Prisoners of Chance

  Produced by Al Haines

  [Frontispiece: I could merely clasp the hands she gave so unreservedlyinto my keeping, gaze into the depths of her dark eyes, and murmur afew broken words of confidence and farewell.]

  PRISONERS OF CHANCE

  THE STORY OF WHAT BEFELL GEOFFREY BENTEEN, BORDERMAN, THROUGH HIS LOVEFOR A LADY OF FRANCE

  BY

  RANDALL PARRISH

  Author of "When Wilderness was King," "My Lady of the North," "BobHampton of Placer," etc.

  ILLUSTRATED IN FULL COLOR BY THE KINNEYS

  CHICAGO

  A. C. McCLURG & CO.

  1908

  COPYRIGHT

  A. C. McCLURG & CO.

  1908

  Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

  All rights reserved

  Published March 28, 1908

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  CHAPTER

  I THE REQUEST FOR AID II A PERILOUS VENTURE III A VISIT TO THE FLAG-SHIP IV WE HOLD A COUNCIL OF WAR V ON THE DECK OF THE "SANTA MARIA" VI THE ROLE OF PERE CASSATI VII THE CHEVALIER DE NOYAN VIII FAVORED OF THE GODS IX THE BIRTH OF THE DEATH-DAWN X A COVERT IN THE CANE XI A NIGHT IN THE BOAT XII WE LAND AN ODD FISH XIII WE GAIN A NEW RECRUIT XIV THE MOUTH OF THE ARKANSAS XV A PASSAGE AT ARMS XVI WE CHANGE OUR COURSE XVII WE MEET WITH AN ACCIDENT XVIII A HARD DAY'S MARCH XIX DEMON, OR WHAT? XX BACKS TO THE WALL XXI THE STRONGHOLD OF THE NATCHEZ XXII PRISONERS IN THE TEMPLE XXIII THE VOTE OF DEATH XXIV THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN XXV A VISITANT FROM THE SUN XXVI THE CHRONICLES OF THE NATCHEZ XXVII A VENTURE IN THE DARK XXVIII SPEECH WITH NALADI XXIX IN AND OUT THE SHADOW XXX UNDERGROUND XXXI WE MOUNT THE CLIFF XXXII CHIEF PRIEST OF THE SUN XXXIII PERE ANDRE LAFOSSIER XXXIV THE TALE OF THE PRIEST XXXV NIGHT AND THE SAVAGES XXXVI THE INTERFERENCE OF THE JESUIT XXXVII THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  I could merely clasp the hands she gave so unreservedly into mykeeping, gaze into the depths of her dark eyes, and murmur a few brokenwords of confidence and farewell. . . . _Frontispiece_

  Had I ventured upon a smile at his predicament he would have poppedinstantly forth again.

  "I am the Daughter of the Sun. These are my children, given unto me bythe great Sun-god. . . . None of white blood may set foot in thisvalley and live."

  The woman stood gazing intently down, her red robe sweeping to herfeet; below the flaring torches in the hands of her barbaric followerscast their light full upon her.

  FOREWORD

  The manuscript of this tale has been in my possession several years.It reached me through natural lines of inheritance, but remained nearlyforgotten, until a chance reading revealed a certain historic basis;then, making note of correspondences in minor details, I realized thatwhat I had cast aside as mere fiction might possess a substantialfoundation of fact. Impelled by this conviction, I now submit thenarrative to public inspection, that others, better fitted than I, mayjudge as to the worth of this Geoffrey Benteen.

  According to the earlier records of Louisiana Province, GeoffreyBenteen was, during his later years, a resident of La Petite Rocher, aman of note and character among his fellows. There he died in old age,leaving no indication of the extent of his knowledge, other than whatis to be found in the yellowed pages of his manuscript; and theseafford no evidence that this "Gentleman Adventurer" possessed anyinformation derived from books regarding those relics of a prehistoricpeople, which are widely scattered throughout the Middle and SouthernStates of the Union and constitute the grounds on which our century hasapplied to the race the term "Mound Builders."

  Apparently in all simplicity and faithfulness he recorded merely whathe saw and heard. Later research, antedating his death, has seeminglyproven that in the extinct Natchez tribe was to be found the lastremnant of that mysterious and unfortunate race.

  Who were the Mound Builders? No living man may answer. Theirhistory--strange, weird, mysterious--stretches backward into the dimtwilight before tradition, its sole remaining record graven upon thesurface of the earth, vaguely guessed at by those who study graves;their pathetic ending has long been pictured in our country's story asoccurring amid the shadows of that dreadful midnight upon the banks ofthe Ocatahoola, when vengeful Frenchmen put them to the sword. Whencethey came, whether from fabled Atlantis, or the extinct Aztec empire ofthe South, no living tongue can tell; whither fled their remnant,--ifremnant there was left to flee,--and what proved its ultimate fate, noprevious pen has written. Out from the darkness of the unknown,scarcely more than spectral figures, they came, wrote their single lineupon the earth's surface, and vanished, kings and people alike sinkinginto speechless oblivion.

