Chapter VIII. The Chateau of Beaulieu

The Free Rangers

by Joseph A. Altsheler

They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank
and running along for some distance. It was clothed in dense green
forest, and it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low
shores.

"A big city will be built there some day," said the prophetic
Paul.*

[* It is probable that the bluff, indicated by Paul, is the one
on which the present city of Memphis stands.]

"Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?" exclaimed Tom
Ross.

"Why, because it's such a good place. It's a high hill on a
great river so well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich
country behind it."

But Tom Ross shook his head.

"Seems to me, Paul," he said, "that you're bitin' off a lot
more'n you can chaw. Things that are to happen a hundred years from
now ain't never happenin' fur me."

But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.

On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river
began a sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula. It was
just about dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to
run the boat into dense foliage at the margin, where not even the
keenest eye could see it.

"We've got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner," said
Henry, "so I'm thinking, Jim, that you'd better not light the fire on
your bricks tonight."

"All right," replied Jim, "I don't mind restin'. I feel about
ez lazy ez Sol Hyde looks."

But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind. His
was the keenest eye of them all, and just before landing he had
noticed to the southward and on the other side of the peninsula a
faint, dark line against the edge of the sunset. Few, even with an
eye good enough to see it, would have taken it for anything but a
wisp of cloud, but the physical sense of Henry Ware, so acute that it
bordered upon intuition, was not deceived.

"Sol," he said after they had eaten a little, "let's walk across
this neck of land and explore a bit."

"It's a dark night to be traveling," said Paul. But Henry only
laughed. Tom Ross may have had his suspicions, but he did not deem
it worth while to say anything. He knew that Henry and Shif'less Sol
were quite competent to achieve any task that they might be
undertaking.

Henry and Sol strolled carelessly into the bush, but before they
had gone a dozen steps their whole manner changed. Each became eager
and alert.

"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol. "What have you
seed?"

"Smoke! The smoke of a camp fire and it's on the other side of
this neck. I think it's the camp of Alvarez. He must have been
going more slowly than we thought."

"We'll soon find out," said Shif'less Sol, as they advanced. But
the task was not as easy as they had thought. The peninsula was very
low and the greater part of it had been overflowed recently. Their
feet, no matter how lightly they stepped, sank in the mire, and when
they pulled them out again the mud emitted a sticky sigh. An owl
perched in a tree, high above the marsh, began to hoot dismally, and
Shif'less Sol uttered a growl.

"I wish we had the big, dry woods o' Kentucky to go through," he
whispered to Henry. "I am't much o' a mud-crawler."

"But as we haven't got those big, dry woods," Henry whispered
back, "we'll have to crawl, creep, or walk through the mud."

It was about two miles across the neck, and as they went very
slowly for fear of making noise, it took them a full hour to reach
the other side, or to come near enough to see what might be there.
Then they found that Henry's belief, or rather intuition, was
right.

They could see quite well from the dense covert. All the
Spanish boats were tied up at the shore and two or three fires had
been built for the purposes of cooking. The soldiers in their
picturesque costumes lounged about. The hum of conversation and now
and then a laugh arose.

Henry soon marked Francisco Alvarez. The Spanish leader sat on
a little heap of boughs on the highest and dryest spot in the camp,
and all who approached him did so with every sign of respect-if they
spoke it was hat in hand.

The firelight fell in a red blaze across the face of Francisco
Alvarez and revealed every feature in minute detail to the keen eyes
in the covert. It was a thin, haughty face, clear-cut and cruel, but
just now its air was that of satisfaction, as if in the opinion of
Francisco Alvarez all things were going well with his plans. Henry
believed that he could guess his thoughts.

"He thinks that the Spanish are already committed against us and
that he and Braxton Wyatt with a force of Spaniards and the tribes
will yet destroy our settlements in Kentucky."

