Monster Media 1993 #3/MONSTER.ISO/textfile/forge.txt

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       THE INTERNET WIRETAP ELECTRONIC EDITION OF

                          The
                  Forge in the Forest

                         Being
       The Narrative of the Acadian Ranger, Jean
          de Mer, Seigneur de Briart; and how
           he crossed the Black Abbe; and of
              his Adventures in a Strange
                      Fellowship

                          By
                 Charles G. D. Roberts
     Author of "The Kindred of the Wild," "Barbara
         Ladd," "A Sister to Evangeline," etc.

                        Boston
                 L. C. Page & Company

                       MDCCCCII




                   Copyright, 1896,

            By Lamson, Wolffe and Company.

                 All rights reserved.


                          To
                George E. Fenety, Esq.
               This Story of a Province
           arnong whose Honoured Sons he is
                not least distinguished
                     is dedicated
               with esteem and affection



   Prepared by John Hamm <[e-mail]>

           This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN,
                 released October 1993

   Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software
             donated by Caere Corporation.




The Forge in the Forest

A Foreword

WHERE the Five Rivers flow down to meet the swinging of
the Minas tides, and the Great Cape of Blomidon bars
out the storm and the fog, lies half a county of rich
meadow-lands and long-arcaded orchards.  It is a
deep-bosomed land, a land of fat cattle, of well-filled
barns, of ample cheeses and strong cider; and a
well-conditioned folk inhabit it.  But behind this
countenance of gladness and peace broods the memory of
a vanished people.  These massive dykes, whereon twice
daily the huge tide beats in vain, were built by hands
not suffered to possess the fruits of their labour.
These comfortable fields have been scorched with the
ruin of burning homes, drenched with the tears of women
hurried into exile.  These orchard lanes, appropriate
to the laughter of children or the silences of lovers,
have rung with battle and run deep with blood.  Though
the race whose bane he was has gone, still stalks the
sinister shadow of the Black Abbe.

The low ridge running between the dykelands of the
Habitants and the dykelands of the Canard still carries
patches of forest interspersed among its farms, for its
soil is sandy and not greatly to be coveted for
tillage.  These patches are but meagre second growth,
with here and there a gnarled birch or overpeering
pine, lonely survivor of the primeval brotherhood.  The
undergrowth has long smoothed out all traces of what a
curious eye might fifty years ago have discerned, --
the foundations of the chimney of a blacksmith's forge.
It is a mould well steeped in fateful devisings, this
which lies forgotten under the creeping roots of
juniper and ragged-robin, between the diminished stream
of Canard and the yellow tide of Habitants.

The forest then was a wide-spreading solemnity of shade
wherein armies might have moved unseen.  The forge
stood where the trail from Pereau ran into the more
travelled road from the Canard to Grand Pre.  The
branches of the ancient wood came down all about its
low eaves; and the squirrels and blue jays chattered on
its roof.  It was a place for the gathering of restless
spirits, the men of Acadie who hated to accept the flag
of the English king.  It was the Acadian headquarters
of the noted ranger, Jean de Mer, who was still called
by courtesy, and by the grace of such of his people as
adhered to his altered fortunes, the Seigneur de
Briart.  His father had been lord of the whole region
between Blomidon and Grand Pre; but the English
occupation had deprived him of all open and formal
lordship, for the de Briart sword was notably
conspicuous on the side of New France.  Nevertheless,
many of Jean de Mer's habitants maintained to him a
chivalrous allegiance, and paid him rents for lands
which in the English eye were freehold properties.
He cherished his hold upon these faithful folk, willing
by all honest means to keep their hearts to France.
His one son, Marc, grew up at Grand Pre, save for the
three years of his studying at Quebec.  His faithful
retainer, Babin, wielding a smith's hammer at the
Forge, had ears of wisdom and a tongue of discretion
for the men who came and went.  Once or twice in the
year, it was de Mer's custom to visit the Grand Pre
country, where he would set his hand to the work of the
forge after Babin's fashion, playing his part to the
befooling of English eyes, and taking, in truth, a
quaint pride in his pretended craft.  At the time,
however, when this narrative opens, he had been a whole
three years absent from the Acadian land, and his
home-coming was yet but three days old.



Chapter I

The Capture at the Forge

IT was good to be alive that afternoon.  A speckled
patch of sunshine, having pushed its way through the
branches across the road, lay spread out on the dusty
floor of the forge.  On a block just inside the door
sat Marc, his lean, dark face, -- the Belleisle face,
made more hawklike by the blood of his Penobscot
grandmother, -- all aglow with eagerness.  The lazy
youngster was not shamed at the sight of my diligence,
but talked right on, with a volubility which would have
much displeased his Penobscot grandmother.  It was
pleasant to be back with the lad again, and I was
aweary of the war, which of late had kept my feet
forever on the move from Louisbourg to the Richelieu.
My fire gave a cheerful roar as I heaved upon the
bellows, and turned my pike-point in the glowing
charcoal.  As the roar sighed down into silence there
was a merry whirr of wings, and a covey of young
partridges flashed across the road.  A contented mind
and a full stomach do often make a man a fool, or I
should have made shift to inquire why the partridges
had so sharply taken wing.  But I never thought of it.
I turned, and let the iron grow cool, and leaned with
one foot on the anvil, to hear the boy's talk.  My soul
was indeed asleep, lulled by content, or I would surely
have felt the gleam of the beady eyes that watched me
through a chink in the logs beside the chimney.  But I
felt those eyes no more than if I had been a log myself.

