Crittenden Marriott

“ Jack’s fury died. The indefinable bond between white and white, the bond that has lifted the race above all other races of the world, tugged at him. After all, Williams was a white man; murderer though he was, he was a white man. Forgetful that he too was a prisoner, a detected spy, Jack turned to the chief.
But before he could speak Tecumseh raised his hand. “Tecumseh does justice,” he said. “He does it both to his foes and to his friends. The wrong this man did to Alagwa has been healed. But the wrong he did to Wilwiloway has not been paid. He is a murderer; he will die for it.” ”

“ What is any woman’s when she loves? And I do love. Do you understand? From the moment I saw you I loved you? I fought against it. I may not love any man—now; least of all, you. I am dangerous to you—dangerous! That is why I lied to you. That is why I told you that I was going to stop in Hamburg instead of coming to Berlin. It was by a mere chance that you saw me on the street. But I love you. I have never loved any man before nor will again. No other man has ever touched my lips. ”

“ Abruptly Jack halted, stiffening like a pointer pup, and leaned forward, gun half raised, trying to peer through the sun-soaked bushes of the moist glade. He had heard no sound, seen nothing move, yet his skin had roughened just as that of a wildcat roughens at the approach of danger. Instinct—the instinct of one born and brought up almost within sight of the frontier—told him that something dangerous was watching him from the jungly undergrowth before him. It might be a bear or a wolf or a panther, for none of these were rare in Alabama in the year 1812. ”

“ The woman whom you suspected of murder? The adventuress who plots for gold? You would marry me?”
“You and none other. Is it so strange? Many men must have loved you! Every one who saw you must have loved you.”
“But not under such circumstances as these. Mr. Caruth, all my life I shall be grateful to you. As long as I live, I shall remember your words. They will console me when my dark hour comes, as come it must for each of our Brotherhood. But I cannot accept. I am pledged to a cause which I cannot desert. No, Mr. Caruth! Go back to your safe and harmless American life and forget me. ”

“ So real it seemed that the happy tears streamed from Dorothy’s eyes. “Oh!” she sobbed, “it’s land! land! land!”
Howard’s voice came to her from afar off. “No,” he murmured, sadly. “It is not land. It is wreckage. We have reached our destination.”
Moved by a slight breeze, the haze shredded away and there, on the waters before them, stretching away to right and to left, lay an interminable mass of wrecks of every shape and description, banked together so thickly that they seemed to touch—and did touch—each other. ”

“ To the left, nearer at hand, rose the black quadrilateral of the fort.
All around rose the voices of the night. A screech owl hooted from a near-by tree. A fox barked in the long grass. Nearer at hand restless horses and mules stamped at their fastenings. Over all rose the bellow of bullfrogs, the lapping of the river against its banks, and the ceaseless, strident calls of the crickets.
Once more Alagwa’s hot eyes sought the fort. Within it were the men of the race she hated—the men who had derided and had threatened the young white chief. ”

“ Two looks are the best compliment a stranger can pay; a single glance asserts insignificance, and three glances argue peculiarity. Walter Topham was neither insignificant nor peculiar.
But though many looked at Topham, he looked at nobody. The fair face of the Countess Elsa [Pg 80] was ever before his mind’s eye, filling it to the exclusion of all else. How could he live for a whole year without seeing her? How could he accept her orders as final? Yet what could he do? What could he do? He had been glad to get away from Rutile and that he might once more ask himself the question. ”

“ The smallest patch of vegetation might foul the screw of the Seashark, or might conceal a water-logged spar, floating just awash, that would rip a plate from her bow and send her to the bottom, ending at once the lives of the castaways and their dreams of fortune. In some ways it would be safer beneath the water; yet Howard knew that every turn of the gas-engines was aiding to store up power in the electric accumulators, on which alone they must depend when the time came to dive. ”

“ It is the Brotherhood that speaks, not I. And the Brotherhood speaks for the people—do not forget that—speaks for the great, inarticulate Russian people, struggling to burst their age-long shackles. While we sit here, men are sacrificing their lives and women their honor for the cause. Who are you to hold back? No harm will come to your daughter, but even if the risk were ten times greater, still she must take it. ”

“ We are a fierce race, we Telfairs, and we love fierce women. And you are fierce, Estelle, fierce as the wild Indians who brought you up. God!”—he laughed hoarsely—“to think that I—I, Brito Telfair, I who supped on the honey of women long before I became a man, I who have known courts and palaces and kings—to think that I should go mad over a wood-bred girl! But it’s true, Estelle; it’s true. You are my mate—hot and fierce and proud. You are mine and tonight at last I have you fast.” ”

