The Forge in the Forest

Chapter XXII

The Black Abbé Strikes in the Dark

I was awakened to consciousness by some one gently lifting me. I struggled at once to my feet, leaning upon him. It was Big Etienne.

"You much hurt?" he queried, in great concern.

"Why, no!" said I, presently. "Head feels sore. I think I'll be all right in a minute."

It was in the red and saffron of dawn. The snow had stopped falling. The muskets had stopped clattering. The battle was apparently at an end. All around lay bodies, or rather parts of bodies; for they were more or less hidden in the snow. Close by me just a pair of knees was visible, thrust up through a drift into which the man had plunged in falling.

The snow was all mottled with blood and powder, a very hideous colour to look upon. I stood erect and stretched myself.

"Why, brother," I exclaimed, in great relief, "I am as good as new. Where is the commander?"

Big Etienne pointed in silence to the street before the three houses. There I saw our men drawn up in menacing array. In and behind the houses were crowded the dark masses of the New Englanders, punctuated here and there with the scarlet of an officer's coat.

De Villiers greeted me as one recovered from the grave. I asked eagerly how he had sped, and how the matter now rested.

"Success, everywhere success, Briart!" he answered, with a sort of controlled elation. "You held these fellows, while we wiped out those yonder. But it was a cruel and bloody affair, and I would the times, and the straits of New France, required not such killing in the dark. But they set fire to a house and barn that they might fight in the light, and so a band of them escaped us and cut their way through here, – what was left of them, at least, after they got done with you! And now their remnant is hemmed in yonder."

"We've got them, then," said I.

"Surely," he answered. "But it will cost our best blood to end it. They have fought like heroes, though they kept guard like fools. And they will battle it out, I think, while a man of them stands."

"Yes, 'tis the breed of them!" said I, looking across with admiration at the silent and dangerous ranks. "But they have done all that brave men could do. They will accept honourable terms, I think; and such we may offer them without any touch of discredit. What do you say?"

This was, indeed what de Villiers had in his heart. He withdrew his troops some little distance, that negotiations might be the less embarrassed; and I myself, feeling a fresh dizziness, retired to a cottage where I might have my wound properly tended. But barely had I got the bandage loosened, – a black-eyed Acadian maid standing by, with face of deep commiseration and holding a basin of hot water for me, – when there broke out a sudden firing. I clapped the bloody bandage to my head, and ran forth; but I saw there was no need of me. The English had sallied with a fierce heat, hoping to retrieve their fortunes. But the deep snow was like an army to shut them in. Before they could come at us they were exhausted, and our muskets dropped them swiftly in the drifts. Sullenly they fell back again upon their houses. I turned to my basin and my bandaging.

"That settles that!" said I to the damsel.

"Settles what, Monsieur?" she asked. But as she spoke I saw a look of sudden concern cross her face, a faintness came over me, and I lay down, feeling her arm support me as I sank.

Sleep is the best of medicines for me. I woke late in the afternoon to find my head neatly bandaged, and the dizziness all gone. Men came and went softly. I found that de Villiers was lying in the same house, having got a serious wound just after I left him. La Corne, a brave Canadian, was in command. The English had capitulated toward noon, and had pledged themselves to depart for Annapolis within forty-eight hours, not to bear arms again in Acadie within six months. We had redeemed at Grand Pré our late failure at Annapolis.

My first act was to send a runner, on snow-shoes, to Canard, with a scrawled note to Mizpah. Explaining nothing, I merely begged that she and Prudence, with Marc and Father Fafard, should meet me at the Forge about noon of the following day. In the case of Marc not being yet strong enough to journey so far, I prayed Mizpah herself, in any event, to come without fail. My next was to send a messenger for Xavier and Philip. My heart had fallen to aching curiously for the child, – insomuch that I marvelled at it, till at length I set it down as a mere whimsical counterfeit of my longing for his mother.

Being now refreshed and altogether myself again, I went to visit the lane wherein the fight had opened. The very first house, whose shattered door and windows, blood-smeared threshold, and dripping window-sills, showed that the fight had there raged long and madly, had one great apple tree beside its garden gate. A chill of foreboding smote me as I marked it. I approached with a curious and painful expectancy, the words of the Black Abbé ringing again in my ears. At the foot of the apple tree the snow was drifted deep. It half covered a pitifully huddled body.

I lifted the body. It was Tamin.

He had been shot through the lungs, and his blood, melting the snow, had gathered in a crimson pool beneath him. Here was one grim prophecy fulfilled. Carrying him into the house, I laid him gently on a bed. Then I turned away with a very sorrowful heart; for there was much to do, and the dead are not urgent.

