15 A “Madman’s” Idea

The silence and loneliness of my prison were soon broken by the sound of De Chamillard’s flute, and observing that its note was of an unusual, even excessively gay, character, I was compelled again to smile to myself. The Frenchman undoubtedly had a happy temperament, and that is not a possession to be despised. I heard his music alternating with song for nearly an hour, as if he were entertaining the savages, and then when the twilight had begun to come he appeared at my door, and, as before, pushing aside the sentinel in such manner that one would have thought the world his private property, he entered, letting the mat drop behind him until it covered all the door.

“Quick, Monsieur Lee!” he said, “bind me and take my clothes!”

As he spoke he cut my thongs.

“What do you mean?” I asked in surprise.

“After all,” he replied gayly, “you do not have every clever idea. It is I who have one now and then. Do you not see? I am mad, wisely mad. It was your suggestion at first, and now I complete the plan. I am mad and the savages will not harm me, no matter what I do or what is done to me. Quickly bind me, take my flute, put on my clothes, pull your hair about your face as mine is, and go forth to freedom! nom du chien, do not delay! The night is coming and your features will be hidden. I shall rejoin you and the others when the savages release me.”

“I will do it,” I cried, struck by his idea, “but before God I swear, De Chamillard, that if the Indians hold you, I shall return and yield myself in your place! Little Turtle, the head chief, is in a way my friend, and he will see that justice is done.”

“I have no fear, Monsieur Lee. But hasten! Opportunity, like a lady, is coy, and once refused, will not come again.”

He had divested himself of his outer clothing already, and as we proceeded with our talk he blew an occasional note on the flute in order to maintain the illusion to the warrior at the door. The task was done in two or three minutes. De Chamillard, his arms bound behind him with the cords that he had taken from mine, lay placidly on the wolfskin, and I, flute in hand, paused a moment, unable to express to this gallant gentleman the deep gratitude that I felt. He saw my lips move, and he guessed what I would say, or at least its meaning.

“Let it wait! I understand,” he said. “Can you blow a few notes on that flute?”

I nodded. I had learned a little of this art, too, from the French officers with whom I served in our Revolution, although I did not have, like De Chamillard, a real talent for the music. But I stepped boldly out of the hut, thankful now that a forest life had compelled close observation of the minutest details about me as I was able to imitate De Chamillard’s walk and even his gestures. I blew a few stray notes from the flute and wandered off toward the centre of the village, the warrior on guard scarce giving me a second glance as I passed, so sure was he that I was the madman.

Our most reckless moments usually occur when we have passed half a danger triumphantly, and now one of those impulses from which I had suffered sometimes in my earlier youth seized me. I felt for the moment a sense of recklessness, and I invited attention rather than shunned it, so confident was I that my rôle as a madman would serve better than my disguise as an Indian, and carry me out of the village and into safety.

I blew a wicked tune or two upon the flute—I call them wicked because they deserve no other name—and danced a few steps in imitation of De Chamillard’s French gavottes.

These maiden efforts were received with admiring glances, chiefly from the squaws and papooses, whose experience of music and the dance, as practised by the civilized nations, was not great. It was easy to see that De Chamillard in his two or three visits to the village had become a character of high privilege, and I was not willing that his reputation should suffer at my hands; therefore I put as much heart as I could into the notes of the flute and the quickstep. My curving course brought me soon into the presence of the three renegades, whom I met walking among the wigwams and conversing with deep earnestness. It was natural that these men, like ill-omened fowls, should cling together. The fall of the dusk was now so great that they could not distinguish my features even had suspicion incited them to a close look, and when I, stopping in front of them, blew a few notes on the flute, Blackstaffe said:

“That madman again. If it were not for the foolish superstition of the Indians I’d have him burned at the stake.”

“Wherein you show that you are not a statesman, Blackstaffe,” commented Girty reprovingly, “and also wherein you are likely to limit your power among the tribes. Now, I have no objection myself to seeing a man burned at the stake, but it is not worth while to go to so much trouble without a purpose. Besides, you ought not even to ridicule the popular beliefs of the Indians; that is a thing concerning which a people is always most sensitive. Float with the stream, Blackstaffe, or you’ll be sure to strike a snag and sink.”

I knew that Girty was right, and I understood why he had risen to such power among the savages, but I did not linger over his words, the reckless impulse that had taken possession of me bearing me on. I seized Blackstaffe’s hand in mine and gazed at the lines in the palm with all the intentness of a sorceress.

