Heralds of Empire | Page 7

leap, snatched back the case, and with a "Lord bless thee,
child!" was down and away.
The spurred boots of the searchers clanked on the stairs. A blowing of
horns! They were all to horse and off as fast as the hounds coursed
away. The deep, far baying of the dogs, now loud, now low, as the trail
ran away or the wind blew clear, told where the chase led inland. If the
fugitive but hid till the dogs passed he was safe enough; but of a sudden
came the hoarse, furious barkings that signal hot scent.
What had happened was plain.
The poor wretch had crossed the road and given the hounds clew. The
baying came nearer. He had discovered his mistake and was trying to
regain the house.
Balaam stood saddled to carry Eli Kirke to the docks. 'Twas a wan hope,
but in a twinkling I was riding like wind for the barking behind the hill.

A white-faced man broke from the brush at crazy pace.
"God ha' mercy, sir," I cried, leaping off; "to horse and away! Ride up
the brook bed to throw the hounds off."
I saw him in saddle, struck Balaam's flank a blow that set pace for a
gallop, turned, and--for a second time that day was lifted from the
ground.
"Pardieu! Clean done!" says a low voice. "'Tis a pretty trick!"
And I felt myself set up before a rider.
"To save thee from the hounds," says the voice.
Scarce knowing whether I dreamed, I looked over my shoulder to see
one who was neither royalist nor Puritan--a thin, swarth man, tall and
straight as an Indian, bare-shaven and scarred from war, with long,
wiry hair and black eyes full of sparks.
The pack came on in a whirl to lose scent at the stream, and my rescuer
headed our horse away from the rabble, doffing his beaver familiarly to
the officers galloping past.
"Ha!" called one, reining his horse to its haunches, "did that snivelling
knave pass this way?"
"Do you mean this little gentleman?"
The officer galloped off. "Keep an eye open, Radisson," he shouted
over his shoulder.
"'Twere better shut," says M. Radisson softly; and at his name my
blood pricked to a jump.
Here was he of whom Ben Gillam told, the half-wild Frenchman, who
had married the royalist kinswoman of Eli Kirke; the hero of Spanish
fights and Turkish wars; the bold explorer of the north sea, who
brought back such wealth from an unknown land, governors and

merchant princes were spying his heels like pirates a treasure ship.
"'Tis more sport hunting than being hunted," he remarked, with an air
of quiet reminiscence.
His suit was fine-tanned, cream buckskin, garnished with gold braid
like any courtier's, with a deep collar of otter. Unmindful of manners, I
would have turned again to stare, but he bade me guide the horse back
to my home.
"Lest the hunters ask questions," he explained. "And what," he
demanded, "what doth a little cavalier in a Puritan hotbed?"
"I am even where God hath been pleased to set me, sir."
"'Twas a ticklish place he set thee when I came up."
"By your leave, sir, 'tis a higher place than I ever thought to know."
M. Radisson laughed a low, mellow laugh, and, vowing I should be a
court gallant, put me down before Eli Kirke's turnstile.
My uncle came stalking forth, his lips pale with rage. He had blazed
out ere I could explain one word.
"Have I put bread in thy mouth, Ramsay Stanhope, that thou shouldst
turn traitor? Viper and imp of Satan!" he shouted, shaking his clinched
fist in my face. "Was it not enough that thou wert utterly bound in
iniquity without persecuting the Lord's anointed?"
I took a breath.
"Where is Balaam?" he demanded, seizing me roughly.
"Sir," said I, "for leaving the room without leave, I pray you to flog me
as I deserve. As for the horse, he is safe and I hope far away under the
gentleman I helped down from the attic."
His face fell a-blank. M. Radisson dismounted laughing.

"Nay, nay, Eli Kirke, I protest 'twas to the lad's credit. 'Twas this way,
kinsman," and he told all, with many a strange-sounding, foreign
expression that must have put the Puritan's nose out of joint, for Eli
Kirke began blowing like a trumpet.
Then out comes Aunt Ruth to insist that M. Radisson share a haunch of
venison at our noonday meal.
And how I wish I could tell you of that dinner, and of all that M.
Radisson talked; of captivity among Iroquois and imprisonment in
Spain and wars in Turkey; of his voyage over land and lake to a far
north sea, and of the conspiracy among merchant princes of Quebec