? You are a Frenchman, are you not?” To this in slow and careful English, “Yes,” he replied; “I have come from Canada to see his excellency. Will you speak French?” “If you please, no,” she answered, smiling; “your English is better than my French. But I must go.” And she turned towards the door of the governor’s room. “Do not go yet,” he said. “Tell me, are you the governor’s daughter?” She paused, her hand at the door. “Oh no,” she answered; then, in a sprightly way—“are you a governor’s son?” “I wish I were,” he said, “for then there’d be a new intendant, and we’d put Nick Perrot in the council.” “What is an intendant?” she asked, “and who is Nick Perrot?” “Bien! an intendant is a man whom King Louis appoints to worry the governor and the gentlemen of Canada, and to interrupt the trade. Nicolas Perrot is a fine fellow, and a great coureur du bois, and helps to get the governor out of troubles to-day, the intendant to-morrow. He is a splendid fighter. Perrot is my friend.” He said this, not with an air of boasting, but with a youthful and enthusiastic pride, which was relieved, by the twinkle in his eyes and his frank manner. “Who brought you here?” she asked demurely. “Are they inside with the governor?” He saw the raillery; though, indeed, it was natural to suppose that he had no business with the governor, but had merely come with some one. The question was not flattering. His hand went up to his chin a little awkwardly. She noted how large yet how well-shaped it was, or, rather, she remembered afterwards. Then it dropped upon the hilt of the rapier he wore, and he answered with good self- possession, though a little hot spot showed on his cheek: “The governor must have other guests who are no men of mine; for he keeps an envoy from Count Frontenac long in his anteroom.” The girl became very youthful indeed, and a merry light danced in her eyes and warmed her cheek. She came a step nearer. “It is not so? You do not come from Count Frontenac—all alone, do you?” “I’ll tell you after I have told the governor,” he answered, pleased and amused. “Oh, I shall hear when the governor hears,” she answered, with a soft quaintness, and then vanished into the governor’s chamber. She had scarce entered when the door opened again, and the servant, a Scotsman, came out to say that his excellency would receive him. He went briskly forward, but presently paused. A sudden sense of shyness possessed him. It was not the first time he had been ushered into vice-regal presence, but his was an odd position. He was in a strange land, charged with an embassy which accident had thrust upon him. Then, too, the presence of the girl had withdrawn him for an instant from the imminence of his duty. His youth came out of him, and in the pause one could fairly see him turn into man. He had not the dark complexion of so many of his race, but was rather Saxon in face, with rich curling brown hair. Even in that brave time one might safely have bespoken for him a large career. And even while the Scotsman in the doorway eyed him with distant deprecation, as he eyed all Frenchmen, good and bad, ugly or handsome, he put off his hesitation and entered the governor’s chamber. Colonel Nicholls came forward to greet him, and then suddenly stopped, astonished. Then he wheeled upon the girl. “Jessica, you madcap!” he said in a low voice. She was leaning against a tall chair, both hands grasping the back of it, her chin just level with the top. She had told the governor that Count Frontenac had sent him a lame old man, and that, enemy or none, he ought not to be kept waiting, with arm in sling and bandaged head. Seated at the table near her was a grave member of the governor’s council, William Drayton by name. He lifted a reproving finger at her now, but with a smile on his kindly face, and “Fie, fie, young lady!” he said, in a whisper. Presently the governor mastered his surprise, and seeing that the young man was of birth and quality, extended his hand cordially enough, and said: “I am glad to greet you, sir;” and motioned him to a seat. “But, pray, sit down,” he added, “and let us hear the message Count Frontenac has sent. Meanwhile we would be favoured with your name and rank.” The young man thrust a hand into his doublet and drew forth a packet of papers. As he handed it over, he said in English—for till then the governor had spoken French, having once served with the army of France, and lived at the French Court: “Your excellency, my name is Pierre le Moyne of Iberville, son of Charles le Moyne, a seigneur of Canada, of whom you may have heard.” (The governor nodded.) “I was not sent by Count Frontenac to you. My father was his envoy: to debate with you our trade in the far West and our dealings with the Iroquois.” “Exactly,” said old William Drayton, tapping the table with his