Charles Roberts - The Forge in the Forest

"This other, then," said I, presently, "must be a letter that would seem to have been written to you by the Governor, and worded in such a fashion as to compromise you plainly!"

"'Tis altogether probable, Father," replied Marc, musingly, as he scanned the page. He was trying to prove his own eyesight better than mine, but found the enterprise beyond him, – as I knew he would.

"I can make out nothing of this other, save the signature," he continued. "We must even wait for daylight. And in the meanwhile I think you had better keep the packet, Father, for I feel my wits and my experience something lacking in this snarl."

I took the papers and hid them in a deep pocket which I wore within the bosom of my shirt.

"The trap was well set, and deadly, lad," said I, highly pleased at his confidence in my wisdom to conduct the affair. "But trust me to spring it. Whatever this other paper may contain, de Ramezay shall see them both and understand the whole plot."

"'Twill be hard to explain away," said Marc, doubtfully, "if it be forged with any fair degree of skill!"

"Trust my credit with de Ramezay for that. It is something the Black Abbé has not reckoned upon!" said I, with assurance, stuffing my pipe contentedly with the right Virginia leaf. Marc, being well tired with all that he had undergone that day, laid his head on the cuddy and was presently sound asleep. In a low voice, not to disturb the slumberer, I talked with Tamin, and learned how he had chanced to come so pat upon me in my bonds. He had been on the way up to the Forge, coming not by the trail, but straight through the forest, when he caught a view of the Indians, and took alarm at the stealth of their approach. He had tracked them with a cunning beyond their own, and so achieved to outdo them with their own weapons.

The moon now swam clear in the naked sky, the clouds lying far below. By the broad light I could see very well to read the letter. It was but brief, and ran thus: —

To my good Friend and trusted Helper Monsieur Marc de Mer : —

DEAR SIR, – As touching the affair which you have so prudently carried through, and my gratitude for your so good help, permit the enclosed order on Master Apthorp to speak for me. If I might hope that you would find it in your heart and within your convenience to put me under yet weightier obligations, I would be so bold as to desire an exact account of the forces at Chignecto, and of the enterprize upon which Monsieur de Ramezay is purposing to employ them.

Believe me to be, my dear Sir, yours with high esteem and consideration,

PAUL MASCARENE.

With a wonder of indignation I read it through, and then again aloud to Tamin, who cursed the author with such ingenious Acadian oaths as made me presently smile.

"It is right shrewdly devised," said I, "but the deviser knew little of the blunt English Governor, or never would he have made him write with such courtly circumlocutions. De Ramezay, very like, will have seen communications of Mascarene's before now, and will scarce fail to note the disagreement."

"The fox has been known to file his tongue too smooth," said Tamin, sententiously.

By this we were come over against the huge black front of Blomidon, but our course lay far outside the shadow of his frown, in the silvery run of the seas. The moon floated high over the great Cape, yellow as gold, and the bare sky was like an unruffled lake. Far behind us opened the mouth of the Piziquid stream, a bright gap in the dark but vague shore-line. On our right the waters unrolled without obstruction till they mixed pallidly with the sky in the mouth of Cobequid Bay. Five miles ahead rose the lofty shore which formed the northern wall of Minas Channel, – grim and forbidding enough by day; but now, in such fashion did the moonlight fall along it, wearing a face of fairyland, and hinting of fountained palaces in its glens and high hollows. After I had filled my heart with the fairness and the wonder of it, I lay down upon a thwart and fell asleep.

It seemed as if I had but fairly got my eyes shut, when I was awakened by a violent pitching of the boat. I sat up, grasping the gunwale, and saw Marc just catching my knee to rouse me. The boat, heeling far over, and hauled close to the wind, was heading a little up the channel and straight for a narrow inlet which I knew to be the joint mouth of two small rivers.

"Where are you going? Why is our course changed?" I asked sharply, being nettled by a sudden notion that they had made some change of plan without my counsel.

"Look yonder, Father!" said Marc, pointing.

I looked, and my heart shook with mingled wrath and apprehension. Behind us followed three canoes, urged on by sail and paddle.

"They outsail us?" I inquired.

"Ay, before the wind, they do, M'sieu!" said Tamin. "On this tack, maybe not. We'll soon see!"

"But what's this but a mere trap we are running our heads into?" I urged.

"I fear there's nothing else but to quit the boat and make through the woods, Father," explained Marc; "that is, if we're so fortunate as to keep ahead till we reach land."

"In the woods, I suppose, we can outwit them or outfoot them," said I; "but those Micmacs are untiring on the trail."

"I know a good man with a good boat over by Shulie on the Fundy shore," interposed Tamin. "And I know the way over the hills. We'll cheat the rogue of a priest yet!" And he shrewdly measured the distance that parted us from our pursuers.

"It galls me to be running from these dogs!" I growled.

"Our turn will come," said Marc, glowering darkly at the canoes. "Do you guess the Black Abbé is with them?"

"Not he!" grunted Tamin.

"Things may happen this time," said I, "and the good father may wish to keep his soutane clear of them. It's all plain enough to me now. The Indians, finding themselves tricked, have gone back on the Pereau trail and most inopportunely have released the gentle Abbé from his bonds. He has seen through our game, and has sent his pack to look to it that we never get to de Ramezay. But he will have no hand in it. Oh, no!"

"What's plain to me now," interrupted Tamin, with some anxiety in his voice, "is that they're gaining on us fast. They've put down leeboards; an' with leeboards down a Micmac canoe's hard to beat."

"Oh!" I exclaimed bitterly, "if we had but our muskets! Fool that I was, thus to think to save time and not go back for our weapons! Trust me, lad, it's the first time that Jean de Mer has had that particular kind of folly to repent of!"

"But there was nought else for it, Father," said Marc. "And if, as seems most possible, we come to close quarters presently, we are not so naked as we might be. Here's your two pistols, my good whinger, and Tamin's fishy dirk. And Tamin's gaff here will make a pretty lance. It is borne in upon me that some of the good Abbé's lambs will bleat for their shepherd before this night's work be done!"

There was a steady light in his eyes that rejoiced me much, and his voice rose and fell as if fain to break into a war song; and I said to myself, "The boy is a fighter, and the fire is in his blood, for all his scholar's prating of peace!" Yet he straightway turned his back upon the enemy and with great indifference went to filling his pipe.

"Ay, an' there be a right good gun in the cuddy!" grunted Tamin, after a second or two of silence.

"The saints be praised!" said I. And Marc's long arm reached in to capture it. It was a huge weapon, and my heart beat high at sight of it. Marc caressed it for an instant, then reluctantly passed it to me, with the powder-horn.

"I can shoot, a little, myself," said he, "but I would be presumptuous to boast when you were by, Father!"

"Ay, vraiment," said Tamin, sharply; "don't think you can shoot with the Sieur de Briart yet!"