HOW CAPTAIN PAMPHILE TRAVELLED UP THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER FOR FIVE DAYS, AND MADE GOOD HIS ESCAPE FROM BLACK SNAKE TOWARDS THE END OF THE SIXTH DAY
Captain Pamphile had, as we have seen, adapted himself to circumstances with more promptitude and resignation than might have been expected of a man of so violent and overbearing a disposition. It was because, thanks to the many different situations in which he had been thrown during the course of a very stormy life, of which we have only shown the reader the successful side, he had fallen into the habit of taking immediate and decided resolutions. Moreover, as we have said, he had quickly seen that his was the weaker side, and he at once drew, from an ancient spring of philosophy which he held in reserve for similar occasions, an appearance of resignation which duped Black Snake, clever as that noble savage was.
It must be confessed, too, that Captain Pamphile, being devoted as he was to the great art of navigation, was not devoid of a certain sense of pleasure in watching the degree of perfection to which its practice had been brought among the natives of Upper Canada.
The timbers of the canoe, in which Captain Pamphile was the sixth hand, were constructed of a strong elastic wood covered by strips of birch-bark sewn together and the seams covered with a thick coating of pitch. Within she was lined by very thin planks of pine placed one joint above another like the tiles on a roof.
Our connoisseur, then, was impartial enough to render justice to the builders of the vessel in which he was being carried, much against his will, from the north to the south; he had given only one sign, but that indicated the opinion, of the master, of his satisfaction with the light build of the canoe. In fact, this lightness gave it two great advantages. The first was that, given an equal number of rowers, it could beat easily by a considerable distance in five minutes the best English-built racing craft, and the second, peculiar to the locality, was that it could be readily lifted on shore and carried without difficulty by a couple of men, when the rapids which “were scattered about the river forced the crew to take to the banks, sometimes for the distance of two or three leagues. It is true that there was one drawback to these two advantages; a single false movement caused it to turn bottom upwards in a moment. But this mattered little to men who, like the Canadian Indians, live as much on the water, as on the land; as for Captain Pamphile, we know he belonged to the family of the seals, otters, and other amphibious animals. At the close of the first day of inland navigation, the boat was brought to in a little inlet on the right bank; the crew drew her up at once on land, and prepared to pass the night on the soil of New Brunswick. The Black Snake was so pleased with the intelligence and docility shown by his new servant during the forty-eight hours they had passed together that, after leaving over for him, as on the previous evening, a goodly portion of his supper, he gave him a buffalo hide, on which there still remained some hair, to serve for a mattress. As to bed clothes, the Captain was obliged to do without any. Moreover, as our readers will recollect if they have good memories, his only garment was the beaver’s skin which depended from his hips half-way down his legs; so it is not surprising that the worthy merchant skipper, accustomed to the temperature of Senegambia and the Congo, passed the whole night shifting his beaver’s skin from place to place, so as to warm the different parts of his body in succession. Nevertheless, as there is a good side to everything, his insomnia gave him the opportunity of 4
Il observing that his companions were extremely distrustful of him; at each movement of his, however slight it was, a head would be raised and two eyes, glowing like those of a wolf through the gloom, would be fixed upon him. Captain Pamphile saw that he was closely watched, and consequently he himself became doubly prudent.
The next day, the boatmen started before it was light. They were still in the estuary of the river, where it is broad enough to be like a lake running into the sea. There was then nothing to interfere with their progress, the current being all but imperceptible, and the wind, whether fair or ahead, making little difference to the light canoe. On each side the landscape spread before the eye like a boundless plain, losing itself in the blue horizon, with here and there houses appearing as white spots. Now and again, in the hazy depths which the eye failed to pierce, there was to be seen the snowy peak of some mountain belonging to the range which stretches from Cape Gaspé to the source of the Ohio; but the distance was so great that it was scarcely possible to tell whether the fading apparition belonged to the sky or earth. The day passed by in the midst of these scenes, to which Captain Pamphile seemed to give constant attention and profound admiration. Still this twofold sentiment, strong as it appeared to be, never caused him to forget for a moment his duty as a sailor. So Black Snake, flattered both by his good taste and by his good work, gave him, while they were taking a rest, a pipe ready filled. This favour was the better appreciated by the Captain in that, from the time when Double-Bouche had relit his short clay, after he had let it go out during the mutiny, he had been obliged to forgo the luxury of a smoke. So he bowed at once and said, “The Black Snake is a great chief,” a compliment to which Black Snake responded by saying, “Captain Pamphile is a faithful servant.”
This ended the conversation, and each began to smoke.
In the evening they landed on an island; the ceremony of supper was gone through, as usual, much to the general satisfaction. The previous night made Captain Pamphile somewhat anxious as to how he was to bear the cold, which, of course, is more intense on an island nearly level with the water than on the wooded mainland. But on unrolling his buffalo-hide he found a woollen blanket inside. Decidedly, Black Snake was not a bad sort of master, and if Captain Pamphile had not already formed some plans for the future, he might have stayed on in his service. But, however pleasant he found it to lie between his blanket and buffalo robe on an island in the River St. Lawrence, he still had the weakness to prefer his berth on board the good ship “Roxelane.” Still, however inferior his temporary couch might be, the Captain slept without waking until daybreak.
