With Sword and Crucifix: Being an Account of the Strange Adventures of Count Louis de Sancerre ...

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

L In which a Great Explorer Listens at

Midnight to a Tale of Love 1

Chapter I In Which A Great Explorer Listens At Midnight

TO A TALE OF LOVE

"Louis le Grand, King of France and Navarre, has deserted pleasure to follow piety — and times are changed, monsieur."

The speaker, Louis de Sancerre, of Languedoc, descendant of a famous constable of France, leaned against a tree near the shore of a majestic river, and musingly watched the moonbeams as they chased the ripples toward an unknown sea. A soft, cool breeze, heavy with the odor of newborn flowers, caressed his pale, clear-cut face, and toyed with the ruffles and trappings of a costume more becoming at Versailles than in the mysterious wilderness through which its wearer had floated for many weeks.

On the bank at the exiled courtier's feet lay reclining the martial figure of a man, whose

A l stern, immobile face, lofty brow, and piercing eyes told a tale of high resolve and stubborn will. Sieur de la Salle, winning his way to immortality through wastes of swamp and canebrake and the windings of a great river, had made his camp at a bend in the stream from which the outlook seemed to promise the fulfilment of his dearest hopes. On the crest of a low hill, sloping gently to the water, his followers had thrown up a rude fort of felled trees, and now at midnight the adventurous Frenchmen and their score of Indian allies were tasting sleep after a day of wearisome labor.

De la Salle and a hapless waif from the splendid court of Louis XIV., more sensitive than their subordinates to the grandeur of the undertaking in which they were engaged, had felt no wish to slumber. They had strolled away from the silent camp ; and, for the first time since Count Louis de Sancerre had joined the expedition, its leader had been learning something of the flippant, witty, reckless, debonair courtier's career.

"Beware the omnipresent ear of the Great

Order, Monsieur le Comte !" exclaimed La Salle,

rising to his elbow and searching the shadows

behind him with questioning eyes. " Think not,

de Sancerre, that in the treacherous quiet of this

wilderness you may safely speak your mind. I to to

A TALE OF LOVE

have good reason to distrust the trees, the waters, and the roving winds. Where I go are ever savages or silence, but always in my ear echoes the stealthy footfall of the Jesuit. And this is well, monsieur. I seize this country in the name of France ; the Order takes it in the name of God !"

" In the name of God !" repeated de Sancerre, mockingly. "You know Versailles, monsieur? There is no room for God. Banished once by a courtesan, the Almighty now succumbs to a confessor."

"Hold, monsieur!" cried La Salle, sternly. " This is blasphemy ! Blasphemy and treason ! But enough of priests! You tell me that you loved this woman from the court of Spain?"

"How can I say? What is love, monsieur?" exclaimed de Sancerre, lightly, throwing himself down beside his leader.

It was as if a butterfly, born of the moonbeams, had come to ask a foolish riddle of the grim forest-glades. The incarnation of all that was most polished, insincere, diabolical, fascinating at Versailles had taken the form of a handsome man, not quite forty years of age, who reclined at midnight upon the banks of an unexplored river, and pestered the living embodiment of high adventure and mighty purposes with the

light and airy nothings of a courtier's tongue.

How should Sieur de la Salle know the mystery of love? He who had wooed hardship to win naught but the kiss of disappointment, he who had cherished no mistress save the glory of France, no passion but for Bang and Church, was not a source from which a flippant worldling could wring a definition of the word of words.

The majestic silence of the night was broken by the raucous muttering of some restless dreamer within the confines of the camp. An owl hooted, and far away a wolf bayed at the moon. La Salle arose, climbed the bank to see that his sentries were attentive at their posts, and then returned to Count de Sancerre's side.

" You do not answer me, Sieur de la Salle !" exclaimed the latter, testily. "I have sought the answer from La Fontaine, from Moli&re, Racine ; aye, from Bossuet and Fenelon. 'Twas all in vain. They were men, you say, and did not understand? But I have asked the question of de Montespan, la Valliere, la Fayette, Sevign6. One was witty, another silent, and all were wrong. There remained, of course, de Maintenon. Her I never asked. She would have said, I doubt not, that love is a priest who leads by prayer to power."

