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The Sun Of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis, a novel by Joseph A. Altsheler |
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Chapter 16. The Reckoning |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. THE RECKONING
"A soul of fire in an invalid's frame," said Charteris, and Robert agreed with him. Through Zeb Crane's amazing powers as a spy, he heard that the French were in the greatest anxiety over Wolfe's movements. They had thought at first that he was abandoning the siege, and then that he meditated an attack at some new point. Montcalm below the town and Bougainville above it were watching incessantly. Their doubts were increased by the fierce bombardments of the British fleet, which poured heavy shot into the Lower Town and the French camp. The French cannon replied, and the hills echoed with the roar, while great clouds of smoke drifted along the river. Then an afternoon came when Robert felt that the next night and day would tell a mighty tale. It was in the air. Everybody showed a tense excitement. The army was being stripped for battle. He knew that the troops on the Heights of Levis and at Orleans had been ordered to march along the south shore of the St. Lawrence and join the others. The fleet was ready, as always, and the army was to embark. This concentration could not be for nothing. Before the twilight he saw Charteris and they shook hands, which was both a salute and a farewell. "We take ship after dark," said Charteris, "and I know as surely as I'm standing here that we make some great attempt to-night. The omens and presages are all about us." "I feel that way, too," said Robert. "Tododaho will soon appear on his star," said Tayoga, who was with Robert, "but, though I cannot see him, I hear his whisper already." "What does it say?" asked Robert. "The whisper of Tododaho tells me that the time has come. We shall meet the enemy in a great battle, but he does not say who will win." "I believe that, if we can bring Montcalm to battle, we can gain the victory," said Charteris. "I for one, Tayoga, thank you for the prophecy." "And I," said Robert. "But we'll be together to the end." "Aye, Dagaeoga, and together we shall see what happens." Robert also saw the Philadelphians and the Virginians, and he shook hands with them in turn, every one of them giving a silent toast to victory or death. He found Grosvenor with his own regiment, the Grenadiers. "We may meet somewhere to-morrow, Grosvenor," he said, "but neither of us knows where, nor under what circumstances." "Just so we meet after victory, that's enough," said Grosvenor. "Aye, so it is." The boom of a cannon came from down the river, it was followed by another and another and then by many, singularly clear in the September twilight. A powerful British fleet ranged up in front of the Beauport shore and opened a fierce fire on the French redoubts. It seemed as if Wolfe were trying to force a landing there, and the French guns replied. In the distance, with the thunder of the cannonade and the flashes of fire, it looked as if a great battle were raging. "It is nothing," said Willet to Robert, "or rather it is only a feint. It will make Montcalm below the town think he is going to be attacked, and it will make Bougainville above it rest more easily. The French are already worn down by their efforts in racing back and forth to meet us. Our command over the water is a wonderful thing, and it alone makes victory possible." Robert, Willet and Tayoga with a dozen rangers went into a long boat, whence they looked up at the tall ships that carried the army, and waited as patiently as they could for the order to move. "See the big fellow over there," said Willet, pointing to one of the ships. Robert nodded. "That's the _Sutherland_, and she carries General Wolfe. Like the boat of Caesar, she bears our fortunes." "Truly 'tis so," said Robert. A good breeze was blowing down the river, and, at that moment, the stars were out. "I see Tododaho with the wise snakes in his hair," said Tayoga in an awed whisper, "and he looks directly down at me. His eyes speak more plainly than his whisper that I heard in the twilight. Now, I know that some mighty event is going to happen, and that the dawn will be heavy with the fate of men." The sullen boom of a cannon came from a point far down the river, and then the sullen boom of another replying. Quebec, on its rock, lay dark and silent. Robert was shaken by a kind of shiver, and a thrill of tremendous anticipation shot through him. He too knew instinctively that they were upon the threshold of some mighty event. Whatever happened, he could say, if he lived, that he was there, and, if he fell, he would at least die a glorious death. His was the thrill of youth, and it was wholly true. It was two hours past midnight and the ebb tide set in. The good wind was still blowing down the river. Two lanterns went aloft in the rigging of the _Sutherland_, and the signal for one of the great adventures of history was given. All the troops had gone into boats earlier in the evening, and now they pulled silently down the stream, Wolfe in one of the foremost. Robert sat beside Tayoga, and Willet was just in front of them. Some of the stars were still out, but there was no moon and the night was dark. It seemed that all things had agreed finally to favor Wolfe's supreme and last effort. The boats carrying the army were invisible from the lofty cliffs and no spying canoes were on the stream to tell that they were there. Robert gazed up at the black heights, and wondered where were the French. "Are we going directly against Quebec?" he whispered to Willet. "'Tis impossible to storm it upon its heights." "Nay, lad, nothing is impossible. As you see, we go toward Quebec and I think we land in the rear of it. 