forefinger; “and a very sound move, upon my soul.” “Ay, ay,” said the governor, “I know of your father well enough. A good fighter and an honest gentleman, as they say. But proceed, Monsieur le Moyne of Iberville.” “I am called Iberville,” said the young man simply. Then: “My father and myself started from Quebec with good Nick Perrot, the coureur du bois—” “I know him too,” the governor interjected—“a scoundrel worth his weight in gold to your Count Frontenac.” “For whose head Count Frontenac has offered gold in his time,” answered Iberville, with a smile. “A very pretty wit,” said old William Drayton, nodding softly towards the girl, who was casting bright, quizzical glances at the youth over the back of the chair. Iberville went on: “Six days ago we were set upon by a score of your Indians, and might easily have left our scalps with them; but, as it chanced, my father was wounded, I came off scot-free, and we had the joy of ridding your excellency of half a dozen rogues.” The governor lifted his eyebrows and said nothing. The face of the girl over against the back of the chair had become grave. “It was in question whether Perrot or I should bear Count Frontenac’s message. Perrot knew the way, I did not; Perrot also knew the Indians.” “But Perrot,” said the governor bluffly, “would have been the letter-carrier; you are a kind of ambassador. Upon my soul, yes, a sort of ambassador!” he added, enjoying the idea; for, look at it how you would, Iberville was but a boy. “That was my father’s thought and my own,” answered Iberville coolly. “There was my father to care for till his wound was healed and he could travel back to Quebec, so we thought it better Perrot should stay with him. A Le Moyne was to present himself, and a Le Moyne has done so.” The governor was impressed more deeply than he showed. It was a time of peace, but the young man’s journey among Indian braves and English outlaws, to whom a French scalp was a thing of price, was hard and hazardous. His reply was cordial, then his fingers came to the seal of the packet; but the girl’s hand touched his arm. “I know his name,” she said in the governor’s ear, “but he does not know mine.” The governor patted her hand, and then rejoined: “Now, now, I forgot the lady; but I cannot always remember that you are full fifteen years old.” Standing up, with all due gravity and courtesy, “Monsieur Iberville,” he said, “let me present you to Mistress Jessica Leveret, the daughter of my good and honoured and absent friend, the Honourable Hogarth Leveret.” So the governor and his councillor stood shoulder to shoulder at one window, debating Count Frontenac’s message; and shoulder to shoulder at another stood Iberville and Jessica Leveret. And what was between these at that moment—though none could have guessed it—signified as much to the colonies of France and England, at strife in the New World, as the deliberations of their elders. CHAPTER II THE THREAT OF A RENEGADE Iberville was used to the society of women. Even as a young lad, his father’s notable place in the colony, and the freedom and gaiety of life in Quebec and Montreal, had drawn upon him a notice which was as much a promise of the future as an accent of the present. And yet, through all of it, he was ever better inspired by the grasp of a common soldier, who had served with Carignan-Salieres, or by the greeting and gossip of such woodsmen as Du Lhut, Mantet, La Durantaye, and, most of all, his staunch friend Perrot, chief of the coureurs du bois. Truth is, in his veins was the strain of war and adventure first and before all. Under his tutor, the good Pere Dollier de Casson, he had never endured his classics, save for the sake of Hector and Achilles and their kind; and his knowledge of English, which his father had pressed him to learn,—for he himself had felt the lack of it in dealings with Dutch and English traders,—only grew in proportion as he was given Shakespeare and Raleigh to explore. Soon the girl laughed up at him. “I have been a great traveller,” she said, “and I have ears. I have been as far west as Albany and south to Virginia, with my father, who, perhaps you do not know, is in England now. And they told me everywhere that Frenchmen are bold, dark men, with great black eyes and very fine laces and wigs, and a trick of bowing and making foolish compliments; and they are not to be trusted, and they will not fight except in the woods, where there are trees to climb. But I see that it is not all true, for you are not dark, your eyes are not big or black, your laces are not much to see, you do not make compliments—” “I shall begin now,” he interrupted. “—you must be trusted a little, or Count Frontenac would not send you, and—and—tell me, would you fight if you had a chance?” No one of her sex had ever talked so to Iberville. Her