“ When it came down to a count of noses, you’d find about the only people that wanted to fight to keep the new republic down in south Brazil from following their God-twisted noses into the German fold would be you navy fellows and a few chaps whom the papers would call jingoes. And if Germany had a fleet as powerful as the United States, and if the United States had other foreign complications on its hands—with Japan if you like—how many people would insist on fighting to save a lot of greasers who didn’t want to be saved. ”

“ To the great snake the resistance of a man’s body was as nothing. One unhampered constriction of its mighty coils would have crushed an ox. But the davit and the stanchion stood firm; not for nothing had they been planned to withstand the assaults of the sea. They held firm, while Howard, with starting eyeballs and slowly crushing chest, strove to beat back the forked death that flicked about his face.
The end could not be long deferred; yet the man fought on, as living things [188] will fight for life—life so common, life so cheap, yet so desperately clung to. ”

“ Miss Fitzhugh seemed to understand, for she stepped forward and laid her hand on his arm. “Believe me, Mr. Caruth,” she declared earnestly, “believe me, you have done right. Whatever value this letter possessed belongs to us of right. The man who wrote it betrayed a secret that was not his; and, whether his or no, your valet could not have profited by it. You have done a good deed, and you have been as kind and true and staunch to me as my own brother could have been. My mother was right when she told me a woman could always appeal safely to an American gentleman. ”

“ Jack took the belt eagerly. To go to the lodge of Tecumseh to bring back a kinswoman to whom had descended great estates and against whom foes—he at once decided that they were foes—were plotting—What boy of twenty-one would not jump at the chance.
And to go to Ohio—the very name was a challenge. The Ohio of 1812 was not the Ohio of today, not the smiling, level country, set with towns, crisscrossed with railways, plastered with rich farms where the harvest leaps to the tickling of the hoe. It was far away, black with the vast shadow of perpetual forests, beneath which quaked great morasses. ”

“ Dead! all of them. Some newly dead; others long dead; but all unburied, waiting in the haven of dead ships for the long-deferred end. The trees were not trees, but masts hung with ravelled cordage; the beaches were the black hulls of ships; and the white houses were deck-houses or patches of canvas.
[75] For a moment no one spoke. Dorothy stood staring, every muscle tense, while the tears dripped slowly from her distended eyes. Jackson’s mouth fell open; his pistol hand fell nerveless to his side. For the first time he realized the situation. ”

“ Men were all alike, after all. American men were no better than their European brothers. She had seen so many; so very many. Caruth would yield, and she would despise him for it. Yet she went on. “Give it to me,” she breathed.
[28] “No!” Caruth’s voice rang out. “No! No! Oh, you women! You beautiful women! How easily you beguile men! How dare you do it? How dare you use beauty such as yours for such a purpose? How dare you use such tools to gain your selfish ends?”
“How dare I?” The girl’s form straightened till to Caruth’s gaze she seemed to tower above him. ”

“ Slowly she rose again, and then into the weed. Howard could see its slimy fronds through the thick glass of the conning-tower. Slowly and more slowly it seemed to brush downward as the Seashark worked herself upward. Slowly and more slowly until all motion ceased, leaving the vessel still far below the surface.
With a shrug of his shoulders, Howard pulled a lever, and in quick response came the throb of the pumps beneath him as with powerful strokes they drove out the water-ballast and made the Seashark lighter. ”

“ A bullet drove the earth from the rampart into her face, filling her eyes and mouth with its spatter. Then from every tree, from every rock, forms, half naked, horrible, painted, came leaping. Bullets whistled before them, rending the tortured air. As they topped the ramparts one, wearing a woodsman’s garb, caught his foot and fell forward, sprawling; the others hurled themselves toward Jack and Cato. Alagwa did not stop to think that these were her people, her friends. ”

“ Caruth: I am not a police reporter nor a yellow sensation reporter. My duty to the Consolidated Press does not call on me to solve murder mysteries, nor to pry into scandals. I don’t know you very well, nor what you are capable of doing at a pinch. For the matter of that, nobody does know what a man is capable of—not even himself. I’ve seen too many unexpected manifestations of virtue and of crime to judge lightly. That is why I have kept silent, though I knew you were holding back something about this murder. ”