Even as I turned, my heart jumped with a new and sickening dread. Xavier stood before me – Xavier, with wild eyes, and face darkly clotted with blood. The next instant he threw himself at my feet.

"The child!" he muttered, covering his face. "They have carried him away. They have carried Philip away!"

"What do you mean?" I cried, in a voice which my fear made harsh, while at the same time I dragged him to his feet. "Who have carried him away? Who?"

But I knew the answer ere he could speak it, – I knew my enemy had seized the chances of the battle and the night.

"The Black Abbé," wailed the lad, in a voice of poignant sorrow. "He came in the night, with two Chepody Acadians dressed up like Indians, and seized me asleep, and bound me."

"But Philip!" I cried. "Where have they taken him?" And even as I spoke I was planning swiftly.

"The Abbé started westward with him," answered Xavier. "From what I heard say, he would go to Pereau; but which way after, I could not find out."

"Come!" I ordered roughly, "we must follow them!" But as I spoke I saw the lad totter. I caught him by the arm and held him up, perceiving now for the first time how he was both wounded and utterly spent.

"Let us go first to your father," I said more gently, leading him, and putting what curb I could upon the fierceness of my haste.

"How did you get here?" I asked him presently.

A gleam came into the lad's faint eyes.

"The Chepody men stayed till morning," said he, "and then set out on the road toward Piziquid, taking me with them. They thought I was nothing but a boy. As we went, I got my hands loose, so, – and waited. At noon one man went into a house, – and – so! – I was free, and had the other dog by the throat. He make no noise; but he fight hard, and hurt me. I got away, and left him in the snow, and ran back all the way to tell you the Black Abbé – "

But here the poor lad's voice failed, and he hung upon me with all his weight. He had fainted, indeed; and now that I thought of his wound, his hunger, his grief, and his prodigious exertions, I wondered not at his swooning. Picking him up in my arms, I carried him to the cottage where the kind damsel had so compassionately tended my own bruises.

As I entered the thronged cottage with my burden, men came about me with many questions; but I kept my own counsel, not knowing whom I could trust, or where the Black Abbé might not have his spies posted. Moreover, I was so distracted with anxiety about the child, that I had small patience wherewith to take questioning civilly. Every bed and every settle being occupied with our wounded, I laid Xavier on the floor, with his head upon a blue petticoat which the kind damsel – who came to me as soon as she saw me enter – fetched from a cupboard and rolled up deftly for me. After a careful examination I found no wound upon the lad save two shallow flesh cuts, one across his forehead and one down his chest. I thereupon concluded that exhaustion, together with the loss of blood, had brought him to this pass, and that with a few days' care he would be altogether restored. Having put some brandy between his lips, and seen his eyelids tremble with recovering consciousness, I turned to the maiden and said: —

"Take care of him for me, Chérie. He deserves your best care; and I trust him to your good heart. Give him something to eat now, – soup, hot milk, at first. And I will come back in two days from now, at furthest."

"But Monsieur must rest!"

"No rest for me to-night!" I interrupted, in a low voice, as I straightened myself up. "Do you know where I may find the lad's father, the chief, Big – "

But there was no need for me to finish the question. There, close behind me, stood the tall Indian, looking down at Xavier, with trouble in his eyes. He had just entered, in his silent fashion.

"There is no danger! He is worn out!" I whispered. "He has done all a brave man could do; but the child is stolen! Come outside with me."

Big Etienne stooped quickly and laid his hand upon the lad's breast, and then, most gently, upon his lips. A second later he had followed me out into the deepening twilight.

In few words I told him what had happened, and my purpose of going instantly in pursuit. Without a word he strode off toward a small cabin about a stone's throw from the cottage which we had just left.

"Where are you going?" I asked, astonished at this abruptness.

"My snow-shoes!" he replied. "And bread. I go with you, my brother!"

This, in very truth, was just what I had hoped for. But, in my haste, I had forgotten the need of eating; and, as for my snow-shoes, usually strapped at my back, they had been left at the outskirts of the village the night before in order that my sword arm might have the freer play. It was no time now to go back for them. I slipped into the cottage, borrowed a pair, and was presently forth again to meet Big Etienne. The Indian, instead of bread, had brought a goodly lump of dried beef. Side by side, and in silence, we set out for the cabin on the Gaspereau where Philip and Xavier had been captured.

We found the place deserted. Either the man of the house had been a tool of La Garne, or he feared that I would hold him responsible. Which it was, I know not to this day; and, at the time, we gave small thought to the question, merely commending the fellow's wisdom in removing himself from our indignation. What engaged our concern was a single snow-shoe track making westward, followed by the trail of a little sledge.