Thinking of Braxton Wyatt he looked for him and, as he looked,
the renegade came from a point near the shore toward the commander.
It was evident that Wyatt had been faring well. His frontier dress
had been partly replaced with gay Spanish garments. He now wore a
cap with a feather in it, and a velvet doublet. He, too, had a most
complacent look.

Wyatt approached Alvarez and the commander courteously invited
him to a seat on the hillock near him. When he took the seat a
soldier brought the renegade a cup of wine, and he drank, first
lifting the cup toward Alvarez as if he drank a toast to the success
of the alliance. There could be no doubt about the perfect
understanding of the two; and Henry's anger rose. It was impossible
to set a limit on what a ruthless and determined man like Francisco
Alvarez might do.

Wyatt rose presently after a nod to the commander and walked
among the soldiers. He seemed to have no particular object in view
and his strollings brought him near to the edge of the swampy
forest.

"Perhaps he's spying about, and will come into the woods where
we are," whispered Henry. "Maybe he has those maps and plans upon
him, and it would be a great thing to get them. I don't believe he
could make a new set soon."

"It's a risky thing to try," said Shif'less Sol, "but ef he
comes in here, an' you think it the best thing to do, I'm ready to
help."

The two crouched a little lower and remained breathless.
Braxton Wyatt strolled on. He was making a sort of vague inspection
of the camp, but he was really thinking more about the great triumph
that he saw ahead. Since he had turned renegade, leaving his own
white race to join the Indians, a thing that was sometimes done, he
had been stung by many defeats and he wished a great revenge that
would pour oil upon all these wounds.

A bad nature grows worse with failure. Seeking to injure his
former people and failing at every turn, Braxton Wyatt hated them
more and more all the time. His wrath was particularly directed
against the five who had been such great instruments in sending his
careful plans astray. His scheme with the Indian league had failed
chiefly through them, but he felt that he could now come with a
Spanish force that would prove irresistible. That was why he glowed
with internal warmth and pride. The settlements would be destroyed
and he, in fact, would be the destroyer.

Braxton Wyatt entered the edge of the woods, still occupied with
the cruel triumph that was to be his. He did not notice that the
foliage was gradually shutting out the firelight. Presently he saw,
or believed that he saw, a shadowy but terrible figure. It was the
figure of the one whom he dreaded most on earth.

It was but a glimpse of a form, seen through the bushes, but
Wyatt's blood turned cold in every vein. He uttered a half-choked
cry, and running back through the bushes, sprang into the firelight.
Two or three Spanish soldiers looked at him in amazement, but he was
not a coward, and he had pride of a kind. As soon as he leaped back
into the firelight he felt that he had made a fool of himself. Henry
Ware could not have been there - he and his comrades had been left
behind long ago. Coming suddenly out of his thoughts, he had been
deceived in the dark by a bush and imagination had done the rest.
Yes, it was only fancy!

"A rattlesnake! I nearly trod on him," he said in broken Spanish
words that he had picked up, and then walked in as careless a manner
as he could assume toward the mound where Francisco Alvarez sat. But
he could not wholly control himself - the shock had been too great -
and his body yet trembled. He did not know it, but the pallor of his
face showed through the tan, and Alvarez noticed it.

"You have had a fright, Senior Wyatt," he said in his precise,
cold English. "What is it?"

"Not a fright," replied Wyatt in tones that he sought to make
indifferent, "but a start. I nearly trod on a rattlesnake that lay
coiled ready to strike, and I got away just in time. The Spaniard
regarded him with a penetrating look, but the chilly blue eyes
expressed nothing. Yet Francisco Alvarez thought that a bold
woodsman like Braxton Wyatt would not show so much fear after a
harmless passage with any kind of a snake.

"Do you think the five, the party that you said were so much to
be dreaded, are still following us?" he asked presently.

The pallor showed again for a moment through the tan in Braxton
Wyatt's face, but he answered again as carelessly as he could:

"It may be. I hate them, but I do not deny that they are bold
and resourceful. They have a good boat, and they may follow; but
what harm could they do?"

