Part 20 (2/2)
From the warriors, here a grunt, there a groan! But Chouart keeps ladling out the meat. Then the Dutchman grabs up a drum at the other end of the lodge, and begins to beat and yell: 'Stuff, brudders, stuff!
Vat de gut zperets zend, gast not out! Eat, braves, eat!' And the padre cuts the capers of a fiend on coals. Still the warriors eat!
Still the drums beat! Still the meat is heaped! Then, one brave bowls over asleep with his head on his knees! Another warrior tumbles back!
Guards sit bolt upright sound asleep as a stone!”
”What did you put in the meat, Pierre?” asked Groseillers absently.
Radisson laughed.
”Do you mind, Chouart,” he asked, ”how the padre wanted to put poison in the meat, and the Dutchman wouldn't let him? Then the Dutchman wanted to murder them all in their sleep, and the padre wouldn't let him?”
Both men laughed.
”And the end?” asked Jean.
”We tied the squealing pig at the door for sentinel, broke ice with our muskets, launched the canoe, and never stopped paddling till we reached Three Rivers.” [1]
At that comes a loud sally of laughter from the sailors at the far end of the hall. G.o.defroy, the English trader, is singing a rhyme of All Souls' Day, and Allemand, the French pilot, protests.
”Soul! Soul! For a soul-cake!
One for Peter, two for Paul, Three for----.”
But La Chesnaye shouts out for the knaves to hold quiet. G.o.defroy bobs his tipstaff, and bawls on:
”Soul! Soul! For an apple or two!
If you've got no apples, nuts will do!
Out with your raisins, down with your gin!
Give me plenty and I'll begin.”
M. Radisson looks down the hall and laughs. ”By the saints,” says he softly, ”a man loses the Christian calendar in this land! 'Tis All Souls' Night! Give the men a treat, La Chesnaye.”
But La Chesnaye, being governor, must needs show his authority, and vows to flog the knave for impudence. Turning over benches in his haste, the merchant falls on G.o.defroy with such largesse of cuffs that the fellow is glad to keep peace.
The door blows open, and with a gust of wind a silent figure blows in.
'Tis Le Borgne, the one-eyed, who has taken to joining our men of a merry night, which M. de Radisson encourages; for he would have all the Indians come freely.
”Ha!” says Radisson, ”I thought 'twas the men I sent to spy if the marsh were safe crossing. Give Le Borgne tobacco, La Chesnaye. If once the fellow gets drunk,” he adds to me in an undertone, ”that silent tongue of his may wag on the interlopers. We must be stirring, stirring, Ramsay! Ten days past! Egad, a man might as well be a fish-worm burrowing underground as such a snail! We must stir--stir!
See here”--drawing me to the table apart from the others--”here we are on the lower river,” and he marked the letter X on a line indicating the flow of our river to the bay. ”Here is the upper river,” and he drew another river meeting ours at a sharp angle. ”Here is Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company,” marking another X on the upper river. ”Here is Ben Gillam! We are half-way between them on the south. I sent two men to see if the marsh between the rivers is fit crossing.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Radisson's map.]
”Fit crossing?”
”When 'tis safe, we might plan a surprise. The only doubt is how many of those pirates are there who attacked you in the woods?”
<script>