CHAPTER XX.
THE REVEILLE.
A band of five-and-twenty Ojibways came filing down through the woodsto the shore of Lake Ontario, at the point where the City of Torontonow stands. Back beyond the Lake aux Claies they had passed manylodges inhabited by women and children only, and had heard everywherethe same story: the men were all gone southward to Fort Niagara totake counsel with the English. This, too, was the goal of theOjibways' journey, and Menehwehna hurried them forward.
Fort Rouille by the waterside stood deserted and half ruined.They had hoped to find canoes here to carry them across the lake toNiagara; but here, too, all the male population had stampeded a weekago for the south, and those who wanted canoes must make them.This meant two days' delay but it could not be helped. They fell towork at once, cutting down elm-trees by the shore and stripping offtheir bark, while the children gathered from the lodges and stood ata little distance, watching.
It was by no desire of his own that John made one of the embassage.As rumour after rumour of British successes came westward toMichilimackinac, and the Indians held long and anxious councils, hehad grown aware that Menehwehna was watching him furtively, as if fora sign which could not be demanded in words.
"Menehwehna," said he at length, "what is all this talk of Englishvengeance? It is not the way of my countrymen to remember wrongsafter they have won the battle."
"But who will assure my people of that?" asked Menehwehna."They have heard that certain things were done in the south, and thattoll will be taken."
"What matters that to your people, though it be true? They were notat Fort William Henry."
"But again, how shall they tell this to the English and hope to bebelieved?"
"You cannot hide your heart from me, Menehwehna. You wish two thingsof me, and the first is my leave to tell your people that I amEnglish."
"Without your leave I will never tell them, my brother."
"Did I ever suppose that you would? Well, as soon as you have toldthem, they will clamour for me to go to Fort Niagara, and at need toentreat for them. Now I say that there will be no need; but theywill compel me to go, and you too will wish it. Have I not guessed?"
Menehwehna was silent a while. "For my people I wish it," he said atlength; "but for my own part I fear more than I wish."
"You fear it because I go into great danger. By my countrymen Ishall be rightly held a deserter; and, among them, for an officer todesert is above all things shameful."
"But," answered Menehwehna with a cheerful readiness which provedthat he had thought the matter out, "if, as you say, the Governorreceive us kindly, we will hide that you are English; to that everyman shall give his oath beforehand. If things go ill, we will handyou back as our prisoner and prove that we have kept you against yourwill."
John shook his head, but did not utter the firm resolve of hisheart--that even from ignominy no such lies should save him while hehad a gun to turn against himself. "Why do you fear then,Menehwehna," he demanded, "if not for me?"
"Do not ask, my brother!" Menehwehna's voice was troubled,constrained, and his eyes avoided John's.
"Ah, well," said John lightly, after regarding him for a moment,"to you at least I will pay some of my debt. Go and tell your peoplethat I am English; and add--for it will save talk--that I am ready togo with them to Fort Niagara."
By dawn on the third day at Fort Rouille three canoes lay finishedand ready, each capable of carrying eight or nine men. Pushing offfrom the Toronto shore, the embassage paddled southward across thelake.
They came late that evening to a point of land four miles fromNiagara, on the north side of the river mouth. Approaching it,they discerned many clusters of Indian encampments, each sending upits thin column of smoke against the sunset-darkened woods: but nighthad fallen long before they beached their canoes, and for the lastthree miles they paddled wide of the shore to skirt a fleet offishing-boats twinkling with flambeaux, from the rays of which voiceschallenged them. The Ojibways answered with their own call and weremade welcome. A common fear, it seemed, lay over all the nations--Wyandots and Attiwandaronks from the west and north of Lake Erie,Nettaways and Tobacco Indians from around Nottawasaga Bay, Ottawasand Pottawatamies from the far west--who had not yet made their peacewith the English. But Menehwehna, whose fear of arriving too latehad kept him anxious throughout the voyage, grew cheerful again.
They landed and pitched their camp on a spit of land close besidetheir old friend the Ottawa chief from L'Arbre Croche, to whose lodgeMenehwehna at once betook himself to learn the news. But John, wearywith the day's toil, threw himself down and slept.
A touch on his shoulder awakened him at dawn, and he opened his eyesto see Menehwehna standing above him, gun in hand and dressed for anexpedition.
"Come," commanded Menehwehna, adding, as John's gaze travelled aroundupon the sleepers, "We two, alone."
John caught up his gun, and the pair stepped out into the dawntogether. An Indian path led through the forest to the southward,and Menehwehna took it, walking ahead and rapidly. Twice he turnedabout and looked John in the face with a searching gaze, but held onhis way again without speaking. They walked in a dawn which as yetresembled night rather than day; a night grown diaphanous andghostlike, a summer night surprised in its sleep and vanishing beforetheir footfall. The flicker of fire-flies hurrying into deepershades seemed, by a trick of eyesight, to pass into the glint of dew.The birds had not yet broken into singing, the shadows stirred withwhispers, as though their broods of winged and creeping things heldbreath together in alarm. A thin mist drifted through theundergrowth, muffling the roar of distant waters; and at intervalsthe path led across a clearing where, between the pine-trunks to theleft, the lake itself came into view, with clouds of vapour heavingon its bosom.
These clearings grew more frequent until at length Menehwehna haltedon the edge of one which sloped straight from his feet to a broad andrushing river. There, stepping aside, he watched John's eyes as theyfell on Fort Niagara.