“ Caruth gazed at her in consternation. This cowering woman was not the brave girl he remembered. Love had indeed robbed her of her courage.
“What is it? What is it?” he importuned, sinking down beside her. “Lermantoff shall not back out now. He shall not take you away from me. If he tries——”
“It isn’t Lermantoff. It’s the police. They know I am here. They know my disguise. They know I am on this train. They are only waiting till it stops to seize me. The guard is one of our men. He came along the footboard at the risk of his life to warn me. It’s all over, dear. I’ll never see America again.” ”

“ Dorothy tried to smile. “Very well, then,” she particularized, “just give me a telegraph-office.”
“With pleasure. We have a complete outfit. I’m sorry to say, though, that the wires are not strung yet.”
“Then give me a boat and a—compass, isn’t it, that we need?”
“Those are about the only things we cannot furnish, Miss Fairfax. When sailors are forced to leave their ships, they invariably take the boats and the compasses with them. But why do you wish to leave us? It will be our constant study to make you happy. You shall have the best of everything, and your lightest wish shall be law.” ”

“ Alagwa knew that Jack doubted his having left the country.
The dawn was beginning to break. The boles of the trees began to stand separately out; the leaves took on a tinge of green. Over all reigned silence. No faintest sound gave warning of approaching enemies. But the girl well knew that silence did not mean safety. Too often had she heard the Shawnee braves boast of how they crept on their sleeping enemies in the dawn. With renewed determination [184] she thrust forward her heavy rifle and strained her eyes and ears anew. Jack had trusted her; she must not fail him. ”

“ I have married an American. I am an American. And I am proud of it! Yes! proud of it! I am proud of my husband and proud of the race that produced him. I hate their foes. I hate you. And, by the white man’s God I swear, that your triumph—if you win it—shall be hollow, for you will clasp a dead woman in your arms. And tomorrow—tomorrow—Tecumseh will come back and burn you at the stake!”
Brito did not answer in words. Instead, he leaped swiftly forward, clutching at the girl with outstretched arms.
Had Alagwa been bred in civilization he must have caught her. ”

“ The girl flung up her arms. “Oh!” she cried. “Can’t you understand? I shall never marry, or, if I do, it will be at the behest of the Brotherhood. I shall marry some one who is helping to set Russia free. Perhaps—perhaps I may buy some part of her freedom with the only pawn I possess—myself. I am not free—I never will be free till Russia is.”
Caruth drew a long breath. “You mean to sell yourself?” he questioned gently.
The girl flushed redly. “It is for the people,” she pleaded.
“Then”—Caruth’s voice rang out—“then sell yourself to me. I can take risks as well as another. ”

“ Dorothy bowed haughtily. “Very well,” she returned. “I will wait. Now, will you kindly summon my friends. I wish to return to my ship.”
Forbes’ lips curved in a cruel smile. “Your ship, Miss Fairfax,” he echoed. “You have no ship. You and your companions abandoned the Queen of your own accord, and by the law of the sea she and everything on her became the property of any one who salvaged her. My men have taken possession of everything, including your abandoned trunks—which are now mine. You have no place to lay your head, and nothing in the world except what you have on your person. ”

“ She would make him safe. And when it was all over and he knew, she would die as an Indian maid should die.
Noiselessly—as noiselessly as she had moved through the forests—Alagwa rose from her bed and slipped to the door. Inch by inch she opened it and looked out. The house was black and silent; its inmates slept. Slowly she crept to the entrance to the big bar room. The night was hot and the windows and the door stood wide open, letting in a faint glimmer from moon and stars. In its light the sleeping forms of men on the floor loomed black. ”

“ You know you took her vows—the vows of a mere child—to devote her life and her beauty to your cause. You know that you are holding her practically for sale to the highest bidder—to him who will do most for that cause. It isn’t fair! It is an outrage on womanhood. It is trafficking in all that is holiest and highest in life. No cause will prosper that depends on such methods. Be advised! She has done [195] her best for you. She has done more than most women could do. Release her! Let her marry me—if she will.”
Caruth’s breath came quick and fast. ”

“ Suddenly, with terrifying swiftness, came a sound and a shock that shook the Seashark from stem to stern. Simultaneously the black hull of a great ship showed across the path, not a hundred [251] feet away. There was no time to stop; no time to check the speed; scarcely time to deflect the course. But quicker than thought, quicker than lightning, automatically, Howard’s trained brain and hand met the danger.
The horizontal rudders sent the Seashark diving down, down, down, in a desperate endeavor to pass beneath the obstruction—down till Howard saw clear water in front of him. ”