" You wander far afield, Monsieur le Comte," remarked La Salle, coldly, after an interval of

A TALE OF LOVE

silence. "The night grows old, and still you have not told me why you left the splendors that you love, to risk your life in this fierce struggle in an unknown land."

" To risk my life ?" cried the Count, laughingly. " If that were all ! To tear my velvets where no draper is, to see the gay-plumed birds a-laughing at my plight, to long in vain for powder for my wig, to find my buckles growing red with damp — all this is worse than death. But still, I bear it bravely, do I not ? Ah, well, Turenne — God rest his soul ! — taught me the ^ssons of a hard campaign. What is this voya^ in a bark canoe upon the peaceful breast of yonder stream? A pleasure-jaunt, monsieur, to one who fought with France against the world — who sheathed his sword at Nimeguen. Once only were we beaten, de la Salle. The Dutch let in the sea, and, lo ! his Majesty and Luxembourg, Turenne and Cond6, Vauban and the rest, were powerless against the mighty ally of the foe. I say to you, Monsieur le Capitaine, beware the sea! You seek it in your quest. 'Tis full of treachery."

The Count had arisen and drawn his sword, which gleamed in the moonlight as he turned its point toward the unknown mouth the roving river sought.

" This blade," he said, reseating himself and patting the steel with affection, " flashed gayly for the King upon the Rhine. Alas for me, it drove me at the last to seek mv fortunes in a wearv land."

•• You drew it, then, for something other than the cause of France £" remarked La Salle, suspiciously.

" For that of which we spoke, which no tongue voices but all hearts have felt. I drew it once for love — et voild tout/"

%i You killed a Spaniard, then V

" They speak the truth, monsieur, who say your mind is quick. She — as I told you — came to France with Spain's great embassy. He, a strutting grandee, proud and bigoted, came with the suite, holding some post that made his person safe. The tool of diplomats, the pet of priests, mv rival — as he was— defied rav hate. *Tis said the v were betrothed, Don Josef and — But hold ! her name I need not speak."

The Count remained silent for a time, watching the moon-kissed waters at his feet. La Salle, grim, reticent, but not unsympathetic, gazed steadfastly at his companion's delicately-carved face. A stern knight-errant, who sought to win an empire for his king, lay wasting the midnight hours to listen to a love-tale from a flippant tongue.

" Twas with this blade," went on de Sancerre

after a time, waving his sword from side to side

in the moonlight, '* that I pierced his heart — and

A TALE OF LOVE

broke my own. For which all praise be to Saint Maturin, who watches over fools."

"He was no coward, then?" questioned La Salle.

" Not when his pride was pricked," answered de Sancerre. " Great wars have been begun with less diplomacy than I employed to make my insult drive him to his steel. But, Spanish blood is hot, and, truth to tell, my tongue can cut and thrust. Her eyes were on us at a fete champetre when, standing by his side, I spoke the words that made him mine at midnight — 'neath a moon like this. There's little left to tell. He knew a Spanish trick or two, but, monsieur, he was a boy! In the moonlight there his eyes were so like hers I lost all pity — and — so — he died."

"And then?"

" And then I vowed a candle to St. Christopher and sailed across the sea. Breathe it not, monsieur — I bore a letter from de Montespan to Frontenac."

" Then cut your tongue out ere you tell the tale," exclaimed La Salle, gruffly. After a moment's silence he went on, more gently: "But, Monsieur le Comte, I cannot understand the ease of your escape. You've roused the anger of the King, de Maintenon, the Jesuits, and Spain. Such foes could crush an empire in a day."

" But you yourself, monsieur, have stood against them all."

"I?" exclaimed La Salle, musingly. "You may be right, my friend. I sometimes wonder if my life is charmed. Whom can I trust, monsieur? Allies false when the hour of danger came, assassins at my bedside, and poison in my food — all these I've known, monsieur. And still I live."

The two adventurers had arisen and were facing each other in the moonlight. La Salle, tall, commanding — a king by the divine right of a dauntless soul — stood, with head uncovered, looking down at the slender, graceful patrician confronting him.

