CHAPTER XII
M. RADISSON BEGINS THE GAME
M. Radisson had reckoned well. His warning to prepare for instant siege set all the young fire-eaters of our Habitation working like beavers to complete the French fort. The marquis took a hand at squaring timbers shoulder to shoulder with Allemand, the pilot; and La Chesnaye, the merchant prince, forgot to strut while digging up earthworks for a parapet. The leaven of the New World was working. Honour was for him only whose brawn won the place; and our young fellows of the birth and the pride were keenest to gird for the task. On our return from the upper river to the fort, the palisaded walls were finished, guns were mounted on all bastions, the two ships beached under shelter of cannon, sentinels on parade at the main gate, and a long barracks built mid-way across the courtyard.
Here we passed many a merry hour of a long winter night, the green timbers cracking like pistol-shots to the tightening frost-grip, and the hearth logs at each end of the long, low-raftered hall sending up a roar that set the red shadows dancing among ceiling joists. After ward-room mess, with fare that kings might have envied—teal and partridge and venison and a steak of beaver's tail, and moose nose as an entrée, with a tidbit of buffalo hump that melted in your mouth like flakes—the commonalty, as La Chesnaye designated those who sat below the salt, would draw off to the far hearth. Here the sailors gathered close, spinning yarns, cracking jokes, popping corn, and toasting wits, a-merrier far that your kitchen cuddies of older lands. At the other hearth sat M. de Radisson, feet spread to the fire, a long pipe between his lips, and an audience of young blades eager for his tales.
"D'ye mind how we got away from the Iroquois, Chouart?" Radisson asks Groseillers, who sits in a chair rough-hewn from a stump on the other side of the fire.
Chouart Groseillers smiles quietly and strokes his black beard. Jean stretches across a bear-skin on the floor and shouts out, "Tell us! Tell us!"
"We had been captives six months. The Iroquois were beginning to let us wander about alone. Chouart there had sewed his thumb up, where an old squaw had hacked at it with a dull shell. The padre's nails, which the Indians tore off in torture, had grown well enough for him to handle a gun. One day we were allowed out to hunt. Chouart brought down three deer, the padre two moose, and I a couple of bear. That night the warriors came back from a raid on Orange with not a thing to eat but one miserable, little, thin, squealing pig. Pardieu! men, 'twas our chance; and the chance is always hiding round a corner for the man who goes ahead."
Radisson paused to whiff his pipe, all the lights in his eyes laughing and his mouth expressionless as steel.
"'Tis an insult among Iroquois to leave food at a feast. There were we with food enough to stuff the tribe torpid as winter toads. The padre was sent round to the lodges with a tom-tom to beat every soul to the feast. Chouart and a Dutch prisoner and I cooked like kings' scullions for four mortal hours!—"
"We wanted to delay the feast till midnight," explains Groseillers.
"And at midnight in trooped every man, woman, and brat of the encampment. The padre takes a tom-tom and stands at one end of the lodge beating a very knave of a rub-a-dub and shouting at the top of his voice: 'Eat, brothers, eat! Bulge the eye, swell the coat, loose the belt! Eat, brothers, eat!' Chouart stands at the boiler ladling out joints faster than an army could gobble. Within an hour every brat lay stretched and the women were snoring asleep where they crouched. From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan! But Chouart keeps ladling out the meat. Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other end of the lodge, and begins to beat and yell: 'Stuff, brudders, stuff! Vat de gut zperets zend, gast not out! Eat, braves, eat!' And the padre cuts the capers of a fiend on coals. Still the warriors eat! Still the drums beat! Still the meat is heaped! Then, one brave bowls over asleep with his head on his knees! Another warrior tumbles back! Guards sit bolt upright sound asleep as a stone!"
"What did you put in the meat, Pierre?" asked Groseillers absently.
Radisson laughed.
"Do you mind, Chouart," he asked, "how the padre wanted to put poison in the meat, and the Dutchman wouldn't let him? Then the Dutchman wanted to murder them all in their sleep, and the padre wouldn't let him?"
Both men laughed.
"And the end?" asked Jean.
"We tied the squealing pig at the door for sentinel, broke ice with our muskets, launched the canoe, and never stopped paddling till we reached Three Rivers." [1]
At that comes a loud sally of laughter from the sailors at the far end of the hall. Godefroy, the English trader, is singing a rhyme of All Souls' Day, and Allemand, the French pilot, protests.
"Soul! Soul! For a soul-cake!
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for----."
But La Chesnaye shouts out for the knaves to hold quiet. Godefroy bobs his tipstaff, and bawls on:
"Soul! Soul! For an apple or two!
If you've got no apples, nuts will do!
Out with your raisins, down with your gin!
Give me plenty and I'll begin."
M. Radisson looks down the hall and laughs. "By the saints," says he softly, "a man loses the Christian calendar in this land! 'Tis All Souls' Night! Give the men a treat, La Chesnaye."
But La Chesnaye, being governor, must needs show his authority, and vows to flog the knave for impudence. Turning over benches in his haste, the merchant falls on Godefroy with such largesse of cuffs that the fellow is glad to keep peace.
The door blows open, and with a gust of wind a silent figure blows in. 'Tis Le Borgne, the one-eyed, who has taken to joining our men of a merry night, which M. de Radisson encourages; for he would have all the Indians come freely.