'Tis young men who lead us, the boldest of young men, and they will dare anything. But I tell you, Robert, our coming to Quebec is very different from what it was when we came here with a message from the Governor of the Province of New York." "And our reception is like to be different, too. What was that? It sounded like the splash of a paddle ahead of us." "It was only a great fish leaping out of the water and then falling back again," said Tayoga. "There is no enemy on the stream. Truly Manitou to-night has blinded the French and the warriors, their allies. Montcalm is a great leader, and so is St. Luc, but they do not know what is coming. We shall meet them in the morning. Tododaho has said so to me." The boats passed on in their slow drifting with the tide. Once near to a lofty headland, they were hailed by a French sentinel, who heard the creaking of the boats, and who saw dim outlines in the dark, but a Scotch officer, who spoke good French, made a satisfactory reply. The boats drifted on, and the sentinel went back to his dreams, perhaps of the girl that he had left in France. "Did I not tell you that Manitou had blinded the French and the warriors, their allies, to-night?" whispered Tayoga to Robert. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the sentinel would have asked more, or he would have insisted upon seeing more in the dark, but Manitou dulled his senses. The good spirits are abroad, and they work for us." "Truly, I believe it is so, Tayoga," said Robert. "The French don't lack in vigilance, but they must be worn out," said Willet. "It's one thing to sail on ships up and down a river, but it's quite another for an army racing along lofty, rough and curving shores to keep pace with it." They were challenged from another point of vantage by a sentinel and they saw him running down to the St. Lawrence, pistol in hand, to make good his question. But the same Scotch officer who had answered the first placated him, telling him that theirs were boats loaded with provisions, and not to make a noise or the English would hear him. Again was French vigilance lulled, and they passed on around the headland above Anse du Foulon. "The omens are ours," whispered Tayoga, with deep conviction. "Now, I know that we shall arrive at the place to which we want to go. Unless Manitou wishes us to go there, he would not have twice dulled the senses of French sentinels who could have brought a French army down upon us while we are yet in the river. And, lo! here where we are going to land there is no sentinel!" "Under heaven, I believe you're right, Tayoga!" exclaimed Willet, with intense earnestness. The boats swung in to the narrow beach at the foot of the lofty cliff and the men disembarked rapidly. Then, hanging to rocks and shrubs, they began to climb. There was still no alarm, and Robert held his breath in suspense, and in amazement too. He did not know just where they were, but they could not be very far from Quebec, and General Wolfe was literally putting his head in the lion's mouth. He knew, and every one around him knew, that it was now victory or death. He felt again that tremendous thrill. Whatever happened, he would be in it. He kept repeating that fact to himself and the thought of death was not with him. "The dawn will soon be at hand," he said; "I feel it coming. If we can have only a half hour more! Only a half hour!" "It will come with clouds," said Tayoga. "Manitou still favors us. He wills that we shall reach the top." Robert made another pull and surmounted the crest. Everywhere the soldiers were pouring over the top. A small body of French sentinels was taken by surprise. Some of them were captured, and the others escaped in the dusk to carry the alarm to the city, to Montcalm and to Bougainville. But Wolfe was on the heights before Quebec. From points farther up the river came the crash of cannon. It was the French batteries firing upon the last of the boats, and upon the ships bringing down the rest of the troops. But it was too late to stop the British army, which included Americans, who were then British too. "The dawn is here," said Tayoga. The east was breaking slowly into dull light. Heavy clouds were floating up from the west, and the air was damp with the promise of rain. The British army was forming rapidly into line of battle, but no army was in front of it. The daring enterprise of the night was a complete success, and Montcalm had been surprised. He was yet to know that his enemy had scaled the heights and was before Quebec. "We've gained a field of battle for ourselves," said Willet, "and it's now for us to win the battle itself." The mind of Wolfe was at its supreme activity. A detachment, sent swiftly, seized the battery at Samos that was firing upon the ships and boats. Another battery, farther away at Sillery, was taken also, and the landing of additional troops was covered. A party of Canadians who came out of the town to see who these intrusive strangers might be, were driven back in a hurry, and then Wolfe and his officers advanced to choose their ground, the rangers hovering on the flanks of the regulars. Where the plateau was only a mile wide and before Quebec, the general took his stand with the lofty cliffs of the St. Lawrence on the south and the meadows of the St. Charles on the north. The field, the famous Plains of Abraham, was fairly level with corn fields and bushes here and there. A battalion of the Royal Americans was placed to guard the ford of the St. Charles, but Robert saw the others, his friends among them, formed up in the front ranks, where the brunt of the battle would fall. Another regiment was in reserve. The rangers, with Robert, Tayoga and Willet, still hovered on the flanks. Robert felt intense excitement. He always believed afterward that he understood even at that instant the greatness of the cloudy dawn that had come, and the momentous nature of the approaching conflict, holding in its issue results far greater than those of many a battle in which ten times the numbers were engaged. "How far away is Quebec?" he asked. "Over there about a mile," replied Willet. "We can't see it because the ridge that the French call the Buttes-a-Neveu comes in between." "But look!" exclaimed Robert. "See, what is on the ridge!" The stretch of broken ground was suddenly covered with white uniforms. They were French soldiers, the battalion of Guienne, aroused in their camp near the St. Charles River by the firing, and come swiftly to see what was the matter. There they stood, staring at the scarlet ranks, drawn up in battle before them, unable to credit their eyes at first, many of them believing for the moment that it was some vision of the cloudy dawn. "I think that Montcalm's army will soon come," said Willet to Robert. "You see, we're literally between three fires. We're facing the