The sunrise gun awoke me. I rolled out of my blanket, saw the white cannon-smoke floating above the trees, ran down to the river, and plunged in.
When I returned, the Sagamore had already broken his fast, and once more was engaged in painting himself--this time in a most ghastly combination of black and white, the startling parti-coloured decorations splitting his visage into two equal sections, so that his eyes gleamed from a black and sticky mask, and his mouth and chin and jaw were like the features of a weather-bleached skull.
"More war, O Mayaro, my brother?" I asked in a bantering voice. "Every day you prepare for battle with a confidence forever new; every night the army snores in peace. Yet, at dawn, when you have greeted the sun, you renew your war-paint. Such praiseworthy perseverance ought to be rewarded."
"It has already been rewarded," remarked the Indian, with quiet humour.
"In what manner?" I asked, puzzled.
"In the manner that all warriors desire to be rewarded," he replied, secretly amused.
"I thought," said I, "that the reward all warriors desire is a scalp taken in battle."
He cast a sly glance at me and went on painting.
"Mayaro," said I, disturbed, "is it possible that you have been out forest-running while I've slept?"
He shot a quick look at me, full of delighted malice.
And "Ho!" said he. "My brother sleeps sounder than a winter bear. Three Erie scalps hang stretched, hooped, and curing in the morning sun, behind the bush-hut. Little brother, has the Sagamore done well?"
Straightway I whirled on my heel and walked out and around the hut. Strung like drying fish on a willow wand three scalps hung in the sunshine, the soft July breeze stirring the dead hair. And as soon as I saw them I knew they were indeed Erie scalps.
Repressing my resentment and disgust, I lingered a moment to examine them, then returned to the hut, where the Siwanois, grave as a catamount at his toilet, squatted in a patch of sunshine, polishing his features.
"So you've done this business every night as soon as I slept," said I. "You've crept beyond our outer pickets, risking your life, imperilling the success of this army, merely to satisfy your vanity. This is not well, Mayaro."
He said proudly: "Mayaro is safe. What warrior of the Cat-People need a Sagamore of the Siwanois dread?"
"Do you count them warriors then, or wizards?"
"Demons have teeth and claws. Look upon their scalp-locks, Loskiel!"
I strove to subdue my rising anger.
"You are the only reliable guide in the army today who can take us straight to Catharines-town," I said. "If we lose you we must trust to Hanierri and his praying Oneidas, who do not know the way even to Wyalusing as well as you do. Is this just to the army? Is it just to me, O Sagamore? My formal orders are that you shall rest and run no risk until this army starts from Lake Otsego. My brother Mayaro knew this. I trusted him and set no sentry at the hut door. Is this well, brother?"
The Sagamore looked at me with eyes utterly void of expression.
"Is Mayaro a prisoner, then?" he asked quietly.
Instantly I knew that he was not to be dealt with that way. The slightest suspicion of any personal restraint or of any military pressure brought to bear on him might alienate him from our cause, if not, perhaps, from me personally.
I said: "The Siwanois are free people. No lodge door is locked on them, not even in the Long House. They are at liberty to come and go as the eight winds rise and wane--to sleep when they choose, to wake when it pleases them, to go forth by day or night, to follow the war-trail, to strike their enemies where they find them.
"But now, to one of them--to the Mohican Mayaro, Sagamore of the Siwanois, Sachem of the Enchanted Clan, is given the greatest mission ever offered to any Delaware since Tamenund put on his snowy panoply of feathers and flew through the forest and upward into the air-ocean of eternal light.
"A great army of his embattled brothers trusts in him to guide them so that the Iroquois Confederacy shall be pierced from Gate to Gate, and the Long House go roaring up in flames.
"There are many valiant deeds to be accomplished on this coming march--deeds worthy of a war-chief of the Lenni-Lenape--deeds fitted to do honour to a Sagamore of the Magic Wolf.
"I only ask of my friend and blood-brother that he reserve himself for these great deeds and not risk a chance bullet in ambush for the sake of an Erie scalp or two--for the sake of a patch of mangy fur which grows on these Devil-Cats of Amochol."
At first his countenance was smooth and blank; as I proceeded, he became gravely attentive; then, as I ended, he gave me a quick, unembarrassed, and merry look.