"Ha!" says Radisson, "I thought 'twas the men I sent to spy if the marsh were safe crossing. Give Le Borgne tobacco, La Chesnaye. If once the fellow gets drunk," he adds to me in an undertone, "that silent tongue of his may wag on the interlopers. We must be stirring, stirring, Ramsay! Ten days past! Egad, a man might as well be a fish-worm burrowing underground as such a snail! We must stir—stir! See here"—drawing me to the table apart from the others—"here we are on the lower river," and he marked the letter X on a line indicating the flow of our river to the bay. "Here is the upper river," and he drew another river meeting ours at a sharp angle. "Here is Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company," marking another X on the upper river. "Here is Ben Gillam! We are half-way between them on the south. I sent two men to see if the marsh between the rivers is fit crossing."
[Illustration: Radisson's map.]
"Fit crossing?"
"When 'tis safe, we might plan a surprise. The only doubt is how many of those pirates are there who attacked you in the woods?"
And he sat back whiffing his pipe and gazing in space. By this, La Chesnaye had distributed so generous a treat that half the sailors were roaring out hilarious mirth. Godefroy astride a bench played big drum on the wrong-end-up of the cook's dish-pan. Allemand attempted to fiddle a poker across the tongs. Voyageurs tried to shoot the big canoe over a waterfall; for when Jean tilted one end of the long bench, they landed as cleanly on the floor as if their craft had plunged. But the copper-faced Le Borgne remained taciturn and tongue-tied.
"Be curse to that wall-eyed knave," muttered Radisson. "He's too deep a man to let go! We must capture him or win him!"
"Perhaps when he becomes more friendly we may track him back to the inlanders," I suggested.
M. de Radisson closed one eye and looked at me attentively.
"La Chesnaye," he called, "treat that fellow like a king!"
And the rafters rang so loud with the merriment that we none of us noticed the door flung open, nor saw two figures stamping off the snow till they had thrown a third man bound at M. de Radisson's feet. The messengers sent to spy out the marsh had returned with a half-frozen prisoner.
"We found him where the ice is soft. He was half dead," explained one scout.
Silence fell. Through the half-dark the Indian glided towards the door. The unconscious prisoner lay face down.
"Turn him over," ordered Radisson.
As our men rolled him roughly over, the captive uttered a heavy groan. His arms fell away from his face revealing little Jack Battle, the castaway, in a haven as strange as of old.
"Search him before he wakes," commanded Radisson roughly.
"Let me," I asked.
In the pouches of the caribou coat was only pemmican; but my hand crushed against a softness in the inner waistcoat. I pulled it out—a little, old glove, the colour Hortense had dangled the day that Ben Gillam fell into the sea.
"Pish!" says Radisson. "Anything else?"
There crumpled out a yellow paper. M. Radisson snatched it up.
"Pish!" says he, "nothing—put it back!"
It was a page of my copy-book, when I used to take lessons with Rebecca. Replacing paper and glove, I closed up the sailor lad's coat.
"Search his cap and moccasins!"
I was mighty thankful, as you may guess, that other hands than mine found the tell-tale missive—a badly writ letter addressed to "Captain Zechariah Gillium."
Tearing it open, M. Radisson read with stormy lights agleam in his eyes.
"Sir, this sailor lad is an old comrade," I pleaded.
"Then'a God's name take care of him," he flashed out.
But long before I had Jack Battle thawed back to consciousness in my own quarters, Jean came running with orders for me to report to M. Radisson.
"I'll take care of the sailor for you," proffered Jean.
And I hastened to the main hall.
"Get ready," ordered Radisson. "We must stir! That young hop-o'-my-thumb suspects his father has arrived. He has sent this fellow with word of me. Things will be doing. We must stir—we must stir. Read those for news," and he handed me the letter.
The letter was addressed to Ben's father, of the Hudson's Bay ship, Prince Rupert. In writing which was scarcely legible, it ran:
I take Up my Pen to lett You knowe that cutt-throte french viper Who deserted You at ye fort of ye bay 10 Years ago hath come here for France Threatening us.
he Must Be Stopped. Will i Do It?
have Bin Here Come Six weekes All Souls' day and Not Heard a Word of Him that went inland to Catch ye Furs from ye Savages before they Mett Governor B——. If He Proves False——
There the crushed missive was torn, but the purport was plain. Ben Gillam and his father were in collusion with the inland pirates to get peltries from the Indians before Governor Brigdar came; and the inlanders, whoever they were, had concealed both themselves and the furs. I handed the paper back to M. Radisson.
"We must stir, lad—we must stir," he repeated.
"But the marsh is soft yet. It is unsafe to cross."
"The river is not frozen in mid-current," retorted M. Radisson impatiently. "Get ready! I am taking different men to impress the young spark with our numbers—you and La Chesnaye and the marquis and Allemand. But where a' devil is that Indian?"
Le Borgne had slipped away.
"Is he a spy?" I asked.
"Get ready! Why do you ask questions? The thing is—to do!—do!!—do—!!!"
But Allemand, who had been hauling out the big canoe, came up sullenly.
"Sir," he complained, "the river's running ice the size of a raft, and the wind's a-blowing a gale."
"Man," retorted M. de Radisson with the quiet precision of steel, "if the river were running live fire and the gale blew from the inferno, I—would—go! Stay home and go to bed, Allemand." And he chose one of the common sailors instead.
And when we walked out to the thick edge of the shore-ice and launched the canoe among a whirling drift of ice-pans, we had small hope of ever seeing Fort Bourbon again. The ice had not the thickness of the spring jam, but it was sharp enough to cut our canoe, and we poled our way far oftener than we paddled. Where the currents of the two rivers joined, the wind had whipped the waters to a maelstrom. The night was moonless. It was well we did not see the white turmoil, else M. Radisson had had a mutiny on his hands. When the canoe leaped to the throb of the sucking currents like a cataract to the plunge, La Chesnaye clapped his pole athwart and called out a curse on such rashness. M. Radisson did not hear or did not heed. An ice-pan pitched against La Chesnaye's place, and the merchant must needs thrust out to save himself.
