27 Mlle. de St. Maur’s Preference

Forward we went, saying nothing and preserving our formation. It was warm work, stepping on tip-toe and trying to look in three or four directions at once. I had a small sword, and I unbuckled it and took it in my hand to keep it from striking against the bushes and making a rattle that would attract the attention of the French. The other men carried their rifles in their hands ready for use.

“Do you see anything of them?” I whispered at length to Zeb Crane, who was just in front of me.

He shook his head and turned a rather worried look upon me.

“I don’t see ’em,” he said, “but we ought to. We’ve been comin’ pretty fast, an’ it’s time to catch sight of the back of some sneakin’ Frenchman.”

“Push on,” I said; “we’ll see them soon.”

On Zeb went, and we followed close after. Presently we came around to the point from which we had started, but not a Frenchman did we see. I was perplexed. That Savaignan would withdraw was incredible, and we had kept near enough to the edge of the woods to watch the open and be sure they had not gone into any of the outhouses.

I consulted the rear as well as the head of the column, and found that Cook, too, had seen nothing.

“I guess we’ll find ’em just ahead of us,” said Zeb.

So we pushed ahead with our second revolution around the manor house. At intervals of fifty yards or so we stopped to listen, but not a sound except the rustling of the leaves before the slight puffs of wind came to us. The house remained tightly closed, disclosing no sign of life save for the smoke. In the opening nothing stirred but the spotted cow, which seemed to know just where we were, and revolved around the lot as we revolved around the larger circle of the woods, always keeping her big, mild eyes fixed upon our position. She annoyed me. It was like acting as a spy for the enemy, but I had enough to do watching for Savaignan and his men without trying to shoo a spotted cow.

Our second revolution was complete, and still no Savaignan. I began to believe that after all the fellow had taken alarm and left the field and the enterprise to us. But reflection showed that it was scarcely credible, for, much as I disliked him, I did not believe that Savaignan was a coward.

So on we went with the third revolution, that confounded spotted cow revolving with us as if she were the hub of a wheel and we the outer rim. This, too, was completed without result, and then Zeb, looking down at the ground, began to laugh.

“Why do you laugh?” I asked.

“Look at the grass and the leaves,” said Zeb.

Even to my untrained eyes the trampled grass and leaves showed a well-defined trail.

“It means,” said Zeb, still laughing, “that we’ve been pursuing them and they’ve been pursuing us at equal speed, and that there’s just the same stretch of ground between us now that there was when we started. See, we’ve been treadin’ in each other’s tracks over and over ag’in.”

Beyond a doubt we had been chasing each other around the circle just as the Frenchman and I before Ticonderoga had revolved on a smaller scale around a tree. But with Savaignan there could be no such peaceful ending.

We stopped a moment or two to deliberate, but our conference was broken up by a shout from Cook and the firing of his rifle. The Frenchmen had burst suddenly from the wood and made a rush for the outhouse nearest the manor building. Cook’s shot had been too hurried to do any damage, and all the Frenchmen reached the stout log structure in safety.

“That’s what I call a flank movement, and it wasn’t fair,” said Zeb in an aggrieved tone.

The stable was now as silent as the house. The Frenchmen were fortified against us, but I could not see that they had gained any great advantage. From the shelter of the stable they could keep us away from the house so long as the day lasted, but that was all. We might besiege them in their fort, and, by cutting them oflf from food and water, compel them to surrender without great risk to ourselves.

On the whole, I was not dissatisfied with the situation.

I conferred with my lieutenants, Zeb and Cook, and we detailed six men as sharpshooters to cover all the sides of the stable. I had thought it possible to approach the house from the side opposite the stable, making the house itself serve as our shelter, but a little investigation showed that the plan would not do. The stable was a long building, and a rifleman at one end or the other could reach us when we came within a certain distance. The plan must be abandoned, the risks being too great, for these Frenchmen, who live the warlike life of the woods, become expert marksmen.

They appeared to be taking matters philosophically in the house. The volume of smoke from the stone chimney increased as if Marie were cooking a substantial breakfast for Louise, Pierre, and whomsoever else might be inside, if anybody. It was a well-provided house, as I knew from my own earlier occupancy, and I judged that they would lack nothing but fresh air, which one can dispense with for a short time in a pinch.