garrison of Quebec, while we have Montcalm on one side of us and Bougainville on the other. The question is which will it be, Bougainville or Montcalm, but I think it will be Montcalm." "I know it will be Montcalm," said Robert, "and I know too that when he comes St. Luc will be with him." "Aye, St. Luc will be with him. That's sure." It was even so. Montcalm was already on his way. The valiant general of France, troubled by the hovering armies and fleets of Britain, uncertain where they intended to strike or whether they meant to strike at all, had passed a sleepless night. At dawn the distant boom of the cannon, firing at the English ships above the town, had come to his ears. An officer sent for news to the headquarters of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the Governor-General of New France, much nearer to the town, had not returned, and, mounting, he galloped swiftly with one of his aides to learn the cause of the firing. Near the Governor-General's house they caught a distant gleam of the scarlet ranks of Wolfe's army, nearly two miles away. When Montcalm saw that red flash his agitation and excitement became intense. It is likely that he understood at once the full danger, that he knew the crisis for Canada and France was at hand. But he dispatched immediately the orders that would bring his army upon the scene. The Governor-General, already alarmed, came out of his house and they exchanged a few words. Then Montcalm galloped over the bridge across the St. Charles and toward the British army. It is stated of him that during this ride his face was set and that he never spoke once to his aides. Behind Montcalm came his army, hurrying to the battle-field, and, taking the quickest course, it passed through Quebec, entering at the Palace Gate and passing out through those of St. Louis and St. John, hastening, always hastening, to join the battalion of Guienne, which already stood in its white uniforms and beneath its banners on the Buttes-a-Neveu. Montcalm's army included the veterans of many victories. Through long years they had fought valiantly for France in North America. At Ticonderoga they had shown how they could triumph over great odds, over men as brave as themselves, and, as they pressed through the narrow streets of the quaint old town, they did not doubt that they were going to another victory. With them, too, were the swart Canadians fighting for their homes, their flag and, as they believed then, for their religion, animated, too, by confidence in their courage, and belief in the skill of their leaders who had so seldom failed. Behind the French and the Canadians were the Indians who had been drawn so freely to Montcalm's banner by his success, thinking anew of slaughter and untold spoil, such as they had known at William Henry and such as they might have had at Ticonderoga. The gigantic Tandakora, painted hideously, led them, and in all that motley array there was no soul more eager than his for the battle. On that eventful morning, which the vast numbers of later wars cannot dim, the councils of France were divided. Vaudreuil, fearing an attack on the Beauport shore, did not give the valiant Montcalm all the help that he could spare, nor did De Ramesay, commanding the garrison of Quebec, send the artillery that the Marquis asked. But Montcalm was resolute. His soul was full of fire. He looked at the ranks of Wolfe's army drawn up before him on the Plains of Abraham, and he did not hesitate to attack. He would not wait for Bougainville, nor would he hold back for the garrison of Quebec. He saw that the gauge of battle had been flung down to him and he knew that he must march at once upon the British--and the Americans. Mounted on a black horse, he rode up and down the lines, waving or pointing his sword, his dark face alive with energy. Montcalm now formed his men in three divisions. M. de Senezergues led the left wing made up of the regiments of Guienne and Royal Roussillon, supported by Canadian militia. M. de Saint Ours took the right wing with the battalion of La Sarre and more Canadian militia. Montcalm was in the center with the regiment of Languedoc and the battalion of Bearn. On both flanks were Canadians and numerous Indians. Robert from his position on a little knoll with Willet and Tayoga watched all these movements, and he was scarcely conscious of the passage of time. There was a shifting in the British army also, as it perfected its alignment, and the bagpipes of the Scotchmen were already screaming defiance, but his eyes were mainly for the French before him. He recognized Montcalm as he rode up and down the lines, raising his sword, and presently he saw another gallant figure on horseback that he knew. It was St. Luc, and the old thrill shot through him: St. Luc for whom the ancient M. de Chatillard had taken him, St. Luc with whom he must have some blood tie. Though it was now far beyond the time for the rising of the sun, the day was still dark, heavy with clouds, and now and then a puff of rain was blown in the faces of the waiting men, though few took notice. The wait and the preparations had to Robert all the aspects of a duel, and the incessant shrill screaming of the Scotch bagpipes put a fever in his blood, setting all the little pulses in his head and body to beating. Ever after he maintained that the call of the bagpipes was the most martial music in the world. The crackle of firing broke out on the flanks. The Canadian and Indian sharpshooters, from the shelter of houses, bushes and knolls, had opened fire. Now and then a man in scarlet fell, but the army of Wolfe neither moved nor replied, though some of the New England rangers, stealing forward, began to send bullets at their targets. "I see Tandakora," said Tayoga, "and, in an hour, the score between us will be settled. Tododaho told me so last night, but it is still uncertain which shall be the victor." "Can't you get a shot at him?" asked Robert. "It is not yet time, Dagaeoga. Tododaho will say when the moment comes for me to pull trigger on the Ojibway." Then Robert's gaze shifted back to the figure of St. Luc. The chevalier rode a white horse, and he was helping Montcalm to form the lines in the best order for the attack. He too held in his hand a sword, the small sword that Robert had seen before, but he seldom waved it. "Are they