The only light was the white glare of ice. The only guide across that heaving traverse, the unerring instinct of that tall figure at the bow, now plunging forward, now bracing back, now shouting out a "Steady!" that the wind carried to our ears, thrusting his pole to right, to left in lightning strokes, till the canoe suddenly darted up the roaring current of the north river.
Here we could no longer stem both wind and tide. M. Radisson ordered us ashore for rest. Fourteen days were we paddling, portaging, struggling up the north river before we came in range of the Hudson's Bay fort built by Governor Brigdar.
Our proximity was heralded by a low laugh from M. de Radisson. "Look," said he, "their ship aground in mud a mile from the fort. In case of attack, their forces will be divided. It is well," said M. Radisson.
The Prince Rupert lay high on the shallows, fast bound in the freezing sands. Hiding our canoe in the woods, we came within hail and called. There was no answer.
"Drunk or scurvy," commented M. Radisson. "An faith, Ramsay, 'twould be an easy capture if we had big enough fort to hold them all!"
Shaping his hands to a trumpet, he shouted, "How are you, there?"
As we were turning away a fellow came scrambling up the fo'castle and called back: "A little better, but all asleep."
"A good time for us to examine the fort," said M. de Radisson.
Aloud, he answered that he would not disturb the crew, and he wheeled us off through the woods.
"See!" he observed, as we emerged in full view of the stockaded fur post, "palisades nailed on from the inside—easily pushed loose from the outside. Pish!—low enough for a dog to jump."
Posting us in ambush, he advanced to the main edifice behind the wide-open gate. I saw him shaking hands with the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who seemed on the point of sallying out to hunt.
Then he signalled for us to come. I had almost concluded he meant to capture Governor Brigdar on the spot; but Pierre Radisson ever took friends and foes unawares.
"Your Excellency," says he, with the bow of a courtier, "this is Captain Gingras of our new ship."
Before I had gathered my wits, Governor Brigdar was shaking hands.
"And this," continued Radisson, motioning forward the common sailor too quick for surprise to betray us, "this, Your Excellency, is Colonel Bienville of our marines."
Colonel Bienville, being but a lubberly fellow, nigh choked with amazement at the English governor's warmth; but before we knew our leader's drift, the marquis and La Chesnaye were each in turn presented as commanders of our different land forces.
"'Tis the misfortune of my staff not to speak English," explains Pierre Radisson suavely with another bow, which effectually shut any of our mouths that might have betrayed him.
"Doubtless your officers know Canary better than English," returns Governor Brigdar; and he would have us all in to drink healths.
"Keep your foot in the open door," Pierre Radisson whispered as we passed into the house.
Then we drank the health of the King of England, firing our muskets into the roof; and drank to His Most Christian Majesty of France with another volley; and drank to the confusion of our common enemies, with a clanking of gun-butts that might have alarmed the dead. Upon which Pierre Radisson protested that he would not keep Governor Brigdar from the hunt; and we took our departure.
"And now," said he, hastening through the bush, "as no one took fright at all that firing, what's to hinder examining the ship?"
"Pardieu, Ramsay," he remarked, placing us in ambush again, "an we had a big enough fort, with food to keep them alive, we might have bagged them all."
From which I hold that M. Radisson was not so black a man as he has been painted; for he could have captured the English as they lay weak of the scurvy and done to them, for the saving of fort rations, what rivals did to all foes—shot them in a land which tells no secrets.
From our place on the shore we saw him scramble to the deck. A man in red nightcap rushed forward with an oath.
"And what might you want, stealing up like a thief in the night?" roared the man.
"To offer my services, Captain Gillam," retorted Radisson with a hand to his sword-hilt and both feet planted firm on the deck.
"Services?" bawled Gillam.
"Services for your crew, captain," interrupted Radisson softly.
"Hm!" retorted Captain Gillam, pulling fiercely at his grizzled beard. "Then you might send a dozen brace o' partridges, some oil, and candles."
With that they fell to talking in lower tones; and M. Radisson came away with quiet, unspoken mirth in his eyes, leaving Captain Gillam in better mood.
"Curse me if he doesn't make those partridges an excuse to go back soon," exclaimed La Chesnaye. "The ship would be of some value; but why take the men prisoners? Much better shoot them down as they would us, an they had the chance!"
"La Chesnaye!" uttered a sharp voice. Radisson had heard. "There are two things I don't excuse a fool for—not minding his own business and not holding his tongue."
And though La Chesnaye's money paid for the enterprise, he held his tongue mighty still. Indeed, I think if any tongue had wagged twice in Radisson's hearing he would have torn the offending member out. Doing as we were bid without question, we all filed down to the canoe. Less ice cumbered the upper current, and by the next day we were opposite Ben Gillam's New England fort.
"La Chesnaye and Forêt will shoot partridges," commanded M. de Radisson. Leaving them on the far side of the river, he bade the sailor and me paddle him across to young Gillam's island.
What was our surprise to see every bastion mounted with heavy guns and the walls full manned. We took the precaution of landing under shelter of the ship and fired a musket to call out sentinels. Down ran Ben Gillam and a second officer, armed cap-a-pie, with swaggering insolence that they took no pains to conceal.
"Congratulate you on coming in the nick of time," cried Ben.
"Now what in the Old Nick does he mean by that?" said Radisson. "Does the cub think to cower me with his threats?"
