Sancerre

“ Before de Sancerre and Noco had reached the cabin in which the Brother of the Sun lay tossing upon a feverish couch, the Frenchman, whose mind was filled with the vision of a pale, dark-eyed woman, garbed in black, with spring flowers upon her breast, recalled, for an instant, another face which seemed to accuse him in the twilight there of strange forgetfulness.
“Wait, señora,” exclaimed de Sancerre, seizing Noco by the arm at the very entrance to the royal hut. “Katonah! It is not well to leave her all alone. Go to your home and bring her here at once. ”

“ But de Sancerre, always self-confident, placed absolute faith in the elasticity of his light, nervous frame, whose muscles had been hardened by his campaigns over-sea and by his wanderings with de la Salle. No fleeter foot than his had been found in the sport-loving army of Turenne, and he had been as much admired in camps for his agility as at courts for his grace. ”

“ But look how the moon breaks through above those clouds! The storm is over, and the night grows clear. Shall we launch our raft again? I fear the forest, señor, more than yonder stream.”
“Nay, I dare not float at night, ma chère” answered de Sancerre, smoothing the raven hair from her white forehead as her head rested upon his shoulder, and they watched the fickle night change its garb of black, fringed with fire, for the silvery costume vouchsafed by the full moon. “I fear I might steal past my captain in the dark.” ”

“ Not that the Count was better than his age, more scrupulous than the pleasure-loving court in which his youth had been passed, but in the freer, nobler atmosphere of this brave New World, and in the companionship of men striving in the midst of peril to do great deeds, all that was most admirable in de Sancerre’s character had been born anew, and, to his own amazement, he had learned that his views of life had undergone a change, that there had grown up something in his soul which gave the lie to his scoffing tongue, still from habit the tongue of a mondain fashioned in an evil school. ”

“ A soft touch fell upon de Sancerre’s arm, and, turning, he looked into the white, agitated face of Doña Julia.
“Fear not, señora,” he exclaimed, earnestly. “Forgive me that I disturbed your rest. But it seemed best to me to try the temper of this clumsy gun. ’Tis always well to know how great may be the prowess of an ally whom you have gained.” ”

“ She gazed at the Frenchman’s face with a frank admiration which brought a self-conscious smile to the courtier’s lips. Flicking a multicolored insect from the tattered velvet of his sleeve, de Sancerre exclaimed:
“Ah, my Katonah! ’Tis those who know me best who love me best. ”

“ Meanwhile the high spirits of Louis de Sancerre had cast their spell upon Katonah, a maiden whose ready smile seldom changed to laughter. But on this bright spring day, treading a flower-bedecked path by the side of a man whose delicately chiselled face was to her eyes a symbol of all the joy of life, it was not hard for the Mohican maiden to affect a gayety uncharacteristic of a race lacking in vivacity. ”

“ The sun-worshippers, pouring in throngs from their abandoned city—men, women, and children following and preceding the army in the fervor of their welcome to the white-faced children of the moon, who had come to them so mysteriously from the bosom of a wonder-working stream—impeded, by their respectful but exacting curiosity, the progress of de Sancerre toward the royal group. Women, scantily clad [85] but gay with flowers and feathers, would put forth their brown hands to touch the tattered velvets of the Frenchman’s travel-stained but once gorgeous costume. ”

“ Almost a pygmy beside the bronze giant, whose limbs would have driven sleep from a sculptor’s couch, de Sancerre had apparently chosen well in asking Katonah for an invocation to the saint who protects fools from the outcome of their folly. The black-eyed sun-worshippers glanced at each other in smiling derision. Surely, these children of the moon must eat at night of some plant or fruit which stirred their blood to madness when they wandered far afield! No dwarf would dare to measure strides with a colossus unless, indeed, he’d lost his wits through midnight revelry in moonlit glades! ”

“ I will try so hard!”
“You know not what you say, señora!” cried [261] de Sancerre in Spanish, clasping the cold hand resting upon his arm as he led her toward the river. “Useless, quotha? Is a woman useless who teaches a wayward, rebellious, mocking heart the peace and glory of true love? I say to you, my Julia, that as Mother Mary is greater than the saints, so is a good woman better than the best of men.”
Then he added, smiling gayly as his happy eyes met her earnest gaze, and changing his tongue to French: “Not, chérie, that I am the best of men!” ”

