Part 46 (1/2)
Cadillac looked at me fully, and I realized dully that his face grew white as he examined mine. ”Go away. Go at once,” he urged.
”Leave things here to me.”
I nodded and stumbled away. Stretched tarpaulins made my tent, and I crawled under them, drew down the folds, and was alone. The noise of the camp muttered around me like a wind.
And then I lay alone with myself and my beliefs, and fought to know where my feet were set. There was tempest without my tent, but not within. In the valleys where I struggled there was great quiet. And at last I found certainty.
In an hour I went to find Cadillac. He would not let me speak.
”Montlivet, we will stop this attack--if we can hold the Indians.”
”It is not possible to hold the Indians. They are blood drunk. We should have general ma.s.sacre.”
”Then you must leave. You can go with Onanguisse. He says that if his adopted daughter is with the Senecas he will not join in the attack.”
”No, I shall not go with him. I shall lead the allied force of Indians, monsieur.”
Cadillac looked me over. I saw, with my own face cold, that his was not steady.
”No victory is worth that,” I heard him say, and I listened as if he spoke of another's sorrow. ”It is not necessary, Montlivet.”
”It is absolutely necessary. The war chiefs are jealous. Without a leader they will fall on one another and we shall have sickening ma.s.sacre. You cannot lead them, for you do not speak their language.”
”But even granting that”----
I touched his sleeve. ”Monsieur, I have been alone. I have thought it out. There is no escape. I do not know why life should give a man such a thing to do, but it is here. I have told the Indians that I represented the king; that I stood for government, protection. I have called them here in the name of law. It is a new word to them, and I have forced its meaning into their minds. And so they trust me. They trust me in the name of this law I talk about. If I desert them now, they will lapse into savagery of the worst kind. We shall have anarchy. Blood will flow for years. No Frenchman's life will be safe.
I have the best men of six tribes here, and they will think themselves deceived and pay us in red coin. I have been alone. I have thought it out. I cannot do wholesale murder to save one life, even if it is my wife whose life is to be forfeit. We must go on.”
Cadillac put out his hand and caught my shoulder. I had reeled against him as I spoke. He removed his hat.
”I await your plans, Monsieur de Montlivet. My troops are ready.”
When I found Onanguisse he examined me from under drooping lids.
Despite his age, he was wont to hold his head like a deer, but now his look was on the ground. He handed me a richly feathered bow and a sheaf of arrows.
”I cannot use them,” he said. ”I called her daughter. I gave her a robe in token. It is only a porcupine who turns against his own. A chief remembers.”
I pressed the bow back. ”Take it, and save her. I do not know how.
You are an old man in knowledge, I am a child. I trust to you to bring her to me.”
He looked up at that, and shook his head in sorrow when he saw my face.
But he would not take his bow. ”One man cannot save her,” he said, and he bowed his head again and went away.
I did not speak. I saw him summon his warriors and reembark. In the general tumult his leaving made little stir. The Pottawatamies were arrogant, called themselves ”lords,” and exacted tribute of the other tribes of La Baye. Yet they accomplished this more by diplomacy than warfare. I knew that Onanguisse's desertion was well in tune with his reputation and would not be combated.
I found Pierre, and told him about the woman. ”You are to save her.
You are to get her away. It is for you to do. You are to think nothing else, work for nothing else. You can do it. I depend on you to do it. You are never to come to me again if you fail.”
But he, too, looked away. ”It cannot be done. The Indians will kill her.” He turned his head from me, and his voice was thick and grating.
I raged at him. ”I shall give the Indians orders to spare all women,”