"I trust your welcome includes my four officers," he responded. "Two are with me and two have gone for partridges."
Ben bellowed a jeering laugh, and his second man took the cue.
"Your four officers may be forty devils," yelled the lieutenant; "we've finished our fort. Come in, Monsieur Radisson! Two can play at the game of big talk! You're welcome in if you leave your forty officers out!"
For the space of a second M. Radisson's eyes swept the cannon pointing from the bastion embrasures. We were safe enough. The full hull of their own ship was between the guns and us.
"Young man," said M. Radisson, addressing Ben, "you may speak less haughtily, as I come in friendship."
"Friendship!" flouted Ben, twirling his mustache and showing both rows of teeth. "Pooh, pooh, M. Radisson! You are not talking to a stripling!"
"I had thought I was—and a very fool of a booby, too," answered M. Radisson coolly.
"Sir!" roared young Gillam with a rumbling of oaths, and he fumbled his sword.
But his sword had not left the scabbard before M. de Radisson sent it spinning through mid-air into the sea.
"I must ask your forgiveness for that, boy," said the Frenchman to Ben, "but a gentleman fights only his equals."
Ben Gillam went white and red by turns, his nose flushing and paling like the wattle of an angry turkey; and he stammered out that he hoped M. de Radisson did not take umbrage at the building of a fort.
"We must protect ourselves from the English," pleaded Ben.
"Pardieu, yes," agreed M. de Radisson, proffering his own sword with a gesture in place of the one that had gone into the sea, "and I had come to offer you twenty men to hold the fort!"
Ben glanced questioningly to his second officer.
"Bid that fellow draw off!" ordered M. Radisson.
Dazed like a man struck between the eyes, Ben did as he was commanded.
"I told you that I came in friendship," began Radisson.
Gillam waited.
"Have you lost a man, Ben?"
"No," boldly lied Gillam.
"Has one run away from the island against orders?"
"No, devil take me, if I've lost a hand but the supercargo that I killed."
"I had thought that was yours," said Radisson, with contempt for the ruffian's boast; and he handed out the paper taken from Jack.
Ben staggered back with a great oath, vowing he would have the scalp of the traitor who lost that letter. Both stood silent, each contemplating the other. Then M. Radisson spoke.
"Ben," said he, never taking his glance from the young fellow's face, "what will you give me if I guide you to your father this afternoon? I have just come from Captain Gillam. He and his crew are ill of the scurvy. Dress as a coureur and I pass you for a Frenchman."
"My father!" cried Ben with his jaws agape and his wits at sea.
"Pardieu—yes, I said your father!"
"What do you want in return?" stammered Ben.
Radisson uttered a laugh that had the sound of sword-play.
"Egad, 'tis a hot supper I'd like better than anything else just now! If you feed us well and disguise yourself as a coureur, I'll take you at sundown!"
And in spite of his second officer's signals, Ben Gillam hailed us forthwith to the fort, where M. Radisson's keen eyes took in every feature of door and gate and sally-port and gun. While the cook was preparing our supper and Ben disguising as a French wood-runner, we wandered at will, M. Radisson all the while uttering low laughs and words as of thoughts.
It was—"Caught—neat as a mouse in a trap! Don't let him spill the canoe when we're running the traverse, Ramsay! May the fiends blast La Chesnaye if he opens his foolish mouth in Gillam's hearing! Where, think you, may we best secure him? Are the timbers of your room sound?"
Or else—"Faith, a stout timber would hold those main gates open! Egad, now, an a man were standing in this doorway, he might jam a musket in the hinge so the thing would keep open! Those guns in the bastions though—think you those cannon are not pushed too far through the windows to be slued round quickly?"
And much more to the same purpose, which told why M. Radisson stooped to beg supper from rivals.
At sundown all was ready for departure. La Chesnaye and the marquis had come back with the partridges that were to make pretence for our quick return to the Prince Rupert. Ben Gillam had disguised as a bush-runner, and the canoe lay ready to launch. Fools and children unconsciously do wise things by mistake, as you know; and 'twas such an unwitting act sprung M. Radisson's plans and let the prize out of the trap.
"Sink me an you didn't promise the loan of twenty men to hold the fort!" exclaimed Ben, stepping down.
"Twenty—and more—and welcome," cried Radisson eagerly.
"Then send Ramsay and Monsieur La Chesnaye back," put in Ben quickly. "I like not the fort without one head while I'm away."
"Willingly," and M. Radisson's eyes glinted triumph.
"Hold a minute!" cried Ben before sitting down. "The river is rough. Let two of my men take their places in the canoe!"
M. Radisson's breath drew sharp through his teeth. But the trap was sprung, and he yielded gracefully enough to hide design.
"A curse on the blundering cub!" he muttered, drawing apart to give me instructions. "Pardieu—you must profit on this, Ramsay! Keep your eyes open. Spoil a door-lock or two! Plug the cannon if you can! Mix sand with their powder! Shift the sentinels! Get the devils insubordinate——"
"M. Radisson!" shouted Gillam.
"Coming!" says Radisson; and he went off with his teeth gritting sand.
