The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Old QuebecTrevena, John
History
The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Old Quebec
Trevena, John
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France) -- Fiction
La Salle awoke with a shudder. That figure seemed to be upon him,
bending, holding him down with the hands of Briareus. Casting off the
terrible sleep, he started upright. A face was indeed over him, and
arms were dragging at his shoulders. The wind-tossed grove cleared,
with its fire glowing, and sparks flickering like a thousand eyes, and
the sleeper awakened recognised Onawa, who was summoning him to action
in her unknown tongue.
"Perdition!" he muttered. "The witch haunts me like an old sin."
Onawa went on pleading, pointing wildly at intervals down the wind.
"You shall lead me into no more death-traps!" the priest cried.
The frightened girl brought a knife from her side, and made as though
she would stab him. Then she pointed again, and, falling to her knees,
indicated her own tracks.
La Salle peered along the glow of the fire and beyond where the sparks
were beaten back, then rose and approached the palisading, Onawa
clinging to him like a shadow. There was no danger there. He advanced
to the wattled door, prepared to receive an attack. When there came no
response to his unspoken challenge he turned back, and Onawa again
pointed along the way she had come.
"Would to God I had spared that child! His face is there!" the priest
shivered.
"Tuschota!" cried the girl. She touched the ground, reading him with
her eyes.
A smothered cry broke from the lips of the priest. Onawa followed his
gaze, which went, not along the trail, nor into the fire-lit grove, but
above where the eastern sky had almost cleared of drift.
"A portent!" moaned the priest. "'Tis the end of the world, and I am
found with the sword drawn in my hand."
There was war in heaven. Across the plane of eastern sky hung a wild
picture of forest and rockland where pigmy men rushed together without
shock, where spectral weapons fell silently, and shadowy smoke burst
and rose. Tiny figures climbed a cliff, and similar grotesques fought
on high and pressed them back. The combatants appeared ant-like and
ridiculous objects as they swayed reflected upon the floor of heaven.
Onawa watched the spectacle unmoved. She had witnessed the mirage
before, and by this present vision merely understood that an attack
upon the citadel was even then in progress. As the weird picture broke
up and scud came flying across a faint grey sky, she prayed in her
treacherous heart that the French might win.
La Salle rose with some shame when he perceived that the sky had
resumed its normal aspect, and light at length dawned upon him as he
sighted a shadowy being stealing within the radius of the fire.
"Tuschota!" warned the voice at his side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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