" You strive for France, Sieur de la Salle," exclaimed de Sancerre, the mocking note gone from his voice — "for the glory of dear France — and France will not destroy you."

"For France!" repeated La Salle, solemnly. " For France and for the Church ! Vive le

Roir

Silently they turned and, mounting the hillock, made their way toward the sleeping camp, while the Mississippi rolled on beneath the moon to tell a strange tale to the listening waters of the gulf.

Chapter II In Which De Sancerre Is Confronted By A

MYSTERY

Like a statue done in bronze stood Chatemuc before a hastily -constructed hut at the rear of the log fort in which the rank and file of the explorers lay sleeping. La Salle had chosen the sentry as his special body-guard, for at many a critical juncture in his long years of exploration — menaced at all times, as he had been, by a thousand lurking perils — the daring Frenchman had tested the loyalty and courage of this stalwart Mohican, who, for love of a white man, had wandered many weary miles from his tribal hunting-grounds.

Within the rude but spacious hut over which the phlegmatic Indian stood guard lay sleeping, as La Salle and de Sancerre entered the enclosure, two men who had found rest upon heaps of leaves and grass, and whose strangely - contrasted outlines, emphasized by the errant moonbeams that penetrated the chinks between the

logs, called attention to the curious mixture of unrelated nationalities of which La Salle's expedition was made up. In one corner of the hut reclined the slender form of the Franciscan friar, Zenobe Membre. Upon his placid, smiling face — a countenance suggestive of religious enthusiasm even while he slept — rested a ray of silvery light, as if the prayer that he had uttered ere he fell asleep had transformed itself into a halo to glorify his pillow through the night. His thin hands were crossed upon his breast, and showed white and transparent against the gray background of his garb.

Within the shadows at an opposite corner of the apartment lay the lithe, muscular figure of a man whose costume made it difficult for the observer to determine whether the wearer was a foot-soldier from the Low Countries or a Canadian coureur de lois. The truth was that Henri de Tonti's experiences as an Italian officer in the Sicilian wars had left their impress upon his attire as an explorer under de la Salle. As he lay, fully dressed, in the moonlight that night he might well have been a sculptor's dream, representing in his outlines the martial genius of the Old World, bringing "not peace but a sword" to the New. A bare hand rested lovingly upon the cross-piece of his rapier, which he had unfastened from his waist and tossed upon the dry grass of his

couch. His other hand was covered by a glove.

CONFRONTED BY A MYSTERY

Before they threw themselves upon their tempting beds of leaves, La Salle and de Sancerre stood side by side in the centre of the hut for a moment, gazing thoughtfully at the weird tableau that their slumbering comrades made.

" The sword and crucifix !" whispered de Sancerre, pointing from the soldier to the priest. " Strange allies these, monsieur."

" But one without the other were in vain ! They serve together by the will of God. Good-night, Monsieur le Comte."

How long de Sancerre had slept before he was awakened by a light touch upon his shoulder he never knew. It must have been a considerable time, for, as he opened his reluctant eyes, he saw that the moonlight no longer gleamed in all quarters of the hut, but dimly illumined only one corner thereof. Inured though he was to perils of all kinds, the, Count felt a thrill of dismay as his eyes rested upon a hideous, grinning face leering at him from the shadows close at hand. He sat up hurriedly, uttering no sound, but fumbling in the leaves and grass for his rapier. A glance assured him that his comrades had been undisturbed by the intruder at his side.

" Be not afraid, sefior," whispered a voice in broken Spanish. "The children of the moon have naught to fear from us."

De Sancerre, to whom Spanish was like a native tongue, raised himself upon his elbow and gazed search ingly at the misshapen hag who had disturbed his sleep.

" I crave your pardon," he murmured, with the air of a courtier addressing a coquette in the Salon de Venus, while the mocking smile that his face so often wore gleamed in the half-light. " Then I am of the children of the moon ?"

II At night ye come from out the shadows of the distant lands, ye white-faced offspring of your Queen, the Moon. The Sun, our God, has told us you would come. Be not afraid. We have rare gifts for you — and loving hearts."