"As I told you, they might go before Bernardo Galvez, our
Governor General at New Orleans, and spoil the pretty plan that you,
and I have formed. Galvez is - as he calls himself - a Liberal. He
would help these rebels and fight England. How can a Spaniard lend
himself to the cause of Republican rebels and injure monarchy?
Cannot he foresee, cannot he look ahead a little and tell what rebel
success means? It would in the end be as great a blow to Spain as to
England. If Kaintock is permitted to grow she will threaten
Louisiana. These men in their buckskins are daring and dangerous and
we must attend to them!"

The Spaniard clenched his hands in anger, and the blue light of
his eyes was singularly cruel.

"Galvez is a fool," he continued. "He is not allowing the
English to trade at New Orleans, but he is giving the American rebels
full chance. He has allowed one, Pollock, Oliver Pollock, to
establish a base there. This Pollock has formed a company of New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston merchants, and they are sending arms
and ammunition in fleets of canoes up the Mississippi and then up the
Ohio to Fort Pitt, where they are unloaded and then taken eastward by
land for the use of the rebels. A fleet of these canoes is to start
about the time we arrive in New Orleans."

"We might meet it," suggested Braxton Wyatt, "and say that it
attacked us."

The Spaniard smiled.

"The idea is not bad," he said, "and it could be done. We could
sink their whole fleet of canoes with the pretty little cannon that
we carry, and we could prove that they began the attack. But I do
not choose to run the risk of compromising myself just yet. There is
a more glorious enterprise afoot. Hark you, Senior Wyatt."

Braxton Wyatt leaned forward and listened attentively. Francisco
Alvarez had drank of wine that evening, and his blood was warm. He,
too, dreamed a great dream.

"You are a man of discretion and you have helped me. I speak to
you as one devoted to my cause. If you should but breathe what I say
to another I would first swear that it was a lie, and then deliver
you to these five gentlemen, former friends of yours who would tear
you in pieces."

Braxton Wyatt shivered again, and the Spaniard, seeing the
shiver, laughed and was convinced.

"Why should I betray you?" said the renegade. "I have no motive
to do so and every possible motive to keep faith."

"I know it," replied Alvarez, "and, that is why I speak. It is
to your interest to be faithful to me and when my enterprise
succeeds, as it certainly will, you shall have your proper share of
the reward. Bernardo Galvez, as you know, is the Governor General of
Louisiana, and his father is the Viceroy of Mexico. They are
powerful, very powerful, and I am only a commander of troops under
the son, but I, too, am powerful. My family is one of the first in
Spain. It sits upon the very steps of the throne and more than once
royal blood has entered our veins. I was a favorite at the court and
I have many friends there. The King might be persuaded that Bernardo
Galvez is not a fit representative of the royal interests in
Louisiana."

Francisco Alvarez leaned a little forward and his blue eyes,
usually so chill, sparkled now with fire. He was speaking of what
lay next to his heart.

Braxton Wyatt, full of shrewdness and perception, understood at
once.

"Bernardo Galvez might give way as Governor General of
Louisiana," said the renegade, "to be succeeded by a better man, one
who had the real interests of Spain at heart, one who would refuse to
give the slightest aid to rebels, rebels who would strike against a
throne!"

The Spaniard looked pleased.

"I see that you are a man of penetration, Senior Wyatt," he
said, "and I am fortunate in having you as a lieutenant. You have
divined my thought. I work, not for the interests of a man whose
name has been mentioned by neither of us, but for the true interests
of Spain and the divine right of kings. What is this miserable
Kaintock which is springing up? We will crush it out as you would
have crushed the rattlesnake! The people of New Orleans and
Louisiana hate rebels! Why should they not? It is the rebels who in
time will take Louisiana from us if they can, not England."

Braxton Wyatt smiled. He was delighted to the very center of
his cunning heart. His plans and those of Alvarez marched well
together. Each strengthened the other.

"I am with you to the end," he said.

"The end will be a glorious triumph," said the Spaniard in
emphatic tones.

