Part 20 (2/2)
”No--no--I wouldn't,” he quavered, dancing across the veranda as she quickened her pace and fairly spun him along. ”I wouldn't let 'em have it at all.”
Alice's mind was working with lightning speed. Her imagination took strong grip on the situation so briefly and effectively sketched by Captain Farnsworth. Her decision formed itself quickly.
”Stay here, Jean. I am going to the fort. Don't tell Mama Roussillon a thing. Be a good boy.”
She was gone before Jean could say a word. She meant to face Hamilton at once and be sure what danger menaced M. Roussillon. Of course, the flag must be given up if that would save her foster father any pain; and if his life were in question there could not be too great haste on her part.
She ran directly to the stockade gate and breathlessly informed a sentinel that she must see Governor Hamilton, into whose presence she was soon led. Captain Farnsworth had preceded her but a minute or two, and was present when she entered the miserable shed room where the commander was having another talk with M. Roussillon.
The meeting was a tableau which would have been comical but for the pressure of its tragic possibilities. Hamilton, stern and sententious, stood frowning upon M. Roussillon, who sat upon the ground, his feet and hands tightly bound, a colossal statue of injured innocence.
Alice, as soon as she saw M. Roussillon, uttered a cry of sympathetic endearment and flung herself toward him with open arms. She could not reach around his great shoulders; but she did her best to include the whole bulk.
”Papa! Papa Roussillon!” she chirruped between the kisses that she showered upon his weather-beaten face.
Hamilton and Farnsworth regarded the scene with curious and surprised interest. M. Roussillon began speaking rapidly; but being a Frenchman he could not get on well with his tongue while his hands were tied. He could shrug his shoulders; that helped him some.
”I am to be shot, MA PEt.i.tE,” he pathetically growled in his deep ba.s.s voice; ”shot like a dog at sunrise to-morrow.”
Alice kissed M. Roussillon's rough cheek once more and sprang to her feet facing Hamilton.
”You are not such a fiend and brute as to kill Papa Roussillon,” she cried. ”Why do you want to injure my poor, good papa?”
”I believe you are the young lady that stole the flag?” Hamilton remarked, smiling contemptuously.
She looked at him with a swift flash of indignation as he uttered these words.
”I am not a thief. I could not steal what was my own. I helped to make that flag. It was named after me. I took it because it was mine. You understand me, Monsieur.”
”Tell where it is and your father's life will be spared.”
She glanced at M. Roussillon.
”No, Alice,” said he, with a pathetically futile effort to make a fine gesture, ”don't do it. I am brave enough to die. You would not have me act the coward.”
No onlooker would have even remotely suspected the fact that M.
Roussillon had chanced to overhear a conversation between Hamilton and Farnsworth, in which Hamilton stated that he really did not intend to hurt M. Roussillon in any event; he merely purposed to humiliate the ”big wind-bag!”
”Ah, no; let me die bravely for honor's sake--I fear death far less than dishonor! They can shoot me, my little one, but they cannot break my proud spirit.” He tried to strike his breast over his heart.
”Perhaps it would be just as well to let him be shot,” said Hamilton gruffly, and with dry indifference. ”I don't fancy that he's of much value to the community at best. He'll make a good target for a squad, and we need an example.”
”Do you mean it?--you ugly English brute--would you murder him?” she stamped her foot.
”Not if I get that flag between now and sundown. Otherwise I shall certainly have him shot. It is all in your hands, Mademoiselle. You can tell me where the flag is.” Hamilton smiled again with exquisite cruelty.
Farnsworth stood by gazing upon Alice in open admiration. Her presence had power in it, to which he was very susceptible.
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