demure raillery, her fresh, frank impertinence, through which there ran a pretty air of breeding, her innocent disregard of formality, all joined to impress him, to interest him. He was not so much surprised at the elegance and cleverness of her speech, for in Quebec girls of her age were skilled in languages and arts, thanks to the great bishop, Laval, and to Marie of the Incarnation. In response to her a smile flickered upon his lips. He had a quick fierce temper, but it had never been severely tried; and so well used was he to looking cheerfully upon things, so keen had been his zest in living, that, where himself was concerned, his vanity was not easily touched. So, looking with genial dryness, “You will hardly believe it, of course,” he said, “but wings I have not yet grown, and the walking is bad ‘twixt here and the Chateau St. Louis.” “Iroquois traps,” she suggested, with a smile. “With a trick or two of English footpads,” was his reply. Meanwhile his eye had loitered between the two men in council at the farther window and the garden, into which he and the girl were looking. Presently he gave a little start and a low whistle, and his eyelids slightly drooped, giving him a handsome sulkiness. “Is it so?” he said between his teeth: “Radisson—Radisson, as I live!” He had seen a man cross a corner of the yard. This man was short, dark-bearded, with black, lanky hair, brass earrings, and buckskin leggings, all the typical equipment of the French coureur du bois. Iberville had only got one glance at his face, but the sinister profile could never be forgotten. At once the man passed out of view. The girl had not seen him, she had been watching her companion. Presently she said, her fingers just brushing his sleeve, for he stood eyeing the point where the man had disappeared: “Wonderful! You look now as if you would fight. Oh, fierce, fierce as the governor when he catches a French spy!” He turned to her and, with a touch of irony, “Pardon!” he retorted. “Now I shall look as blithe as the governor when a traitor deserts to him.” Of purpose he spoke loud enough to be heard by the governor and his friend. The governor turned sharply on him. He had caught the ring in the voice, that rash enthusiasm of eager youth, and, taking a step towards Iberville, Count Frontenac’s letter still poised in his hand: “Were your words meant for my hearing, monsieur?” he said. “Were you speaking of me or of your governor?” “I was thinking of one Radisson a traitor, and I was speaking of yourself, your excellency.” The governor had asked his question in French, in French the reply was given. Both the girl and Councillor Drayton followed with difficulty. Jessica looked a message to her comrade in ignorance. The old man touched the governor’s arm. “Let it be in English if monsieur is willing. He speaks it well.” The governor was at work to hide his anger: he wished good greeting to Count Frontenac’s envoy, and it seemed not fitting to be touched by the charges of a boy. “I must tell you frankly, Monsieur Iberville,” he said, “that I do not choose to find a sort of challenge in your words; and I doubt that your father, had he been here, would have spoke quite so roundly. But I am for peace and happy temper when I can. I may not help it if your people, tired of the governance of Louis of France, come into the good ruling of King Charles. As for this man Radisson: what is it you would have?” Iberville was now well settled back upon his native courage. He swallowed the rebuke with grace, and replied with frankness: “Radisson is an outlaw. Once he attempted Count Frontenac’s life. He sold a band of our traders to the Iroquois. He led your Hollanders stealthily to cut off the Indians of the west, who were coming with their year’s furs to our merchants. There is peace between your colony and ours—is it fair to harbour such a wretch in your court-yard? It was said up in Quebec, your excellency, that such men have eaten at your table.” During this speech the governor seemed choleric, but a change passed over him, and he fell to admiring the lad’s boldness. “Upon my soul, monsieur,” he said, “you are council, judge, and jury all in one; but I think I need not weigh the thing with you, for his excellency, from whom you come, has set forth this same charge,”—he tapped the paper,—“and we will not spoil good-fellowship by threshing it now.” He laughed a little ironically. “And I promise you,” he added, “that your Radisson shall neither drink wine nor eat bread with you at my table. And now, come, let us talk awhile together; for, lest any accident befall the packet you shall bear, I wish you to carry in your memory, with great distinctness, the terms of my writing to your governor. I would that it were not to be written, for I hate the quill, and I’ve seen the time I would rather point