Part 9 (1/2)

”How know you that?”

”I have ears. You have promised to go with Phips. Isn't that so?”

”What then?”

”I will go with you.”

”Booty?”

”No, revenge.”

”On whom?”

”The man you hate--Iberville.”

Gering's face darkens. ”We are not likely to meet.”

”Pardon! very likely. Six months ago he was coming back from France. He will find you. I know the race.”

A sneer is on Gering's face. ”Freebooters, outlaws like yourself!”

”Pardon! gentlemen, monsieur; n.o.ble outlaws. What is it that once or twice they have quarreled with the governor, and because they would not yield have been proclaimed? Nothing. Proclaimed yesterday, today at Court. No, no. I hate Iberville, but he is a great man.”

In the veins of the renegade is still latent the pride of race. He is a villain but he knows the height from which he fell. ”He will find you, monsieur,” he repeats. ”When Le Moyne is the hunter he never will kennel till the end. Besides, there is the lady!”

”Silence!”

Radisson knows that he has said too much. His manner changes. ”You will let me go with you?” The Englishman remembers that this scoundrel was with Bucklaw, although he does not know that Radisson was one of the abductors.

”Never!” he says, and turns upon his heel.

A moment after and the two have disappeared from the lonely pageant of ice and sun. Man has disappeared, but his works--houses and s.h.i.+ps and walls and snow-topped cannon--lie there in the hard grasp of the North, while the White Weaver, at the summit of the world, is shuttling these lives into the woof of battle, murder, and sudden death.

On the sh.o.r.e of the La Planta River a man lies looking into the sunset.

So sweet, so beautiful is the landscape, the deep foliage, the scent of flowers, the flutter of bright-winged birds, the fern-grown walls of a ruined town, the wallowing eloquence of the river, the sonorous din of the locust, that none could think this a couch of death. A Spanish priest is making ready for that last long voyage, when the soul of man sloughs the dross of earth. Beside him kneels another priest--a Frenchman of the same order.

The dying man feebly takes from his breast a packet and hands it to his friend.

”It is as I have said,” he whispers. ”Others may guess, but I know. I know--and another. The rest are all dead. There were six of us, and all were killed save myself. We were poisoned by a Spaniard. He thought he had killed all, but I lived. He also was killed. His murderer's name was Bucklaw--an English pirate. He has the secret. Once he came with a s.h.i.+p to find, but there was trouble and he did not go on. An Englishman also came with the king's s.h.i.+p, but he did not find. But I know that the man Bucklaw will come again. It should not be. Listen: A year ago, and something more, I was travelling to the coast. From there I was to sail for Spain. I had lost the chart of the river then. I was taken ill and I should have died, but a young French officer stayed his men beside me and cared for me, and had me carried to the coast, where I recovered. I did not go to Spain, and I found the chart of the river again.”

There is a pause, in which the deep breathing of the dying man mingles with the low wash of the river, and presently he speaks again. ”I vowed then that he should know. As G.o.d is our Father, swear that you will give this packet to himself only.”

The priest, in reply, lifts the crucifix from the dying man's breast and puts his lips to it. The world seems not to know, so cheerful is it all, that, with a sob, that sob of farewell which the soul gives the body,--the spirit of a man is pa.s.sing the mile-posts called Life, Time, and Eternity.

Yet another glance into pa.s.sing incidents before we follow the straight trail of our story. In the city of Montreal fourscore men are kneeling in a little church, as the ma.s.s is slowly chanted at the altar. All of them are armed. By the flare of the torches and the candles--for it is not daybreak yet--you can see the flash of a scabbard, the glint of a knife, and the sheen of a bandoleer.

Presently, from among them, one man rises, goes to the steps of the sanctuary and kneels. He is the leader of the expedition, the Chevalier de Troyes, the chosen of the governor. A moment, and three other men rise and come and kneel beside him. These are three brothers, and one we know--gallant, imperious, cordial, having the superior ease of the courtier.

The four receive a blessing from a ma.s.sive, handsome priest, whose face, as it bends over Iberville, suddenly flushes with feeling. Presently the others rise, but Iberville remains an instant longer, as if loth to leave. The priest whispers to him: ”Be strong, be just, be merciful.”