It stood over the angle where the river swept into the lake; itstimbered walls terraced high upon earthworks rising from thewaterside, its roofs already bathed in sunlight, its foundationsstanding in cool shadow. Eyes no doubt were watching the dawn fromits ramparts; but no sign of life appeared there. It seemed to sleepwith the forests around it, its river gate shut close-lidded againstthe day, its empty flagstaff a needle of gold trembling upon themorning sky.
Menehwehna had seated himself, his gun across his knees, upon afallen trunk; and John, turning, met his eyes.
"Do we cross over?"
"To-day, or perhaps to-morrow. I wished you to see it first."
"But why?"
"Does my brother ask why? Well, then, I was afraid."
"Were you afraid that I might wish to go back? Answer me,Menehwehna--By whose wish am I here at all?"
"When I was a young man," answered Menehwehna, "in the days when Iwent wooing after Meshu-kwa, I would often be jealous, and thisjealousy would seize me when we were alone together. 'She is lovingenough now,' I said; 'but how will it be when other young men arearound her?' This thought tormented me so that many times it droveme to prove her, pretending to be cold and purposely throwing her inthe company of others who were glad enough--for she had many suitors.Then I would watch with pain in my heart, but secretly, that my shameand rage might be hidden."
John eyed him for a moment in wonder. "For what did you bring methis long way from Michilimackinac?" he asked. "Was it not to speakat need for you and your nation?"
"For that, but not for that only. Brother, have you never loved afriend so that you felt his friendship worthless to you unless youowned it all? Have you never felt the need on you to test him,though the test lay a hundred leagues away? So far have I broughtyou, O Netawis, to show you your countrymen. In a while the fortyonder will wake, and you shall see them on the parapet in their redcoats, and if the longing come upon you to return to them, we willcross over together and I
will tell my tale. They will believe it.Look! Will you be an Englishman again?"
"Let us turn back," answered John wearily. "That life is gone fromme for ever."
"Say to me that you have no wish to go."
"I had a wish once," said John, letting the words fall slowly as hiseyes travelled over the walls of the fort. "It seemed to me thenthat no wish on earth could be dearer. Many things have helped tokill it, I think." He passed a hand over his eyes and let it drop byhis side. "I have no wish to leave you, Menehwehna."
The Indian stood up with a short cry of joy and laid a hand on hisshoulder.
"No, my friend," John continued in the same dull voice; "I will sayto you only what is honest. If I return with you, it is not for yoursake."
"So that you return, Netawis, I will have patience. There was a timewhen you set your face against me; and this I overcame. Again therewas a time when you pleaded with me that I should let you escape; andstill I waited, though with so small a hope that when my child Azokabegan to listen for your step I scolded her out of her folly."
"In that you did wisely, Menehwehna. It is not everything that Ihave learned to forget."
"I told her," said Menehwehna simply, "that, as the snow melts andslides from the face of a rock, so one day all thought of us wouldslip from your heart and you would go from us, not once looking back.Even so I believed. But the spring came, and the summer, and I beganto doubt; and, as I questioned you, a hope grew in my heart, and Iplayed with it as a bitch plays with her pups, trying its powerslittle by little, yet still in play, until a day came when Idiscovered it to be strong and the master of me. Then indeed, mybrother, I could not rest until I had put it to this proof."He lit his pipe solemnly, drew a puff or two and handed it to John."Let us smoke together before we turn back. He that has a friend aswell as wife and children needs not fear to grow old."
John stretched out a hand and touched the earthen pipe bowl.His fingers closed on it--but only to let it slip. It fell, struckagainst the edge of the tree stump and was shivered in pieces.
Across the valley in Fort Niagara the British drums were sounding the_reveille_.
He did not hear Menehwehna's voice lamenting the broken pipe.He stood staring across at the fort. He saw the river-gate open, thered-coats moving there, relieving guard. He saw the flagstaffhalliards shake out the red cross of England in the morning sunlight.And still, like a river, rolled the music of British drums.
"Netawis!"
Menehwehna touched his arm. At first John did not seem to hear, thenhis hand went up and began to unfasten the silver armlets there.
"Netawis! O my brother!"
But the ice had slipped from the rock and lay around its base inruin, and the music which had loosened it still sang across thevalley. He took a step down the slope towards it.
"You shall not go!" cried Menehwehna, and lifting his gun pointed itfull at John's back. And John knew that Menehwehna's finger was onthe trigger. He walked on unregarding.
But Menehwehna did not fire. He cast down his gun with a cry and ranto clasp his friend's feet. What was he saying? Something about"two years."
"Two years?" Had they passed so quickly? God! how long the minuteswere now! He must win across before the drums ceased . . .
He halted and began to talk to Menehwehna very patiently, this beingthe easiest way to get rid of him. "Yes, yes," he heard himselfsaying, "I go to them as an Indian and they will not know me.I shall be safe. Return now back to my brothers and tell them that,if need be, they will find me there and I will speak for them."
And his words must have prevailed, for he stood by the river's edgealone, and Menehwehna was striding back towards the wood. A boat laychained by the farther shore and two soldiers came down from the fortand pushed across to him.
They wore the uniform of the Forty-sixth, and one had been a privatein his company; but they did not recognise him. And he spoke to themin the Ojibway speech, which they could not understand.
From the edge of the woods Menehwehna watched the three as theylanded. They climbed the slope and passed into the fort.