"Kate, do you love me?"
"I think you know that I do, James."
"I have begun to hope, and yet I have scarcely dared. You so full of life and strength and beauty, and I such a broken crock!"
"A hero, you mean!" she answered, with flashing eyes--"a soldier and a hero; tenfold more a hero in that you overcome pain and weakness, sickness and suffering, in the discharge of your duty, and do things that others would declare impossible! Oh yes, I have heard of you; Lieutenant Dautray has told me. I know how you have done the impossible again and yet again. James, you will do this once again. You will storm that great fortress which men call impregnable--you will storm it and you will vanquish it; and you will come home crowned with glory and honour! And I shall be here waiting for you; I shall watch and wait till you come. It is written in the book of fate that your name is to go down to posterity as the hero of Quebec. I am sure of it--oh, I am sure! Do not say anything to damp my hope, for I will not believe you!"
He looked into her face, and his own kindled strangely. "I will say nothing but that I love you--I love you--I love you! Today that is enough between us, Kate. Let the rest go--the honour and glory of the world, the commission, and all besides. Today we belong to each other; tomorrow we sing of peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Let that suffice us; let us forget the rest. We will be happy together in our love, and in love to all mankind. After that we must think again of these things. Afterwards thoughts of war and strife must have their place; but for once let love be lord of our lives. After that storm and strife--and Quebec!"
Book 5: Within Quebec.
Chapter 1: The Impregnable City.
Within a lofty chamber, with narrow windows and walls of ma.s.sive thickness, stood a young, bright-haired girl, looking with dreamy eyes across the wide waters of the great St. Lawrence, as it rolled its majestic course some hundreds of feet below. Although that mighty waterway narrowed as it pa.s.sed the rocky promontory upon which the city of Quebec was built, it was even there a wonderful river; and looking westward, as the girl was doing, it seemed to spread out before her eyes like a veritable sea. It was dotted with ships of various dimensions bringing in supplies, or news of coming help or peril--news of that great armament from distant England, perhaps, whose approach was being awaited by all within the city with a sense of intense expectancy, not entirely unmixed with fear.
True, the soldiers laughed to scorn the idea of any attack upon Quebec. It stood upon its rocky tongue of land, frowning and una.s.sailable, as it seemed to them. All along the north bank of the lower river the French were throwing up earthworks and intrenching their army, to hinder any attempt at landing troops there; and the guns of the town batteries would soon sink and destroy any vessel rash enough to try to pa.s.s the town, and gain a footing upon the sh.o.r.es above. Indeed, so frowning and precipitous were these that nature herself seemed to be sufficient guard.
"Let the English come, and see what welcome we have got for them!"
was a favourite exclamation from soldiers and townsfolk; yet all the same there was anxiety in the faces of those who watched daily for the first approach of the English sails. Had not Louisbourg said the same, and yet had fallen before English hardihood and resolution? Those in the highest places in this Canadian capital best knew the rotten condition into which her affairs had fallen.
The corruption amongst officials, the jealousy between Governor and General, the crafty self seeking of the Intendant--these and a hundred other things were enough to cause much anxiety at headquarters. The grand schemes of the French for acquiring a whole vast continent were fast dwindling down to the anxious hope of being able to keep what they already possessed.
The girl gazing forth from the narrow window was turning over in her mind the things that she had heard. Her fair face was grave, yet it was bright, too, and as she threw out her hand towards the vista of the great river rolling its mighty volume of water towards the sea, she suddenly exclaimed:
"And what if they do come? what if they do conquer? Have we not deserved it? have we not brought ruin upon our own heads by the wickedness and cruelty we have made our allies? And if England"s flag should one day wave over the fortress of Quebec, as it now does over that of Louisbourg, what is that to me? Have I not English--or Scotch--blood in my veins? Am I not as much English as French? I sometimes think that, had I my choice, England would be the country where I should best love to dwell. It is the land of freedom--all say that, even my good uncle, who knows so well. I love freedom; I love what is n.o.ble and great. Sometimes I feel in my heart that England will be the greatest country of the world."