  That Geoffrey Benteen witnessed the tragic ending of this strangepeople I no longer question; for I have compared his narrative with allwe moderns have learned regarding them, as recorded in the pages ofParkman, Charlevoix, Du Pratz, and Duponceau, discovering nothing toawaken the slightest suspicion that he dealt with other than what hesaw. More, I have traced with exactitude the route these fugitivesfollowed in their flight northward, and, although the features of thecountry are greatly altered by settlements of nearly two hundred years,one may easily discern evidence of this man's honesty. For me it isenough to feel that I have stood beside the massive tomb of thismysterious people--a people once opulent and powerful, the warriors offorgotten battle-fields, the builders of lost civilizations, themasters of that imperial domain stretching from the Red River of theNorth to the sea-coast of the Carolinas; a people swept backward as bythe wrath of the Infinite, scourged by famine, decimated by pestilence,warred against by flame, stricken by storm, torn asunder by vengefulenemies, until a weakened remnant, harassed by the French sword, flednorthward in the night to fulfil the fate ordained of God, and finallyperished amid the gloomy shadows of the grim Ozarks, bequeathing to thecurious future neither a language nor a name.

  But this I leave with Geoffrey Benteen, and turn to my own simplertask, a review of the peculiar circumstances leading up to thisnarrative, involving a brief chapter from the records of our Southwest.

  The early history of the Province of Louisiana is so complicated byrapid changes in government as to confuse the student, rendering itextremely difficult to comprehend correctly the varied and conflictinginterests--aristocratic, official, and commercial--actuating herpioneer colonists. The written records, so far as translated andpublished, afford only a faint reflection of the varied characteristicsof her peculiar, changing population. The blue-eyed Arcadian of herwestern plateaus, yet dreaming upon his more northern freedom; theroyalist planter of the Mississippi bottoms, proud of those broad acresgranted him by letters-patent of the King; the gay, volatile,passionate Creole of the town, one day a thoughtless lover of pleasure,the next a truculent wielder of the sword; the daring smugglers ofBarataria, already rapidly drifting into open defiance of all legalrestraint; together with the quiet market gardeners of the_Cote-des-Allemands_, formed a heterogeneous population impossible toplease and extremely difficult to control.

  Varied as were these types, yet there were others, easy to name, butfar more difficult to classify in their political relationships--suchas priests of the Capuchin order; scattered representatives of Britain;sailors from ships ever swinging to the current beside the levee;sinewy backwoodsmen from the wilds of the Blue Ridge; naked savagesfrom Indian villages north and east; raftsmen from the distant watersof the Ohio and Illinois, scarcely less barbarian than those withredder skin; Spaniards from the Gulf islands, together with a negropopulation, part slave, part free, nearly equal in point of numbers toall the rest.

  And over a
ll who was the master?

  It would have been difficult at times to tell, so swiftly did changefollow change--Crozat, Law, Louis the Fifteenth, Charles the Third,each had his turn; flag succeeded flag upon the high staff which, eversince the days of Bienville, had ornamented the Place d'Armes, whilegreat merchants of Europe played the occupants of thrones for thebauble of this far western province, whose heart, nevertheless,remained forever faithful to sunny France.

  As late as 1768 New Orleans contained scarcely more than three thousandtwo hundred persons, a third of these being black slaves. Sixty-threeyears previously Bienville had founded Louisiana Province, makingchoice of the city site, but in 1763 it suited the schemes of him, whoruled the destinies of the mother country, to convey the yet strugglingcolony into the control of the King of Spain. It was fully two yearslater before word of this unwelcome transfer reached the distantprovince, while as much more time elapsed ere Don Antonio de Ulloa, thenewly appointed Spanish governor, landed at New Orleans, and, underguard of but two companies of infantry, took unto himself the reins.Unrest was already in the air,--petitions and delegations laden withvehement protests crossed the Atlantic. Both were alike returned,disregarded by the French King. Where it is probable that a singleword of wise counsel, even of kindly explanation, might have calmed therising tumult, silence and contempt merely served to aggravate it.

  It has been written by conscientious historians that commercialinterests, not loyalty to French traditions, were the real cause ofthis struggle of 1768. Be that as it may, its leaders were found inthe Superior Council, a body of governors older even than New Orleans,of which the patriotic Lafreniere was then the presiding officer, andwhose membership contained such representative citizens as Foucault,Jean and Joseph Milhet, Caresse, Petit, Poupet, a prominent lawyer.Marquis, a Swiss captain, with Bathasar de Masan, Hardy de Boisblanc,and Joseph Villere, planters of the upper Mississippi, as well as twonephews of the great Bienville, Charles de Noyan, a young ex-captain ofcavalry, lately married to the only daughter of Lafreniere, and hisyounger brother, a lieutenant in the navy.

