CHAPTER XII.
THE WHITE TUNIC.
John a Cleeve lay on his bed in the guest-room of the Seigniory,listening to the sound of the distant falls.
That song was his anodyne. All day he had let it lull hisconscience, rousing himself irritably as from a drugged sleep toanswer the questions put to him by Dominique or the priest.Dominique's questions had been few and easily answered, the most ofthem relating to the battle.
"A brother of mine was there beyond doubt," he had wound upwistfully. "He is a bateau-man, by name Baptiste Guyon. But ofcourse you will not know him?"
"Ils m'ont tire pour la battue, moi," John had fenced him off with afeeble joke and a feeble laugh. (Why should he feel ashamed?Was this not war, and he a prisoner tricking his captors?)
But the priest had been a nuisance. Heaven be praised for his going!
And now the shadows were closing upon the room, and in the hush ofsunset the voice of the waters had lifted its pitch and was humminginsistently, with but a semitone's fall and rise. During thepriest's exhortations he had turned his face to the wall; but now foran hour he had lain on his other side, studying the rafters, thefurniture, the ray of sunlight creeping along the floor-boards and upthe dark, veneered face of an _armoire_ built into the wall.Behind the doors of it hung Sergeant Barboux's white tunic; andsometimes it seemed to him that the doors were transparent and he sawit dangling like a grey ghost within.
It was to avoid this sight that he had turned to the wall when thepriest began to interrogate him. Heavens! how incurably, after all,he hated these priests!
Menehwehna had answered most of the questions, standing by the bed'sfoot: and Menehwehna was seated there still in the dusk.
How many lies had Menehwehna told? John himself had told none,unless it were a lie to pronounce his name French-fashion--"John aCleeve," "Jean a Clive." And, once more, was not this war?
For the rest and for his own part, it was astonishing how easily, thecentral truth being hidden--that the tunic in the _armoire_ was nothis--the deception had run on its own wheels. Why, after all, shouldthat tunic frighten him? He, John a Cleeve, had not killed itswearer. He had never buttoned it about him nor slipped an arm intoone of its sleeves. Menehwehna had offered to help him into it andhad shown much astonishment on being refused. John's own soiledregimentals they had weighted with a stone and sunk in the river, andhe had been lying all but naked, with the accursed garment over hislegs, when the rescue-party found them on the bank.
How many lies had Menehwehna told? John could remember the sound oftwo voices, the priest's and the Indian's, questioning andexplaining; but the sound only. As soon as he shut his eyes andtried to recall the words, the priest's voice faded down the song ofthe falls, and only the Indian and himself were left, dropping--dropping--to the sound, over watery ledges and beneath pendentboughs. Then, as the walls of the room dissolved and the priest'sfigure vanished with them, Menehwehna's voice grew distinct.At one time it said: "What is done is done. Come with me, and wewill go up through the Great Lakes, beyond Michilimackinac, to theBeaver Islands which are in the mouth of Lake Michigan. There wewill find the people of my tribe, and when the snow comes and theyseparate, you shall go with me to the wintering-grounds and learn tobe a hunter."
In another dream the voice said: "You will not come because you wearyof me and wish to leave me. We have voyaged together, and little bylittle my heart has been opened to you; but yours will not open inreturn. I would have made you to me all that Muskingon was; but youwould not. When I killed that man, it was for your sake no less thanMuskingon's. I told him so when he died. Of what avail is myfriendship, brother, when you will give me none in exchange? . . ."
In yet a third dream the canoe floated on a mirror, between a forestand the image of a forest. . . . His eyes followed the silver wake ofa musk-rat swimming from shore to shore, and in his ear Menehwehnawas saying, "Your head is weak yet: when it grows stronger you willwish to come. Muskingon struck you too hard--so--with the flat ofhis tomahawk. He did not mean it, but his heart was jealous thatalready so much of my love had passed over to you. Yet he was a goodlad, and my daughter's husband. The White-coat called across thestream to him, to kill you; but he would not, nor would he bring youover the ford until we had made the White-coat promise that youshould not be killed for trying to run away. The man could donothing against us two; but he bore ill-will to Muskingon afterwards,and left him to die when we could have saved him."
So, while John had lain senseless, fate had been binding him withcords--cords of guilt and cords of gratitude--and twining theminextricably. Therefore he feared sleep, because these dreams awokehim to pluck again at the knot of conscience. Ease came only withthe brain's exhaustion, when in sheer weakness he could let slip thetangle and let the song of the rapids drug his senses once more.
He turned on his side and watched the sunbeam as it crept up the faceof the _armoire_. "Menehwehna!" he called weakly.