Her eyes glowed; she stretched forth her hands in a speaking gesture. The waters of the great river seemed to flash back an answer. Cooped up within frowning walls, amid the buildings of the fortress and upper town, Corinne felt sometimes like a bird in a prison cage; and yet the life fascinated her, with its constant excitements, its military environment, its atmosphere of coming danger. She did not want to leave Quebec till the struggle between the nations had been fought out. And yet she scarcely knew which side she wished to see win. French though her training had been of late years, yet her childhood had been spent in the stormy north, amid an English-speaking people. She had seen much that disgusted and saddened her here amongst the French of Canada. She despised the aged libertine who still sat upon the French throne with all the scorn and disgust of an ardent nature full of n.o.ble impulses.
"I hate to call myself his subject!" she had been known to say. "I will be free to choose to which nation I will belong. I have the right to call myself English if I choose."
Not that Corinne very often gave way to such open demonstrations of her national independence, It was to her aunt, Madame Drucour, with whom she was now making a home, that she indulged these little rhapsodies, secure of a certain amount of indulgence and even sympathy from that lady, who had reason to think and speak well of English gallantry and chivalry.
Madame Drucour occupied a small house wedged in amongst the numerous strongly-built houses and ecclesiastical buildings of the upper town of Quebec. The house had been deserted by its original occupants upon the first news of the fall of Louisbourg. Many of the inhabitants of Quebec had taken fright at that, and had sailed for France; and Madame Drucour had been placed here by her husband, who himself was wanted in other quarters to repel English advances.
The lady had been glad to summon to her side her niece Corinne, who, since the state of the country had become so disturbed, had been placed by her father and uncle in the Convent of the Ursulines, under the charge of the good nuns there.
Corinne had been fond of the nuns; but the life of the cloister was little to her taste. She was glad enough to escape from its monotony, and to make her home with her father"s sister. Madame Drucour could tell her the most thrilling and delightful stories of the siege of Louisbourg. Already she felt to know a great deal about war in general and sieges in particular. She often experienced a thrill of pride and delight in the thought that she herself was about to be a witness of a siege of which all the world would be talking.
As she stood at the window today, a footstep rang through the quiet house below, and suddenly the door of the little chamber was flung wide open.
"Corinne!" cried a ringing voice which she well knew.
She turned round with a little cry of joy.
"Colin!" she cried, and the next minute brother and sister were locked in a fervent embrace.
"O Colin, Colin, when did you come, and whence?"
"Just this last hour, and from Montreal," he answered. "Oh, what strange adventures I have seen since last we met! Corinne, there have been times when I thought never to see you again! I have so much to say I know not where to begin. I have seen our triumphs, and I have seen our defeat. Corinne, it is as our uncle said. There is a great man now at the helm in England, and we are feeling his power out here in the West."
"Do you think the tide has turned against the French arms?" asked Corinne breathlessly.
"What else can I think? Has not Fort Frontenac fallen? Has not Fort Duquesne been abandoned before the advancing foe? Our realm in the west is cut away from Canada in the north. If we cannot reunite them, our power is gone. And they say that Ticonderoga and Crown Point will be the next to fall. The English are ma.s.sing upon Lake George. They have commanders of a different calibre now. Poor Ticonderoga! I grew to love it well. I spent many a happy month there. But what can we do to save it, threatened as we are now by the English fleet in the great St. Lawrence itself?"
"Are they not brave, these English?" cried Corinne, with an enthusiasm of admiration in her face and voice. "Colin, I am glad, oh very glad, that you and I are not all French. We can admire our gallant foes without fear of disloyalty to our blood. We have cause to know how gallant and chivalrous they can be."
Colin"s eyes lighted with eager pleasure.
"You remember that day in the forest, Corinne, and how we were protected by English Rangers from hurt?"
"Ah, do I not! And I have heard, too, from our Aunt Drucour, of their kindness and generosity to a conquered army--"
But she stopped, and waited for her brother to speak, as she saw that he had more to say.
"You remember the big, tall Ranger, whose name was Fritz?" he said eagerly.
"Yes, I remember him well."