  On the twenty-seventh of October, 1768, every Frenchman in LouisianaProvince was marching toward New Orleans. That same night the guns atthe Tehoupitoulas Gate--the upper river corner--were spiked; while yetfarther away, along a narrow road bordering the great stream, armedwith fowling pieces, muskets, even axes, the Arcadians, and the arousedinhabitants of the German coast, came sweeping down to unite with theimpatient Creoles of the town. In the dull gray of early morning theypushed past the spiked and useless cannon, and, with De Noyan andVillere at their head, forced the other gates and noisily paraded thestreets under the _fleur de lis_. The people rose _en masse_ to greetthem, until, utterly unable to resist the rising tide of popularenthusiasm, Ulloa retired on board the Spanish frigate, which slippedher cables, and came to anchor far out in the stream. Two days later,hurried no doubt by demands of the council, the governor set sail forthe West Indies, leaving the fair province under control of what waslittle better than a headless mob.

  For now, having achieved success, the strange listlessness of theSouthern nature reasserted itself, and from that moment no apparenteffort was made to strengthen their position--no government wasestablished, no basis of credit effected, no diplomatic relations wereassumed. They had battled for results like men, yet were content toplay with them like children. For more than seven months they thusenjoyed a false security, as delightful as their sunny summer-time.Then suddenly, as breaks an ocean storm, that slumbering community wasrudely aroused from its siestas and day-dreaming by the report thatSpaniards were at the mouth of the river in overwhelming force.

  Confusion reigned on every hand; scarcely a hundred men rallied todefend the town; yet no one fled. The Spanish fleet consisted oftwenty-four vessels. For more than three weeks they felt theiruncertain way around the bends of the Mississippi, and on theeighteenth of August, 1769, furled their canvas before the silentbatteries. Firing a single gun from the deck of his flag-ship, thefrigate "Santa Maria," Don Alexandro O'Reilly, accompanied bytwenty-six hundred chosen Spanish troops and fifty pieces of artillery,landed, amid all the pomp of Continental war, taking formal possessionof the province. That night his soldiers patrolled the streets, andhis cannon swept the river front, while not a Frenchman ventured tostray beyond the doorway of his home.

  Within the narrow space of two days the iron hand of Spain's newCaptain-General had closed upon the leaders of the bloodlessinsurrection, his judgments falling with such severity as to earn forhim in the annals of Louisiana the title of "Cruel O'Reilly." Amongthose of the revolutionists before mentioned, Petit, Masan, Doucet,Boisblanc, Jean Milhet, and Poupet were consigned to Moro Castle,Havana, where they remained a year, and then were stripped of theirproperty and forbidden ever again to enter the province of Louisiana.The younger Bienville escaped with the loss of his fortune. Foucaultmet his fate resisting the guard on board the "Santa Maria," where hewas held prisoner; while Lafreniere, De Noyan, Caresse, Marquis, andJoseph Milhet were condemned to be publicly hanged. The earnestsupplication, both of colonists and Spanish officials, shocked by theunjust severity of this sentence, sufficed to save them from thedisgrace of the gallows, but fated them to fall before the volley of afile of grenadiers.

  With the firing of the sunset gun the evening of their last earthlyday, the post-captain visited the condemned men, and spoke with each inturn; they numbered five. All through the dark hours of that nightheavily armed sentries stood in the narrow passageway beforenail-studded doors, while each hour, as the ship's bell struck, theCommandant of Marine peered within each lighted apartment where restedfive plainly outlined forms. With the first gray of the dawn theunfortunate prisoners were mustered upon deck, but they numbered onlyfour. 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 thelevelled rifles, and when the single volley had echoed and reechoedacross the wide river, the white smoke slowly lifting and blown awayabove the trees, only four lifeless bodies lay closely pressed againstthe red-brick wall--the fifth condemned man was not there: _ChevalierCharles de Noyan had escaped his fate_. Like a spirit had he vanishedduring those mysterious hours between midnight and dawn, leaving notrace of his going save a newly severed rope which hung dangling from aforeyard.

  But had he escaped?

  That morning--as we learn from private letters sent home by officers ofthe Spanish fleet--there came to the puzzled O'Reilly a report that inthe dense blackness of that starless night a single boat sought to slipsilently past beneath the deep shadows of the upper battery. Unhaltingin response to a hail of the sentry, a volley was hastily fired towardits uncertain outline, and, in the flare of the guns, the officer ofthe guard noted the black figure of a man leap high into air, anddisappear beneath the dark surface of the river. So it was theCaptain-General wrote also the name "Charles de Noyan" with those ofthe other four, endorsing it with the same terse military record, "Shotat sunrise."

  Nor since that fateful hour has the world known otherwise, for,although strange rumors floated down the great river to be whisperedabout from lip to lip, and New Orleans wondered many a long monthwhither had vanished the fair young wife, the daughter of Lafreniere,yet no authentic message found its way out of the vast northernwilderness. For nearly one hundred and fifty years history hasaccepted without question the testimony of the Spanish records. Theman who alone could tell the strange story was in old age impelled todo so by a feeling of sacred duty to the dead; and his papers,disarranged, ill-written, already yellowed by years, have fallen to mykeeping. I submit them without comment or change, save only as to thesubdivision into chapters, with an occasional substitution for someold-time phrase of its more modern equivalent. He who calls himself"Geoffrey Benteen, Gentleman Adventurer," shall tell his own tale.

  R. P.