[1] See Radisson's own account.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WHITE DARKNESS
How much of those instructions we carried out I leave untold. Certainly we could not have been less grateful as guests than Ben Gillam's men were inhospitable as hosts. A more sottish crew of rakes you never saw. 'Twas gin in the morning and rum in the afternoon and vile potions of mixed poisons half the night, with a cracking of the cook's head for withholding fresh kegs and a continual scuffle of fighters over cheating at cards. No marvel the second officer flogged and carved at the knaves like an African slaver. The first night the whole crew set on us with drawn swords because we refused to gamble the doublets from our backs. La Chesnaye laid about with his sword and I with my rapier, till the cook rushed to our rescue with a kettle of lye. After that we escaped to the deck of the ship and locked ourselves inside Ben Gillam's cabin. Here we heard the weather-vanes of the fort bastions creaking for three days to the shift of fickle winds. Shore-ice grew thicker and stretched farther to mid-current. Mock suns, or sun-dogs, as we called them, oft hung on each side of the sun. La Chesnaye said these boded ill weather.
Sea-birds caught the first breath of storm and wheeled landward with shrill calls, and once La Chesnaye and I made out through the ship's glass a vast herd of caribou running to sniff the gale from the crest of an inland hill.
"If Radisson comes not back soon we are storm-bound here for the winter. As you live, we are," grumbled the merchant.
But prompt as the ring of a bell to the clapper came Pierre Radisson on the third day, well pleased with what he had done and alert to keep two of us outside the fort in spite of Ben's urgings to bring the French in for refreshments.
The wind was shifting in a way that portended a nor'easter, and the weather would presently be too inclement for us to remain outside. That hastened M. Radisson's departure, though sun-dogs and the long, shrill whistling of contrary winds foretold what was brewing.
"Sink me, after such kindness, I'll see you part way home! By the Lord Harry, I will!" swore Ben.
M. Radisson screwed his eyes nigh shut and protested he could not permit young Captain Gillam to take such trouble.
"The young villain," mutters La Chesnaye, "he wants to spy which way we go."
"Come! Come!" cries Ben. "If you say another word I go all the way with you!"
"To spy on our fort," whispers La Chesnaye.
M. Radisson responds that nothing would give greater pleasure.
"I've half a mind to do it," hesitates Ben, looking doubtfully at us.
"To be sure," urges M. Radisson, "come along and have a Christmas with our merry blades!"
"Why, then, by the Lord, I will!" decides Gillam. "That is," he added, "if you'll send the marquis and his man, there, back to my fort as hostages."
M. Radisson twirled his mustaches thoughtfully, gave the marquis the same instructions in French as he had given us when we were left in the New Englander's fort, and turning with a calm face to Ben, bade him get into our canoe.
But when we launched out M. Radisson headed the craft up-stream in the wrong direction, whither we paddled till nightfall. It was cold enough in all conscience to afford Ben Gillam excuse for tipping a flask from his jacket-pouch to his teeth every minute or two; but when we were rested and ready to launch again, the young captain's brain was so befuddled that he scarce knew whether he were in Boston or on Hudson Bay.
This time we headed straight down-stream, Ben nodding and dozing from his place in the middle, M. Radisson, La Chesnaye, and I poling hard to keep the drift-ice off. We avoided the New Englander's fort by going on the other side of the island, and when we shot past Governor Brigdar's stockades with the lights of the Prince Rupert blinking through the dark, Ben was fast asleep.
And all the while the winds were piping overhead with a roar as from the wings of the great storm bird which broods over all that northland. Then the blore of the trumpeting wind was answered by a counter fugue from the sea, with a roll and pound of breakers across the sand of the traverse. Carried by the swift current, we had shot into the bay. It was morning, but the black of night had given place to the white darkness of northern storm. Ben Gillam jerked up sober and grasped an idle pole to lend a hand. Through the whirl of spray M. Radisson's figure loomed black at the bow, and above the boom of tumbling waves came the grinding as of an earthquake.
"We are lost! We are lost!" shrieked Gillam in panic, cowering back to the stern. "The storm's drifted down polar ice from the north and we're caught! We're caught!" he cried.
He sprang to his feet as if to leap into that white waste of seething ice foam. 'Twas the frenzy of terror, which oft seizes men adrift on ice. In another moment he would have swamped us under the pitching crest of a mountain sea. But M. Radisson turned. One blow of his pole and the foolish youth fell senseless to the bottom of the canoe.
"Look, sir, look!" screamed La Chesnaye, "the canoe's getting ice-logged! She's sunk to the gun'ales!"
But at the moment when M. Radisson turned to save young Gillam, the unguided canoe had darted between two rolling seas. Walls of ice rose on either side. A white whirl—a mighty rush—a tumult of roaring waters—the ice walls pitched down—the canoe was caught—tossed up—nipped—crushed like a card-box—and we four flung on the drenching ice-pans to a roll of the seas like to sweep us under, with a footing slippery as glass.
"Keep hold of Gillam! Lock hands!" came a clarion voice through the storm. "Don't fear, men! There is no danger! The gale will drive us ashore! Don't fear! Hold tight! Hold tight! There's no danger if you have no fear!"
The ice heaved and flung to the roll of the drift.
"Hold fast and your wet sleeves will freeze you to the ice! Steady!" he called, as the thing fell and rose again.
Then, with the hiss of the world serpent that pursues man to his doom, we were scudding before a mountain swell. There was the splintering report of a cannon-shot. The ice split. We clung the closer. The rush of waves swept under us, around us, above us. There came a crash. The thing gave from below. The powers of darkness seemed to close over us, the jaws of the world serpent shut upon their prey, the spirit of evil shrieked its triumph.
Our feet touched bottom. The waves fell back, and we were ashore on the sand-bar of the traverse.
"Run! Run for your lives!" shouted Radisson. Jerking up Gillam, whom the shock had brought to his senses. "Lock hands and run!"
