Marianson | Page 6

kill our 'effer," he lamented, in the mongrel speech of the
quarter-breed. "Dey didn't need him; dey have plenty to eat. But dey
kill our 'effer and laugh."
"My cow, is it also killed, Ignace?"
Marianson's neighbors closed around her, unsurprised at her late arrival,
filled only with the general calamity. Old men's pipe smoke mingled
with odors of food; and when the English soldier had satisfied himself
that she belonged to this caldron of humanity, he lifted the corners of
his nose and returned to open air and guard duty.
The fort had been surrendered without a shot, to save the lives of the
villagers, and they were all hurried to the distillery and put under guard.

They would be obliged to take the oath of allegiance to England, or
leave the island. Michael Dousman, yet held in the enemy's camp, was
fiercely accused of bringing the English upon them. No, Marianson
could not go to the village, or even to the dock.
Everybody offered her food. A boat she did not ask for. The high
cobwebby openings of the distillery looked on a blank night sky.
Marianson felt her happiness jarred as the wonderful day came to such
limits. The English had the island. It might be searched for that young
deserter waiting for her help, and if she failed to get a boat, what must
be his fate?
She had entered the west door of the distillery. She found opportunity
to slip out on the east side, for it was necessary to reach the dock and
get a boat. She might risk being scalped, but a boat at any cost she
would have, and one was sent her--as to the fearless and determined all
their desires are sent. She heard the thump of oars in rowlocks, bringing
the relief guard, and with a swish, out of the void of the lake a keel ran
upon pebbles.
So easy had been the conquest of the island, the British regular found
his amusement in his duty, and a boat was taken from the dock to save
half a mile of easy marching. It stood empty and waiting during a lax
minute, while the responsibility of guarding was shifted; but perhaps
being carelessly beached, though there was no tide on the strait, it
drifted away.
Marianson, who had helped it drift, lay flat on the bottom and heard the
rueful oaths of her enemies, forced to march back to the post. There
was no sail. She steered by a trailing oar until lighted distillery and
black cliff receded and it was safe for her to fix her sculls and row with
all her might.
She was so tired her heart physically ached when she slipped through
dawn to a landing opposite the cave. There would be no more
yesterdays, and there would be no time for farewells. The wash which
drove her roughly to mooring drove with her the fact that she did not
know even the name of the man she was about to give up.

Marianson turned and looked at the water he must venture upon,
without a sail to help him. It was not all uncovered from the night, but a
long purple current ran out, as if God had made a sudden amethyst
bridge across the blue strait.
Reluctant as she was to call him from the cave, she dared not delay.
The breath of the virgin woods was overpoweringly sweet. Her hair
clung to her forehead in moist rings, and her cheeks were pallid and
wet with mist which rose and rose on all sides like clouds in a holy
picture.
He was asleep.
She crouched down on cold hands and saw that. He had waited in the
cave as he promised, and had fallen asleep. His back was towards her.
Instead of lying at ease, his body was flexed. Her enlarging pupils
caught a stain of red on the bear-skin, then the scarlet tonsure on his
crown. He was asleep, but the Sioux had been there.
The low song of wind along that wooded ridge, and the roar of dashing
lake water, repeated their monotone hour after hour. It proved as fair a
day as the island had ever seen, and when it was nearly spent,
Marianson Bruelle still sat on the cave floor holding the dead boy in
her arms. Heart-uprooting was a numbness, like rapture. At least he
could not leave her. She had his kiss, his love. She had his body, to
hide in a grave as secret as a flower's. The curé could some time bless it,
but the English who had slain him should never know it. As she held
him to her breast, so the sweet processes of the woods should hold him,
and make him part of the island.