"Loskiel," he said laughingly, "Mayaro plays with the Cat-People. A child's skill only is needed to take their half-shed fur and dash them squalling and spitting and kicking into Biskoonah!"
He resumed his painting with a shrug of contempt, adding:
"Amochol rages in vain. Upon this wizard a Mohican spits! One by one his scalped acolytes tumble and thump among the dead and bloody forest leaves. The Siwanois laugh at them. Let the red sorcerer of the Senecas make strong magic so that his cats return to life, and the vile fur grows once more where a Mohican has ripped it out!"
"Each night you go forth and scalp. Each morning you paint. Is this to continue, Sagamore?"
"My brother sees," he said proudly. "Cats were made for skinning."
There was nothing to do about it; no more to be said. I now comprehended this, as I stood lacing my rifle-shirt and watching him at his weird self-embellishment.
"The war-paint you have worn each day has seemed to me somewhat unusual," I said curiously.
He glanced sharply up at me, scowled, then said gravely:
"When a Sagamore of the Mohicans paints for a war against warriors, the paint is different. But," he added, and his eyes blazed, and the very scalp-lock seemed to bristle on his shaven head, "when a Lenape Sachem of the Enchanted Clan paints for war with Seneca sorcerers, he wears also the clean symbols of his sacred priesthood, so that he may fight bad magic with good magic, sorcery with sorcery, and defy this scarlet priest--this vile, sly Warlock Amochol!"
Truly there was no more for me to say. I dared not let him believe that his movements were either watched or under the slightest shadow of restraint. I knew it was useless to urge on him the desirability of inaction until the army moved. He might perhaps have understood me and listened to me, were the warfare he was now engaged in only the red knight-errantry of an Indian seeking glory. But he had long since won his spurs.
And this feud with Amochol was something far more deadly than mere warfare; it was the clash of a Mohican Sagamore of the Sacred Clan with the dreadful and abhorred priesthood of the Senecas--the hatred and infuriated contempt of a noble and ordained priest for the black-magic of a sorcerer--orthodoxy, militant and terrible, scourging blasphemy and crushing its perverted acolytes at the very feet of their Antichrist.
I began to understand this strange, stealthy slaughter in the dark, which only the eyes of the midnight sky looked down on, while I lay soundly sleeping. I knew that nothing I could say would now keep this Siwanois at my side at night. Yet, he had been given me to guard. What should I do? Major Parr might not understand--might even order the Sagamore confined to barracks under guard. The slightest mistake in dealing with the Siwanois might prove fatal to all our hopes of him.
All the responsibility, therefore, must rest on me; and I must use my judgment and abide by the consequences.
Had it been, as I have said, any other nation but the Senecas, I am certain that I could have restrained the Indian. But the combination of Seneca, Erie, and Amochol prowling around our picket-line was too much for the outraged Sagamore of the Spirit Wolf. And I now comprehended it thoroughly.
As I sat thinking at our bush-hut door, the endless lines of wagons were still passing toward Otsego Lake, piled high with stores, and I saw Schott's riflemen filing along in escort, their tow-cloth rifle-frocks wide open to their sweating chests.
Almost all the troops had already marched to the lake and had pitched tents there, while Alden's chastened regiment was damming the waters so that when our boats were ready the dam might be broken and the high water carry our batteaux over miles of shallow water to Tioga Point, where our main army now was concentrating.
When were the Rifles to march? I did not know. Sitting there in the sun, moodily stripping a daisy of its petals, I thought of Lois, troubled, wondering how her security and well-being might be established.
The hour could not be very distant now before our corps marched to the lake. What would she do? What would become of her if she still refused to be advised by me?
As for her silly desire to go to Catharines-town, the more I thought about it the less serious consideration did I give it. The thing was, of course, impossible. No soldiers' wives were to be permitted to go as far as Wyalusing or Wyoming. Even here, at this encampment, the officers' ladies had left, although perhaps many of them might have remained longer with their husbands had it been known that the departure of the troops for Otsego Lake was to be delayed by the slow arrival of cattle and provisions.
In the meantime, the two companies of my regiment attached to this brigade were still out on scout with Major Parr; and when they returned I made no doubt that we would shoulder packs, harness our wagons, and take the lake road next morning.