"Yes," said I; "Xavier is surely right. The Abbé has gone to cross the Habitants and the Canard where they are little, and will then, belike, turn down the valley to Pereau!"

"Very like!" grunted my companion; and, at a long lope, we started up the trail.

This pace, however, soon told upon me, and brought it into my mind that I had, that day, eaten nothing but a bowl of broth. We halted, therefore, and rested half an hour in the warmth of a dense spruce coppice, and ate abundantly of that very savoury beef. Then, much revived, we set out again. Treading one behind the other, we marched, in silence, through the glimmering dark; for Big Etienne was no talker, while I, for my part, was gnawing my heart with rage, and hope frustrated, and the picture of Mizpah's anguish. We never stayed our pace till we came, at the edge of dawn, to the spot where the trail went over the dwindled upper current of the Habitants.

Here, to our astonishment, the trail turned eastward, following down the course of the river.

I looked at the Indian in wondering consternation. "What can it mean?" I cried. "Can there be any new plot of his hatching at Canard?"

"Maybe!" said Big Etienne.

At thought of further perils threatening Mizpah and Marc, the weariness which had been growing upon me vanished, and I sprang forward as briskly as if we had but just set out. Even Big Etienne, though he had no such incentive as mine, seemed to win new vigour with the contemplation of this new coil of the enemy's. If, indeed, he appeared somewhat fresher than I throughout the latter half of this hard march, it is but justice to myself to say that he bore no wound from the late battle.

At last, when it was well past ten of the morning, the trail led us out upon the main Canard track, and turned toward the settlement.

"Yes," said I, with bitter conviction; "he has gone to Canard. He would never go there had he not some deep scheme of mischief afoot. God grant we be in time!"

In less than half an hour we came within sight of the Forge in the Forest. To my astonishment, the smoke was pouring in furious volume from the forge chimney.

"What can Babin be about? Or can Mizpah and Marc be there already?" I wondered aloud; but got no answer from my companion. A moment later, a turn of the track brought us to a post of vantage whence we could see straight into the forge. The sight which met our eyes brought us to an instant stop from sheer amazement.

Chapter XXIII

The Rendezvous at the Forge

Beside the forge-fire stood Grûl. On his left arm was perched Philip, half wrapped in the black-and-yellow cloak, and playing with Grûl's white wand. At the back of the forge, fettered to the wall, and with his hands bound behind him, stood the black form of our adversary. Grûl was heaving upon the bellows, and in the fierce white glow of the coal stuck a number of irons heating. These he turned and twisted with fantastic energy, now and then drawing one forth and brandishing it with a kind of mad glee, so as best to show the intensity of its colour; and whenever he did so little Philip shouted with delight.

The joy that surged through my breast as I took in all this astonishing turn of affairs, was something which I have no words to tell of.

"Mary, Mother of Heaven, be praised for this!" I cried fervently.

"What will he do with irons?" queried Big Etienne, with a curiously startled note in his voice.

Indeed, what now followed was sufficiently startling. Grûl had caught sight of us. Immediately he set the child down, heaved twice or thrice mightily upon the bellows, and then drew from the fire two white-hot rods of iron. With these, one in each hand, he approached the Black Abbé, treading swiftly and sinuously like a panther. I darted forward, chilled with sudden horror. A short scream of mortal fear came from the wretched captive's lips.

"Stop! stop!" I shouted, as those terrible brands went circling hither and thither about the cringing form. The next instant, and ere I could reach the scene to interfere, the Abbé gave a huge bound, reached the door, and plunged out into the snow, pursued by a peal of wild laughter from Grûl's lips. This most whimsical of madmen had befooled his captive, in much the same fashion as once before on the cliff beside the des Saumons. He had used the deadly iron merely to free him from his bonds, and again held in reserve his full vengeance.

Fetching a huge breath of relief, I joined in Grûl's mocking laughter; while Big Etienne gave a grunt of manifest dissatisfaction. As for the Black Abbé, though the sweat of his terror stood in beads upon his forehead, he recovered his composure marvellously. Having run some dozen paces he stopped, turned, and gazed steadily upon Grûl for perhaps the space of a full minute. Then, sweeping a scornful glance across the child, the Indian, and myself, he half opened his lips to speak. But if he judged himself not then best ready to speak with dignity, – let no one marvel at that. He changed his purpose, folded his arms across his breast, and strode off slowly and in silence along the track toward Grand Pré.

I thought his shadow, as it fell long and sinister across the snow, lay blacker than was the common wont of shadows.

Big Etienne was already within, and Philip in his arms. As I entered the forge door Grûl cried solemnly, as if to extenuate his act in freeing the prisoner: —

"His cup is not yet full."