From his seat in the corner among the shadows the Indian came andstood behind him.
"Menehwehna, this lying cannot go on! Make you for this fort theytalk of; tell your tale there and push on to join your tribe.Let us fix a length of time, enough for your travel beyond reach, andat the end of it I will speak."
"And what will my brother tell them?"
"The truth--that I am no Frenchman but an English prisoner."
"It is weakness makes you lose patience," answered Menehwehna,as one might soothe a child. "Let the weak listen to the strong.All things I have contrived, and will contrive; there is no danger,and will be none."
John groaned. How could he explain that he abhorred this lying?Worse--how could he explain that he loathed Menehwehna's company andcould not be friends with him as of old; that something in his blood,something deep and ineradicable as the difference between white manand red man, cried out upon the sergeant's murder? How could he makethis clear? Menehwehna--who had preserved his life, nursed him,toiled for him cheerfully, borne with him patiently--would understandonly that all these pains had been spent upon an ingrate.John tugged away from the bond of guilt only to tighten this otheryet more hateful bond of gratitude. He must sever them both, and inone way only could this be done. He and Menehwehna must part."I do not fear to be a prisoner. Moreover, it will not be for long.The river leads, after all, to Quebec; and the English, if they takeLouisbourg, will quickly push up that way."
"The White-coat used to speak wisdom once in a while," answeredMenehwehna gravely. "'It is a great battle,' he said, 'that battleof If; only it has the misfortune never to be fought.' Take heart,brother, and come with me to the Isles du Castor. When yourcountrymen take Quebec you shall return to them, if you still havethe mind, and I will swear that we held you captive. But to tellthis needless tale is a sick man's folly."
John could not meet the Indian's eyes, full as they were of awondering simplicity. He feared they might read the truth--that hisdesire to escape was dead. During Father Launoy's exhortations hehad lain, as it were, with his ear against its cold heart; had lainsecretly whispering it to awake. But it would not. The questionsand cross-questions about Douai he had answered almost inattentively.What did it all matter?
The priest had been merely tedious. Back on Lake Champlain and onthe Richelieu, when the world of his ken, though lost, lay not farbehind him, his hope had been to escape and seek back to it; hiscomfort against failure the thought that here in the north onerestful, familiar face awaited him--the face of the Church Catholic.Now the hope and the consolation were gone together. Perhaps underthe lengthening strain some vital spring had snapped in him, or theforests had slowly choked it, or it had died with a nerve of thebrain under Muskingon's tomahawk.
He was not Sergeant a Clive of the regiment of Bearn; but almost aslittle was he that Ensign John a Cleeve of the Forty-sixth who hadentered the far side of the Wilderness.
He wanted only to be quit of Menehwehna and guilt. It would be ablessed relief to lie los
t, alone, as a ball tossed into a largecountry. As he had fallen, so he prayed to lie; empty in the midstof a great emptiness. The Communion of all the Saints could notcomfort him now, since he had passed all need of comfort.
"You must go, Menehwehna. I will not speak until you are beyondreach."
"It is my brother that talks so. Else would I call it the twitter ofa wren that has flown over. Is Menehwehna a coward, that he spokewith thought of saving himself?"
"I know that you did not," answered John, and cursed the knowledge.But the voice of the falls had begun to lull him. "We will talk ofit to-morrow," he said drowsily.
"Yes, indeed; for this is a thought of sickness, that a man shouldchoose to be a prisoner when by any means he may be free."
He found a tinder-box and lit the night-lamp--a wick floating in asaucer of oil: then, having shaken up John's pillow and given him todrink from a pannikin, went noiselessly back to his corner.
The light wavered on the dark panels of the _armoire_. While Johnwatched, it fell into tune with the music of the distant falls. . . .
He awoke, with the rhythm of dance-music in his brain. In his dreamthe dawn was about him, and he stood on the lawn outside theSchuylers' great house above Albany. From the ballroom came thefaint sound of violins, while he lingered to say good-bye to threenight-gowned little girls in the window over the porch; and some waydown the hill stood young Sagramore, of the Twenty-seventh, who wassaying, "It is a long way to go. Do you think he is strong enough?"
Still in his dream John turned on him indignantly. And behold!it was not young Sagramore, but Dominique, standing by the bed andtalking with Menehwehna.
"We are to start for the Fort, it appears," said Menehwehna to John.
"Let us first make sure," said Dominique, "that he is strong enoughto dress." He thrust his hand within the _armoire_ and unhitched thewhite tunic from its peg.
John shrank back into his corner.
"Not that!" he stammered.
Across the lamp smoking in the dawn, Dominique stared at him.