CHAPTER VIII.
THE FARTHER SLOPE.
Barboux's complexion had turned to a sick yellow beneath its mottles.He had been walking hard, and had eaten too much throughout thevoyage; no doubt, too, the sunset light painted his colour deeper.But the man fairly twittered.
Menehwehna muttered an Indian name.
"Eh? Speak low, for the love of God!" The sergeant swept the cliffsabove and around with a shuddering glance.
"Les Agniers, as you call them--but Iroquois for certain. The man,you see, is Canayan--" Menehwehna began coolly to handle the corpse."He has been dead for hours, but not many hours." He lifted an armand let it fall, after trying the rigidity of the muscles. "Not manyhours," he repeated; and signed to Muskingon, who began to crawlforward and, from the gap of the pass, to reconnoitre the slopebelow.
"And in the interval they have been tracking _us_, belike?"
"They may, indeed, have spied us coming from the cliffs above,"answered Menehwehna unperturbed. "If so, they are watching us atthis moment, and there is no escaping; but this we shall learn withintwenty paces, since between the rocks here they have us at theirwill. You, O illustrious, they might suffer to promenade yourselffor a while in the open, for the sake of better sport; with us, whoare Ojibways, they would deal while yet they could be sure."
He said it without any show of vanity, nor did he trouble himself toglance around or above for signs of the foe. "We had best make trialof this without delay," he added. "For if they fire the noise mayreach the other two and warn Bateese, who is clever and may yet savehimself."
"What the devil care I for Bateese?" snarled Barboux. "If they havetracked us, they have tracked all. I run no risks for a _bossu_ anda useless prisoner."
"I did not say that they have tracked us. _Him_ they tracked beyonda doubt; and at the end he knew they were after him. See--"Again he lifted the arm of the corpse, and invited the sergeant tofeel its shirt along the ribs and under the armpits. "See you howstiff it is; that is where the sweat has dried, and men sweat so whenthey are in a great hurry. Perhaps he was the last of his company,and they overtook him here. Now, see again--I tell you they have notbeen tracking us, and I will prove it. In the first place I am nofool, and if one--two--three men have tracked me close (it cannot befar) a day long without my knowing, it will be the first time inMenehwehna's life. But let that pass. See these marks; theyovertook him here, and they did with him--so. But where is any markon the path behind us? Look well; there is only one path and notrail in it at all, else I had not cried out as I did. No man haspassed within less time than it takes the moss to grow. Very good;then whoever killed him followed him up from yonder, and here stoppedand turned back--I think, in a hurry. To place the body so--that isan Iroquois trick when few and in a hurry; otherwise they take himaway and do worse."
"Iroquois? But _que diable!_ The Six Nations are at peace with us!Why on earth should the Iroquois meddle with this man, by the dressof him a _coureur de bois_?"
"And unarmed, too!" pursued Menehwehna with fine irony, "since theyhave taken away his gun. Ask me riddles that I can read. The SixNations are never at peace; there were five hundred of them back atTiconderoga, seated on a hill opposite and only waiting. Yes, and inpeace they have never less reasons than fingers and toes for killinga man. Your questions are for a child; but _I_ say that the Iroquoishave been here and killed this man, and in a hurry. Now answer me;if, after killing him, they wished to spy down upon our coming, andwere in a hurry, why did they not take the short way through thepass?"
"That is simple. Any fresh track of men at the entrance, or closewithin it, would warn us back; therefore they would say, 'Let usclimb to the ridge and watch, though it take longer.'"
"Good; now you talk with a clear head, and I have less fear for you.They may be aloft there, as you say, having drawn us into their trap.Yet I do not think it, for why should they be expecting us? It isnow two days since you killed the moose. They could not have beennear in a body to hear that shot fired, for it is hours since theyovertook this man, following him up from the other slope. But ascout might have heard it and climbed across to warn them; yes, thatis possible."
But here Muskingon came crawling back. He had inspected the groundby the lip of the descent, and in his belief the dead man's pursuerswere three or four at the most, and had hurried down the hill againwhen their work was done.