About eleven o’clock on the third day Quebec hove in sight. Captain Pamphile had some hopes that Black Snake would put in at that town; thus, directly he saw the town, he set to work with such vigour at rowing that he gained extra consideration from the great chief, and that he failed to pay as much attention to the Falls of Montmorency as the sight deserved. But he was mistaken in his conjectures. The boat passed by the harbour, doubled Diamond Cape, and went on till they landed opposite the Falls of La Chaudière.
As it was still daylight, Captain Pamphile had time to admire this magnificent cascade, which falls from a height of one hundred and fifty feet, with a breadth of two hundred and sixty, spreading out like a sheet of snow on a carpet of verdure and running between banks wooded nearly to the edge, while from the forest here and there stand up masses of rock looking like the bald and white foreheads of weather-beaten old men. Supper and night followed as usual.
The next day the boat was launched at daybreak. Notwithstanding his philosophy, Captain Pamphile began to experience some anxiety. He could not help reflecting that the further he penetrated inland, the greater was his distance from Marseilles, and the more difficult became any attempt at escape. Thus he rowed with more negligence than the great chief had ever remarked in him, but he was forgiven in view of his former alacrity. Suddenly his eyes became fixed on the horizon, and his paddle stopped working, and as the sailor who pulled bow to his stroke continued to row, the canoe swung completely round.
“What is the matter?” said Black Snake, getting up from the bottom of the boat where he had been lying, and taking his calumet out of his mouth.
“The matter is,” said Captain Pamphile, pointing to the south, “either I am ignorant of sailor craft, or we are going to have a bit of a gale.”
“And where does my brother see the sign which shows that God has commanded the tempest to ‘Blow and destroy ‘?”
“Egad!” said the Captain, “in that cloud which is coming up black as ink.”
“My brother has the eyes of a mole; what he sees is not a cloud.”
“You are joking,” said Captain Pamphile.
“Black Snake has the eye of an eagle,” said the chief; “let the white man wait, and judge for himself.”
In fact, this cloud advanced with a speed and rush such as Captain Pamphile had never seen in a true cloud, however hard blew the wind which drove it; at the end of three seconds, our worthy mariner, confident as he was of his knowledge, began to feel sundry doubts. At last, before a minute had passed, he saw that he was wrong and Black Snake right. The cloud was nothing but a serried mass of innumerable pigeons taking flight towards the north.
At first the Captain could not believe his eyes. The birds came with so much noise and in such quantities that it seemed impossible for the pigeons of the whole world united to form so dense a body. The sky, which northwards, still retained its azure blue, was entirely covered to the south as far as the eye could see with a grey sheet, the extremities of which were out of sight. Soon the sheet, intercepting the rays of the sun, blotted it out instantaneously, so that one might suppose twilight was falling on the boatmen. In a moment, a kind of advance guard made up of some thousands of the birds passed over with the rapidity of magic; then, almost immediately, the main body followed, and daylight vanished as if the wings of the tempest had been stretched between sky and earth.
Captain Pamphile saw this phenomenon with astonishment bordering on stupor; while the Indians, on the contrary, accustomed to similar sights every five or six years, gave utterance to cries of joy and got ready their arrows to profit by the winged manna which the Lord had sent them. For his part, Black Snake loaded his gun with a deliberation which proved his faith in the size of the living cloud passing over him. Then, when ready, he leisurely raised the gun to his shoulder and. without troubling to take aim, pulled the trigger. As he fired a sort of opening like that of a well appeared, letting in a ray of light, which again disappeared instantaneously; some fifty pigeons, which had come within the circle formed by the shot, fell like rain into and around the canoe. The Indians picked them all up, to the last bird, greatly surprising Captain Pamphile, who saw no reason for this care, seeing that if one or two more shots had been fired, the canoe itself would have caught sufficient to provision the crew without the trouble of turning her to right or left. But, turning round, he saw that the chief had lain down again, placed his weapon at his side, and resumed his calumet.
“Has Black Snake finished his sport already? said Captain Pamphile.
“Black Snake has Silled with one shot as many pigeons as were wanted for his supper and for that of his followers; a Huron is not a white man who destroys to no purpose the creatures of the Great Spirit.”
“Ah!” said Captain Pamphile, half to himself, “that is not badly reasoned, for a savage; but I would not be sorry to see two or three more holes in this feathered canopy above our heads, if it was only to make certain that the sun was still in its proper place.”
“Look and make your mind easy,” answered the chief, stretching out his hand to the south.