my sword red than my quill black.” By this the shadows were falling. In the west the sun was slipping down behind the hills, leaving the strong day with a rosy and radiant glamour, that faded away in eloquent tones to the grey, tinsel softness of the zenith. Out in the yard a sumach bush was aflame. Rich tiger-lilies thrust in at the sill, and lazy flies and king bees boomed in and out of the window. Something out of the sunset, out of the glorious freshness and primal majesty of the new land, diffused through the room where those four people stood, and made them silent. Presently the governor drew his chair to the table, and motioned Councillor Drayton and Iberville to be seated. The girl touched his arm. “And where am I to sit?” she asked demurely. Colonel Nicholls pursed his lips and seemed to frown severely on her. “To sit? Why, in your room, mistress. Tut, tut, you are too bold. If I did not know your father was coming soon to bear you off, new orders should be issued. Yes, yes, e’en as I say,” he added, as he saw the laughter in her eyes. She knew that she could wind the big-mannered soldier about her finger. She had mastered his household; she was the idol of the settlement, her flexible intelligence, the flush of the first delicate bounty of womanhood had made him her slave. In a matter of vexing weight he would not have let her stay, but such deliberatings as he would have with Iberville could well bear her scrutiny. He reached out to pinch her cheek, but she deftly tipped her head and caught his outstretched fingers. “But where am I to sit?” she persisted. “Anywhere, then, but at the council-table,” was his response, as he wagged a finger at her and sat down. Going over she perched herself on a high stool in the window behind Iberville. He could not see her, and, if he thought at all about it, he must have supposed that she could not see him. Yet she could; for against the window-frame was a mirror, and it reflected his face and the doings at the board. She did not listen to the rumble of voices. She fell to studying Iberville. Once or twice she laughed softly to herself. As she turned to the window a man passed by and looked in at her. His look was singular, and she started. Something about his face was familiar. She found her mind feeling among far memories, for even the past of the young stretches out interminably. She shuddered, and a troubled look came into her eyes. Yet she could not remember. She leaned slightly forward, as if she were peering into that by-gone world which, maybe, is wider than the future for all of us—the past. Her eyes grew deep and melancholy. The sunset seemed to brighten around her all at once, and enmesh her in a golden web, burnishing her hair, and it fell across her brow with a peculiar radiance, leaving the temples in shadow, softening and yet lighting the carmine of her cheeks and lips, giving a feeling of life to her dress, which itself was like dusty gold. Her hands were caught and clasped at her knees. There was something spiritual and exalted in the picture. It had, too, a touch of tragedy, for something out of her nebulous past had been reflected in faint shadows in her eyes, and this again, by strange, delicate processes, was expressed in every line of her form, in all the aspect of her face. It was as if some knowledge were being filtered to her through myriad atmospheres of premonition; as though the gods in pity foreshadowed a great trouble, that the first rudeness of misery might be spared. She did not note that Iberville had risen, and had come round the table to look over Councillor Drayton’s shoulder at a map spread out. After standing a moment watching, the councillor’s finger his pilot, he started back to his seat. As he did so he caught sight of her still in that poise of wonderment and sadness. He stopped short, then glanced at Colonel Nicholls and the councillor. Both were bent over the map, talking in eager tones. He came softly round the table, and was about to speak over her shoulder, when she drew herself up with a little shiver and seemed to come back from afar. Her hands went up to her eyes. Then she heard him. She turned quickly, with the pageant of her dreams still wavering in her face; smiled at him distantly, looked towards the window again in a troubled way, then stepped softly and swiftly to the door, and passed out. Iberville watched the door close and turned to the window. Again he saw, and this time nearer to the window, Radisson, and with him the man who had so suddenly mastered Jessica. He turned to Colonel Nicholls. “Your excellency,” he said, “will you not let me tell Count Frontenac that you forbid Radisson your purlieus? For, believe me, sir, there is no greater rogue unhanged, as you shall find some day to the hurt of your colony, if you shelter him.” The