Menehwehna nodded gravely. "It is as I thought, and for the momentwe need not fear; but we cannot spend the night in this trap--fortrap it is, whether watched or not. Do we go forward then, or back?"
Barboux cursed. "How in the name of twenty devils can I go back!Back to the Richelieu?--it would be wasting weeks!" His hand went upto his breast, then he seemed to recollect himself and turned uponJohn roughly. "Step back, you, and find if the others are in sight.We, here, have private matters to discuss."
John obeyed. The first turn of the cliff shut off the warm westerlyglow, and he went back through twilight. He knew now why Barboux hadlagged behind on the Richelieu, in scorn of discipline. The man mustbe entrusted with some secret missive of Montcalm's, and, beingpuffed up with it, had in a luckless hour struck out a line of hisown. To turn back now would mean his ruin; might end in his standingup to be shot with his back to a wall. . . .
Between the narrow walls of the pass night was closing down rapidly.John lifted his face towards the strip of sky aloft, greenish-blueand tranquil. . . .
He fell back--his heart, after one leap, freezing--slowly freezing toa standstill; his hands spreading themselves against the face of therock.
What voice was that, screaming? . . . one--two--three--horrible humanscreams, rending the twilight, beating down on his ears, echoing fromwall to wall. . . .
The third and last scream died out in a low, bubbling wail.Close upon it rose a sound which John could not mistake--the whoop ofIndians. He plucked his hands from the rock, and ran; but, as heturned to run, in the sudden silence a body thudded down upon thepath behind him.
In twenty strides he was back again at the issue of the pass.The two Indians had vanished. Barboux's gross body alone blocked thepale daylight there. Barboux lingered a moment, stooping over themurdered man; but he too ran at the sound of John's footsteps, andthe corpse, as John came abreast of it, slid over in a silly heap,almost rolling against his legs.
He leaped aside and cleared it, and in a moment was pelting down theslope after the sergeant, who flung back an agonised doubtful glance,and recognising his pursuer grunted with relief. At their feet, andfar below, spread a wide plain--a sea of forest rolling, wave uponwave, with a gleam of water between. The river, then--Bateese'sriver--was near at hand.
Fifty yards down the slope, which was bare of cover, he saw the twoIndians. Muskingon led by a few strides, and the pair seemed to bemoving noiselessly; yet, by the play of their shoulders, both wererunning for their lives. John raced past the lumbering sergeant andput forth all his strength to catch up with Menehwehna. The descentjarred his knees horribly, and still, as he plunged deeper into theshadow of the plain, the stones and bushes beneath his feet grewdimmer and the pitfalls harder to avoid. His ears were straining forthe Indian war-whoop behind him; he wondered more and more as theseconds grew into minutes and yet brought no sounds but the trickleand slide of stones dislodged by Barboux thundering in the rear.
They were close upon the outskirts of the forest. He had caught upwith Menehwehna and was running at his heels, stride for stride.
In the first dark shadow of the trees Menehwehna checked himself,came to a sudden halt, and swung round, panting. Somehow, althoughunable to see his face, John knew him to be furiously angry--with thecold fury of an Indian.
"Englishman, you are a fool!"
"But why?" panted John innocently. "Is it the noise I made?I cannot run as you Indians can."
Menehwehna grunted. "What matters noise more or less, when _he_ isanywhere near?"
"They have not seen us!" gasped
Barboux, blundering up at this momentand almost into John's arms.
"To be sure," answered Menehwehna sardonically, "they have not seenus. It may even be that the great Manitou has smitten them withdeafness and they have not heard you, O illustrious!--and withblindness, that they cannot trace your footmarks; yes, and perchancewith folly, too, so that, returning to a dead man whom they left,they may wonder not at all that he has tumbled himself about!"
"_Peste!_ It was this Englishman's fault. He came running behindand hurried me. But you Indians do not know everything. I found--"but here Barboux checked himself on the edge of a boast.
The Indian had sunk on one knee and laid his ear to the ground."It will be of great price," said he, "if what you found will take usout of this. They are not following as yet, and the water is near."