"Yes, Father," said Marc, pausing in rich contemplation
of the picture in his mind's eye," you would like her
hair!  It is unmistakably red, -- a chestnut red.
But her sister's is redder still!"  I smiled at his
knowledge of my little weakness for hair of that
colour; but not of a woman's hair was I thinking at
that moment, or I should surely have made some question
about the sister.  My mind ran off upon another trail.

"And what do the English think they're going to do when
de Ramezay comes down upon them?" I inquired.  "Do they
flatter themselves their tumble-down Annapolis is
strong enough to hold us off?"

The lad flushed resentfully and straightened himself up
on his seat.

"Do you suppose, Father, that I was in the fort, and
hobnobbing with the Governor?" he asked coldly.
"I spoke with none of the English save Prudence and her
sister, and the child."

"But why not?" said I, unwilling to acknowledge that I
had said anything at which he might take offence.
"Every one knows your good disposition toward the
English, and I should suppose you were in favour at
Annapolis.  The Governor, I know, makes much of all our
people who favour the English cause."

Marc stood up, -- lean, and fine, and a good half head
taller than his father, -- and looked at me with eyes
of puzzled wrath.

"And you think that I, knowing all I do of de Ramezay's
plans, would talk to the English about them!" he
exclaimed in a voice of keen reproach.

Now, I understood his anger well enough, and in my
heart rejoiced at it; for though I knew his honour
would endure no stain, I had nevertheless feared lest I
should find his sympathies all English.  He was a lad
with a way of thinking much and thinking for himself,
and even now, at twenty year, far more of a scholar
than I had ever found time to be.  Therefore, I say,
his indignation pleased me mightily.  Nevertheless I
kept at him.

"Chut!" said I, "all the world knows by now of de
Ramezay's plans.  There had been no taint of treachery
in talking of them !"

Marc sat down again, and the ghost of a smile flickered
over his lean face.  Though free enough of his speech
betimes, he was for the most part as unsmiling as an
Indian.

"I see you are mocking me, Father," he said presently,
relighting his pipe.  "Indeed, you know very well I am
on your side, for weal or ill.  As long as there was a
chance of the English being left in peaceable
possession of Acadie, I urged that we should accept
their rule fully and in good faith.  No one can say
they haven't ruled us gently and generously.  And I
feel right sure they will continue to rule us, for the
odds are on their side in the game they play with
France.  But seeing that the game has yet to be played
out, there is only one side for me, and I believe it to
be the losing one.  Though as a boy I liked them well
enough, I have nothing more to do with the English now
except to fight them.  How could I have another flag
than yours?"

"You are my own true lad, whatever our difference of
opinion!" said I.  And if my voice trembled in a manner
that might show a softness unsuited to a veteran of my
training, bear in mind that, till within the past three
days, I had not seen the lad for three years, and then
but briefly.  At Grand Pre, and in Quebec at school,
Marc had grown up outside my roving life, and I was
just opening my eyes to find a comrade in this tall son
of my boyhood's love.  His mother, a daughter of old
Baron St. Castin by his Penobscot wife, had died while
he was yet at the breast.  A babe plays but a small
part in the life of a ranging bush-fighter, though I
had ever a great tenderness for the little lad.  Now,
however, I was looking upon him with new eyes.

Having blown the coals again into a heat, I returned to
Marc's words, certain of which had somewhat stuck in my crop.

"But you speak with despondence, lad, of the chances of
the war, and of the hope of Acadie!  By St. Joseph,
we'll drive the English all the way back of the
Penobscot before you're a twelvemonth older.  And
Acadie will see the Flag of the Lilies flapping once
more over the ramparts of Port Royal."

Marc shook his head slowly, and seemed to be following
with his eyes the vague pattern of the shadows on the floor.

"It seems to me," said he, with a conviction which
caught sharply at my heart even though I bore in mind
his youth and inexperience, "that rather will the Flag
of the Lilies be cast down even from the strong walls
of Quebec.  But may that day be far off!  As for our
people here in Acadie, during the last twelvemonth it
has been made very clear to me that evil days are
ahead.  The Black Abbe is preparing many sorrows for us
here in Acadie."

"I suppose you mean La Garne!" said I.  "He's a
diligent servant to France; but I hate a bad priest.
He's a dangerous man to cross, Marc!  Don't go out of
your way to make an enemy of the Black Abbe!"

