The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

“He put his knee upon my chest: with one bloody hand he seized my long hair and lifted my head from the ground, and as he lifted it, he enabled me to see a French officer rapidly advancing behind him.

“Good God! It was young Florac, who was my second in the duel at Quebec. 'A moi, Florac!' I cried out. 'C'est Georges! aide moi!'

“He started; ran up to me at the cry, laid his hand on the Indian's shoulder, and called him to hold. But the savage did not understand French, or choose to understand it. He clutched my hair firmer, and waving his dripping knife round it, motioned to the French lad to leave him to his prey. I could only cry out again and piteously, 'A moi!'

“'Ah, canaille, tu veux du sang? Prends!' said Florac, with a curse; and the next moment, and with an ugh, the Indian fell over my chest dead, with Florac's sword through his body.

“My friend looked round him. 'Eh!' says he, 'la belle affaire! Where art thou wounded? in the leg?' He bound my leg tight round with his sash. 'The others will kill thee if they find thee here. Ah, tiens! Put me on this coat, and this hat with the white cockade. Call out in French if any of our people pass. They will take thee for one of us. Thou art Brunet of the Quebec Volunteers. God guard thee, Brunet! I must go forward. 'Tis a general debacle, and the whole of your redcoats are on the run, my poor boy.' Ah, what a rout it was! What a day of disgrace for England!

“Florac's rough application stopped the bleeding of my leg, and the kind creature helped me to rest against a tree, and to load my fusil, which he placed within reach of me, to protect me in case any other marauder should have a mind to attack me. And he gave me the gourd of that unlucky French soldier, who had lost his own life in the deadly game which he had just played against me, and the drink the gourd contained served greatly to refresh and invigorate me. Taking a mark of the tree against which I lay, and noting the various bearings of the country, so as to be able again to find me, the young lad hastened on to the front. 'Thou seest how much I love thee, George,' he said, 'that I stay behind in a moment like this.' I forget whether I told thee Harry, that Florac was under some obligation to me. I had won money of him at cards, at Quebec—only playing at his repeated entreaty—and there was a difficulty about paying, and I remitted his debt to me, and lighted my pipe with his note-of-hand. You see, sir, that you are not the only gambler in the family.

“At evening, when the dismal pursuit was over, the faithful fellow came back to me, with a couple of Indians, who had each reeking scalps at their belts, and whom he informed that I was a Frenchman, his brother, who had been wounded early in the day, and must be carried back to the fort. They laid me in one of their blankets, and carried me, groaning, with the trusty Florac by my side. Had he left me, they would assuredly have laid me down, plundered me, and added my hair to that of the wretches whose bleeding spoils hung at their girdles. He promised them brandy at the fort, if they brought me safely there: I have but a dim recollection of the journey: the anguish of my wound was extreme: I fainted more than once. We came to the end of our march at last. I was taken into the fort, and carried to the officer's log-house, and laid upon Florac's own bed.

“Happy for me was my insensibility. I had been brought into the fort as a wounded French soldier of the garrison. I heard afterwards, that during my delirium the few prisoners who had been made on the day of our disaster, had been brought under the walls of Duquesne by their savage captors, and there horribly burned, tortured, and butchered by the Indians, under the eyes of the garrison.”

As George speaks, one may fancy a thrill of horror running through his sympathising audience. Theo takes Hetty's hand, and looks at George in a very alarmed manner. Harry strikes his fist upon the table, and cries, “The bloody, murderous, red-skinned villains! There will never be peace for us until they are all hunted down!”

“They were offering a hundred and thirty dollars apiece for Indian scalps in Pennsylvania, when I left home,” says George, demurely, “and fifty for women.”

“Fifty for women, my love! Do you hear that, Mrs. Lambert?” cries the Colonel, lifting up his wife's hair.

“The murderous villains!” says Harry, again. “Hunt 'em down, sir! Hunt 'em down!”

“I know not how long I lay in my fever,” George resumed. “When I awoke to my senses, my dear Florac was gone. He and his company had been despatched on an enterprise against an English fort on the Pennsylvanian territory, which the French claimed, too. In Duquesne, when I came to be able to ask and understand what was said to me, there were not above thirty Europeans left. The place might have been taken over and over again, had any of our people had the courage to return after their disaster.

“My old enemy the ague-fever set in again upon me as I lay here by the river-side. 'Tis a wonder how I ever survived. But for the goodness of a half-breed woman in the fort, who took pity on me, and tended me, I never should have recovered, and my poor Harry would be what he fancied himself yesterday, our grandfather's heir, our mother's only son.

“I remembered how, when Florac laid me in his bed, he put under my pillow my money, my watch, and a trinket or two which I had. When I woke to myself these were all gone; and a surly old sergeant, the only officer left in the quarter, told me, with a curse, that I was lucky enough to be left with my life at all; that it was only my white cockade and coat had saved me from the fate which the other canaille of Rosbifs had deservedly met with.

“At the time of my recovery the fort was almost emptied of the garrison. The Indians had retired enriched with British plunder, and the chief part of the French regulars were gone upon expeditions northward. My good Florac had left me upon his service, consigning me to the care of an invalided sergeant. Monsieur de Contrecoeur had accompanied one of these expeditions, leaving an old lieutenant, Museau by name, in command at Duquesne.

“This man had long been out of France, and serving in the colonies. His character, doubtless, had been indifferent at home; and he knew that, according to the system pursued in France, where almost all promotion is given to the noblesse, he never would advance in rank. And he had made free with my guineas, I suppose, as he had with my watch, for I saw it one day on his chest when I was sitting with him in his quarter.

“Monsieur Museau and I managed to be pretty good friends. If I could be exchanged, or sent home, I told him that my mother would pay liberally for my ransom; and I suppose this idea excited the cupidity of the commandant, for a trapper coming in the winter, whilst I still lay very ill with fever, Museau consented that I should write home to my mother, but that the letter should be in French, that he should see it, and that I should say I was in the hands of the Indians, and should not be