And what would become of Lois? Perplexed and dejected, I wandered about the willow-run, pondering the situation; sat for a while on the river-bank to watch the batteaux and the Oneida canoes; then, ever restless with my deepening solicitude for Lois, I walked over to the fort. And the first man I laid eyes on was Lieutenant Boyd, conversing with some ladies on the parade.
He did not see me. He had evidently returned from the main body with a small scout the night before, and now was up and dressed in his best, spick and span and gay, fairly shining in the sunlight as he stood leaning against a log prop, talking with these ladies where they were seated on one of the rustic settles lately made by Alden's men.
Venturing nearer, I found that I knew all of the ladies, for one was the handsome wife of Captain Bleecker, of the 3rd New York, and another proved to be Angelina Lansing, wife of Gerrit Lansing, Ensign in the same regiment.
The third lady was a complete surprise to me, she being that pretty and vivacious Magdalene Helmer--called Lana--the confidante of Clarissa Putnam--a bright-eyed, laughing beauty from Tribes Hill, whom I had known very well at Guy Park, where she often stayed with her friend, Miss Putnam, when Sir John Johnson was there.
As I recognised them, Boyd chanced to glance around, and saw me. He smiled and spoke to the ladies; all lifted their heads and looked in my direction; and Lana Helmer waved her handkerchief and coolly blew me a kiss from her finger-tips.
So, cap in hand, I crossed the parade, made my best bow and respects to each in turn, replaced my cap, and saluted Lieutenant Boyd, who returned my salute with pretended hauteur, then grinned and offered his hand.
"See what a bower of beauty is blossomed over night in these dreary barracks, Loskiel. There seems to be some happiness left in the world for the poor rifleman."
"Do you remain?" I asked of Mrs. Bleecker.
"Indeed we do," she said, laughing, "provided that my husband's regiment remains. As soon as we understood that they had not been ordered into the Indian country we packed our boxes and came up by batteau last night. The news about my husband's regiment is true, is it not?"
"Colonel Gansevoort's regiment is not to join General Sullivan, but is to be held to guard the Valley. I had the news yesterday for certain."
"What luck!" said Boyd, his handsome eyes fixed on Lana Helmer, who shot at him a glance as daring. And it made me uneasy to see she meant to play coquette with such a man as Boyd; and I remembered her high spirits and bright daring at the somewhat loose gatherings at Guy Park, where every evening too much wine was drunk, and Sir John and Clarissa made no secret of the flame that burned between them.
Yet, of Lana Helmer never a suspicious word had been breathed that ever I had heard--for it seemed she could dare where others dared not; say and do and be what another woman might not, as though her wit and beauty licensed what had utterly damned another. Nor did her devotion and close companionship with Clarissa ever seem to raise a question as to her own personal behaviour. And well I remember a gay company being at cards and wine one day in the summer house on the river hew she answered a disrespect of Sir John with a contemptuous rebuke which sent the muddy blood into his face and left him ashamed--the only time I ever saw him so.
Ensign Chambers came a-mincing up, was presented to the ladies, languidly made preparations for taking Mrs. Lansing by storm; and the first deadly grace he pictured for her was his macaroni manner of taking snuff--with which fascinating ceremony he had turned many a silly head in New York ere we marched out and the British marched in.
I talked for a while with Mrs. Bleecker of this and that, striving the while to catch Lana Helmer's eye. For not only did her coquetry with Boyd make me uneasy, knowing them both as I did, but on my own account I desired to speak to her in private when opportunity afforded. Alone and singly either of these people stood in no danger from the outer world. Pitted against each other, what their recklessness might lead to I did not know. For since Boyd's attempted gallantries toward Lois--he believing her to be as youthful and depraved as seemed the case--a deep and growing distrust for this man which I had never before felt had steadily invaded my friendship for him. Also, he had already an affair with a handsome wench at the Middle Fort, one Dolly Glenn, and the poor young thing was plainly mad about him.