In fact, on the southern horizon a golden light began to appear, while in the opposite direction, towards the north, the whole landscape was being plunged into darkness; then the head of the column must at least have reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Thus they had obviously covered in a quarter of an hour the distance the boat had just taken four whole days to accomplish. Above, the grey cloth continued to skim over, as if the genii of the Pole were dragging it to them, while the daylight, swift in its turn as had been the darkness, came on at a rapid rate, descending in waves on the mountains, streaming down the valleys and spreading in broad lakes over the meadows. At last, the flying rearguard passed like a mist over the face of the sun, which, the last veil gone, smiled as before on the earth beneath.
Brave as was Captain Pamphile, and little danger as there was in the phenomenon which he had just witnessed, he had been ill at ease during the time the artificial night reigned. Thus it was with real joy that he welcomed the light, resumed his oar, and began to row, while the rest of Black Snake’s followers plucked the pigeons killed by his gun and by their arrows.
Next day the boat passed Montreal, as it had passed Quebec, Black Snake showing that he had no intention whatever of stopping in the town. Far from this, he made a sign to the rowers which guided them to the right bank of the river. This was the dwelling-place of the tribe of Cochenonegas Indians, and their chief, sitting and smoking on the shore, exchanged a few words with Black Serpent in a language which the Captain could not understand. A quarter of an hour afterwards they came to the first rapids of the river. Instead of trying to pass them by punting up with the poles kept in the bottom of the canoe, Black Snake ordered the crew to land, and sprang out himself, followed by Captain Pamphile. The boatmen put the canoe on their shoulders, the crew formed themselves into a caravan, and instead of laboriously pushing their bark up the rushing river, they quietly marched along its bank. In a couple of hours the rapids were past, the canoe was afloat once more, and flying over the surface of the stream.
They had been travelling for about three hours when Captain Pamphile was aroused from his reflections by a joyful cry which came from all except the chief. This exclamation was caused by a new sight, almost as singular as that of the previous day, only this time the miracle was performed, not in the air, but on the water. A band of black squirrels were on the move from east to west, just as the pigeons of the day previous had been emigrating from the south to the north, and were passing across the whole width of the St. Lawrence. Doubtless for some days they had been assembled on the bank and waiting for a favourable wind, for as the stream at this point is over four miles broad, good swimmers though these animals are, they could not possibly have crossed without the help which God had just sent them. In fact, a lovely breeze had been blowing for an hour from the mountain, so that the whole flotilla had started on its voyage, each squirrel spreading its tail as a sail, and only making sufficient use of its feet to keep in the right direction.
As the natives were still fonder of squirrel than they were of pigeon, the crew of the canoe at once prepared to hunt the emigrants; the great chief himself even did not seem to despise this form of recreation. So he took a blow tube, and, opening a small box made of birch-bark beautifully worked with strings of elk hide, took out a score of little arrows scarcely two inches long and fine as steel wire, sharply pointed at one end and having the other end bound with thistle down so as exactly to fit the calibre of the tube from which they were to be propelled. Two Indians prepared similar weapons, two others were told off to row, to Captain Pamphile and the fifth Indian was assigned the duty of collecting the slain and with drawing from their bodies the small missiles with which the Indians hoped to compass their destruction. In ten minutes’ time the boat was brought within range and the sport began.
Captain Pamphile was struck dumb with astonishment; never had he seen such skill displayed. At thirty or forty paces the Indians struck the animals they aimed at, generally in the breast, so that in ten minutes’ time the river was covered for a fairly wide circle round the boat with dead and wounded. When about sixty had been stretched on the battlefield, Black Snake, true to his principles, gave a signal to stop the slaughter. He was obeyed by his men with an alacrity which would have done credit to the discipline of a Prussian squadron, and the fugitives who by this time did not disclaim the use of their legs as well as of their tails, scurried to land with all speed, without the Indians making any attempt at pursuit.
In the meanwhile, short as had been the time thus occupied, a storm had crept up without the Indians noticing its approach, and Captain Pamphile was interrupted before he got half through his task by orders to take part in managing the boat; his share was simply to pull at the fourth oar, so as to land, if possible, as Black Snake hoped, before the storm burst. Unfortunately the wind came directly from the shore they wished to reach, and the waves got up so rapidly that they might have thought themselves out in the open sea before they had gone any distance.
To put a climax to their discomfort, night came on, and the stream was only lit up from time to time by the flashes of lightning; the frail craft was tossed about like a nutshell, first on the top of a wave and then down in the trough, so that it seemed as if every moment she must be swamped. Still they were making some progress, and in spite of the darkness the bank could be seen like a black line, when the canoe, darting forward like an arrow from the crest of a wave, came with a crash on a rock and broke up as if made of glass. Then it was each for himself, and all struggled singly to reach dry land. Black Snake was the first to land; instantly he kindled a fire by rubbing two sticks together, so that his companions might be guided so as to rejoin him. This proved a useful precaution, and in ten minutes the whole company — except Captain Pamphile — was assembled in a circle round the great chief.