Prisoners of Chance | Page 4

struck, the Commandant of Marine peered within each lighted apartment where rested five plainly outlined forms. With the first gray of the dawn the unfortunate prisoners were mustered upon deck, but they numbered only four. And four only, white faced, yet firm of step and clear of eye, stood an hour later with backs to the rising sun and hearts to the levelled rifles, and when the single volley had echoed and reechoed across the wide river, the white smoke slowly lifting and blown away above the trees, only four lifeless bodies lay closely pressed against the red-brick wall--the fifth condemned man was not there: _Chevalier Charles de Noyan had escaped his fate_. Like a spirit had he vanished during those mysterious hours between midnight and dawn, leaving no trace of his going save a newly severed rope which hung dangling from a foreyard.
But had he escaped?
That morning--as we learn from private letters sent home by officers of the Spanish fleet--there came to the puzzled O'Reilly a report that in the dense blackness of that starless night a single boat sought to slip silently past beneath the deep shadows of the upper battery. Unhalting in response to a hail of the sentry, a volley was hastily fired toward its uncertain outline, and, in the flare of the guns, the officer of the guard noted the black figure of a man leap high into air, and disappear beneath the dark surface of the river. So it was the Captain-General wrote also the name "Charles de Noyan" with those of the other four, endorsing it with the same terse military record, "Shot at sunrise."
Nor since that fateful hour has the world known otherwise, for, although strange rumors floated down the great river to be whispered about from lip to lip, and New Orleans wondered many a long month whither had vanished the fair young wife, the daughter of Lafrénière, yet no authentic message found its way out of the vast northern wilderness. For nearly one hundred and fifty years history has accepted without question the testimony of the Spanish records. The man who alone could tell the strange story was in old age impelled to do so by a feeling of sacred duty to the dead; and his papers, disarranged, ill-written, already yellowed by years, have fallen to my keeping. I submit them without comment or change, save only as to the subdivision into chapters, with an occasional substitution for some old-time phrase of its more modern equivalent. He who calls himself "Geoffrey Benteen, Gentleman Adventurer," shall tell his own tale.
R. P.

Prisoners of Chance
CHAPTER I
THE REQUEST FOR AID
I am Geoffrey Benteen, Gentleman Adventurer, with much experience upon the border, where I have passed my life. My father was that Robert Benteen, merchant in furs, the first of the English race to make permanent settlement in New Orleans. Here he established a highly profitable trade with the Indians, his bateaux voyaging as far northward as the falls of the Ohio, while his influence among the tribesmen extended to the eastern mountains. My mother was of Spanish blood, a native of Saint Augustine, so I grew up fairly proficient in three languages, and to them I later added an odd medley of tribal tongues which often stood me in excellent stead amid the vicissitudes of the frontier. The early death of my mother compelled me to become companion to my father in his wanderings, so that before I was seventeen the dim forest trails, the sombre rivers, and the dark lodges of savages had grown as familiar to me as were the streets and houses of my native town. Hence it happened, that when my father fell the victim of a treacherous blow, although he left to my care considerable property and a widely scattered trade, I could not easily content myself with the sameness of New Orleans; there I felt almost a stranger, ever hungering for the woods and the free life of the mountains.
Yet I held myself to the work in hand until successful in straightening out the tangled threads, and might have remained engaged in peaceful traffic until the end of life, had it not been for a misunderstanding with her who held my heart in captivity to her slightest whim. It matters little now the cause of the quarrel, or where rested the greater blame; enough that its occurrence drove me forth reckless of everything, desirous only to leave all of my own race, and seek amid savage environment and excitement forgetfulness of the past.
It was in September of the year 1769--just forty-eight years ago as I write--that I found myself once again in New Orleans, feeling almost a stranger to the town, except for the few rough flatboat-men in company with whom I had floated down the great river.