Another conference resulted in a determination to wait until night for active operations. We kept our six guards on the stable while the rest of us sought out the most comfortable spot in the woods beyond the range of our enemies and waited. It was dreary work. Waiting always is. The sun ascended toward the center of the heavens, and the close heat accumulated, thick and stifling, under the boughs. One speaks of the cool shade of the forest, but a dense forest often serves merely to hold the heat and keep the cool breezes away until it becomes like a stove.

I leaned against a log and at intervals wiped the sweat from my face. I would have preferred action, but I knew its great risks while the daylight lasted. We ate some dinner out of the supply we had brought with us, and then resumed the old task of waiting. House and stable were as still as the dead. Evidently Savaignan, too, was content to wait, and Louise had no choice but to do so whether content or not. The long afternoon shortened, minute by minute, though they were clipped off the hours very slowly.

The slow minutes turned into slow hours, but even the last in time exhausted themselves. The edge of the sun reached the edge of the forest, and then we beheld the advancing twilight. Night soon came, and woods, manor house, and stable were in darkness. It was time to carry out my plan, and we set about it. Leaving Cook in command of the men, Zeb and I slipped into the open ground toward the house. I thought that while the French were watching for an attack from us we might arrange to enter the house unobserved under cover of the darkness and take away the girls, leaving the matter of a fight with the French to be disposed of afterward.

Zeb and I advanced with the caution befitting the occasion, both of us bent far over, that our figures might not be revealed. Zeb carried his rifle; I had sword and pistol. The house had several windows on the ground floor, all closed with heavy shutters. I was sure that Louise or Marie would be listening and watching at one or another of these, and I hoped that we would be able to attract their attention and secure an entrance. Once inside, whether or not we were able to get out again that night, we would have a great advantage.

We were halfway across the opening and our enemy had not given the slightest evidence that he saw us. A few feet more and we would be beyond the range of any rifle from the stable where the French lay.

An unusually keen eye watching that particular point at that particular moment might see us, otherwise not. I felt some apprehension and a certain tremor at the idea of making myself an unprotected target for ambushed Frenchmen, but the point was passed in a few moments, and there was no rifle shot, no sound whatever from the enemy.

I had marked a window which I could reach with my hand, and we hurried toward it.

We arrived at the window without interruption, and stood close to the house in its dark shadow. Looking back from that point toward the woods which we had left, I could see only a black blur, the darkness being great enough to obscure the outlines of tree trunks. I felt satisfied that we were not observed, and, reaching out, I tapped on the window shutter with the butt of my sword.

Tap-tap! tap-tap! it sounded. In the dead stillness of the night the noise was fearfully distinct. There was no answer, and I was forced to repeat it, still without answer.

“Shake it, if you can,” said Zeb, who stood a little farther away watching for an attack.

I pushed at the heavy shutter with my hands, and it gave a little, making a heavy rasping noise.

“Who’s there?” asked some one in a whisper, audible through the little crack where two of the boards joined. I knew the voice was Louise’s, and in the same whisper I answered that it was I, Edward Charteris, and I begged her for the sake of everything to open the window at once.

The window was opened and Louise’s face, pale in the dark, appeared. Marie looked over her shoulder, half frightened, half delighted. Without another word from me, without giving them time to think or ask questions, I seized the window sill, pulled myself up, and scrambled in, Zeb following close after me. Then we closed the window and barred it.

In a corner of the room a candle made a faint light. I glanced at Louise. Her face was still very pale, but I could see that I was welcome—ay! threefold welcome.

“I do not know what my father would say,” she said with an attempt at a jest and a laugh, “when he hears that I refused to admit the foes of France to his house by day but let them in by night.”

“There is ample reason for it,” I said. “Savaignan is a blackguard and a robber and worse, and you know it, if your father does not.”

“Yes, yes,” she said hurriedly, “I fear that it. is true, but what do you mean to do?”

“Zeb and I will carry you away with us,” I said. “We have some honest men outside who will escort you in safety to the English camp, and then send you back into Quebec if you wish. If there is any question of your loyalty to France, you can say we took you by force; it would be the whitest of lies. At any rate, no harm would be done.”

