第159章 THE HOUSE ABOVE THE FALLS(3)

``Un homme qui a donne des preuves de son amour pour la Liberte et de sa haine pour le despotisme ne devait pas s'adresser en vain au ministre de la Republique francaise.

General, il est temps que les Americains libres de l'Ouest soient debarasses d'un ennemie aussi injuste que meprisable.''

When I had finished I glanced at the General, but he seemed not to be heeding me.The sun was setting above the ragged line of forest, and a blue veil was spreading over the tumbling waters.He took me by the arm and led me into the house, into a bare room that was all awry.Maps hung on the wall, beside them the General's new commission, rudely framed.Among the littered papers on the table were two whiskey bottles and several glasses, and strewn about were a number of chairs, the arms of which had been whittled by the General's guests.Across the rough mantel-shelf was draped the French tricolor, and before the fireplace on the puncheons lay a huge bearskin which undoubtedly had not been shaken for a year.

Picking up a bottle, the General poured out generous helpings in two of the glasses, and handed one to me.

``The mists are bad, Davy,'' said he ``I--I cannot afford to get the fever now.Let us drink success to the army of the glorious Republic, France.''

``Let us drink first, General,'' I said, ``to the old friendship between us.''

``Good!'' he cried.Tossing off his liquor, he set down the glass and began what seemed a fruitless search among the thousand papers on the table.But at length, with a grunt of satisfaction, he produced a form and held it under my eyes.At the top of the sheet was that much-abused and calumniated lady, the Goddess of Liberty.

``Now,'' he said, drawing up a chair and dipping his quill into an almost depleted ink-pot, ``I have decided to make you, David Ritchie, with full confidence in your ability and loyalty to the rights of liberty and mankind, a captain in the Legion on the Mississippi.

I crossed the room swiftly, and as he put his pen to paper I laid my hand on his arm.

``General, I cannot,'' I said.I had seen from the first the futility of trying to dissuade him from the expedition, and I knew now that it would never come off.I was willing to make almost any sacrifice rather than offend him, but this I could not allow.The General drew himself up in his chair and stared at me with a flash of his old look.

``You cannot?'' he repeated; ``you have affairs to attend to, I take it.''

I tried to speak, but he rode me down.

``There is money to be made in that prosperous town of Louisville.'' He did not understand the pain which his words caused me.He rose and laid his hands affectionately on my shoulders.``Ah, Davy, commerce makes a man timid.Do you forget the old days when I was the father and you the son? Come! I will make you a fortune undreamed of, and you shall be my fianancier once more.''

``I had not thought of the money, General,'' I answered, ``and I have always been ready to leave my business to serve a friend.''

``There, there,'' said the General, soothingly, ``I know it.I would not offend you.You shall have the commission, and you may come when it pleases you.''

He sat down again to write, but I restrained him.

``I cannot go, General,'' I said.

``Thunder and fury,'' cried the General, ``a man might think you were a weak-kneed Federalist.'' He stared at me, and stared again, and rose and recoiled a step.``My God,'' he said, ``you cannot be a Federalist, you can't have marched to Kaskaskia and Vincennes, you can't have been a friend of mine and have seen how the government of the United States has treated me, and be a Federalist!''

It was an argument and an appeal which I had foreseen, yet which I knew not how to answer.Suddenly there came, unbidden, his own counsel which he had given me long ago, ``Serve the people, as all true men should in a Republic, but do not rely upon their gratitude.'' This man had bidden me remember that.

``General,'' I said, trying to speak steadily, ``it was you who gave me my first love for the Republic.I remember you as you stood on the heights above Kaskaskia waiting for the sun to go down, and you reminded me that it was the nation's birthday.And you said that our nation was to be a refuge of the oppressed of this earth, a nation made of all peoples, out of all time.And you said that the lands beyond,'' and I pointed to the West as he had done, ``should belong to it until the sun sets on the sea again.''

I glanced at him, for he was silent, and in my life I can recall no sadder moment than this.The General heard, but the man who had spoken these words was gone forever.

The eyes of this man before me were fixed, as it were, upon space.He heard, but he did not respond; for the spirit was gone.What I looked upon was the tortured body from which the genius--the spirit I had worshipped --had fled.I turned away, only to turn back in anger.

``What do you know of this France for which you are to fight?'' I cried.``Have you heard of the thousands of innocents who are slaughtered, of the women and children who are butchered in the streets in the name of Liberty?

What have those blood-stained adventurers to do with Liberty, what have the fish-wives who love the sight of blood to do with you that would fight for them? You warned me that this people and this government to which you have given so much would be ungrateful,--will the butchers and fish-wives be more grateful?''