I heard Mrs. Lansing propose a stroll to the river before dinner, on the chance of meeting her husband's regiment returning, which suggestion seemed to suit all; and in the confusion of chatter and laughter and the tying of a sun-mask by Mrs. Bleecker, aided by Boyd and by the exquisite courtier, I cleverly contrived to supplant Boyd with Lana Helmer, and not only stuck to her side, but managed to secure the rear of the strolling column.
All this manoeuvre did not escape her, and as we fell a few paces behind, she looked up at me with a most deadly challenge in her violet eyes.
"Now," she said, "that you have driven off your rival, I am resigned to be courted.... Heaven knows you wasted opportunities enough at Guy Park."
I laughed.
"How strange it is, Lana," I said, "to be here with you; I in rifle dress and thrums, hatchet, and knife at my Mohawk girdle; you in chip hat and ribbons and dainty gown, lifting your French petticoat over the muddy ruts cut on the King's Highway by rebel artillery!"
"Who would have dreamed it three years ago?" she said, her face now sober enough.
"I thought your people were Tory," said I.
"Not mine, Euan; Clarissa's."
"Where is that child?" I asked pityingly.
"Clarissa? Poor lamb--she's in Albany still."
I did not speak, but it was as though she divined my unasked question.
"Aye, she is in love with him yet. I never could understand how that could be after he married Polly Watts. But she has not changed.... And that beast, Sir John, installed her in the Albany house."
I said: "He's somewhere out yonder with the marauders against whom we are to march. They're all awaiting us, it is said; the whole crew--Johnson's Greens, Butler's Rangers, McDonald's painted Tories, Brant's Mohawks--and the Senecas with their war-chiefs and their sorcerer, Amochol--truly a motley devil's brood, Lana; and I pray only that one of Morgan's men may sight Walter Butler or Sir John over his rifle's end."
"To think," she murmured, "that you and I have dined and wined with these same gentlemen you now so ardently desire to slay.... And young Walter Butler, too! I saw his mother and his sister in Albany a week ago--two sad and pitiable women, Euan, for every furtive glance cast after them seemed to shout aloud the infamy of their son and brother, the Murderer of Cherry Valley."
"To my mind," said I, "he is not sane at all, but gone stark blood-mad. Heaven! How impossible it seems that this young man with his handsome face and figure, his dreamy melancholy, his charming voice and manners, his skill in verse and music, can be this same Walter Butler whose name is cursed wherever righteousness and honour exist in human breasts. Why, even Joseph Brant has spurned him, they say, since Cherry Valley! Even his own father stood aghast before such infamy. Old John Butler, when he heard the news, dashed his hands to his temples, groaning out: 'I would have crawled from this place to Cherry Valley on my hands and knees to save those people; and why my son did not spare them, God only knows.'"
Lana shook her pretty head.
"I can not seem to believe it of him even yet. I try to think of Walter as a murderer of little children, and it is not possible. Why, it seems but yesterday that I stood plaguing him on the stone doorstep at Guy Park--calling him Walter Ninny and Walter Noodle to vex him. You remember, Euan, that his full name is Walter N. Butler, and that he never would tell us what the N. stands for, but we guessed it stood for Nellis, in honour of Nellis Fonda.... Lord! What a world o' trouble for us all in these three years!"
"I had supposed you married long ago, Lana. The young Patroon was very ardent."
"I? The sorry supposition! I marry--in the face of the sad and miserable examples all my friends afford me! Not I, Euan, unless----" She smiled at me with pretty malice. "----you enter the lists. Do you then enter?" I reddened and laughed, and she, always enchanted to plague and provoke me, began her art forthwith, first innocently slipping her arm through mine, as though to support her flagging steps, then, as if by accident, letting one light finger slip along my sleeve to touch my hand and linger lightly.
Years ago, when we were but seventeen, she had delighted to tease and embarrass me with her sweetly malicious coquetry, ever on the watch to observe my features redden. I remember she sometimes offered to exchange kisses with me; but I was a ninny, and a serious and hopeless one at that, and would have none of her.
I believe we were thinking of the same thing now, and when I caught her eye the gay malice of it was not to be mistaken.
"Lanette," said I, "take care! I am a soldier since you had your saucy way with me. You know that the military are not to be dealt with lightly. And I am grown up in these three years."
"Grown soberer, perhaps. You always did conduct like a pious Broad-brim, Euan."