ever coming?" asked Robert, who felt as if he had been standing on the field many hours. "We've not long to wait now, lad," replied Willet. "Our own army is ready and I think the fate of America will soon be decided here on this cloudy morning." Another light puff of rain struck Robert in the face, but as before he did not notice it. The crackling fire of the sharpshooters increased. They were stinging the British flanks and more men in scarlet fell, but the army of Wolfe remained immovable, waiting, always waiting. It was for Montcalm now to act. French field pieces added their roar to the crackle of rifles and muskets, and now and then the fierce yell of the Indians rose above both. Robert thought he saw a general movement in the French lines, and his thought was Willet's also. "The moment has come! Steady, lads! Steady!" said the hunter. The whole French army suddenly began to advance, the veterans and the militia together, uttering great shouts, while the Indians on the flanks gave forth the war whoop without ceasing. Robert remained motionless. The steadfastness of soul that he had acquired on the island controlled him now. Inwardly he was in a fever, but outwardly he showed no emotion. He glanced at Montcalm on the black horse, and St. Luc on the white, and then at the scarlet and silent ranks of Wolfe's army. But the French were coming fast, and he knew that silence would soon burst into sudden and terrible action. "The French lines are being thrown into confusion by the unevenness of the ground and the rapidity of their advance," said Willet. "Their surprise at our being here is so great that it has unsteadied them. Now they are about to open fire!" The front of the charging French burst into flame and the bullets sang in the scarlet ranks. Wolfe's army suddenly began to move forward, but still it did not fire, although the battle of the skirmishers on the flanks was rapidly increasing in ferocity. The rangers were busy now, replying to the Indians and Canadians, but Robert still took rapid glances and he looked oftenest toward the Americans, where his friends stood. The advance of the French became almost a run, and he saw all the muskets and rifles of his own army go up. A tremendous volley burst from the scarlet ranks, so loud and so close together that it sounded like one vast cannon shot. It was succeeded presently by another, and then by an irregular but fierce fire, which died in its turn to let the smoke lift. Robert saw a terrible sight. The ground where the French army had stood was literally covered with dead and wounded. The two volleys fired at close range had mowed them down like grain. The French army, smitten unto death, was reeling back, and the British, seizing the moment, rushed forward with bayonet and drawn sword. The Highlanders, as they charged with the broadsword, uttered a tremendous yell, and Robert saw his own Americans in the front of the rush. He caught one glimpse of the tall figure of Charteris and he saw Colden near him. Then they were all lost in the smoke as they attacked. But Wolfe had fallen. Struck by three bullets, the last time in the breast, he staggered and sat down. Men rushed to his aid, but he lived just long enough to know that he had won the victory. Before the firing died away, he was dead. Montcalm, still on horseback, was shot through the body, but he was taken into the city, where he died the night of the next day. Senezergues, his second in command, was also mortally wounded, and Monckton, who was second to Wolfe, fell badly wounded too. But Robert did not yet know any of these facts. He was conscious only of victory. He heard the triumphant cheers of Wolfe's army and he saw that the French had stopped, then that they were breaking. He felt again that powerful thrill, but now it was the thrill of victory. "We win! We win!" he cried. "Aye, so we do," said Willet, "but here are the Canadians and Indians trying to wipe out us rangers." The fire in front of them from the knolls and bushes redoubled, but the rangers, adept at such combats, pressed forward, pouring in their bullets. The Canadians and Indians gave ground and the rangers, circling about, attacked them on the flank. Tayoga suddenly uttered a fierce shout and, dropping his rifle, leaped into the open. "Now, O Tandakora!" he cried. "The time has come and thou hast given me the chance!" The gigantic figure of Tandakora emerged from the smoke, and the two, tomahawk in hand, faced each other. "It is you, Tayoga, of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the league of the Hodenosaunee," said the chief. "So you have come at last that I may spit upon your dead body. I have long sought this moment." "Not longer than I, Ojibway savage!" replied Tayoga. "Now you shall know what it is to strike an Onondaga in the mouth, when he is bound and helpless." The huge warrior threw back his head and laughed. "Look your last at the skies, Onondaga," he said, "because you will soon pass into silence and darkness. It is not for a great chief to be slain by a mere boy." Tayoga said no more, but gazed steadily into the eyes of the Ojibway. Then the two circled slowly, each intently watching every movement of the other. The great body of Tandakora was poised like that of a panther, the huge muscles rippling under his bronze skin. But the slender figure of Tayoga was instinct also with strength, and with an incomparable grace and lightness. He seemed to move without effort, like a beam of light. Tandakora crouched as he moved slowly toward the right. Then his arm suddenly shot back and he hurled his tomahawk with incredible force. The Onondaga threw his head to one side and the glittering blade, flying on, clove a ranger to the chin. Then Tayoga threw his own weapon, but Tandakora, with a quick shift evading it, drew his knife and, rushing in, cried: "Now I have you, dog of an Onondaga!" Not in vain was Tayoga as swift as a beam of light. Not in vain was that light figure made of wrought steel. Leaping to one side, he drew his own knife and struck with all his might at the heart of that huge, rushing figure. The blade went true, and so tremendous was the blow that Tandakora, falling in a heap, gave up his fierce and savage soul. "They run! They run!" cried Robert. "The whole French army is running!" It was true. The entire French force was pouring