Meanwhile Henry and Shif'less Sol still lay in the thicket.
Their project to seize Braxton Wyatt and strip him of the maps and
plans had been defeated.

Henry knew that the renegade had caught a glimpse of him in the
dusk and among the thick bushes and he expected an immediate alarm.
But when Wyatt raised none, he and Sol lingered. They saw the
renegade go to the Spaniard's side on the little mound, and they saw
the two talk long and earnestly, but, of course, they could not
understand a word of what was said.

"They look mighty pleased with one another," whispered Shif'less
Sol, "so it's bound to mean that they're up to the worst sort o'
mischief."

"Yes," replied Henry, "and that mischief is sure to be aimed at
our people."

They waited about a half hour longer and then picked their way
back through the marsh to their own side of the peninsula. It was now
very late and Paul and Jim Hart were sound asleep in the boat, but
Tom Ross was keeping vigilant guard.

"Wuz it them?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Henry. "They're camped on the other side of this
neck, and Braxton Wyatt is still with them. There's big mischief
afoot and we've got to keep on following, waiting our chance, which,
I think, will come."

They did not start until noon the next day, in order to give the
Spaniards a longer lead, and they rounded the neck of land very
slowly lest they run into a trap. But when the river lay straight
before them again they beheld nothing. They passed the point where
the Spaniards had camped and saw the dead coals of their fires, but
they did not stop, continuing instead their steady progress down
stream.

It now grew hot upon the water. They had come many hundreds of
miles since the start, and they were in a warmer climate. The
character of the vegetation was changing. The cypress and the
magnolia became frequent on the banks, and now and then they saw
great, drooping live oaks. The soil seemed to grow softer and the
water was more deeply permeated with mud. Although the flood was
gone, the river spread out in places to a vast width, and even at its
narrowest it was a gigantic stream. Other great, lazy rivers poured
in their volume from east and west. Narrow, doublets, half-hidden in
vegetation, extended from either side. There were bayous, although
the five had not yet heard the name, and many of them swarmed with
fish.

The warm air was heavy and languorous and now Shif'less Sol
confessed.

"I'm gittin' too much o' it, even fur a lazy man," he said.
"'Pears to me I'm always wantin' to sleep. Now, I like about sixteen
hours sleepin' out o' the twenty-four, but when it comes to keep
awake jest long enough to eat three meals a day I'm in favor of
it."

"It must be a rich country, though," said Tom Ross. "No wonder
them Spaniards want to keep it."

That day they passed at some distance three canoes containing
Indians, but the canoes showed no wish to come near and investigate.
Henry said that the Indians in them looked sprawling and dirty,
unlike the alert, clean-limbed natives of the North.

"They probably belong," said Paul, "to the Natchez tribe who
were beaten into submission long ago by the French, and who doubtless
lack energy anyhow."

The Indian canoes went lazily on, and soon were lost to sight.
Now a serious problem arose. They were approaching the settled parts
of Louisiana. It is true, it was only the thinnest fringe of white
people extending along either shore of the river a short distance
above New Orleans, but they were coming to a region in which they
would be noticed, and they might have to explain their presence
before they wished to do so. Nor had they found any opportunity to
capture Braxton Wyatt and his maps and plans. Nevertheless, they
hung so closely on the trail of Alvarez that every night and morning
they could see the smoke of his camp fire.

They stopped one evening in a cove of the river, sheltered by
great mournful cypresses, and Henry and Shif'less Sol went out again
to scrutinize the Spanish camp. They returned before midnight with
unusual news. Alvarez with his whole force had turned from the
Mississippi and had gone up a bayou about four miles. There he had
landed some of his small cannon and stores at a rude wharf, and
showed all the signs of making a stay, but whether short or long they
could not tell.

"Alvarez must have a place, a plantation, I believe they call
it, near here," said Paul intuitively, "and he's going to stop at it.
As he wants to get Spain into a war with us he could plot a lot of
mischief in a house of his own away from New Orleans."