"I've a mind to kiss you now," said I, vexed.
"Kiss away, kind sir. You have me in the rear of them. Now's your opportunity!"
"Doubtless you'd cry out."
"Doubtless I wouldn't."
"Wait for some moonlit evening when we're unobserved----"
"Broad-brim!"
I laughed, and so did she, saying:
"I warrant you that your pretty Lieutenant Boyd had never waited for my challenge twice!"
"Best look out for Boyd," said I. "He's of your own careless, reckless kind, Lanette. Sparks fly when flint and steel encounter."
"Cold sparks, friend Broad-brim!"
"Not too cold to set tinder afire."
"Am I then tinder? You should know me better."
"In every one of us," said I, "there is an element which, when it meets its fellow in another, unites with it, turning instantly to fire and burning to the very soul."
"How wise have you become in alchemy and metaphysics!" she exclaimed in mock admiration.
"Oh, I am not wise in anything, and you know it, Lana."
"I don't know it. You've been wise enough to keep clear of me, if that be truly wisdom. Come, Euan, what do you think? Do you and I contain these fellow elements, that you seem to dread our mutual conflagration if you kiss me?"
"You know me better."
"Do I? No, I don't. Young sir, caper not too confidently in your coat of many colours! If you flout me once too often I may go after you, as a Mohawk follows a scalp too often flaunted by the head that wears it!"
I tried to sustain her delighted gaze and reddened, and the impudent little beauty laughed and clung to my arm in a very ecstasy of malice, made breathless by her own mirth.
"Come, court me prettily, Euan. It is my due after all these grey and Quaker years when I made eyes at you from the age of twelve, and won only a scowl or two for my condescension."
But we had reached the river bank, and there the group came once more together, the ladies curious to see the batteaux arriving, loaded with valley sheep, we officers pointing out to them the canoes of our corps of Oneida guides, and Hanierri and the Reverend Mr. Kirkland reading their Testaments under the shade of the trees, gravely absorbed in God.
"A good man," said I, "and brave. But his honest Stockbridge Indians know no more of Catharines-town than do the converted Oneidas yonder."
Boyd nodded: "I prophesy they quit us one and all within an arrow-flight of Wyalusing. Do you take me, Loskiel?"
"No, you are right," I said. "The fear of the Long House chains them, and their long servitude has worn like fetters to their very bones. Redcoats they can face, and have done so gallantly. But there is in them a fear of the Five Nations past all understanding of a white man."
I spoke to a diminished audience, for already Boyd and Lana Helmer had strolled a little way together, clearly much interested in each other's conversation. Presently our precious senior Consign sauntered the other way with pretty Mistress Lansing on his arm. As for me, I was contented to see them go--had been only waiting for it. And what I had thought I might venture to say to Lana Helmer by warrant of old acquaintance, I was now glad that I had not said at all--the years having in no wise subdued the mischief in her, nor her custom of plaguing me. And how much she had ever really meant I could not truly guess. No, it had been anything but wise to speak to her of Lois. But now I meant to mention Lois to Mrs. Bleecker.
We had seated ourselves on the sun-crisped Indian grass, and for a while I let her chatter of Guy Park and our pleasant acquaintance there, and of Albany, too, where we had met sometimes at the Ten Broecks, the Schuylers, and the Patroons. And all the while I was debating within my mind how this proud and handsome, newly-married girl might receive my halting story. For it would not do to conceal anything vital to the case. Her clear, wise eyes would see instantly through any evasion, not to say deception--even a harmless deception. No; if she were to be of any aid in this deeply-perplexing business, I must tell her the story of Lois--not betraying anything that the girl might shrink from having others know, but stating her case and her condition as briefly and as honestly as I might.
And no sooner did I come to this conclusion than I spoke; and after the first word or two Mrs. Bleecker put off her sun-mask and turned, looking me directly in the eyes.
I said that the young lady's name was Lois de Contrecoeur--and if it were not that it was nothing, and human creatures require a name! But this I did not say to her, nor thought it necessary to mention any doubt as to the girl's parentage, only to say she was the child of captives taken by the Senecas after the Lake George rout.