back toward the gates of the city, their leaders vainly trying to rally the soldiers. The skirmishers fell back with them. A figure, darting from a bush, turned to pull trigger on Robert, and then uttered a cry of terror. "A ghost! It is a ghost!" he exclaimed in French. But a second look told Achille Garay that it was no ghost. It may have been a miracle, but it was Robert Lennox come back in the flesh, and his finger returned to the trigger. Another was quicker. The hunter saw him. "That for you, Garay!" he cried, and sent a bullet through the spy's heart. Then, drawing the two lads with him, he rushed forward in pursuit. The confusion in the French army was increasing. Its defeat was fast becoming a rout, but some of the officers still strove to stay the panic. Robert saw one on a white horse gallop before a huddle of fleeing men. But the soldiers, swerving, ran on. A bullet struck the horse and he fell. The man leaped clear, but looked around in a dazed manner. Then a bullet struck him too, and he staggered. Robert with a cry rushed forward, and received into his arms the falling figure of St. Luc. He eased the Chevalier to the ground and rested his head upon his knee. "He isn't dead!" he exclaimed. "He's only shot through the shoulder!" "Now, this is in truth the hand of Providence," said Willet gravely, "when you are here in the height of a great battle to break the fall of your own uncle!" "My uncle!" exclaimed Robert. The Chevalier Raymond Louis de St. Luc smiled wanly. "Yes, my nephew," he said, "your own uncle, though wounded grievously, on this the saddest of all days for France, son of my dear, dead sister, Gabrielle." Then he fainted dead away from loss of blood, and the Canadian, Dubois, appearing suddenly, helped them to revive him. Robert hung over him with irrepressible anxiety. "The brother of my mother!" he exclaimed. "I always felt there was a powerful tie, a blood tie, uniting us! That was why he spared me so often! That was why he told me how to escape at Ticonderoga! He will not die, Dave? He will not die?" "No, he will not die," replied Willet. "The Marquis de Clermont can receive a greater wound than that, and yet live and flourish." "The Marquis de Clermont!" "Aye, the Chevalier de St. Luc is head of one of the greatest families of France and you're his next of kin." "And so I'm half a Frenchman!" "Aye, half a Frenchman, half an Englishman, and all an American." "And so I am!" said Robert. "Truly it is a great morning," said Tayoga gravely. "Tododaho has given to me the triumph, and Tandakora has gone to his hereafter, wherever it may be; the soul of Garay is sped too, France has lost Canada, and Dagaeoga has found the brother of his mother." "It's true," said Willet in a whimsical tone. "When things begin to happen they happen fast. The battle is almost over." But the victorious army, as it advanced, was subjected to a severe fire on the flank from ambushed Canadians. Many of the French threw themselves into the thickets on the Cote Ste.-Genevieve, and poured a hail of bullets into the ranks of the advancing Highlanders. Vaudreuil came up from Beauport and was all in terror, but Bougainville and others, arriving, showed a firmer spirit. The gates of Quebec were shut, and it seemed to show defiance, while the English and Americans, still in the presence of forces greater than their own, intrenched on the field where they had won the victory, a victory that remains one of the decisive battles of the world, mighty and far-reaching in its consequences. A night of mixed triumph and grief came, grief for the loss of Wolfe and so many brave men, triumph that a daring chance had brought such a brilliant success. Robert found Charteris, Grosvenor, Colden and the Virginians unharmed. Wilton was wounded severely, but ultimately recovered his full strength. Carson was wounded also, but was as well as ever in a month, while Robert himself, Tayoga, Willet and Zeb Crane were not touched. But his greatest interest that night was in the Chevalier de St. Luc, Marquis de Clermont. They had made him a pallet in a tent and one of the best army surgeons was attending so famous and gallant an enemy. But he seemed easiest when Robert was by. "My boy," he said, "I always tried to save you. Whenever I looked upon you I saw in your face my sister Gabrielle." "But why did you not tell me?" asked Robert. "Why did not some one of the others who seemed to know tell me?" "There were excellent reasons," replied the wounded man. "Gabrielle loved one of the Bostonnais, a young man whom she met in Paris. He was brave, gallant and true, was your father, Richard Lennox. I have nothing to say against him, but our family did not consider it wise for her to marry a foreigner, a member of another race. They eloped and were married in a little hamlet on the wild coast of Brittany. Then they fled to America, where you were born, and when you were a year old they undertook to return to France, seeking forgiveness. But it was only a start. The ship was driven on the rocks of Maine and they were lost, your brave, handsome father and my beautiful sister--but you were saved. Willet came and took you into the wilderness with him. He has stood in the place of your own father." "But why did not they tell me?" repeated Robert. "Why was I left so long in ignorance?" "There was a flaw. The priest who performed the marriage was dead. The records were lost. The evil said there had been no marriage, and that you were no rightful member of the great family of De Clermont. We could not prove the marriage then and so you were left for the time with Willet." "Why did Willet take me?" Raymond Louis de St. Luc turned to Willet, who sat on the other side of the pallet, and smiled. "I will answer you, Robert," said the hunter. "I was one of those who loved your mother. How could any one help loving her? As beautiful as a dream, and a soul of pure gold. She married another, but when she was lost at sea something went out of my life that could never be replaced in this world. You have replaced it partly, Robert, but not wholly. It seemed fitting to the others that, being what I was, and loving Gabrielle de Clermont as I had, I should take you. I should have taken you anyhow." Robert's head swam, and there was a mist before his eyes. He was thinking of the beautiful young mother whom he could