The harsh, guttural voice in which the aged crone spoke these gentle words added to the uncanny effect of her wrinkled, time-marked face, peering at the smiling Frenchman through the gloom.

II I bring you this," she went on, still speaking in a mongrel Spanish patois, which de Sancerre found it difficult to interpret. " Remember what 1 Bay. The children of the sun send greeting to their brothers of the moon."

She hud upon the dried grass of his bed a piece of white mulberry bark % upon which de Sancorre's eyes rested indifferently for an instant.

CONFRONTED BY A MYSTERY

When he raised them again the hag had left his side, and he saw her pushing her way through an opening in the tree-limbs at the further end of the hut. For an instant her diminutive body stopped the gap in the wooden wall. Then, from where he lay, the Frenchman could catch a glimpse of moonbeams on the river through the opening that she had made.

For a moment this strange visitation affected de Sancerre unpleasantly. Surrounded, as their little party was, by unknown tribes with whom the wily Spaniards had had intercourse, the words of the old crone, cordial though they hac^ been in their way, filled the Count with alarm. Furthermore, the ease with which she had made an undiscovered entrance to their hut emphasized the disquiet that he had begun to feel. Thorough soldier as he was, this seemingly harmless invasion of his leader's quarters became to his mind a more menacing episode the more he weighed it in all its bearings.

Rising noiselessly from his resting-place, de Sancerre made his way between his sleeping comrades to the entrance to the hut. Stepping forth into the white night, he confronted Chatemuc, who still stood motionless in the same spot that he had occupied when La Salle and his companion had returned from the river. The Mohican, from long service with the explorer, had acquired a practical knowledge of the French tongue, but, as a general rule, he made use of it only in monosyllables.

" Chat6muc," said de Sancerre, sternly, " your eyes are heavy with the moonlight or with sleep. You keep indifferent guard. Did you not see an aged witch who even now stood within the hut and roused me from my sleep?"

The tall Mohican gazed down upon the Frenchman with keen, searching eyes, which glowed at that moment with a fire that proved him innocent either of treason or stupidity. His stern, immobile face gave no indication of the astonishment which the Frenchman's accusation must have caused him.

" There's nothing stirring but the river and the leaves," said Chat6muc, with grim emphasis, turning his shapely head slowly to sweep the landscape in all directions with eyes for which the forest had no mysteries.

" Ma foi, my Chatemuc ! You're as proud and stubborn as de Groot, the Hollander. But follow me. I'll show you a hole that proves I dreamed no dream."

De Sancerre, behind whom stalked the stately Mohican, made his way hurriedly to the further side of the hut. Pointing to an opening between the logs, through which a small boy might have crawled, the Count said :

CONFRONTED BY A MYSTERY

" Behold, monsieur, the yawning chasm in your reputation as a sentry! 'Twould not admit an army, but it might serve for a snake."

Cbatemuc had fallen upon his knees, and was examining the aperture and the trampled grass which led to it. Presently he arose and turned towards the Count.

"A woman," he muttered. "Small. Light. Old."

"Fine woodcraft, Chat6muc! You read the blazonry that crossed the drawbridge with great skill — after the castle has been captured. But let it pass. No harm's been done, save that your pride has had a fall. And so I leave you to your watch again. If you loved me, Chatemuc, you'd keep old women from my midnight couch. I fear my sleep is lost."

Stealing noiselessly past the motionless forms of La Salle, the friar, and the Italian captain, after his successful demonstration of Chatemuc's negligence as a sentinel, de Sancerre approached his tumbled bed of leaves with weary step. A feeling of depression, a sudden realization of the horrid possibilities that his environment suggested, a sensation of impotent rebellion at the fate that had hurled him from the very centre of seventeenth-century civilization into the rude embrace of a horror- haunted wilderness, came suddenly upon the vivacious Frenchman, mocking at his stoical views of life and making of the satirical tendency of his mind a knife with which to cut himself.

" Nom de Dieuf" he muttered, as he gazed down upon the dry grass and leaves of his uninviting couch, " these be fine lodgings for a Count of Languedoc! At the worst, with Turenne, there was always Versailles at our rear."

