Lazarre | Page 5

times."
Eagle sat down on a flat gravestone, and looked at the boy who seemed
to be an object of dispute between the men of her family and the other
man. He neither saw nor heard what passed. She said to herself--
"It would make no difference to me! It is the same, whether he is the
king or not."
Bellenger's eyes half closed their lids as if for protection from the sun.
"Monsieur de Ferrier may rest assured that I am not at present occupied
with jokes. I will again ask permission to take my charge away."
"You may not go until you have answered some questions."
"That I will do as far as I am permitted."
"Do Monsieur and his brother know that the king is here?" inquired the
elder De Ferrier, taking the lead.
"What reason have you to believe," responded Bellenger, "that the
Count de Provence and the Count d'Artois have any interest in this
boy?"
Philippe laughed, and kicked the turf.
"We have seen him many a time at Versailles, my friend. You are very

mysterious."
"Have his enemies, or his friends set him free?" demanded the old
Frenchman.
"That," said Bellenger, "I may not tell."
"Does Monsieur know that you are going to take him to America?"
"That I may not tell."
"When do you sail, and in what vessel?"
"These matters, also, I may not tell."
"This man is a kidnapper!" the old noble cried, bringing out his sword
with a hiss. But Philippe held his arm.
"Among things permitted to you," said Philippe, "perhaps you will take
oath the boy is not a Bourbon?"
Bellenger shrugged, and waved his hands.
"You admit that he is?"
[Illustration: "I will again ask permission to take my charge away"]
"I admit nothing, monsieur. These are days in which we save our heads
as well as we can, and admit nothing."
"If we had never seen the dauphin we should infer that this is no
common child you are carrying away so secretly, bound by so many
pledges. A man like you, trusted with an important mission, naturally
magnifies it. You refuse to let us know anything about this affair?"
"I am simply obeying orders, monsieur," said Bellenger humbly. "It is
not my affair."
"You are better dressed, more at ease with the world than any other

refugee I have seen since we came out of France. Somebody who has
money is paying to have the child placed in safety. Very well. Any
country but his own is a good country for him now. My uncle and I will
not interfere. We do not understand. But liberty of any kind is better
than imprisonment and death. You can of course evade us, but I give
you notice I shall look for this boy in America, and if you take him
elsewhere I shall probably find it out."
"America is a large country," said Bellenger, smiling.
He took the boy by the hand, and made his adieus. The old De Ferrier
deeply saluted the boy and slightly saluted his guardian. The other De
Ferrier nodded.
"We are making a mistake, Philippe!" said the uncle.
"Let him go," said the nephew. "He will probably slip away at once out
of St. Bartholomew's. We can do nothing until we are certain of the
powers behind him. Endless disaster to the child himself might result
from our interference. If France were ready now to take back her king,
would she accept an imbecile?"
The old De Ferrier groaned aloud.
"Bellenger is not a bad man," added Philippe.
Eagle watched her playmate until the closing gate hid him from sight.
She remembered having once implored her nurse for a small plaster
image displayed in a shop. It could not speak, nor move, nor love her in
return. But she cried secretly all night to have it in her arms, ashamed
of the unreasonable desire, but conscious that she could not be
appeased by anything else. That plaster image denied to her symbolized
the strongest passion of her life.
The pigeons wheeled around St. Bat's tower, or strutted burnished on
the wall. The bell, which she had forgotten since sitting with the boy in
front of the blacksmith shop, again boomed out its record of time;
though it seemed to Eagle that a long, lonesome period like eternity had

begun.

BOOK I
AWAKING

I
I remember poising naked upon a rock, ready to dive into Lake George.
This memory stands at the end of a diminishing vista; the extreme point
of coherent recollection. My body and muscular limbs reflected in the
water filled me with savage pride.
I knew, as the beast knows its herd, that my mother Marianne was
hanging the pot over the fire pit in the center of our lodge;