“ Alagwa was skilled in all forms of woodcraft; she could make [74] fire where a white man would freeze; catch game where he would starve; sleep warm and snug where he would shiver and rack with wet and fever and ague. She knew the forest trails, knew the rocks on which the rattlesnake sunned and the tufts of grass beneath which the copperhead lurked, knew the verdure that hid the quagmire, the firm-appearing ice that splintered at a touch, the tottering tree that dealt ruin at a breath. ”

“ Cato was lying face down where he had fallen. Across his body lay that of the warrior who had stricken him down. Close at hand lay two other braves, their well-oiled bodies and shaven heads glistening in the sun. Alagwa did not even look at them; they were not friends—they were outlaws—outlaws suborned by Brito to attack Jack because he had been in search of her. The Shawnees were still her friends—she was still true to Tecumseh. But these were private foes. She had been trained in a hard school and their deaths affected her no more than would those of so many wild beasts. ”

“ The sun was not yet up, but as the three cantered to the ford close beside the blockhouse, that frowned from the southwest corner of the fort, the morning gun boomed and the Stars and Stripes flung out to the breeze. An instant later, as the horses splashed through the shallow water, the sun thrust out through a gash in the clouds above the eastern forest, lighting up the snapping banner with its seventeen emblematic stars. ”

“ Hull’s surrender was not to actual foes but to possible ones, not to the threat of civilized warfare but to that of torture and murder by foes that kept no faith with the vanquished and that spared neither men nor women nor babes at the breast. “Surrender! If I have to attack I will not be able to restrain the fury of the Indians,” was in substance the message that brought about Hicks’s capitulation at Mackinaw, Heald’s massacre at Fort Dearborn, and Hull’s shameful surrender at Detroit. ”

“ If I ever marry, I shall marry some sweet gentle lady who never saw the frontier, who knows nothing of war, who has tread no rougher measures than those of the minuet. I want a bride whom I can shield from the world, not a mannish creature who can protect me. I want—Good Lord! What’s the matter?”
Alagwa had sprung to her feet, gasping. For a moment she stood; then she turned and fled to the house. Fantine glared at Jack; her lips moved but no sound came from them. For once, the situation was beyond her. With a hopeless gesture she followed the girl. Rogers stood staring. ”

“ Fantine glanced swiftly at Jack. Then out of the corner of her eye she searched Alagwa’s face. “Oh! La! La!” she cried. “These men! Truly they all of a muchness. When they are young they all run after a pretty face and if they lose it they think the world stops. Later they know better. M. Jack will seek a bride some day. And when you do, M. Jack, see that you choose one who will stand at your side when you face the peril, one who will draw the sword and pistol to defend you. Do not choose some fair lady who will faint at the sight of blood and leave you to your foes. ”

“ An instant he clutched at the air; then, like a cat, he was on his feet, launching forward to meet Jack’s assault.
In England boxing was in tremendous favor, and even in America, prone to more violent methods, it was in high esteem. Rich and poor, peer and peasant, alike prided themselves on their strength and quickness in feint and blow. Prize fighters were honored, not merely by the rabble but by those who held themselves to be the salt of the earth. Brito had fought many a time, both for anger and for pleasure. ”

“ Swift as prudence would allow he sped through the Indian camp to where Rogers and Cato waited, and together the three raced southward and westward, hoping against hope that they would yet be in time, hoping till the far-off rattle of rifles rose and fell and died away, till red flames crimsoned the sky, and the yells of exultant savages sounded across the snow and the ice. Then, hopeless, the three circled south and took the trail back to the Maumee, bearing to General Harrison the fateful news that General Winchester’s army was no more. ”

“ Both the Auglaize and the Maumee below the fort were navigable for small boats, and if Brito and his comrades had come in one, he might regain it and float down the Maumee, possibly to safety.
Should she let him go? No pity was in her heart. The frontier was grim; it translated itself into primitive emotions, taking no account of the shadings of civilization or of the blending of good and evil that inheres in every man. Those brought up amid its environment hated their enemies and loved their friends; they took no middle course. Brito was an enemy and Alagwa hated him. ”

“ And delay would be fatal to herself and perhaps to Jack. Metea would come for her at dawn. Before then she must make sure of Jack’s safety. Despairingly she looked to Stickney for help, only to find him half-unconscious, shaking with fever. Clearly he was incapable of doing more. If she was to gain immediate refuge she must gain it by her own efforts.
She looked at the captain and fury swelled in her bosom. Alagwa hated and loved with equal intensity, and she had hated Hibbs since the day she first saw him—the day he had scoffed at Jack. ”