Seizing both his hands in mine, I tried with stammering lips to thank him; but, something to my chagrin, he cut me short most ungraciously. Snatching his hands away, he stepped outside the door, and raised his thrilling, bell-like chant: —

"Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the day of her desolation cometh."

Beyond all words though my gratitude was, I could not refrain from shrugging my shoulders at this fantastic mummery, as I turned to embrace little Philip. My heart was rioting with joy and hope, and I could not trouble my wits with these mad whimsies of Grûl's. When he had quit prophesying and come again within the forge, I tried to draw from him some account of how he had so achieved the child's rescue and the Black Abbé's utter discomfiture. But he wandered from the matter, whether wilfully or not I could by no means decide; and presently, catching a ghost of a smile on the face of Big Etienne, I gave up and rested thankful for what I had got. As for Philip, he was amiably gracious to both Big Etienne and myself, but it was manifest that all his little heart had gone out to Grûl; and the two were presently playing together in a corner of the forge, at some game which none but themselves could understand.

It wanted yet an hour of noon, when, as I stood in the door consuming my heart with impatience, yet unwilling to go and meet Mizpah and so mar the climax which I had plotted for, I caught sight of two figures approaching. I needed not eyes to tell me one was Mizpah, for the blood shook in all my veins at sight of her. The other was Father Fafard.

"Marc," said I to myself, "is not yet strong enough to venture so far; and the maid Prudence has stayed with him. But Mizpah is here – Mizpah is here!"

With eyes of delight I dwelt upon her tall, slim form, in its gown of blue woollen cloth which set off so rarely the red-gold enchantment of her hair. But when she was come near enough for me to mark the eager welcome in her eyes and on her lips, I waved at her, clumsily enough, and turned within to catch at a little self-possession. Not having my snow-shoes on, I could not be expected to go and meet her; and that waiting in the doorway was too much for me to endure.

"Keep Philip behind the chimney, out of sight," I whispered eagerly to Grûl; and somewhat to my wonder he obeyed.

On the next instant Mizpah stood in the door, smiling upon me, her face all aglow with expectation and greeting; and I found myself clasping both of her white hands. But my tongue refused to speak, – deeming, perchance, that my eyes were usurping its office.

Finding at length a word of welcome for the good priest, I wrung his hand fervently, then turned again to Mizpah.

But my first speech was stupid, – so stupid that I wished most heartily that I had held my tongue.

"Comrade," said I, "this is a glad day for me."

Her face fell, and her eyes reproached me.

"Because you have defeated and slain my people?" she asked.

My face grew hot for the flat ineptitude of my words.

"No! no! Not for that!" I cried passionately, "but for this!"

And I turned to snatch Philip from his corner behind the chimney.

But Grûl was too quick for me. He could play no second part at any time, he. Evading my hands, he slipped past me, and himself placed the child in Mizpah's arms.

I cursed inwardly at his abruptness, though in truth he had done just what I was intending to do myself. As Mizpah, with a gasping cry, crushed the little one to her bosom, she went white as a ghost and tottered against the anvil. I sprang to support her, but withheld my arm ere it touched her waist, for even on the instant she had recovered herself. With wordless mother-cries she kissed Philip's lips and hair, and buried her face in his neck, he the while clinging to her as if never again for a moment could he let her go.

Presently, while I waited in great hunger for a word, she turned to Big Etienne and Grûl.

"My friends!" she cried, in a shaken voice which faithfully uttered her heart, "my true and loyal friends!" Whereupon she wrung their hands, and wrung them, and would have spoken further but that her voice failed her.

Then, after a moment or two, she turned to me, – yet not wholly.

The paleness had by this well vanished, and her eyes, those great sea-coloured eyes, which she would not lift to mine, were running over with tears. Philip took one sturdy little arm from her neck, and stretched out his hand to me; but I ignored the invitation.

"And what – what have you got for me, Mizpah?" I asked, in a very low voice, indeed – a voice perhaps not just as steady as that of a noted bush-fighter is supposed to be at a crisis.

The flush grew, deepening down along the clear whiteness of her neck, and she half put out one hand to me.

"Do you want thanks?" she asked softly.

"You know what I want, – what I have wanted above all else in life from the moment my eyes fell upon you!" I cried with a great passion, grown suddenly forgetful of Grûl and Big Etienne, who doubtless found my emotion more or less interesting.

For a second or two Mizpah made no answer. Then she lifted her face, gave me one swift look straight in the eyes, – a look that told me all I longed to know, – and suddenly, with a little laugh that was mostly a sob, put Philip into my arms.

"There!" she whispered, dropping her eyes.

And by some means it so came about that, as I took the child, my arms held Mizpah also.

THE END