Part 43 (1/2)
”Hain't seed the scamp,” said Oncle Jazon, only he used the patois most familiar to the girl's ear. ”Killed an' scelped long ago, I reckon.”
His mouth was so full that he spoke mumblingly and with utmost difficulty. Nor did he glance at Adrienne, whose face took on as great pallor as her brown complexion could show.
Beverley ate but little of the food. He sat apart on a piece of timber that projected from the rough breastwork and gave himself over to infinite misery of spirit, which was trebled when he took Alice's locket from his bosom, only to discover that the bullet which struck him had almost entirely destroyed the face of the miniature.
He gripped the dinted and twisted case and gazed at it with the stare of a blind man. His heart almost ceased to beat and his breath had the rustling sound we hear when a strong man dies of a sudden wound.
Somehow the defacement of the portrait was taken by his soul as the final touch of fate, signifying that Alice was forever and completely obliterated from his life. He felt a blur pa.s.s over his mind. He tried in vain to recall the face and form so dear to him; he tried to imagine her voice; but the whole universe was a vast hollow silence. For a long while he was cold, staring, rigid; then the inevitable collapse came, and he wept as only a strong man can who is hurt to death, yet cannot die.
Adrienne approached him, thinking to speak to him about Rene; but he did not notice her, and she went her way, leaving beside him a liberal supply of food.
CHAPTER XX
ALICE'S FLAG
Governor Hamilton received the note sent him by Colonel Clark and replied to it with curt dignity; but his heart was quaking. As a soldier he was true to the military tradition, and nothing could have induced him to surrender his command with dishonor.
”Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton,” he wrote to Clark, ”begs leave to acquaint Colonel Clark that he and his garrison are not disposed to be awed into any action unworthy of British subjects.”
”Very brave words,” said Helm, when Hamilton read the note to him, ”but you'll sing a milder tune before many minutes, or you and your whole garrison will perish in a b.l.o.o.d.y heap. Listen to those wild yells!
Clark has enough men to eat you all up for breakfast. You'd better be reasonable and prudent. It's not bravery to court ma.s.sacre.”
Hamilton turned away without a word and sent the message; but Helm saw that he was excited, and could be still further wrought up.
”You are playing into the hands of your bitterest enemies, the frog-eaters,” he went on. ”These creoles, over whom you've held a hot poker all winter, are crazy to be turned loose upon you; and you know that they've got good cause to feel like giving you the extreme penalty. They'll give it to you without a flinch if they get the chance. You've done enough.”
Hamilton whirled about and glared ferociously.
”Helm, what do you mean?” he demanded in a voice as hollow as it was full of desperate pa.s.sion.
The genial Captain laughed, as if he had heard a good joke.
”You won't catch any fish if you swear, and you look blasphemous,” he said with the lightness of humor characteristic of him at all times.
”You'd better say a prayer or two. Just reflect a moment upon the awful sins you have committed and--”
A crash of coalescing volleys from every direction broke off his levity. Clark was sending his response to Hamilton's lofty note. The guns of freedom rang out a prophecy of triumph, and the hissing bullets clucked sharply as they entered the solid logs of the walls or whisked through an aperture and bowled over a man. The British musketeers returned the fire as best they could, with a courage and a stubborn coolness which Helm openly admired, although he could not hide his satisfaction whenever one of them was disabled.
”Lamothe and his men are refusing to obey orders,” said Farnsworth a little later, hastily approaching Hamilton, his face flushed and a gleam of hot anger in his eyes. ”They're in a nasty mood; I can do nothing with them; they have not fired a shot.”
”Mutiny?” Hamilton demanded.
”Not just that. They say they do not wish to fire on their kinsmen and friends. They are all French, you know, and they see their cousins, brothers, uncles and old acquaintances out there in Clark's rabble. I can do nothing with them.”
”Shoot the scoundrels, then!”
”It will be a toss up which of us will come out on top if we try that.
Besides, if we begin a fight inside, the Americans will make short work of us.”
”Well, what in h.e.l.l are we to do, then?”