I felt what I said very deeply, and I knew that my manner and words impressed her. Again little Marie was my loyal second and ally.

“Yes, yes, mademoiselle!” she cried. “Monsieur speaks the truth; it is better for us to go and escape those wolves outside who call themselves Frenchmen.”

“I will trust you,” said Louise to me.—“Come, Marie, let us get our cloaks and Pierre and go.”

She took the candle and led the way into the next room, Marie, Zeb, and I but a step behind her.

As I passed through the doorway I saw the light of another candle coming to meet us. It was held by the hands of Pierre, and beside him was Savaignan.

I think that they were as much surprised as we at the meeting. Louise uttered a low cry; Pierre nearly let the candle drop. We stood for a moment or two staring at each other. All of us except Pierre and the girls had arms in our hands. Savaignan, with the natural quickness of a Frenchman, was the first to speak.

“There is more than one window to the house, and more than one man to enter, mademoiselle and monsieur,” he said with a satirical glance at Louise and then at me.

“Yes, and more than one person to admit them,” I said, looking at Pierre, for I was sure it was the implacable old wretch who had admitted Savaignan.

“We are French, and this is the home of a Frenchman,” said Savaignan.

“It is English now,” I replied, “for we have made a conquest of it.”

We stood just as we were in the first moment after seeing each other, Louise and Pierre holding the candles, Marie crouching in fright near the wall, the others of us with our hands on our weapons. I was at a loss—never in my life at a greater loss. The presence of the women, our equal position, seemed to preclude a sudden combat.

Savaignan must have been affected in the same manner.

“Will you withdraw peaceably,” he asked, “and leave the chateau and its people to us? We can not turn a drawing-room into a slaughter house and in the presence of its mistress, too.”

It was true that we were in the drawing-room.

I had not noticed it before. There were rich rugs and furs on the floor, pictures on the walls, and all about the room those delicate articles of furniture which women love. But I had no idea of withdrawing.

“I was about to make the same request of you,” I said to Savaignan. “The lady does not trust you as a true and gallant Frenchman.”

“Her father does,” said Savaignan.

I made no reply. We remained as we were, neither side daring to make a movement. A little clock on the mantel ticked away most painfully. The situation was fast growing insupportable, but I saw no way out of it.

“Listen!” cried Marie.

The faint report of a rifle shot came through the thick walls. I knew that the weapon must have been fired close by to be heard by us at all.

A second and a third report, muffled like the first, came to our ears.

“I think your men and mine have met,” said Savaignan.

“I think it very likely,” I replied.

As proof of our surmises rifles were then fired so rapidly that we could not count the shots. Yells and whoops, English and French, mingled with the volleys. Beyond a doubt my men and the French were matching their skill and courage in combat.

“I don’t think there’s any need of our fightin’,” said Zeb, leaning his lank length against the door jamb and making himself easy. “They’ll settle it out there for us.”

The sounds of the conflict continued. The men were whooping and firing with great energy and like true rangers of the forest.

“As all of us are much interested in the result, perhaps we would like to hear better,” said Savaignan.

“I am sure of it,” I said, and, stepping to a window, I threw the heavy shutters open.

Instantly the noise of the conflict tripled. The shouts and the shots seemed to be almost in our ears, and the darkness added to the zeal of the combatants. Certainly a night conflict excels all others in noise. Firing in the darkness, it takes more shots to produce a result.

Accustomed as they had become to warfare and its alarms, the girls shuddered at the frightful uproar. Louise still held the candle. It might have been the part of gallantry for me to take it from her hand, but as I was likely to need my own hands for some more serious purpose, I refrained.

The window was high above the floor, and any shot entering there would pass over our heads, but the conflict had moved around within its range and we could see the flash of the rifles as the men fought almost muzzle to muzzle, it seemed. The French cries were shriller than ours, and, moreover, the two being in different tongues, I could distinguish them easily above the uproar. Savaignan had drawn a little nearer to the window, and was listening with the most eager, intent expression I ever saw on a man’s face. Good cause he had too for his anxiety, as the result of the contest meant as much to him as to me or to any of us.

The center of conflict began to shift. One side was yielding, and the battle would soon be decided. The blaze of the guns passed beyond the range of the window. Presently the firing itself began to diminish. I had known that this result must come soon. The combat was too fierce to last long. I listened intently to the shouting, that I might tell by it which side was winning.