And run we did, like those spirits in the twilight of the lost, with never a hope of rescue and never a respite from fear, hand gripping hand, the tide and the gale and the driving sleet yelping wolfishly at our heels! Twas the old, old story of Man leaping undaunted as a warrior to conquer his foes—turned back!—beaten!—pursued by serpent and wolf, spirit of darkness and power of destruction, with the light of life flickering low and the endless frosts creeping close to a heart beating faint!
Oh, those were giants that we set forth to conquer in that harsh northland—the giants of the warring elements! And giants were needed for the task.
Think you of that when you hear the slighting scorn of the rough pioneer, because he minceth not his speech, nor weareth ruffs at his wrists, nor bendeth so low at the knee as your Old-World hero!
The earth fell away from our feet. We all four tumbled forward. The storm whistled past overhead. And we lay at the bottom of a cliff that seemed to shelter a multitude of shadowy forms. We had fallen to a ravine where the vast caribou herds had wandered from the storm.
Says M. Radisson, with a depth of reverence which words cannot tell, "Men," says he, "thank God for this deliverance!"
So unused to man's presence were the caribou, or perhaps so stupefied by the storm, they let us wander to the centre of the herd, round which the great bucks had formed a cordon with their backs to the wind to protect the does and the young. The heat from the multitude of bodies warmed us back to life, and I make no doubt the finding of that herd was God Almighty's provision for our safety.
For three days we wandered with nothing to eat but wild birds done to death by the gale. [1] On the third day the storm abated; but it was still snowing too heavily for us to see a man's length away. Two or three times the caribou tossed up their heads sniffing the air suspiciously, and La Chesnaye fell to cursing lest the wolf-pack should stampede the herd. At this Gillam, whose hulking body had wasted from lack of bulky rations, began to whimper—
"If the wolf-pack come we are lost!"
"Man," says Radisson sternly, "say thy prayers and thank God we are alive!"
The caribou began to rove aimlessly for a time, then they were off with a rush that bare gave us chance to escape the army of clicking hoofs. We were left unprotected in the falling snow.
The primal instincts come uppermost at such times, and like the wild creatures of the woods facing a foe, instantaneously we wheeled back to back, alert for the enemy that had frightened the caribou.
"Hist!" whispers Radisson. "Look!"
Ben Gillam leaped into the air as if he had been shot, shrieking out: "It's him! It's him! Shoot him! The thief! The traitor! It's him!"
He dashed forward, followed by the rest of us, hardly sure whether Ben were sane.
Three figures loomed through the snowy darkness, white and silent as the snow itself—vague as phantoms in mist—pointing at us like wraiths of death—spirit hunters incarnate of that vast wilderness riding the riotous storm over land and sea. One swung a weapon aloft. There was the scream as of a woman's cry—and the shrieking wind had swept the snow-clouds about us in a blind fury that blotted all sight. And when the combing billows of drift passed, the apparition had faded. We four stood alone staring in space with strange questionings.
"Egad!" gasped Radisson, "I don't mind when the wind howls like a wolf, but when it takes to the death-scream, with snow like the skirts of a shroud——"
"May the Lord have mercy on us!" muttered La Chesnaye, crossing himself. "It is sign of death! That was a woman's figure. It is sign of death!"
"Sign of death!" raged Ben, stamping his impotent fury, "'tis him—'tis him! The Judas Iscariot, and he's left us to die so that he may steal the furs!"
"Hold quiet!" ordered M. Radisson. "Look, you rantipole—who is that?"
'Twas Le Borgne, the one-eyed, emerging from the gloom of the snow like a ghost. By signs and Indian words the fellow offered to guide us back to our Habitation.
We reached the fort that night, Le Borgne flitting away like a shadow, as he had come. And the first thing we did was to hold a service of thanks to God Almighty for our deliverance.
[1] See Radisson's account—Prince Society (1885), Boston—Bodleian Library.—Canadian Archives, 1895-'96.
CHAPTER XIV
A CHALLENGE
Filling the air with ghost-shadows, silencing earth, muffling the sea, day after day fell the snow. Shore-ice barred out the pounding surf. The river had frozen to adamant. Brushwood sank in the deepening drifts like a foundered ship, and all that remained visible of evergreens was an occasional spar or snow mushroom on the crest of a branch.
No east, no west, no day, no night; nothing but a white darkness, billowing snow, and a silence as of death. It was the cold, silent, mystic, white world of northern winter.
At one moment the fort door flings wide with a rush of frost like smoke clouds, and in stamps Godefroy, shaking snow off with boisterous noise and vowing by the saints that the drifts are as high as the St. Pierre's deck. M. Groseillers orders the rascal to shut the door; but bare has the latch clicked when young Jean whisks in, tossing snow from cap and gauntlets like a clipper shaking a reef to the spray, and declares that the snow is already level with the fort walls.
"Eh, nephew," exclaims Radisson sharply, "how are the cannon?"
Ben Gillam, who has lugged himself from bed to the hearth for the first time since his freezing, blurts out a taunting laugh. We had done better to build on the sheltered side of an island, he informs us.
"Now, the shivers take me!" cries Ben, "but where a deuce are all your land forces and marines and jack-tars and forty thousand officers?"
He cast a scornful look down our long, low-roofed barracks, counting the men gathered round the hearth and laughing as he counted. M. Radisson affected not to hear, telling Jean to hoist the cannon and puncture embrasures high to the bastion-roofs like Italian towers.
"Monsieur Radisson," impudently mouths Ben, who had taken more rum for his health than was good for his head, "I asked you to inform me where your land forces are?"
"Outside the fort constructing a breastwork of snow."
"Good!" sneers Ben. "And the marines?"
"On the ships, where they ought to be."
"Good!" laughs Gillam again. "And the officers?"
