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There was irritation in the tone with which the regent uttered this protest, yet he continued. "Monsieur L'as, 'tis but a little surprise I had planned for you. Mademoiselle, my princess of the Messasebe, let me present Monsieur Jean L'as, king of the Messasebe, and hence your sovereign!
"The West is calling to us, Monsieur," said Pierre Noir one morning, as he stood looking out across the river. "I hear once more the spirits of the Messasebe. Monsieur, will you come?" Law shook his head. Yet two days later, as he stood at that very point, there came to him the silent feet of two coureurs instead of one. Once more he heard in his ear the question: "Monsieur L'as, will you come?"
The Messasebe, that noble stream, it hath swept its purifying flood throughout the world! Look you, at this moment there is tumbling this house which we have built of bubbles, one bubble upon another, blowing each bubble bigger and thinner than the last. Mine is not the only fault, nor yet the greatest fault. I was sincere, where others cared naught for sincerity.
There, rippling and rolling under the breeze, as though itself the arm of some great sea, they saw a majestic flood, whose real nature and whose name each man there knew on the instant and instinctively. "Messasebe! Messasebe!" broke out the voices of the paddlers. "Stop the paddles!" cried Du Mesne. "Voil
New France herself, sitting ever on the edge of an icy death, with naught but bickerings at Quebec and naught but reluctant compliance from Paris what hath she to hope? I tell ye, gentlemen, 'tis beyond, in the land of the Messasebe, where I shall for my part seek out my home; and no man shall set iron on my soul again." He spoke bitterly.
But when the sport of the floods begins, and the currents are reversed, and the streams hurry down with cross tributes from the hills, and the wild waters have forgotten all control then is when Messasebe the Mighty grasps and clutches with his wide fingers, and exults as of old in his wilderness!
Along the edge of this lower land there ran low earthen fences made by the white man, who had laid claim upon the kingdom of the Father of the Floods vainly-builded fences of earth, hopelessly seeking to hedge out the imperious flow of Messasebe, the ancient, the enduring. Father Messasebe, seeing these things, called back to the following legions of his children that here was time for sport.
There, near the edge of the cleared space whose surface showed even now the prints of many feet, he saw a long, low house of logs. It was as he had seen it years ago! It was now, as then, the temple of the tribesmen. Around it now swept, open and uncontrollable, Father Messasebe, building anew his wilderness. The white men had spared this temple.
"Oh, as to that 'twould be but the old story of the voyageurs," said Joncaire. "They are used enough to journeying a thousand miles or so, to find the trail end in a heap of ashes, and to the tune of a scalp dance. Fear not for your lieutenant, for, believe me, he has fended for himself if there has been need. Yet I would warrant you, now that this word for the peace has gone out, we shall see your friend Du Mesne as big as life at the Mountain next summer, knowing as much of your history as you yourself do, and quite counting upon meeting you with us on the St. Lawrence, and madame as well. As to that, methinks madame will be better with us on the St. Lawrence than on the savage Messasebe. We have none too many dames among us, and I need not state, what monsieur's eyes have told him every morning that a fairer never set foot from ship from over seas. Witness my lieutenant yonder, Raoul de Ligny! He is thus soon all devotion! Mother of God! but we are well met here, in this wilderness, among the savages. Voil
Even Calvin Blount, little used as he was to searching beneath the surface, knew that Eddring had ceased to give the railroad a thought. Blount looked at him keenly. In the northern pine-lands Father Messasebe murmured to himself, whispering among his rush-environed shores. "You have taken from me my own," murmured Father Messasebe. "You have swept away my children.
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