The deep American cheer rose above the whoops of the French and soon submerged the sound of them. I could not repress a feeling of elation which must have showed on my face. Savaignan as well as I knew to which side the victory was inclining. The scattering fire outside ceased suddenly, was followed by a long triumphant shout, and then silence.

Savaignan was standing beside the window. With a quickness I could not anticipate, he dashed the candle from the old Canadian’s hands and sprang toward Louise. I slashed at him with my sword, but I was too late. He seized Louise, and the candle, falling from her hand, sputtered still on the floor, but gave out so faint a light that we could scarce see each other’s faces.

We were checkmated for the moment. Zeb, expert marksman though he was, dared not fire in the obscurity at Savaignan for fear of hitting Louise, whom the Frenchman held between himself and us.

“To the door, Pierre!” shouted Savaignan.

He dragged Louise toward the second door, the one through which they had entered. I sprang forward to interfere, but Pierre fired a pistol ball at me, which missed, though the flash of the powder blinded and stopped me for a few moments. Before I could recover or before Zeb, who was farther away, could help, Savaignan and Pierre were through the door with Louise, and had slammed it in our faces. Little Marie stuck her head out of the window and shouted at the top of her voice:

“Help, Englishmen! For the love of Heaven and the Holy Virgin, help!”

I threw all my weight against the closed door, but they had locked it, and it withstood the impact. I heard a muffled sound like a shriek from Louise, and I was hot with rage and grief that Savaignan had outwitted me and secured such a hostage. Zeb dragged Marie from the window and shouted in her ear, asking if there were not another way to reach Savaignan. Marie, as I have said, was a girl of ready wit, and under Zeb’s rough handling all her courage and presence of mind came back to her.

“Come through the hall!” she cried, dashing out at the first door.

We followed so closely that we were almost at her side. The rugs and furs had caught from the sputtering candle and were in a blaze, but we had no time to stop for such things. The hall was narrow, and made three or four turnings. At the last we heard the noise of footsteps above us.

“Up the stairway!” cried Marie. “They have gone to the second floor!”

We would probably have broken our heads or limbs in the darkness had it not been for the brave little Marie, who knew the way. She dashed for the stairway, and we followed her dim figure in the half dusk. I took three steps at a bound, but stopped at the sight of Savaignan and Pierre at the head of the steps. The Frenchman held Louise by the waist. I could not see the expression of his face, but from the sound of his voice I judged that he had gone mad.

“If you come a step farther,” he cried, “I will kill her, I swear it, and then we will fight with you for the house afterward.”

I believed that he meant it. The French are very hot of blood, and sometimes do strange, wild things. I shrank back, not willing that my own action should destroy the dear girl whom I was trying to save. Zeb, too, paused beside me, his fertile brain for once at a loss.

Our deliverance came from Louise herself. She was no milk-and-water girl, fainting at the sight of danger, but a brave woman, who seldom forgot the spirit of the race from which she sprang. Reaching up, she seized Savaignan’s pistol with both hands and suddenly jerked it from him. He loosed his grasp of her waist and snatched at the weapon to regain it, but in a moment she had fled down the steps and was with us. Thence at my quick command she and Marie fled down the hall and were concealed by the last turn. Savaignan did not fire upon me. He had another pistol, and I wondered why he did not attempt to use it. His attitude was that of a listener. I, too, bent my ear, and I heard the distant hum of encouraging cries and commands to hasten. I knew it was my faithful men clambering in at the open window to our rescue. Mingled with it was a steady though subdued roar, like the far-away sound of water pouring over a rock, that I did not recognize. My attention was distracted by these sounds; so must have been Zeb’s, for Savaignan and Pierre turned and rushed into one of the rooms on the second floor. I sprang up two steps to follow them, but Zeb came after me and put a strong and restraining hand upon my arm.

“Look, leftenant!” he said, pulling me around and pointing down the hall.

A broad light flared even to the stairway, and the roar which had mystified me grew louder. The crackling of dry wood and the shouts of my men calling to me and Zeb mingled with it.

“The house is on fire,” said Zeb calmly. “We’d better let the Frenchmen go and save them gals and ourselves.”

