The Star Woman

Crawford snuffed the candle on the table beside him, turned the page of his book, and went on reading; he felt the loneliness of Pentagoet. In the wide hearth crackled a new-laid fire. Outside, the trees groaned frostily, snapping in the night wind.

The room showed an amazing mixture of civilized culture and savage magnificence. Candle-tray and snuffers were of chased silver, beside the wine bottle on the table was a heavy gold chalice, above the fireplace hung crossed Toledo blades, and books shone brown in a corner case. The light flickered on a careless pile of beaver and elk-skins in one corner. Other skins strewed the walls, mingled with belts and “arms” of wampum or beadwork. A rack on the mantel held several pipes, all of Indian make; one was a large calumet of white stone girded with silver, a pipe heavy with fate not yet fulfilled, and affecting lives of men. A tomahawk on the mantel had a string of black wampum about the handle, several dried scalps woven in among the wampum shells.

So much for the room. The man presented that same singular combination of savagery and refinement. His face was long and thinly chiselled, his eyes wide and heavy-lidded, his mouth large, humorous, dangerous. He was of medium height; in the firelight his hair shone reddish, and lines of hardship touched his face with stern self-mastery. A beaver coat wrapped him to the waist. Against stiff buckskin nether garments stood out a sheathed knife and a slender, deadly tomahawk; beaded ceremonial moccasins, far too large for him, encased his feet. Before the blazing fire were drying his own moccasins, stuffed out with rags, still steaming as if soaked with wet snow or water. His hands, resting on book and table, were large and powerful, the wrists showing half-healed scars of manacles.

Crawford put out a hand to the pipe beside him, filled it with kinnikinnick from the bag, held it above the candle. He relaxed again in his chair, puffing, but his eyes went to the door and then he took the pipe from his mouth, listening. Those eyes of his were startling in their alertness--light-blue eyes that fairly stabbed. His wide lips smiled, as if at his own alarm.

“The shore ice grinding, that’s all,” he murmured. “Folly to feel nervous here! I wish that Micmac rascal would bring the cold pasty he promised me. Wine on a stomach that has seen no food in two days is a hollow mockery.”

Rising, Crawford crossed to the door and swung it open.

He stood for a moment on the threshold, staring out at the night. Stars blazed in the dark sky. A dozen feet outside the house ran the black line of a palisade, broken by an open gate directly in front of the doorway. From where he stood, Crawford could see the abandoned lines of old Fort Pentagoet to one side, and beyond this the long white line of the ice-rimmed shore; Penobscot Bay was not frozen over, and the dark swishing of waves mingled with the creaky whine of trees and the grind of ice.

“A lonely place for a baron of France!” said Crawford, puffing at his pipe. “Yet I wish he were here, with his Indian wives and his henchmen. Fiend take this solitude! I’ve had enough of it. Why couldn’t he leave more than one solitary Micmac on the place?”

He shivered, turned, closed the door, and went back to his chair. He took his book and opened it--then his head lifted and he looked again at the door. He caught a new sound, the scrape of a stiff moccasin, a low groan, the fumble of stiff fingers at the latch. The door swung open.

Into the room came an Indian, wrapped in furs, holding in both hands a great silver dish. He advanced a step into the room, kicked the door shut, stood motionless. While Crawford stared at him, a frightful expression of horror leaped across his brown face--then the dish fell from his hands, he pitched forward, lay outstretched. The long shagreen handle of a knife stood out from between his shoulder-blades. The knife must have caught him an instant before he opened the door.

Crawford sat motionless. For a long instant the thing seemed incredible, uncanny, supernatural. He knew that except for this Micmac and himself, the establishment of Baron de Saint-Castin at the head of Penobscot Bay was temporarily deserted. No war-parties were afoot hereabouts; the year 1697 had opened with peace to Acadia, at least. Crawford had just come overland from Boston and knew that all was quiet.

Then, abruptly, before Crawford could move, the door was again flung open and a man stood framed against the night, pistol in hand. He grinned at Crawford--a great figure whose clothes were white with ice-rime and snow, his bearded face massive, brutal.

“Not a move, Saint-Castin!” rang out his voice.

Crawford smiled.

“Oh! I thought you were Saint-Castin!” he said.

The other started.