governor rose and paced the room thoughtfully. “He is proclaimed by Frontenac?” he asked. “A price is on his head. As a Frenchman I should shoot him like a wolf where’er I saw him; and so I would now were I not Count Frontenac’s ambassador and in your excellency’s presence.” “You speak manfully, monsieur,” said the governor, not ill-pleased; “but how might you shoot him now? Is he without there?” At this he came to where Iberville stood, and looked out. “Who is the fellow with him?” he asked. “A cut-throat scoundrel, I’ll swear, though his face is so smug,” said Iberville. “What think you sir?” turning to the councillor, who was peering between their shoulders. “As artless yet as strange a face as I have ever seen,” answered the merchant. “What’s his business here, and why comes he with the other rogue? He would speak with your excellency, I doubt not,” he added. Colonel Nicholls turned to Iberville. “You shall have your way,” he said. “Yon renegade was useful when we did not know what sudden game was playing from Chateau St. Louis; for, as you can guess, he has friends as faithless as himself. But to please your governor, I will proclaim him.” He took his stick and tapped the floor. Waiting a moment, he tapped again. There was no sign. He opened the door; but his Scots body-guard was not in sight. “That’s unusual,” he said. Then, looking round: “Where is our other councillor? Gone?” he laughed. “Faith, I did not see her go. And now we can swear that where the dear witch is will Morris, my Scotsman, be found. Well, well! They have their way with us whether we will or no. But, here, I’ll have your Radisson in at once.” He was in act to call when Morris entered. With a little hasty rebuke he gave his order to the man. “And look you, my good Morris,” he added, “tell Sherlock and Weir to stand ready. I may need the show of firearms.” Turning to Iberville, he said: “I trust you will rest with us some days, monsieur. We shall have sports and junketings anon. We are not yet so grim as our friends in Massachusetts.” “I think I might venture two days with you, sir, if for nothing else, to see Radisson proclaimed. Count Frontenac would gladly cut months from his calendar to know you ceased to harbour one who can prove no friend,” was the reply. The governor smiled. “You have a rare taste for challenge, monsieur. To be frank, I will say your gift is more that of the soldier than the envoy. But upon my soul, if you will permit me, I think no less of you for that.” Then the door opened, and Morris brought in Radisson. The keen, sinister eyes of the woodsman travelled from face to face, and then rested savagely on Iberville. He scented trouble, and traced it to its source. Iberville drew back to the window and, resting his arm on the high stool where Jessica had sat, waited the event. Presently the governor came over to him. “You can understand,” he said quietly, “that this man has been used by my people, and that things may be said which—” Iberville waved his hand respectfully. “I understand, your excellency,” he said. “I will go.” He went to the door. The woodsman as he passed broke out: “There is the old saying of the woods, ‘It is mad for the young wolf to trail the old bear.’” “That is so,” rejoined Iberville, with excellent coolness, “if the wolf holds not the spring of the trap.” In the outer room were two soldiers and the Scot. He nodded, passed into the yard, and there he paced up and down. Once he saw Jessica’s face at a window, he was astonished to see how changed. It wore a grave, an apprehensive look. He fell to wondering, but, even as he wondered, his habit of observation made him take in every feature of the governor’s house and garden, so that he could have reproduced all as it was mirrored in his eye. Presently he found himself again associating Radisson’s comrade with the vague terror in Jessica’s face. At last he saw the fellow come forth between two soldiers, and the woodsman turned his head from side to side, showing his teeth like a wild beast at sight of Iberville. His black brows twitched over his vicious eyes. “There are many ways to hell, Monsieur Iberville,” he said. “I will show you one. Some day when you think you tread on a wisp of straw, it will be a snake with the deadly tooth. You have made an outlaw—take care! When the outlaw tires of the game, he winds it up quick. And some one pays for the candles and the cards.” Iberville walked up to him. “Radisson,” he said in a voice well controlled, “you have always been an outlaw. In our native country you were a traitor; in this, you are the traitor still. I am not sorry for you, for you deserve not mercy. Prove me wrong. Go back to Quebec; offer to pay with your neck, then—” “I will have my hour,” said the woodsman, and started on. “It’s a pity,” said Iberville to himself—“as fine a