“ With a rapidity and deftness worthy of a prestidigitateur, do Sancerre transposed the fragments of fish-laden bark upon the bench, and, as Coheyogo resumed his former attitude, he was confronted, unknowingly, with a dish with which a fanatical but disobedient priest, hating moon-magic, had tampered.
There is but short shrift given to the day when the sun deserts it in southern climes. Twilight had already begun to cast a gloom upon the feast, against which the forced gayety begotten of cinnamon-flavored wine could not prevail, when de Sancerre again felt old Noco’s touch upon his arm. ”

“ But at Sancerre, where there are not half a dozen, and where, of those six, five set up for the most extravagant virtue, when the handsomest of them all keeps you at an infinite distance by looks as scornful as though she were of the blood royal, a young man of two-and-twenty may surely be allowed to make a guess at her secrets, since she must then treat him with some consideration. ”

“ At that moment a hideous grin, weird offspring of ivory and bronze, rewarded de Sancerre’s straining gaze.
“Follow me, señor,” whispered Noco through the hole which served as a door to the hut. “There’s no one in the city now awake save nodding priests who feed the fire with logs. I’ll show you in the moonlight where Coyocop’s at rest.” ”

“ Her hand was like a piece of ice in his clasp, as de Sancerre led the girl toward the hut.
“I hardly know, ma chère,” answered her lover, frankly. “There are men stirring upon the bank, but I cannot believe that they are from the City of the Sun. But if they are, my sweetheart, there are those among them who will never look upon their mud-baked homes again! ’Tis strange how a fat larder restores the fighting spirit to a man. ”

“ And to himself he swore an oath that he would never leave the City of the Sun alive unless the Spanish maiden fled with him to the wilds. Death in the effort to save her from years of hopeless captivity was preferable, a thousand times, to life and freedom and a vain regret. How well he loved this woman de Sancerre had never known before. For the first time this mondain, who had fondly imagined [160] that life had nothing new to give him, realized the might and majesty of a great passion, and his soul grew sick with the fear that its ecstasy might change to misery at last. ”

“ Go at once, for the day grows old and we have much to do.”
Turning toward de Sancerre, who had been whispering to Doña Julia words of hope and cheer, Coheyogo pointed to the feet of the dead sun-prince, and then strode to the head of the corpse. The Frenchman and the chief priest raised the heavy body and placed it upon Doña Julia’s reed-plaited bed. With armfuls of magnolia blossoms Coheyogo covered Manatte’s face and shoulders, while de Sancerre, comprehending vaguely the scheme which the chief priest had in mind, strewed flowers upon the trunk of his sword’s gigantic prey. ”

“ In a voice which admitted of no reply, he said:
“De Tonti, de Sancerre, and Membré, prepare to set out at once to these people of the sun. I’ll give you presents for their chiefs and wives. Send Chatémuc to me. He shall go with you, and his sister—Katonah, is it not? She’ll find the woman with the Spanish tongue where you, as men, might fail.”
“But,” exclaimed de Sancerre, springing to his feet, “there may be peril for the girl in this. ’Tis best we go alone.”
“I am amazed, Monsieur le Comte,” remarked La Salle, sternly. “Obey my orders! ’Tis not for you to question what I plan. ”

“ George! ha, Our Lady! what do I see there? I see in part the flower of our army, who are most unequally matched. I would rather have died than have witnessed this. Ah! Sir Louis de Sancerre, I thought you more temperate and better taught than I see you now are: how could you have hazarded so many noble knights and squires and men at arms against ten or twelve thousand men, who are proud, presumptuous, and well prepared, and who will show them no mercy, while we are unable, if there should be a necessity, to aid them? ”