"Of course, that's it," said Henry with conviction. "Now if we
could only capture Braxton Wyatt and then carry off the fellow and
his maps and plans with us, it would be a great stroke. It might
make Alvarez quit his wicked plot."

Henry and Shif'less Sol slept briefly, and rising before
daylight, went forth to investigate again. When they arrived at the
edge of the bayou, they saw that the work of removal had been resumed
already. All the boats had been tied up securely, and a mongrel lot
of new men had joined the Spanish force, shiftless and half-civilized
Houma and Natchez Indians, coal black negroes, some from the West
Indies and some from Africa, Acadians, and fierce-looking adventurers
from Europe. Most of them seemed to be laborers, however, and they
worked with the arms and baggage taken from the boats. Among these
laborers were several stalwart negro women with blazing red
handkerchiefs tied around their heads.

Alvarez came off one of the boats, followed by Braxton Wyatt.
The Spanish commander had attired himself with great care, and he was
a really splendid figure in his glittering uniform and plumed hat.
His gold-hilted small sword swung by his side. He bore himself as a
lord proprietor, and in fact he was such at this moment. He was
about to go, surrounded by his retainers, to his own house on a huge
grant of land made to him by the Spanish King-Spanish kings granted
lands very freely in America to favorites, and the relatives of
favorites.

Braxton Wyatt also showed pride. Was he not the most trusted
friend of an able man who was dreaming a great dream, a dream that
would come true? The last remnants of his border attire had
disappeared and he, too, was dressed wholly as a Spanish officer,
though by no means so splendidly as his chief. Alvarez addressed a
few words to a man in civilian attire, evidently his overseer, a
dark, heavy West India Spaniard who carried a pistol in his sash, and
then advanced through the rabble, which quickly fell back on either
side to let him pass.

Horses were in waiting for Alvarez, Wyatt, and several others,
and mounting, they rode off. Henry and Shif'less Sol watching from
the bush as well as they could, and following. The way of the
officers led through a great plantation but partially redeemed from
the ancient forest. Cane and grain fields were on either side of the
path, and presently they approached a large house of only one story,
built of wood, and surrounded by a wide veranda supported with posts
at regular intervals. This house was built around a court in the
center of which was a clear pool. Henry and the shiftless one saw
Alvarez and his company dismount and enter the house. They noticed
others who approached on foot, but who did not enter, obviously men
who did not dare to enter unless asked. Among them was a thin,
middle-aged Natchez Indian, whose extraordinary, feline face had won
for him the name of The Cat. Henry particularly observed this man,
whose manner was in accordance with his appearance and name. Like
those they had seen in the canoes he had a hangdog, shiftless look,
different from the bold warrior of the more northerly forests.

The two did not remain long. So many people were about that
they were likely to be seen, and they returned through the forest to
the cypress cove in which "The Galleon" lay hidden. Here, it was
agreed that they should go forth later in the day on another tour of
inspection, re-inforced by Tom Ross, while Long Jim and Paul should
remain to guard the boat and their precious stores.

When the three had gone, Long Jim sat on the edge of the boat
and looked around at the sluggish waters of the bayou, the sad
cypresses, and the drooping live oaks. An ugly water snake twined
its slimy length just within the edge of the bayou, and the odor of
the still forest about them was heavy and oppressive.

Long Jim took a long, comprehensive look, and then heaved a deep
sigh.

"What's the matter?" asked Paul.

"I don't think the country and the climate agree with me,"
replied Long Jim lugubriously. "I wuz never so fur south afore, an'
I'm a delicate plant, I am. I need the snow and the north wind to
keep me fresh an' bloomin'. All this gits on me. My lungs don't
feel clean. I'm longin' fur them big, fine woods up in our country,
whar you may run agin a b'ar, but whar you ain't likely to step on a
snake a fore you see it."

"Give me the temperate climate, too," said Paul, "but we've come
on a great errand, Jim, and we've come a long way. It's good, too,
to see new things."