"Superintending the raising of the cannon. And I would have you to know, young man," adds Radisson, "that when a guest asks too many questions, a host may not answer."
But Ben goes on unheeding.
"Now I'll wager that dog of a runaway slave o' mine, that Jack Battle who's hiding hereabouts, I'll wager the hangdog slave and pawn my head you haven't a corporal's guard o' marines and land forces all told!"
M. Radisson never allowed an enemy's taunt to hasten speech or act. He looked at Ben with a measuring glance which sized that fellow very small indeed.
"Then I must decline your wager, Ben," says he. "In the first place, Jack Battle is mine already. In the second, you would lose ten times over. In the third, you have few enough men already. And in the fourth, your head isn't worth pawn for a wager; though I may take you, body and boots, all the same," adds he.
With that he goes off, leaving Ben blowing curses into the fire like a bellows. The young rake bawled out for more gin, and with head sunk on his chest began muttering to himself.
"That black-eyed, false-hearted, slippery French eel!" he mumbles, rapping out an oath. "Now the devil fly off with me, an I don't slit him like a Dutch herring for a traitor and a knave and a thief and a cheat! By Judas, if he doesn't turn up with the furs, I'll do to him as I did to the supercargo last week, and bury him deep in the bastion! Very fine, him that was to get the furs hiding inland! Him, that didn't add a cent to what Kirke and Stocking paid; they to supply the money, my father to keep the company from knowing, and me to sail the ship—him, that might 'a' hung in Boston but for my father towing him out o' port—him the first to turn knave and steal all the pelts!"
"Who?" quietly puts in M. Groseillers, who had been listening with wide eyes.
But Ben's head rolled drunkenly and he slid down in sodden sleep.
Again the fort door opened with the rush of frost clouds, and in the midst of the white vapour hesitated three men. The door softly closed, and Le Borgne stole forward.
"White-man—promise—no—hurt—good Indian?" he asked.
"The white-man is Le Borgne's friend," assured Groseillers, "but who are these?"
He pointed to two figures, more dead than alive, chittering with cold.
Le Borgne's foxy eye took on a stolid look. "White—men—lost—in the snow," said he, "white-man from the big white canoe—come walkee—walkee—one—two—three sleep—watchee good Indian—friend—fort!"
M. Groseillers sprang to his feet muttering of treachery from Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company, and put himself in front of the intruders so that Ben could not see. But the poor fellows were so frozen that they could only mumble out something about the Prince Rupert having foundered, carrying half the crew to the river bottom. Hurrying the two Englishmen to another part of the fort, M. Groseillers bade me run for Radisson.
I wish that you could have seen the triumphant glint laughing in Pierre Radisson's eyes when I told him.
"Fate deals the cards! 'Tis we must play them! This time the jade hath trumped her partner's ace! Ha, ha, Ramsay! We could 'a' captured both father and son with a flip o' the finger! Now there's only need to hold the son! Governor Brigdar must beg passage from us to leave the bay; but who a deuce are those inlanders that Ben Gillam keeps raving against for hiding the furs?"
And he flung the mess-room door open so forcibly that Ben Gillam waked with a jump. At sight of Le Borgne the young New Englander sprang over the benches with his teeth agleam and murder on his face. But the liquor had gone to his knees. He keeled head over like a top-heavy brig, and when we dragged him up Le Borgne had bolted.
All that night Ben swore deliriously that he would do worse to Le Borgne's master than he had done to the supercargo; but he never by any chance let slip who Le Borgne's master might be, though M. Radisson, Chouart Groseillers, young Jean, and I kept watch by turns lest the drunken knave should run amuck of our Frenchmen. I mind once, when M. Radisson and I were sitting quiet by the bunk where Ben was berthed, the young rake sat up with a fog-horn of a yell and swore he would slice that pirate of a Radisson and all his cursed Frenchies into meat for the dogs.
M. Radisson looked through the candle-light and smiled. "If you want to know your character, Ramsay," says he, "get your enemy talking in his cups!"
"Shiver my soul, if I'd ever come to his fort but to find out how strong the liar is!" cries Ben.
"Hm! I thought so," says M. de Radisson, pushing the young fellow back to his pillow and fastening the fur robes close lest frost steamed through the ill-chinked logs.
By Christmas Ben Gillam and Jack Battle of the New Englanders' fort and the two spies of the Hudson's Bay Company had all recovered enough from their freezing to go about. What with keeping the English and New Englanders from knowing of each other's presence, we had as twisted a piece of by-play as you could want. Ben Gillam and Jack we dressed as bushrangers; the Hudson's Bay spies as French marines. Neither suspected the others were English, nor ever crossed words while with us. And whatever enemies say of Pierre Radisson, I would have you remember that he treated his captives so well that chains would not have dragged them back to their own masters.
"How can I handle all the English of both forts unless I win some of them for friends?" he would ask, never laying unction to his soul for the kindness that he practised.
By Christmas, too, the snow had ceased falling and the frost turned the land to a silent, white, paleocrystic world. Sap-frozen timbers cracked with the loud, sharp snapping of pistol-shots—then the white silence! The river ice splintered to the tightening grip of winter with the grinding of an earthquake, and again the white silence! Or the heavy night air, lying thick with frost smoke like a pall over earth, would reverberate to the deep bayings of the wolf-pack, and over all would close the white silence!
As if to defy the powers of that deathly realm, M. de Radisson had the more logs heaped on our hearth and doubled the men's rations. On Christmas morning he had us all out to fire a salute, Ben Gillam and Jack and the two Fur Company spies disguised as usual, and the rest of us muffled to our eyes. Jackets and tompions were torn from the cannon. Unfrosted priming was distributed. Flags were run up on boats and bastions. Then the word was given to fire and cheer at the top of our voices.