I told of her dreary girlhood, saying merely that her foster parents were now dead and that the child had conceived the senseless project of penetrating to Catharines-town, where she believed her mother, at least, was still held captive.
The tall, handsome girl beside me listened without a word, her intent gaze never leaving me; and when I had done, and the last word in my brief for Lois had been uttered, she bent her head in thought, and so continued minute after minute while I sat there waiting.
At last she looked up at me again, suddenly, as though to surprise my secret reflections; and if she did so I do not know, for she smiled and held out her hand to me with so pretty a confidence that my lips trembled as I pressed them to her fingers. And now something within her seemed to have been reassured, for her eyes and her lips became faintly humorous.
"And where is this most forlorn and errant damsel, Sir Euan?" she inquired. "For if I doubt her when I see her, no more than I doubt you when I look at you, something should be done in her behalf without delay.... The poor, unhappy child! And what a little fool! The Lord looks after his lambs, surely, surely--drat the little hussy! It mads me to even think of her danger. Did a body ever hear the like of it! A-gypsying all alone--loitering around this army's camp! Mercy! And what a little minx it is to so conduct--what with our godless, cursing headlong soldiery, and the loud, swaggering forest-runners! Lord! But it chills me to the bone! The silly, saucy baggage!"
She shuddered there in the hot sunshine, then shot at me a look so keen and penetrating that I felt my ears go red. Which sudden distress on my part again curved her lips into an indulgent smile.
"I always thought I knew you, Euan Loskiel," she said. "I think so still.... As for your fairy damsel in distress--h'm--when may I see her?"
In a low voice I confessed the late raggedness of Lois, and how she now wore an Oneida dress until the boxes, which I had commanded, might arrive from Albany. I had to tell her this, had to explain how I had won from Lois this privilege of giving, spite of her pride.
"If I could bring her to you," said I, "fittingly equipped and clothed, the pride in her would suffer less. Were you to go with me now in your pretty silk and scarf, and patch and powder, and stand before her in the wretched hut which shelters her--the taint of charity would poison everything. For she is like you, Mrs. Bleecker, lacking only what does not make, but merely and prettily confirms your quality and breeding--clothing and shelter, and the means to live fittingly.... For it is not condescension, not the lesser charity I ask, or she could receive; it is the countenance that birth lends to its equal in dire adversity."
Curious and various were the emotions which passed in rapid succession over her pretty features; and not all seemed agreeable. Then suddenly her eyes reflected a hidden laughter, and presently it came forth, a merry peal, and sweet withal.
"Oh, Euan, what a boy you are! Had I been any other woman--but let it go. You are as translucent as a woodland brook, and--at times you babble like one, confident that your music pleases everyone who hears it.... I pray you let me judge whether the errant lady be what a poet's soul would have her.... I am not speaking with any unkind thought or doubt.... But woman must judge woman. It is the one thing no man can ever do for her. And the less he interferes during the judgment the better."
"Then I'll say no more," said I, forcing a smile.
"Oh, say all you please, as long as you do not tell me what you think about her. Tell me facts, not what your romantic heart surmises. And if she were the queen of Sheba in disguise, or if she were a titled Saint James drab, no honest woman but who would see through and through her, and, ere she rose from her low reverence, would know her truly for exactly what she is."
"Lord!" said I. "Is that the way you read us, also?"
"No. Women may read women. But never one who lived has read truly any man, humble or high. Say that to the next pretty baggage who vows she reads you like a book! And in her secret heart she will know you say the truth--and know it, raging even while her smile remains unaltered. For it is true, Euan; true concerning you men, also. Not one among you all has ever really read us right. The difference is this; we know we can not read you, but scorn to admit it; you honestly believe that you can read us, and often boast of doing it. Which sex is the greater fool, judge you? I have my own opinion."
We both laughed; after a moment she put on her sun-mask and I tied it.
"Where do you and Mrs. Lansing lodge until your husband's regiment returns?" I asked.
"They have given us the old Croghan house. What it lacks in elegance of appointment it gains in hospitality. If we had a dish of tea to brew for you gentlemen we would do it; but Indian willow makes a vile and bitter tea, and I had as lief go tealess, as I do and expect to continue until our husbands teach the Tory King his manners."