“ To the latter’s astonishment he saw in her small, black, beady eyes a gleam of saturnine humor which assured him that between his soul and hers stretched at least one sympathetic bond.
“Say to his Majesty for my king, my people, and myself,” went on de Sancerre, in Spanish, holding the gaze of the interpreter to his, “that our hearts beat with joy at the welcome you extend to us. Say to him that the king of kings, far beyond the great water of the sea, sends greeting to his Brother of the Sun, and craves his friendship for all time to come. ”

“ The afternoon was growing old, and Doña Julia, with a bunch of white flowers upon her bosom, relieving the black monotony of her sombre garb, still awaited in loneliness the coming of Louis de Sancerre, whose presence in that remote corner of the globe only the saints in heaven could explain. That Coheyogo and Noco, who came to her daily to play a solemn farce in which she had long ago lost all interest, had not made their accustomed advent to her cabin filled her with increasing alarm. ”

“ That the [128] survival of a Spanish patois among these sun-worshippers suggested a pathetic page of unwritten history de Sancerre realized, but his mind at that moment was too disturbed to linger long over an ethnological and linguistic problem. Turning to face the Franciscan friar, he said:
“Père Membré, these pagan priests seek vengeance upon you. They have no reason yet for hating me, a splinter from a moonbeam who makes no open war against their creed. But, for the cause of Mother Church, we must lure them from their grim idolatry. ”

“ Released from the enthusiastic arms of the noblemen who had carried him in triumph to their king, de Sancerre was now following the royal litter toward the City of the Sun, walking the well-beaten path with the mincing step of a courtier whose feet, though swifter than the winds, pay homage gayly to Grace as a worthier deity than Speed. On either side of the victorious runner, whose eyes still glowed with the [115] joy of triumph, walked Noco and Katonah. ”

“ I’ve wasted too much [273] time, for we must choose a lodging for the night before the dark has come.”
Reinvigorated in mind and body, de Sancerre descended the hillock from which the King’s Column and the Cross of Christ looked down upon an empire over which the reign of the proud pillar was not destined to endure. With eyes raised to heaven, Doña Julia knelt before the humble emblem of her faith, and besought the saints to guard her champion from the perils which might at this moment beset his steps. ”

“ Aye, señor, the Great Sun’s dying and the city mourns. When he has passed, his household follows him. The sight you saw but yesternight was child’s-play for the priests. ’Tis when a Great Sun dies they have man’s sport with death.”
The mocking, angry tones in Noco’s guttural voice made the broken Spanish in which she [164] spoke impress the Frenchman’s ears as a most repellent tongue. De Sancerre was striving feverishly to grasp the full significance of her grim words, to weigh in all its bearings the new exigency which had increased a hundredfold the peril in which he stood. ”

“ Within the temple chattering priests will ask each other whom my grandson guides. They’ll ask in vain! But, hark! The night’s as quiet as a sleeping babe.”
“Then, when I’m in the mood, I’ll vow a candle to St. Raphael,” cried de Sancerre, lightly. “He travelled safe by wearing a disguise! But tell me, Doña Noco, is the coast now clear? I’ve set my heart upon a look at Coyocop’s abode. I cannot sleep until I know where this fair spirit of the sun is lodged.” ”

“ Well Doña Julia knew that captivity, not death, would [292] be her lot should the sun-worshippers reach the island, but that they would grant mercy to de Sancerre she had no hope. The thought of life without the man whose love had come to her as the rarest gift which Heaven could bestow was a horror which drove the color from her face and robbed her voice of everything save sobs. ”

“ The town of Sancerre, rich in its greater past, but widowed now of its military importance, is doomed to an even less glorious future, for the course of trade lies on the right bank of the Loire. The sketch here given shows that Sancerre will be left more and more lonely in spite of the two bridges connecting it with Cosne. ”

“ Then, with a protesting smile upon his symmetrical, but half-savage, face, he bent down and raised the fat fowl to his shoulder and followed Monsieur le Comte toward the King’s Column. De Sancerre had gained for a time—short or long, as the case might be—an ally whose woodcraft was as brilliant as his lawlessness was incorrigible.
“Jubilate, señora,” cried the count, as he approached Doña Julia. “The saints have been more than kind! They have filled our larder, doubled our fighting force, and made me younger by ten years. But, señora, ’tis not a pious friend whom I have found! ”