At that instant his heavy eyes lighted upon the slip of white bark which his recent caller had left with him as a token of good-will. De Sancerre bent down and, grasping the seemingly meaningless gift, gazed at it inquiringly. To his amazement, he made out in the darkness what seemed to him to be a bit of writing, scratched with a pointed instrument upon this fragment from a mulberry bush. Hastily, stealthily, making his way to the opening through which the donor of the gift had forced her exit, the Count leaned forward, and in the moonlight read, with wondering eyes, the name :

Julia de Aquilar

It was the name of the woman for love of whom he had killed a Spaniard and lost his native land. Instantly his mind harked back to the confession that, but an hour or so before, he had poured into the ears of Sieur de la Salle. Had

an eavesdropper overheard his words, and, in a

CONFRONTED BY A MYSTERY

spirit of mischief, sought to tease him by a trick ? He rejected the supposition at once, for the conviction came upon him, increasing a thousandfold the consternation which he felt, that he had deliberately refrained from mentioning the name of his inamorata to La Salle.

De Sancerre drew himself erect and stood motionless for a moment, the most amazed and startled being in all that strange new world.

Chapter III In Which A Maiden Shows Her Heart

Sibur de la Salle's temporary stockade had been erected upon the western bank of the great river, and his followers had received with delight the report that their leader had decided to indulge in a few days of recuperation before continuing his journey to the gulf. After weeks of labor at the paddles, the canoemen were in sore need of rest. The party consisted of twentythree Frenchmen, eighteen Indians — Abenakis and Mohicans — ten squaws, and three pappooses. Discontent and even open grumbling had already developed in this incongruous assemblage, and it was only the stern, imperious personality of de la Salle that had saved the expedition from falling asunder through the inherent antagonisms of the elements of which it was composed.

But upon the morning following the Count de Sancerre's receipt of an inexplicable gift from the children of the sun there reigned an air of gayety in the camp. Provisions were plentiful, the terminus of the exploration, it was rumored,

A MAIDEN SHOWS HER HEART

was near at hand, and, for the next few days, at least, no exhausting task, no menacing dahger seemed likely to annoy the adventurers. The glories of early spring upon the lower Mississippi met their wondering and grateful eyes. In his delight the Frenchman carolled forth a chanson to greet the rising sun, while his phlegmatic comrade, the native American, grunted with satisfaction as he reclined upon the long grass and appeared to muse indolently upon the strange vivacity of the men from oversea.

Shortly after dawn de Sancerre, pale, heavy-eyed, restless, weary of his vain efforts to gain a dreamless sleep, had wandered away from the camp and thrown himself listlessly down upon the gently sloping shore of the river, across whose ripples flashed the gleaming arrows of the April sun. As he lay there, reclining against a slender tree-trunk, the last few hours seemed to him to have been a long nightmare, through which the mocking black eyes of a woman of wondrous beauty had taunted him for his helplessness.

As de Sancerre, refreshed by the cool breeze that chased the sunbeams across the flood, recalled every detail of his recent adventure, he found himself confronted not only by a mystery, but by a choice between two courses of action

which must be made at once. Should he tell his comrades of the strange episode that had disturbed his rest, or should he keep the secret to himself, trusting to Chatemuc's pride and reticence to repress the story of the night? In a certain sense he was under obligations to de la Salle to keep him informed of every happening which, even remotely, might affect the welfare of the expedition. On the other hand, there was that in his leader's personality which caused de Sancerre to hesitate before telling him a tale which, he reflected, would sound like the ravings of a lunatic. He could picture the cold, disdainful glance in de la Salle's searching eye ere he turned upon his heel with the curt remark that the Count de Sancerre's dreams should test the friar's skill.

To the Count, thus vexed by a most disturbing problem, came Katonah, sister of Chatemuc, the only Indian maiden in Sieur de la Salle's strangely-assorted suite. With the most punctilious courtesy de Sancerre sprang erect, removed from his head his travel -worn but still picturesque bonnet, and, making a sweeping bow, pointed to the grass-grown seat that he had just vacated.

" Mademoiselle Katonah, I bid you welcome !