woodsman as Perrot, too!” CHAPTER III THE FACE AT THE WINDOW At the governor’s table that night certain ladies and gentlemen assembled to do the envoy honour. There came, too, a young gentleman, son of a distinguished New Englander, his name George Gering, who was now in New York for the first time. The truth is, his visit was to Jessica, his old playmate, the mistress of his boyhood. Her father was in England, her mother had been dead many years, and Colonel Nicholls and his sister being kinsfolk, a whole twelvemonth ago she had been left with them. Her father had thought at first to house her with his old friend Edward Gering, but he loved the Cavalier-like tone of Colonel Nicholls’s household better than the less inspiriting air which Madam Puritan Gering suffused about her home. Himself in early youth had felt the austerity of a Cavalier father turned a Puritan on a sudden, and he wished no such experience for his daughter. For all her abundancy of life and feeling, he knew how plastic and impressionable she was, and he dreaded to see that exaltation of her fresh spirit touched with gloom. She was his only child, she had been little out of his sight, her education had gone on under his own care, and, in so far as was possible in a new land, he had surrounded her with gracious influences. He looked forward to any definite separation (as marriage) with apprehension. Perhaps one of the reasons why he chose Colonel Nicholls’s house for her home, was a fear lest George Gering should so impress her that she might somehow change ere his return. And in those times brides of sixteen were common as now they are rare. She sat on the governor’s left. All the brightness, the soft piquancy, which Iberville knew, had returned; and he wondered— fortunate to know that wonder so young—at her varying moods. She talked little, and most with the governor; but her presence seemed pervasive, the aura in her veins flowed from her eye and made an atmosphere that lighted even the scarred and rather sulky faces of two officers of His Majesty near. They had served with Nicholls in Spain, but not having eaten King Louis’s bread, eyed all Frenchmen askance, and were not needlessly courteous to Iberville, whose achievements they could scarce appreciate, having done no Indian fighting. Iberville sat at the governor’s end, Gering at the other. It was noticed by Iberville that Gering’s eyes were much on Jessica, and in the spirit of rivalry, the legitimate growth of race and habit, he began to speak to her with the air of easy but deliberate playfulness which marked their first meeting. Presently she spoke across the table to him, after Colonel Nicholls had pledged him heartily over wine. The tone was a half whisper as of awe, in reality a pretty mockery. “Tell me,” she said, “what is the bravest and greatest thing you ever did?” “Jessica, Jessica!” said the governor in reproof. An old Dutch burgher laughed into his hand, and His Majesty’s officers cocked their ears, for the whisper was more arresting than any loud talk. Iberville coloured, but the flush passed quickly and left him unembarrassed. He was not hurt, not even piqued, for he felt well used to her dainty raillery. But he saw that Gering’s eyes were on him, and the lull that fell as by a common instinct—for all could not have heard the question—gave him a thrill of timidity. But, smiling, he said drily across the table, his voice quiet and clear: “My bravest and greatest thing was to answer an English lady’s wit in English.” A murmur of applause ran round, and Jessica laughed and clapped her hands. For the first time in his life Gering had a pang of jealousy and envy. Only that afternoon he had spent a happy hour with Jessica in the governor’s garden, and he had then made an advance upon the simple relations of their life in Boston. She had met him without self-consciousness, persisting in her old ways, and showing only when she left him, and then for a breath, that she saw his new attitude. Now the eyes of the two men met, and Gering’s dark face flushed and his brow lowered. Perhaps no one saw but Iberville, but he, seeing, felt a sudden desire to play upon the other’s weakness. He was too good a sportsman to show temper in a game; he had suddenly come to the knowledge that love, too, is a game, and needs playing. By this time the dinner was drawing to its close and now a singular thing happened. As Jessica, with demure amusement, listened to the talk that followed Iberville’s sally, she chanced to lift her eyes to a window. She started, changed colour, and gave a little cry. The governor’s hand covered hers at once as he followed her look. It was a summer’s night and the curtained windows were partly open. Iberville noted that Jessica’s face wore the self-same shadow as in the afternoon when she had seen the stranger