“Eh? What’s this? No one about----”

“Come in and shut the door!” said Crawford, and laid down his book. “I’m cursed glad of company. The baron is away, with all his people--gone to visit his father-in-law, Madockawando. Up the Penobscot, I suppose. Where the devil did you come from?”

“From the devil,” said the other, and laughed.

Then he whistled shrilly. Two other men joined him. All three advanced into the room, closed the door, stood staring over pistols at the seated figure of Crawford, whose calm attitude puzzled them.

From outside came a shout, then a burst of voices, the stamp of running feet, a sudden flicker of torches. Surveying his visitors, Crawford perceived that the first was obviously in command--his dominant air was beyond mistake. The second man was a burly ruffian, brutish, reeking of rum. The third man was tall and thin, saturnine, hawk-nosed, with a certain air of down-at-heel gentility; his darting black eyes were very intelligent.

“This is not the baron,” said this last rogue, blinking at Crawford. “Not our man at all, cap’n!”

“Correct,” said Crawford amiably. “If one of you gentlemen will set that venison pasty on the table, I’d be obliged. I reached here half an hour ago, have not eaten for two days, and am more interested in the venison than in you. If you want the baron, go up the Penobscot and look for him.”

“Cool one!” observed the massive leader, and suddenly laughed. “We’ve lost the quarry, lads! Saint-Castin’s away with all his people. Bose, go out and take charge of the looting. Have everything taken to the boats; no eating or drinking until the men are aboard. When you’ve had your fill, come ashore with one boat and join us here. No one is to loot this part of the establishment until I’m ready. Frontin and I will join our friend here over the pasty--if he hasn’t eaten for two days, we’ve not eaten for three. Go!”

The burly ruffian departed. The saturnine man stooped to the pasty and lifted it to the table, shoving aside the body of the Micmac. The commander, thrusting away his pistol, stepped forward to Crawford and grinned widely.

“Well! Your name?”

“Harry Crawford, at your service.”

The two men stopped dead still, staring at him. Crawford, faintly amused, smiled.

“Why, zounds!” broke out the leader. “Hal Crawford, the pirate! Two hundred pound on his head in Boston!”

“This is not Boston,” said Crawford, though his eyes narrowed. “Plague take you, stare! I’m for the pasty.”

He whipped out his knife and attacked the contents of the battered silver dish. The two men exchanged a glance, then without more ado pulled forward a couple of stools and joined in the assault, knives and fingers ravenously at work.

No word was exchanged, but Crawford was by this time perfectly aware of the profession, if not the identity, of his visitors. During the past forty years the whole American coast, even into Hudson Bay, had been swept by pirates; small fry, most of them, fur-pirates, rum pirates, reckless sailormen who would land to sack a town or would lay a ship aboard and count it all in the day’s work. Others followed the freebooting trade more seriously and made of it a profession. Of this latter class, thought Crawford, were the visitors. He had somewhere heard the name of Frontin--and presently placed it.

Within five minutes the pasty, among three famished men, had been scraped to the last crumb, and the bottle of wine was empty. Crawford leaned back, refilled his pipe, and surveyed the other two men with a whimsical air.

“Help yourselves to pipes, gentlemen! This house, as the Spanish say, is yours.”

Frontin, the thin man, grinned in his saturnine way.

“That is well. May I introduce you to my captain, Vanderberg the valiant?”

“The honor is mine,” said Crawford, nodding. “I already recognized Captain Vanderberg. I believe Frontenac has offered five thousand livres for his head? Come, Lieutenant Frontin, you have a chance at fortune! Deliver him to Quebec and me to Boston----”

Vanderberg, who was a jolly rascal of Dutch extraction, bellowed a laugh at this.

“Ho! I like you, Crawford. Finding you here, the baron gone, the house ours for the looting, means our luck has changed. And, damme, we need the change! We were battered by a French corvette, storm-wracked, short of men and shorter of food. We bore up for Boston but were warned off; we had absent-mindedly sacked a Bostonnais off Jamaica, and the good folk had heard of it, so the port was closed to us. We started for New York, but were blown offshore by the gale which has only just abated. So, if Frontin had not known of this place and its chances of loot, food and wine----”

Vanderberg expressively waved one huge paw and went to the fireplace. He took down the white stone calumet. Frontin, his saturnine gaze on Crawford, spoke.