Alice of Old Vincennes. Maurice Thompson

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      "That sounds better, Monsieur Rene de Ronville much better; you will be as polite as Father Beret after a little more training."

      She slipped past him while speaking and made her way back again to the main room, whence she called to him:

      "Come here, I've something to show you."

      He obeyed, a sheepish trace on his countenance betraying his self-consciousness.

      When he came near Alice she was taking from its buckhorn hook on the wall a rapier, one of a beautiful pair hanging side by side.

      "Papa Roussillon gave me these," she said with great animation. "He bought them of an Indian who had kept them a long time; where he came across them he would not tell; but look how beautiful! Did you ever see anything so fine?"

      Guard and hilt were of silver; the blade, although somewhat corroded, still showed the fine wavy lines of Damascus steel and traces of delicate engraving, while in the end of the hilt was set a large oval turquoise.

      "A very queer present to give a girl," said Rene; "what can you do with them?"

      A captivating flash of playfulness came into her face and she sprang backward, giving the sword a semicircular turn with her wrist. The blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close, very close to Rene's nose. He jerked his head and flung up his hand.

      She laughed merrily, standing beautifully poised before him, the rapier's point slightly elevated. Her short skirt left her feet and ankles free to show their graceful proportions and the perfect pose in which they held her supple body.

      "You see what I can do with the colechemarde, eh, Monsieur Rene de Ronville!" she exclaimed, giving him a smile which fairly blinded him. "Notice how very near to your neck I can thrust and yet not touch it. Now!"

      She darted the keen point under his chin and drew it away so quickly that the stroke was like a glint of sunlight.

      "What do you think of that as a nice and accurate piece of skill?"

      She again resumed her pose, the right foot advanced, the left arm well back, her lissome, finely developed body leaning slightly forward.

      Rene's hands were up before his face in a defensive position, palms outward.

      Just then a chorus of men's voices sounded in the distance. The river house was beginning its carousal with a song. Alice let fall her sword's point and listened.

      Rene looked about for his cap.

      "I must be going," he said.

      Another and louder swish of the rapier made him pirouette and dodge again with great energy.

      "Don't," he cried, "that's dangerous; you'll put out my eyes; I never saw such a girl!"

      She laughed at him and kept on whipping the air dangerously near his eyes, until she had driven him backward as far as he could squeeze himself into a comer of the room.

      Madame Roussillon came to the door from the kitchen and stood looking in and laughing, with her hands on her hips. By this time the rapier was making a criss-cross pattern of flashing lines close to the young man's head while Alice, in the enjoyment of her exercise, seemed to concentrate all the glowing rays of her beauty in her face, her eyes dancing merrily.

      "Quit, now, Alice," he begged, half in fun and half in abject fear; "please quit—I surrender!"

      She thrust to the wall on either side of him, then springing lightly backward a pace, stood at guard. Her thick yellow hair had fallen over her neck and shoulders in a loose wavy mass, out of which her face beamed with a bewitching effect upon her captive.

      Rene, glad enough to have a cessation of his peril, stood laughing dryly; but the singing down at the river house was swelling louder and he made another movement to go.

      "You surrendered, you remember," cried Alice, renewing the sword-play; "sit down on the chair there and make yourself comfortable. You are not going down yonder to-night; you are going to stay here and talk with me and Mother Roussillon; we are lonesome and you are good company."

      A shot rang out keen and clear; there was a sudden tumult that broke up the distant singing; and presently more firing at varying intervals cut the night air from the direction of the river.

      Jean, the hunchback, came in to say that there was a row of some sort; he had seen men running across the common as if in pursuit of a fugitive; but the moonlight was so dim that he could not be sure what it all meant.

      Rene picked up his cap and bolted out of the house.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

THE RAPE OF THE DEMIJOHN

       Table of Contents

      The row down at the river house was more noise than fight, so far as results seemed to indicate. It was all about a small dame jeanne of fine brandy, which an Indian by the name of Long-Hair had seized and run off with at the height of the carousal. He must have been soberer than his pursuers, or naturally fleeter; for not one of them could catch him, or even keep long in sight of him. Some pistols were emptied while the race was on, and two or three of the men swore roundly to having seen Long-Hair jump sidewise and stagger, as if one of the shots had taken effect. But, although the moon was shining, he someway disappeared, they could not understand just how, far down beside the river below the fort and the church.

      It was not a very uncommon thing for an Indian to steal what he wanted, and in most cases light punishment followed conviction; but it was felt to be a capital offense for an Indian or anybody else to rape a demijohn of fine brandy, especially one sent as a present, by a friend in New Orleans, to Lieutenant Governor Abbott, who had until recently been the commandant of the post. Every man at the river house recognized and resented the enormity of Long-Hair's crime and each was, for the moment, ready to be his judge and his executioner. He had broken at once every rule of frontier etiquette and every bond of sympathy. Nor was Long-Hair ignorant of the danger involved in his daring enterprise. He had beforehand carefully and stolidly weighed all the conditions, and true to his Indian nature, had concluded that a little wicker covered bottle of brandy was well worth the risk of his life. So he had put himself in condition for a great race by slipping out and getting rid of his weapons and all surplus weight of clothes.

      This incident brought the drinking bout at the river house to a sudden end; but nothing further came of it that night, and no record of it would be found in these pages, but for the fact that Long-Hair afterwards became an important character in the stirring historical drama which had old Vincennes for its center of energy.

      Rene de Ronville probably felt himself in bad luck when he arrived at the river house just too late to share in the liquor or to join in chasing the bold thief. He listened with interest, however, to the story of Long-Hair's capture of the commandant's demijohn and could not refrain from saying that if he had been present there would have been a quite different result.

      "I would have shot him СКАЧАТЬ