with Radisson. “What was it, my dear?” said the governor. She did not answer, but pressed his hand nervously. “A spy, I believe,” said Iberville, in a low voice. “Yes, yes,” said Jessica in a half whisper; “a man looked in at the window; a face that I have seen—but I can’t remember when.” The governor went to the window and drew the curtains. There was nothing to see. He ordered Morris, who stood behind his chair, to have the ground searched and to bring in any straggler. Already both the officers were on their way to the door, and at this point it opened and let in a soldier. He said that as he and his comrade were returning from their duty with Radisson they saw a man lurking in the grounds and seized him. He had made no resistance, and was now under guard in the ante-room. The governor apologised to his guests, but the dinner could not be ended formally now, so the ladies rose and retired. Jessica, making a mighty effort to recover herself, succeeded so well that ere she went she was able to reproach herself for her alarm; the more so because the governor’s sister showed her such consideration as would be given a frightened child—and she had begun to feel something more. The ladies gone, the governor drew his guests about him and ordered in the prisoner. Morris spoke up, saying that the man had begged an interview with the governor that afternoon, but, being told that his excellency was engaged, had said another hour would do. This man was the prisoner. He came in under guard, but he bore himself quietly enough and made a low bow to the governor. He was not an ill-favoured fellow. His eye was steely cold, but his face was hearty and round, and remarkably free from viciousness. He had a cheerful air and an alert freedom of manner, which suggested good-fellowship and honest enterprise. Where his left hand had been was an iron hook, but not obtrusively in view, nor did it give any marked grimness to his appearance. Indeed, the effect was almost comical when he lifted it and scratched his head and then rubbed his chin with it; it made him look part bumpkin and part sailor. He bore the scrutiny of the company very well, and presently bowed again to the governor as one who waited the expression of that officer’s goodwill and pleasure. “Now, fellow,” said the colonel, “think yourself lucky my soldiers here did not shoot you without shrift. You chance upon good- natured times. When a spying stranger comes dangling about these windows, my men are given to adorning the nearest tree with him. Out with the truth now. Who and what are you, and why are you here?” The fellow bowed. “I am the captain of a little trading schooner, the Nell Gwynn, which anchors in the roadstead till I have laid some private business before your excellency and can get on to the Spanish Indies.” “Business—private business! Then what in the name of all that’s infernal,” quoth Nicholls, “brought your sneaking face to yon window to fright my lady-guests?” The memory of Jessica’s alarm came hotly to his mind. “By Heaven,” he said, “I have a will to see you lifted, for means to better manners.” The man stood very quiet, now and again, however, raising the hook to stroke his chin. He showed no fear, but Iberville, with his habit of observation, caught in his eyes, shining superficially with a sailor’s open honesty, a strange ulterior look. “My business,” so he answered Nicholls, “is for your excellency’s ears.” He bowed again. “Have done with scraping. Now, I tell you what, my gentle spy, if your business hath not concern, I’ll stretch you by your fingers there to our public gallows, and my fellows shall fill you with small shot as full as a pod of peas.” The governor rose and went into another room, followed by this strange visitor and the two soldiers. There he told the guard to wait at the door, which entered into the ante-room. Then he unlocked a drawer and took out of it a pair of pistols. These he laid on the table (for he knew the times), noting the while that the seaman watched him with a pensive, deprecating grin. “Well, sir,” he said sharply (for he was something nettled), “out with your business, and your name in preface.” “My name is Edward Bucklaw, and I have come to your excellency because I know there is no braver and more enterprising gentleman in the world.” He paused. “So much for preamble; now for the discourse.” “By your excellency’s leave. I am a poor man. I have only my little craft and a handful of seamen picked up at odd prices. But there’s gold and silver enough I know of, owned by no man, to make cargo and ballast for the Nell Gwynn, or another twice her size.” “Gold and silver,” said the governor, cocking his ear and eyeing his visitor up and down. Colonel Nicholls had an acquisitive instinct; he was interested. “Well, well, gold and silver,” he cont...