She rose, giving me her pretty hand to aid her, shook out her dainty skirts, put up her quizzing glass, and inspected me, smilingly.
"Bring her when you think it time," she said. "Somehow I already believe that she may be something of what your fancy paints her. And that would be a miracle."
"Truly she is a miracle," I said earnestly.
"Then remember not to say it to Angelina Lansing--and above all never hint as much to Lana Helmer. Women are human; and pretty women perhaps a little less than human. Leave them to me. For if this romantic damsel be truly what you picture her, I'll have to tell a pretty fib or two concerning her and you, I warrant you. Leave that saucy baggage, Lanette, to me, Euan. And you keep clear of her, too. She's murderous to men's peace of mind--more fatal than ever since Clarissa played the fool."
"I was assassinated by Lana long ago," said I, smiling. "I am proof."
"Nevertheless, beware!" she whispered, as Boyd and Lana came sauntering up. And there seemed to me to be now about them both a careless indifference, almost studied, and in noticeable contrast to their bright animation when they had left us half an hour ago.
"Such a professional heart-breaker as your Mr. Boyd is," observed Lana coolly to us both. "I never before encountered such assurance. What he must be in queue and powder, silk and small-sword, I dare not surmise. A pitying heaven has protected me so far, and," she added, looking deliberately at Boyd, "I ought to be grateful, ought I not, sir?"
Boyd made her a too low and over-courtly bow.
"Always the gallant and victorious adversary salutes the vanquished as you, fair lady, have saluted me--imputing to my insignificant prowess the very skill and address which has overthrown me."
"Are you overthrown?"
"Prone in the dust, mademoiselle! Draw Mr. Loskiel's knife and end me now in mercy."
"Then I will strike.... Who is the handsome wench who passed us but a moment since, and who looked at you with her very heart trembling in her eyes?"
"How should I know?"
They stood looking smilingly at each other; and their smile did not seem quite genuine to me, but too clear, and a trifle hard, as though somehow it was a sort of mask for some subtler defiance. I reflected uneasily that no real understanding could be possible between these two in such a brief acquaintance; and, reassured, turned to greet our macaroni Ensign and Mistress Angelina Lansing, now approaching us.
That our regimental fop had sufficient diverted her was patent, she being over-flushed and smiling, and at gay swords' points already with him, while he whisked his nose with his laced hanker and scattered the perfume of his snuff to the four winds.
So, two and two, we walked along the road to Croghan's house, where was a negro wench to aid them and a soldier-servant to serve them. And the odd bits of furniture that had been used at our General's headquarters had been taken there to eke out with rough make-shifts, fashioned by Alden's men, a very scanty establishment for these three ladies.
Lana Helmer, to my surprise, motioned me to walk beside her; and all the way to Croghan's house she continued close to me, seeming to purposely avoid Boyd. And he the same, save that once or twice he looked at her, which was more than she did to him, I swear.
She was now very serious and sweet with me on our way to Croghan's, not jeering at me or at any of her teasing tricks, but conversing reasonably and prettily, and with that careless confidence which to a man is always pleasant and sometimes touching.
Of the old days we spoke much; the past was our theme--which is not an unusual topic for the young, although they live, generally, only in the future. And it was "Do you recall this?" and "Do you remember that?" and "Do you mind the day" when this and that occurred? Incidents we both had nigh forgotten were recalled gravely or smilingly, but there was no laughter--none, somehow, seemed to be left either in her heart or mine.
Twice I spoke of Clarissa, wishing, with kindliest intention, to hear more of the unhappy child; but in neither instance did Lana appear to notice what I had said, continuing silent until I, too, grew reticent, feeling vaguely that something had somehow snapped our mutual thread of sympathy.
At the door of Croghan's house we gathered to make our adieux, then first went mincing our Ensign about his precious business; and then Boyd took himself off, as though with an effort; and Lana and Angelina Lansing went indoors.
"Bring her to me when I am alone," whispered Betty Bleecker, with a very friendly smile. "And let the others believe that you stand for nothing in this affair."
And so I went away, thinking of many things--too many and too perplexing, perhaps, for the intellect of a very young man deeply in love--a man who knows he is in love, and yet remains incredulous that it is indeed love which so utterly bewilders and afflicts him.