"So it is, but I don't like to set here waitin' in this swamp.
Think I'll stretch my legs a little on the bank thar, ef it's firm
enough to hold me up, though I do have an abidin' distrust uv most uv
the land hereabouts."

Jim leaped upon the bank which upheld him, and stretched his
long legs with obvious relief.

"A boat's mighty easy," he said, "but now an' then walkin's
good."

He strode up and down two or three times and then he stopped.
He had heard a sound, faint, it is true, but enough to arrest the
attention of Long Jim. Then he went on with a look of disgust. It
was surely one of those snakes again!

He was about to pass a great cypress when a pair of long, brown
arms reached out and grasped him by the throat. Long Jim was a
strong man and, despite his early advantage, it would have gone hard
with the owner of the arms, none other than The Cat himself, but
three or four men, springing from the covert, threw themselves upon
him.

Paul heard the first sounds of the contest and sprang up. He
saw Long Jim struggling in the grasp of many hands, and snatching at
the first weapon that lay near, he sprang to the bank, rushing to the
assistance of his comrade.

A shout of derisive laughter greeted Paul. Long Jim had been
thrown down and held fast and the lad was confronted by none other
than Alvarez himself, while Braxton Wyatt, smiling in malignant
triumph, stood just behind him.

"Well, my young man of Kaintock," said Francisco Alvarez in his
precise English, "we have taken you and at least one of your brother
thieves. In good time we'll have the others, too. It was an evil
day when you ventured on my plantation so near such a wonderful
tracker as The Cat. Why, he detected them instinctively when your
comrades ventured near us!"

The eyes of the stooping Natchez Indian flashed at the
compliment but, in a moment, he resumed his immobility. All the
blood rushed to Paul's face, and he could not contain his anger.

"Thief! how dare you call me a thief!" he said.

"This is my boat before me," replied Alvarez. "You stole it."

"Not so," replied Paul. "We captured it. You seized and held me
a prisoner when I came to your camp on a friendly mission, and we
took it in fair reprisal and for a good purpose. Moreover, you are
plotting with that vile renegade there to destroy our people in
Kentucky!"

"You are a thief," repeated Francisco Alvarez calmly, "you stole
my boat. Why, the very sword that you hold in your hand is mine,
stolen from me."

Paul glanced down. In his haste and excitement he had snatched
up one of the beautiful small swords when he leaped from the boat,
but he had been unconscious of it. He was yet free and he held a
sword in his hand. One of the men who was holding Jim Hart suddenly
kicked him to make him keep quiet, and Paul's wrath blazed up under
the double incentive of the blow and the sneering face of Francisco
Alvarez.

The lad rushed forward, sword in hand, and one of the soldiers
raised his musket. Alvarez pushed the weapon down.

"Since this young rebel wants to fight, and has a stolen sword
of mine in his hand," he said, "he can fight with me. I will give
him that honor."

So speaking Alvarez drew his own sword and held up the blade to
the light until it glittered. A shout of approval arose from the
soldiers, but Long Jim cried out:

"It ain't fair! It ain't right to take one uv your kind uv
weepin's an' attack him! 'It's murder! Let me loose an' I'll fight
you with rifles."

"Have you got that ruffian securely bound? " asked Alvarez.

"Yes," replied one of his men.

"Then I'll teach this youth a lesson, as I said."

Paul had stopped in his rush, and suddenly he became cool and
collected.

"Don't you be afraid for me, Jim," he said. " I can take care of
myself, and I'll fight him."

Alvarez laughed derisively and the others echoed the laugh of
their master, but Paul held up his own sword, also, until it
glittered in the light. Every nerve and muscle became taut, and the
blood went back from his brain, leaving it cool and clear.

"Come on," he said to Alvarez. "I'm ready." They stood in a
level glade, and the two faced each other, the sunshine lighting up
all the area enclosed by the cypresses. Around them stood Braxton
Wyatt and the followers of Alvarez.