“The white Indian,” I said, in as wild a tone as I could assume, “is a man of great passions and quick temper. Manito so made him and he can not help it. Once he lived far to the East and another white man crossed him in some darling wish; but he slew that man, and when the friends of him who had fallen came to hang him he fled to the forest and the red man for refuge.”

“Damnation!” cried Blackstaffe, snatching his hand away. I knew a little of the wretch’s history, and the story that I told was the truth, not mere guess-work. Girty laughed with malicious enjoyment.

“Let him go on,” he said. “He has made a chance hit at your past, Blackstaffe; now let us see what he will say about your future.”

This emboldened me still further, and I seized Blackstaffe’s hand again.

“Your future is doubtful. Ma foi, but it is,” I said. “You have another darling wish, and more than one opposes you in it. You are a brave man—un brav homme! but they fight you with treachery. I see death, whether yours or theirs I can not tell. But if you fall it will be the fall of a very brave man—un tres brav homme.”

“What is that you say?” he cried angrily. “I have enemies, treacherous enemies? Who are they?”

He looked suspiciously at Girty and Jasper.

I shook my head.

“That I know not,” I replied. “The God of the white man and the Manito of the red man both hide it from me.”

“At least you have an equal chance, Blackstaffe,” said Girty, laughing again. “He tells you that some one is to fall, but he does not say whether it is to be you or an enemy. Therefore the question is still open.”

“But the man guesses too well,” said Blackstaffe, whom my truthful narration of his beginnings in the greater wickedness seemed to have impressed deeply. “Perhaps the insane can see into the future sometimes.”

“Now, that doesn’t look unreasonable,” said Girty thoughtfully. “They say that Nature always gives compensations, and as she has made the mind of this man weaker than those of other men, perhaps she has given to him something that she denies to us. Still, it has never been proved and I doubt it.—Now, Mr. Madman, what fate do you assign to me?”

“You,” I replied, “shall live to see the power of your friends destroyed and your own fate none shall know.”

This was by intent an ambiguous answer, and yet it was a true prediction, a guess that chance carried to its mark. But Girty did not dream of its truth, merely seeing the doubtful nature of my reply, and he said again, laughing as if I and all my prophecies were a jest:

“You are a cautious witch doctor, my friend, and I don’t blame you; in your business I should think that a madman would fare better than the sane.—Ah, Mechecunnaqua, we merely jest with the mad Frenchman who has come among us.”

“It is not well to jest at those whom Manito has in his special care,” said Little Turtle gravely. He had approached unnoticed while we were talking.

“I used the wrong word when I said jest,” added Girty, correcting himself hastily. “The madman was telling what the future had in store for us, and we listened to him with interest.”

“I know not whether the mad can tell what our lives shall be next year or the year after,” said Little Turtle, “but wherever the mad may be, and in whatever guise they come, they are the beloved children of Manito, and the red man would not lay hands upon them.”

I started in surprise and apprehension at his significant tone. The eyes of Mechecunnaqua could reach to the bottom of a well: had they pierced my disguise? He stood there, calm without emotion, the bronze of his face as expressionless as that metal itself. I laughed, whistled a bar or two of some backwoods tune, and then, putting the flute to my lips, lounged toward the outskirts of the village. None followed me, but I needed no inward monitor now to tell me I should hurry. Yet I could not hasten toward the forest in a straight line like an arrow from the bow lest I arouse suspicion in the minds of these ever-suspicious children of the wilderness, and I lingered to blow an occasional note on the flute or to stare vacantly about me. It was thus that I was passing the last fringe of wigwams, when a warrior who brushed past me said in my ear:

“When Lee reaches the forest let him go straight toward the point where the sun last showed itself before going behind the earth. When he has gone about ten miles he will come to a little lake. Let him wait there.”

I started at the sound of the name Lee, but in a moment I was reassured, knowing the voice to be that of Osseo. I turned to speak to him, but he was gone in the darkness, disappearing as silently and completely as if he had been but a shadow himself.

I entered a melon field, and there I paused to look back at the village now almost in darkness, as the only light of an Indian town at night is the moon, if that be shining; otherwise none. My venture into the place had been a success, and I felt that I had kept my promise to the sick woman in Kentucky.

No one disturbed me; even the prowling curs passed me by without notice, and thus I entered the forest. Following Osseo’s directions, I arrived at the tiny lake, just a bowl of water set in a rim of hills, and soon Osseo came to me there, bringing with, him also arms for my use.

“The English trader and the girl have gone southward on a course that I chose for them, and we may overtake them before to-morrow’s sunset,” he said.

“Then come on, Osseo,” I said, flushed with triumph, and not willing to delay a moment.

He did not say me nay, and we started with great speed upon the indicated path.

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