Ben Gillam was sober enough that morning but in the mood of a ruffian stale from overnight brawls. Hardly had the rocking echoes of cannonading died away when the rascal strode boldly forward in front of us all, up with his musket, took quick aim at the main flagstaff and fired. The pole splintered off at the top and the French flag fluttered to the ground.
"There's for you—you Frenchies!" he shouted. "See the old rag tumble!"
'Twas the only time M. Radisson gave vent to wrath.
"Dog!" he ground out, wrenching the gun from Gillam's hands.
"Avast! Avast!" cries Ben. "He who lives in glass-houses needs not to throw stones! Mind that, ye pirate!"
"Dog!" repeats M. Radisson, "dare to show disrespect to the Most Christian of Kings!"
"Most Christian of Kings!" flouts Ben. "I'll return to my fort! Then I'll show you what I'll give the Most Christian of Kings!"
La Chesnaye rushed up with rash threat; but M. de Radisson pushed the merchant aside and stood very still, looking at Ben.
"Young man," he began, as quietly as if he were wishing Ben the season's compliments, "I brought you to this fort for the purpose of keeping you in this fort, and it is for me to say when you may leave this fort!"
Ben rumbled out a string of oaths, and M. Radisson motioned the soldiers to encircle him. Then all Ben's pot-valiant bravery ebbed.
"Am I a prisoner?" he demanded savagely.
"Prisoner or guest, according to your conduct," answered Radisson lightly. Then to the men—"Form line-march!"
At the word we filed into the guard-room, where the soldiers relieved Gillam of pistol and sword.
"Am I to be shot? Am I to be shot?" cried Gillam, white with terror at M. Radisson's order to load muskets. "Am I to be shot?" he whimpered.
"Not unless you do it yourself, and 'twould be the most graceful act of your life, Ben! And now," said M. Radisson, dismissing all the men but one sentinel for the door, "and now, Ben, a Merry Christmas to you, and may it be your last in Hudson Bay!"
With that he left Ben Gillam prisoner; but he ordered special watch to be kept on the fort bastions lest Ben's bravado portended attack. The next morning he asked Ben to breakfast with our staff.
"The compliments of the morning to you. And I trust you rested well!" M. Radisson called out.
Ben wished that he might be cursed if any man could rest well on bare boards rimed with frost like curdled milk.
"Cheer up, man! Cheer up!" encourages Radisson. "There's to be a capture to-day!"
"A capture!" reiterates Ben, glowering black across the table and doffing his cap with bad grace.
"Aye, I said a capture! Egad, lad, one fort and one ship are prize enough for one day!"
"Sink my soul," flouts Gillam, looking insolently down the table to the rows of ragged sailors sitting beyond our officers, "if every man o' your rough-scuff had the nine lives of a cat, their nine lives would be shot down before they reached our palisades!"
"Is it a wager?" demands M. Radisson.
"A wager—ship and fort and myself to boot if you win!"
"Done!" cries La Chesnaye.
"Ah, well," calculates M. Radisson, "the ship and the fort are worth something! When we've taken them, Ben can go. Nine lives for each man, did you say?"
"A hundred, if you like," boasts the New Englander, letting fly a broadside of oaths at the Frenchman's slur. "A hundred men with nine lives, if you like! We've powder for all!"
"Ben!" M. Radisson rose. "Two men are in the fort now! Pick me out seven more! That will make nine! With those nine I own your fort by nightfall or I set you free!"
"Done!" shouts Ben. "Every man here a witness!"
"Choose!" insists M. Radisson.
Sailors and soldiers were all on their feet gesticulating and laughing; for Godefroy was translating into French as fast as the leaders talked.
"Choose!" urges M. Radisson, leaning over to snuff out the great breakfast candle with bare fingers as if his hand were iron.
"Shiver my soul, then," laughs Ben, in high feather, "let the first be that little Jack Sprat of a half-frozen Battle! He's loyal to me!"
"Good!" smiles M. Radisson. "Come over here, Jack Battle."
Jack Battle jumped over the table and stood behind M. Radisson as second lieutenant, Ben's eyes gaping to see Jack's disguise of bushranger like himself.
"Go on," orders M. Radisson, "choose whom you will!"
The soldiers broke into ringing cheers.
"Devil take you, Radisson," ejaculates Ben familiarly, "such cool impudence would chill the Nick!"
"That is as it may be," retorts Radisson. "Choose! We must be off!"
Again the soldiers cheered.
"Well, there's that turncoat of a Stanhope with his fine airs. I'd rather see him shot next than any one else!"
"Thank you, Ben," said I.
"Come over here, Ramsay," orders Radisson. "That's two. Go on! Five more!"
The soldiers fell to laughing and Ben to pulling at his mustache.
"That money-bag of a La Chesnaye next," mutters Ben. "He's lady enough to faint at first shot."
"There'll be no first shot. Come, La Chesnaye! Three. Go on! Go on, Ben! Your wits work slow!"
"Allemand, the pilot! He is drunk most of the time."
"Four," counts M. Radisson. "Come over here, Allemand! You're drunk most of the time, like Ben. Go on!"
"Godefroy, the English trader—he sulks—he's English—he'll do!"
"Five," laughs M. Radisson.
And for the remaining two, Ben Gillam chose a scullion lad and a wretched little stowaway, who had kept hidden under hatches till we were too far out to send him back. At the last choice our men shouted and clapped and stamped and broke into snatches of song about conquerors.