not remember. "Then I am by blood a De Clermont, and yet not a De Clermont," he said. "You're a De Clermont by blood, by right, and before all the world," said Willet. "I've a letter from Benjamin Hardy in New York, stating that the records have been found in the ruins of the burned church on the coast of Brittany, where the marriage was performed. Their authenticity has been acknowledged by the French government and all the members of the De Clermont family who are in France. Copies of them have been smuggled through from France." "Thanks to the good God!" murmured St. Luc. "And Adrian Van Zoon? Why has he made such war against me?" asked Robert. "Because of money," replied Willet. "Your father was a great owner of shipping, inherited, as Richard Lennox was a young man under thirty when he was lost at sea. At his death the control of it passed into the hands of his father's partner, Adrian Van Zoon. Van Zoon wanted it all, and, since you had no relatives, he probably would have secured it if you had been put out of the way. That is why you were safer with me at Albany and in the woods, until your rightful claims could be established. Benjamin Hardy, who had been a schoolmate and great friend of your father, knew of this and kept watch on Van Zoon. Your estate has not suffered in the man's hands, because, expecting it to be his own, he has made it increase. Jonathan Pillsbury knew your history too. So did Jacobus Huysman, in whose house we placed you when you went to school, and so did your teacher, Master Alexander McLean." "I had powerful friends. I felt it all the time," said Robert. "So you had, lad, and it was largely because they saw you grow up worthy of such friendship. You're a very rich man, Robert. There are ships belonging to you on nearly every sea, or at least there would be if we had no war." "And a Marquis of France--when I die," said St. Luc. "No! No!" exclaimed Robert. "You'll live as long as I will! Why, you're only a young man!" "Twenty-nine," said St. Luc. "Gabrielle was twelve years older than I am. You are more a younger brother than a nephew to me, Robert." "But I will never become a Marquis of France," said Robert. "I am American, English to the core. I have fought against France, though I do not hate her. I cannot go to France, nor even to England. I must stay in the country in which I was born, and in which my father was born." "Spoken well," said Willet. "It was what I wanted to hear you say. The Chevalier will return to France. He will marry and have children of his own. Haven't we heard him sing often about the girl he left on the bridge of Avignon? The next Marquis of Clermont will be his son and not his nephew." Which came to pass, as Willet predicted. Robert stayed long that night by the pallet of his uncle, to whom the English gave the best of attention, respecting the worth of a wounded prisoner so well known for his bravery, skill and lofty character. St. Luc finally fell asleep, and, going outside, Robert found Tayoga awaiting him. When he told him all the strange and wonderful story that he had heard inside the tent, the Onondaga said: "I suppose that Dagaeoga, being a great man, will go to Europe and forget us here." "Never!" exclaimed Robert. "My home is in America. All I know is America, and I'd be out of place in any other country." And then he added whimsically: "I couldn't go so far away from the Hodenosaunee." "Dagaeoga might go far and yet never come to a nation greater than the great League," said Tayoga, with deep conviction. "That's true, Tayoga. How stands the battle? I had almost forgotten it in the amazing tide of my own fortunes." "General Wolfe is dead, but his spirit lives after him. We are victorious at all points. The French have fled into Quebec, and they yet have an army much more numerous than ours, if they get it all together. But Montcalm was wounded and they say he is dying. The soul has gone out of them. I think Quebec will be yielded very soon." And surrendered it was a few days later, but the victors soon found that the city they had won with so much daring would have to be defended with the utmost courage and pertinacity. St. Luc, fast recovering from his wound, was sent a prisoner to New York, together with De Galissonniere, who had been taken unhurt, but Robert did not get away as soon as he had expected. Quebec was in peril again, but now from the French. De Levis, who succeeded Montcalm as the military leader of New France, gathering together at Montreal all the fragments of the French power in Canada, swore to retake Quebec. Robert, Tayoga and Willet, with the rangers, served in the garrison of Quebec throughout the long and bitter winter that followed. In the spring they moved out with the army to meet De Levis, who was advancing from Montreal to keep his oath. Robert received a slight wound in the battle of Ste. Foy that followed, in which the English and Americans were defeated, and were compelled to retreat into Quebec. This battle of Ste. Foy, in which Robert distinguished himself again with the New England rangers, was long and fierce, one of the most sanguinary ever fought on Canadian soil. De Levis, the French commander, showed all the courage and skill of Montcalm, proving himself a worthy successor to the leader who had fallen with Wolfe, and his men displayed the usual French fire and courage. Hazen, the chief of the rangers, was badly wounded in the height of the action, but Robert and Willet succeeded in bringing him off the field, while Tayoga protected their retreat. A bullet from the Onondaga's rifle here slew Colonel de Courcelles, and Robert, on the whole, was glad that the man's death had been a valiant one. He had learned not to cherish rancor against any one, and the Onondaga and the hunter agreed with him. "There is some good in everybody," said Willet. "We'll remember that and forget the rest." But Robert's friends in the Royal Americans had a hard time of it in the battle of Ste. Foy, even harder than in Wolfe's battle on the Plains of Abraham. They were conspicuous for their valor and suffered many casualties. Colden, Cabell and Stuart were wounded, but took no permanent hurt. Charteris also received a slight wound, but he recovered entirely before his marriage in the summer with the lovely Louise de St. Maur, the daughter of the Seigneur Raymond de