"He is here--in Quebec--in this house at this very minute! He and I have travelled from Montreal with my uncle."
Corinne"s eyes were bright with eager interest.
Ah, Colin! is that truly so? And how came that about? You travelling with an English Ranger!"
"Yes, truly, and we owe our lives to his valour and protection. It is strange how Dame Fortune has thrown us across each other"s path times and again during these past few short years. First, he saved us from attack in the forest. You need not that I should tell you more of that, Corinne. Afterwards, some few of us from Ticonderoga saved the lives of him and of a few other Rangers who had fallen into the hands of the Indians after that defeat at Fort William Henry, which had scattered them far and wide. We felt such shame at the way our Indian allies had behaved, and at the little protection given to the prisoners of war by our Canadian troops, that we were glad to show kindness and hospitality to the wanderers, Rangers though they were; and when I recognized Fritz, I was the more glad.
He was wounded and ill, and we nursed him to health ere we sent him away. After that it was long before we met again, and then he came to our succour when we were in the same peril from Indians as he had been himself the year before."
"From Indians? O brother!" and Corinne shuddered, for she had that horror of the red-skinned race which comes to those who have seen and heard of their cruelties and treachery from those who have dwelt amongst them.
"Yes, you must know, Corinne, that in the west, where our uncle goes with the word of life and truth, the Indians are already wavering, and are disposed to return to their past friendship with the English. They are wonderfully cunning and far-seeing. They seem to have that same instinct as men say that rats possess, and are eager to leave the sinking ship, or to join themselves to the winning side, whichever way you like to put it. Since we have seen misfortune they have begun to change towards us. We cannot trust them out in the west. They are becoming sullen, if not hostile. A very little and they will turn upon us with savage fury--at least if they are not withheld from it by the English themselves."
Corinne"s cheek flushed; she flung back her head with an indescribable gesture.
"And I believe the English will withhold them. To our shame be it spoken, the French have made use of them. They have stooped to a warfare which makes civilized man shudder with horror. England will not use such methods; I am sure of it, And she will prosper where we have failed; for G.o.d in the heavens rules the nations upon earth, and He will not suffer such wickedness to continue forever.
If France in the west falls, she falls rather by her own act than by that of her foes."
"That is what my uncle says," answered Colin earnestly; "it is what he has striven all along to impress upon our leaders, but without avail. He has been seeking, too, to show to the Indians themselves the evil of their wicked practices. He has never been afraid of them; he has always been their friend. But the day came when they would no longer listen to him; when they drove us forth with hatred and malice; when there came into their faces that which made me more afraid than anything I have ever faced in my life before, Corinne. We dared not stay. The chief dismissed us and bid us be gone quickly, whilst he could still hold his people in check. He did not wish harm to come to us; but savage blood is hard to check.
"We got away from the village, and hoped the danger was over. We made our way as well as we could towards Montreal. But our uncle was weak; he had had several attacks of fever. One day he could not travel. That night we were set upon by a score of wandering Indians. They would not listen to our words, We were white men, that was enough. All white men were their enemies, they said. They would roast us alive first and eat us afterwards, they declared,"
"O Colin!" cried Corinne, with widely-dilated eyes.
"Yes; I can see their eyes now, rolling and gleaming. They began collecting light brushwood around the upright stakes they drove into the ground. They laughed and yelled, and sprang about with frightful contortions. They were working themselves up as they do before they set to one of their frightful pieces of work. Our uncle called me to him, and we prayed together. At least he prayed, and I tried to follow his words; but I could do nothing but watch those awful preparations. Then suddenly a shout arose from the forest hard by, and the Indians seized their weapons. We sent up a shout, caring little whether it was answered by English or French. We knew that what we had heard was no Indian whoop; it came from the throats of white men.
"Next minute a body of Rangers had dashed amongst us. The Indians fled, scattering right and left like chaff before the wind. Next minute I distinguished the friendly face of Fritz. He was kneeling beside our uncle, and asking him tenderly if he were hurt."
"The same Fritz as saved us in the forest! Oh, I am glad it was he!"