Part 3 (1/2)
Such was the doctor's agitation that, although we were just entering Mr. Chouteau's great yard (so filled with all manner of buildings, warehouses, shops, and cabins for negroes and Indians that it seemed like a separate village of itself), he called to my captain and Mr.
Chouteau and begged them to excuse him. He felt that he must return home at once and a.s.sure himself of the safety of his ward, he said, though we need not cut short our visit to Mr. Chouteau, but come to him later, in time for dinner. But Yorke coming up at that moment with our horses, and riding his own, Captain Clarke bade him dismount and give his horse to Dr. Saugrain, and insisted upon accompanying him home. Mr. Chouteau readily excused us, only courteously making a condition that the visit cut short now should be renewed at our earliest convenience.
As for me, I was a little sorry not to see more of Mr. Chouteau's place, for everywhere there were throngs of Indians in picturesque costume, and on the gallery of the great house a bevy of young maidens evidently awaiting our approach. But Fatima was calling me frantically with her delighted neighs, and the moment I was on her back, and felt her silken muscles stretch and tighten rhythmically beneath me, I cared no more for Mr. Chouteau's interesting place with its Indians and young maidens, and only longed for a right to leave my companions and have one good dash with Fatima across country, over fences and ditches. I would not have been afraid, in my present mood, to have put her at the high stone walls with which every one in St. Louis seemed to fence in his place, and so wild with delight was Fatima at meeting her master once more I think she would have taken them like a bird.
But the doctor was more impatient than I, and first taking Black Hawk aside for a minute's low-toned consultation, he made his hasty adieus to our host, and bidding us follow him, he was off. Turning off the Rue Royale into the Rue Bonhomme, he went up the hill a long block to the Rue de l'eglise, and then, turning to the left, he called back to us:
”'Tis a straight road from here on, messieurs; shall we race for it?
It may mean more than life to a fair lady.”
For answer I laid the reins on Fatima's glossy neck and whispered to her:
”Get up, Sweetheart!”
In a flash she had pa.s.sed the two other horses and her dainty hoofs were flinging the soft dirt of the road in their faces. It was more a country lane than a village street, with scattered houses tree-embowered, and just back of Auguste Chouteau's place, which I recognized from the rear, was a church, and behind it the crosses of many graves, and beside it a priest's house with two black-robed priests taking a noonday siesta in comfortable chairs on the shady, vine-covered gallery. They awoke with a start as Fatima thundered by, and the two other horses, now well in the rear, pounded after, and I doubt not they thought it was the beginning of another 1780 affair, so frightened did they look.
It did not take Fatima long to cover that mile and a half, and when I saw that we were approaching the stockade at the end of the road, with only one house between (which, like the Chouteaus', was set in a great yard inclosed with high stone walls), I drew rein under a wide-spreading oak and waited for the others. And as I waited I began once more to wonder what kind of creature Dr. Saugrain's ward could be: the acknowledged belle of St. Louis and now in some extreme danger from a white villain and a rascally Indian, for so I had easily understood Black Hawk's figurative language--the White Wolf and the Red Dog.
I could hear the soft thrumming of a guitar, and a low voice crooning songs, of which I could now and then catch a word of the creole French. I did not doubt it was the doctor's ward who thus beguiled the hours with melody, and I grew vastly impatient to meet the loveliest lady in St. Louis and the sweetest of singers, if I could judge from the s.n.a.t.c.hes of song that floated to my ears.
In a minute more the doctor himself rode up, shouting l.u.s.tily before he reached the gate, ”Narcisse, Narcisse!” which put a sudden end to the music. As a black boy ran out in answer to his call, the doctor sprang as nimbly from his horse as I myself could have done, and flung the boy his reins with a sharp command to take care of the horses. He started swiftly for the house, but stopped suddenly and turned to Narcisse.
”Where are your mistress and mademoiselle?” he asked, in a tone so sharp and excited the boy was frightened and stammered as he answered:
”In the house, sir.”
”You are sure?”
”Yes, sir; 'fore G.o.d, sir, they're in the living-room this minute.”
”Thank G.o.d!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor, and then I saw, to my astonishment, that he was all white and trembling. He recovered himself in a moment and turned to us with the suavity of a genial host:
”Gentlemen, I fear that rascal Black Hawk has played us a scurvy trick; very likely for reasons of his own he wanted to get rid of me.
He has given me a bad quarter of an hour, but otherwise he has only given me the pleasure of welcoming you a little earlier to emigre's Retreat. Let us go find the ladies.”
Before we had time to reply, round the corner of the house sauntered slowly a huge mastiff, and as I caught a glimpse of him my heart sank into my boots, and there seemed to rise into my throat a tumultuous beating that was nigh to choking me: not from fear of the dog, though the moment he caught sight of me he stopped, every muscle tense, the hair on his mane erect, his eyes red, glowing, vicious, while he uttered one deep angry growl after another.
It was not fear of the brute that set my pulses throbbing painfully: it was the truth that flashed upon me for the first time--_Dr.
Saugrain's ward was Mademoiselle Pelagie_! At that moment through the open door came a clear whistle and the sweetest voice I had ever heard, calling in ringing tones of command:
”a moi, Leon!”
CHAPTER IV
I MAKE AN ENGAGEMENT
”A rosebud set with little wilful thorns”