St. Maur, in whose house he had been a prisoner a long time in Quebec. It was Robert's own personal contact and his great friendship for Charteris, continuing throughout their long lives in New York, that caused him to take such a strong and permanent interest in this particular regiment which had been raised wholly in the colonies and which fought so valiantly at Duquesne, Louisbourg, Ticonderoga, Quebec, Ste. Foy, and in truth in nearly all the great North American battles of the Seven Years' War. It was at first the Sixty-Second Regular Regiment of the British Army, "Royal American Provincials," but through the lapsing of two other regiments it soon became the Sixtieth. Its valor and distinction were so high when composed wholly of Americans, except the superior officers, that nearly seventy years subsequent to the fall of Quebec the Englishmen, who after the great quarrel had replaced the Americans in it, asked that they be allowed to use as their motto the Latin phrase, _Celer et audax_, "Swift and Bold," "Quick and Ready," which Wolfe himself was said to have conferred upon it shortly before his fall upon the Plains of Abraham. And in memory of the great deeds of their American predecessors, the gallant Englishmen who succeeded them were permitted by the British government to use that motto. Despite their defeat at Ste. Foy, the English and Americans held the capital against De Levis until another British fleet arrived and compelled the retreat of the brave Frenchmen. More reenforcements came from England, the powerful army of Amherst advanced from the south, Montreal was taken, and it was soon all over with New France. Canada passed to England, and after its fall English and American troops, men of the same blood, language and institutions, did not stand together again in a great battle for more than a century and a half, and then, strangely enough, it was in defense of that France which under one flag they had fought at Duquesne and Ticonderoga, at Quebec and Ste. Foy. Robert, Tayoga and Willet went back to the colonies by land, and after a long journey stopped at Albany, where they received the warmest of welcomes from Master Jacobus Huysman, Master Alexander McLean and Caterina. "I knew Robert that some time you would come into your own. I hold some of the papers about you in my great chest here," said Jacobus Huysman. "Now it iss for you to show that you understand how to use great fortune well." "And never forget your dates," said Master Alexander. "It is well to know history. All the more so, because you have had a part in the making of it." Warm as was their welcome in Albany, it was no warmer than that given them in New York by Benjamin Hardy and Jonathan Pillsbury. The very next day they went to the house of Adrian Van Zoon for a reckoning, only to find him dead in his bed. He had heard the night before of Robert's arrival; in truth, it was his first intimation that young Lennox was alive, and that all his wicked schemes against him had failed. "It may have been a stroke of heart disease," said Benjamin Hardy, as they turned away, "or----" "He has gone and his crimes have gone with him," said Robert. "I don't wish ever to know how he went." A little later the Chevalier Raymond Louis de St. Luc, Marquis de Clermont, the war now being over, sailed with his faithful Canadian attendant, Dubois, from New York for France. The parting between him and his nephew was not demonstrative, but it was marked by the deepest affection on either side. "France has been defeated, but she is the eternal nation," said St. Luc. "She will be greater than ever. She will be more splendid than before." The De Clermonts were a powerful stock, with their roots deep in the soil. A son of St. Luc's became a famous general under Napoleon, a great cavalry leader of singular courage and capacity, and a lineal descendant of his, a general also, fought with the same courage and ability under Joffre and Foch in the World War, being especially conspicuous for his services at both the First and Second Marne. At the Second Marne he gave a heartfelt greeting to two young American officers named Lennox, calling them his cousins and brothers-in-arms, in blood as well as in spirit. They were together in the immortal counter-stroke on the morning of July 18, 1918, when Americans and French turned the tide of the World War, and sealed anew an old friendship. They were also together throughout those blazing one hundred and nineteen days when British, French and Americans together, old enemies and old friends who had mingled their blood on innumerable battle-fields, destroyed the greatest menace of modern times and hurled the pretender to divine honors from his throne. Robert found his fortune to be one of the largest in the New World, but he kept it in the hands of Benjamin Hardy and David Willet, who increased it, and he became the lawyer, orator and statesman for which his talents fitted him so eminently. A marked characteristic in the life of Robert Lennox, noted by all who knew him, was his liberality of opinion. He had his share in public life, but the bitterness of politics, then so common in this country as well as others, seemed never to touch him. He was always willing to give his opponent credit for sincerity, and even to admit that his cause had justice. In his opinion the other man's point of view could always be considered. This broadness of mind often caused him to incur criticism, but it had become so much his nature, and his courage was so great, that he would not depart from it. He had been through the terrible war with the French, and, even before he knew that he was half a Frenchman by blood, he had gladly acknowledged the splendid qualities of the French, their bravery and patience, and their logical minds. He always said during the worst throes of their revolution that the French would emerge from it greater than ever. His position was similar in the Revolutionary War with the English. While he cast in his lot with his own people, and suffered with them, he invariably maintained that the English nation was sound at the core. He had fought beside them in a great struggle and he knew how strong and true they were, and when our own strife was over he was most eager for a renewal of good relations with the English, always saying that the fact that they had quarreled