At the turning Louise and Marie were waiting for us, somewhat frightened, but armed with presence of mind. The fire was feeding fast upon the dry timbers of the house. Smoke, lit here and there with sparks, was beginning to fly down the hall. I knew that the old house must soon go; all the result of one overturned candle.

“Come, I’ll show the way,” said my brave Louise. I seized her hand in the excitement of the moment, I suppose, and she led the way by another route to the floor below, Zeb and Marie following. There the noise of the flames was louder, for one end of the house seemed to be all ablaze, but we came plump among my men, half lost in the mazes of the old French house, and shouting for me and Zeb. They welcomed us with a glad shout, but, not stopping for explanations, we ran to the nearest window, which we threw open, and all scrambled out with a sad loss of dignity but plenty of gladness.

When we stood on the ground fifty yards from the house, I was amazed at the extent to which the fire had grown in so short a space.

It was as light as day almost to the rim of the forest. The flames had eaten through the roof and shot far above it, discharging showers of sparks.

I sent men to the other side of the house and ordered them not to fire on Savaignan and Pierre when they appeared in case they offered to surrender. But as the fire spread with great rapidity to all parts of the house, the two Frenchmen, much to my surprise, did not appear.

“They ran up toward the roof,” said Zeb, “an’ the fire was below. Maybe they were cut oflf.”

It was so. The faces of Savaignan and Pierre appeared at an opening in the roof. Then they climbed upon it, and stood a moment or two as if calculating the possibilities of escape. I think they would have risked the chances of the long drop to the ground, but with a great crash the roof, its supports eaten away by the fire, fell in, carrying the two Frenchmen with it.

The two girls withdrew from the sad sight, but some of us stood by until the last of the building fell, and only great heaps of embers remained where the manor house of St. Maur had stood. Beneath the charred fragments what was left of the bones of Savaignan and Pierre rested, and may rest to this day.

It was a melancholy fate. I had no cause to like Savaignan, but he possessed cunning and courage, neither of which had availed him anything in the end. His luck was bad and mine good, I suppose.

There was no work left for us to do, and I thought of returning at once with Louise and her maid to the camp before Quebec. But they were too much worn with excitement to start at once, and, in truth, all of us needed rest.

We left the remains of the house and moved a mile farther up the river to a clearing which was large enough to forbid ambush, and built a fire there, as the night was turning chilly. I persuaded Louise and Marie to lie down beside it and sleep.

Cook told me briefly that a few minutes after Zeb had gone into the house he and his men unexpectedly met the French in the woods, into which they had slipped from the stable. A fierce combat, almost hand to hand, followed, in which the French were routed, their survivors fleeing with incredible speed. We had lost two men and several more had wounds. I regretted my brave fellows, but had not time to mourn them long, and, as Zeb aptly remarked, the luck had been nearly all on our side.

We began the return next morning. It was slow, of necessity, as partisan bands abounded in the woods, and we had no wish just then for a further encounter with the French. I walked by the side of Louise for awhile, and we had a chance to talk unheard by others.

I was troubled somewhat by the view the Seigneur de St. Maur might take of these affairs. He was the friend of Savaignan, and would be loath to believe that he had gone to the manor house with bad intentions. I expressed these doubts to Louise, but she brushed them aside and said she would be able to prove the truth to her father.

“And I hope that then he will be able to think well of me in other respects, not merely as an honorable foe,” I said.

“He surely will,” she replied softly and with a blush.

Our further journey was without event. We passed around Quebec in safety, and, as my duty bade me, I reported that we had rescued two French ladies on our raid from some prowlers, and asked what to do with them. The reply was to send them in to Quebec to their friends.

Fifteen or twenty others taken from the manor houses along the river were going at the same time. I bade Louise good-by for awhile. Her hand lingered in mine. Zeb was there, and with the freedom of the backwoods he chucked the brave little Marie under the chin. She gave him a smart blow on the cheek and called him an English bear, but Zeb did not seem to mind.

I had proof that Louise put the case well to her father, for in a few days the good Father Michel smuggled me a letter from the seigneur himself, in which he thanked me and with true French politeness enlarged on the obligations of his family to me, hoping that the time would come when he could repay me. I hoped so too.

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