I was dreaming, petite, of the land across the

sea. Tour eyes and smile shall change my

mood again."

The Indian girl gazed at the Frenchman with

A MAIDEN SHOWS HER HEART

dark, fearless eyes, in which there gleamed a light that told the courtier a tale he had no wish to learn. Not that the Count was better than his age, more scrupulous than the pleasureloving court in which his youth had been passed, but in the freer, nobler atmosphere of this brave New World, and in the companionship of men striving in the midst of peril to do great deeds, all that was most admirable in de Sancerre's character had been born anew, and, to his own amazement, he had learned that his views of life had undergone a change, that there had grown up something in his soul which gave the lie to his scoffing tongue, still from habit the tongue of a mondain fashioned in an evil school.

Katonah, reclining against the tree and gazing upward at the Frenchman, formed a deep-toned picture becoming to that land of hazy sunlight, drowzy zephyrs, and opening flowers, bright-hued and redolent of spring. Her dark eyes, clear-cut features, and white, even teeth, her slender, supple limbs, satisfied even the exacting eye of a man who had looked with admiration upon La Valliere, de Montespan, de Maintenon.

" The land across the sea !" exclaimed Katonah, waving a slender, well-turned hand toward the opposite shore of the great river. " You would go back to it?"* She had learned the French tongue from her brother, Chat6muc.

Her eloquent eyes rested questioningly upon the pallid, symmetrical face of de Sancerre.

The barbaric directness of her question brought a smile to the Frenchman's lips as he threw himself down by her^side and took her hand in his.

" Mayhap some day I shall go back, ma petite. But at this moment I have no wish to go."

De Sancerre was looking at Katonah, but in his mind was the picture of a scrap of white bark upon which had been scrawled the name of the only woman his heart had ever loved. Perhaps Katonah weighed his words at their real worth, for she withdrew her hand from his, while her gentle eyes rested mournfully upon the mighty river upon whose bosom she had learned the joy and sorrow of a hopeless love.

De Sancerre, whose delicately -moulded face, graceful figure, ready wit, and quick perceptions, added to high birth and a reputation for physical courage, had made him a favorite at a voluptuous court, felt a mixture of self-satisfaction and annoyance at the unsought homage that he had won from this handsome savage. No coquette at Versailles could have put into artful words the flattery that Katonah gave him by a glance. But de Sancerre realized that, under existing circumstances, her devotion to him might involve them both in serious peril. Her brother, Chat6-

A MAIDEN SHOWS HER HEART

muo, was a sentry whose eyes and ears would not always be blind and deaf to what was stirring besides the river and the leaves.

" Katonah," said the Count, presently, " let me tell you why I may never go back to the land beyond the sea."

The Indian girl gazed up at him with earnest attention.

" To the great wigwam of the king who rules all kings there came a maiden from a distant land. Her eyes were like the night, her hair the color of a raven's wing."

De Sancerre met Katonah's eyes and remained silent for a time. There was something in her glance that chilled him for the moment with an inexplicable foreboding. Annoyed at his weakness, he went on :

" All men loved her, ma petite^ and so it was not strange that I — Mais riimpwte. Among the braves, Katonah, who followed in her train was a youth with evil eye, a black, soft-footed, proud, and boastful man, to whom her word was sworn."

" You killed him, then," said Katonah, with conviction.

De Sancerre started nervously and gazed around him searchingly. There was an uncanny precipitancy in Katonah's mental methods which affected him unpleasantly.

"Yes," he acknowledged. "I killed him, Katonah."

" And the maiden with the raven hair ? You carried her away?"

"No, Katonah. I came across the sea and left her there."

The eyes of the Mohican wore a puzzled expression as she tried to read his face.

" I do not understand," she murmured, presently.

De Sancerre remained silent for a while. He realized that, with the limited vocabulary at his disposal, he could not make the Indian girl comprehend the exigencies which, in a civilized land, might arise to drive a lover from his loved one's side. The mind of the savage maiden was unfitted to grasp those finer distinctions which made the habits and customs at Versailles so superior to the methods and manners prevailing among her Mohican kindred. Presently the expatriated courtier said :