and parted did not keep them from being of the same blood and family, and hence natural allies. He consistently refused to hate an individual. He always insisted that life was too busy to cherish a grudge or seek revenge. Bad acts invariably punished themselves in the course of time. He was able to see some good, a little at least, in everybody. Searching his mind in after years, he could even find excuses for Adrian Van Zoon. He would say to Willet that the man loved nothing but money, that perhaps he had been born that way and could not help it, that he had made his attempts upon him under the influence of what was the greatest of all temptations to him, and that while he paid the slaver to carry him away he had not paid him to kill him. As for Garay, he would say that he might have exceeded orders. He would say the same about the shots the slaver had fired at him at Albany. This tolerance came partly from his own character, and partly from an enormous experience of life in the raw in his young and formative years. He knew how men were to a large extent the creatures of circumstances, and on the individual in particular his judgments were always mild. He had two favorite sayings: "No man is as bad as he seems to his worst enemy." "No man is as good as he seems to his best friend." His own faults he knew perfectly well to be quickness of temper and a proneness to hasty action. Throughout his life he fought against them and he took as his models Willet and Tayoga, who always appeared to him to have a more thorough command over their own minds and impulses than any other men he ever knew. Aside from his brilliancy and power in public life, Lennox had other qualities that distinguished him as a man. He was noted for his cosmopolitan views concerning human affairs. He had an uncommon largeness and breadth of vision, all the more notable then, as America was, in many respects, outside the greater world of Europe. People in speaking of him, however, recalled the extraordinary variety and intensity of his experiences. Much of his story was known and it was not diminished in the telling. He was always at home in the woods. He had an uncommon sympathy for hunters, borderers, pathfinders and all kinds of wilderness rovers. He understood them and they instinctively understood him, invariably finding in him a redoubtable champion. He was also closely in touch with the Indian soul, and his friends used to say laughingly that he had something of the Indian in his own nature. At all events, the Great League of the Hodenosaunee found in him a defender and he was more than once an honored guest in the Vale of Onondaga. On the other hand, his interest in European affairs was always keen and intelligent, especially in those of England and France, with whose sons he had come into contact so much during the great war. He maintained a lifelong correspondence with his friend, Alfred Grosvenor, who ultimately became a nobleman and who sat for more than forty years in the House of Lords. Lennox visited him several times in England, both before and after the quarrel between the colonies and the mother country, which, however, did not diminish their friendship a particle. In truth, during those troubled times Grosvenor, who was noted for the liberality of his sentiments and for an affection for Americans, conceived during his service as a soldier on their continent in the Seven Years' War, often defended them against the criticism of his countrymen, while Lennox, on his side, very boldly told the people that nothing could alter the fact that England was their mother country, and that no one should even wish to alter it. But his correspondence with his uncle, Raymond Louis de St. Luc, Marquis de Clermont, not so many years older than himself, covered a period of nearly sixty years filled with world-shaking events, and, though it has been printed for private circulation only, it is a perfect mine of fact, comment and illumination. St. Luc was one of the few French noblemen to foresee the great Revolution in his country, and, while he mourned its excesses, he knew that much of it was justified. His patriotism and courage were so high and so obvious that neither Danton, Marat nor Robespierre dared to attack him. As an old man he supported Napoleon ardently until the empire and the ambitions of the emperor became too swollen, and, while he mourned Waterloo, he told his son, General Robert Lennox de St. Luc, who distinguished himself so greatly there and who almost took the chateau of Hougoumont from the English, that it was for the best, and that it was inevitable. It was the comment of St. Luc, then eighty-five years old and full of experience and wisdom, that a very great man may become too great. Lennox was noted for his great geniality and his extraordinary capacity for making friends. Yet there was a strain of remarkable gravity, even austerity, in his character. There came times when he wished to be alone, to hear no human voices about him. It was then perhaps that he thought his best thoughts and took, too, his best resolutions. In the great silences he seemed to see more clearly, and the path lay straight before him. Many of his friends thought it an eccentricity, but he knew it was an inheritance from his long stay alone upon the island, a period in his life that had so much effect in molding his character. It was this ripeness of mind, based upon fullness of information and deep meditation, that made him such a great man in the true sense of the word. As a speaker he was without a rival either in form or substance in the New World. It was said everywhere in New York that the famous Alexander Hamilton and the equally skillful Aaron Burr went to the courtroom regularly to study his methods. Both admitted quite freely in private that they copied his style, though neither was ever able to acquire the wonderful golden voice, the genuine phenomenon that made Lennox so notable. On one of these occasions, after making a thrilling speech, when he filled the souls of both Hamilton and Burr with despair, a great Onondaga sachem, in the full costume of his nation, said to his friend Willet, once a renowned hunter: "I always knew Dagaeoga could use more words than any one else could find in the biggest dictionary." [THE END] _ |
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