Again that ghost of a smile glimmered on Marc's lips.

"I fear you speak too late, Father!" said he, quietly.
"The reverend Abbe has already marked me.  He so far
honours me as to think that I am an obstacle in his
path.  There be some whose eyes I have opened to his
villany, so that he has lost much credit in certain of
the parishes.  I doubt not that he will contrive some
shrewd stroke for vengeance."

My face fell somewhat, for I am not ashamed to confess
that I fear a bad priest, the more so in that I yield
to none in my reverence for a good one.  I turned my
iron sharply in the coals, and then exclaimed:

"Oh, well, we need not greatly trouble ourselves.
There are others, methinks, as strong as the Black
Abbe, evil though he be!"  But I spoke, as I have often
found it expedient to do, with more confidence than I felt.

Even at this moment, shrill and clear from the leafage
at one end of the forge, came the call of the big
yellow-winged woodpecker.  I pricked up my ears and
stiffened my muscles, expectant of I knew not what.

Marc looked at me with some surprise.  "It's only a
woodpecker!" said he.  "But it's only in the spring,"
I protested, "that he has a cry like that!"

"He cries untimely, as an omen of the ills to come!"
said Marc, half meaning it and half in jest.

Had it been anywhere on the perilous frontier, --
on the Richelieu or in the West, or nigh the bloody
Massachusetts line, my suspicions would have sprung up
wide awake.  But in this quiet land between the
Habitants and the Canard I was off my guard, --
and what a relief it was, indeed, to let myself be careless
for a little!  I thought no more of the woodpecker, but
remembered that sister with the red hair.  I came back
to her by indirection, however.

"And how did you manage, lad, to be seeing Mistress
Prudence, and her sister, and the child, and yet no
others of the English?  A matter of dark nights and
back windows?  Eh?  But come to think of it, there was
a clear moon this day four weeks back, when you were at
Annapolis."

"No, Father," answered Marc, "it was all much more
simple and less adventurous than that.  Some short way
out of the town is a little river, the Equille, and a
pleasant hidden glade set high upon its bank.  It is a
favoured resort of both the ladies; and there I met
them as often as I was permitted.  Mizpah would
sometimes choose to play apart with the child, down by
the water's edge if the tide were full, so I had some
gracious opportunity with Prudence. -- My time being
brief, I made the most of it!" he added drily.  His
quaint directness amused me mightily, and I chuckled as
I shaped the red iron upon the anvil.

"And who," I inquired, "is this kind sister, with the
even redder hair, who goes away with such a timely
discretion?"

"Oh, yes," said Marc, "I forgot you knew nothing of
her.  She is Mistress Mizpah Hanford, the widow of a
Captain Hanford who was some far connection of the
Governor's.  Her property is in and about Annapolis,
and she lives there to manage it, keeping Prudence with
her for companionship.  Her child is four or five years
old, a yellow-haired, rosy boy called Philip.  She's
very tall, -- a head taller than Prudence, and older,
of course, by perhaps eight years; and very fair,
though not so fair as Prudence; and altogether -- "

But at this point I interrupted him.

"What's the matter with the Indian?" I exclaimed,
staring out across Marc's shoulders.

He sprang to his feet and looked around sharply.  An
Indian, carrying three shad strung upon a sapling, had
just appeared on the road before the forge door.  As he
came in view he was reeling heavily, and clutching at
his head.  He dropped his fish; and a moment later he
himself fell headlong, and lay face downward in the
middle of the road.  I remember thinking that his legs
sprawled childishly.  Marc strolled over to him with
slow indifference.

"Have a care!" I exclaimed.  "There may be some trap in
it!  It looks not natural!"

"What trap can there be?" asked Marc, turning the body
over.  "It's Red Moose, a Shubenacadie Micmac.  I like
not the breed; but ever since he got a hurt on the
head, in a fight at Canseau last year, he has been
subject to the falling sickness.  Let us carry him to a
shady place, and he'll come to himself presently!"

I was at his side in a moment, and we stooped to lift
the seemingly lifeless figure.  In an instant its arms
were about my neck in a strangling embrace.  At the
same time my own arms were seized.  I heard a fierce
cry from Marc, and a groan that was not his.  The next
moment, though I writhed and struggled with all my
strength, I found myself bound hand and foot, and
seated on the ground with my back against the door-post
of the forge.  Marc, bound like myself, lay by the
roadside; and a painted savage sat near him nursing
with both hands a broken jaw.  A dozen Micmacs stood
about us.  Leaning against the door-post over against
me was the black-robed form of La Garne.  He eyed me,
for perhaps ten seconds, with a smile of fine and
penetrating sarcasm.  Then he told his followers to
stand Marc up against a tree.



Chapter II

The Black Abbe

WHEN first I saw that smile on the Black Abbe's face,
and realized what had befallen us, I came nigh to
bursting with rage, and was on the point of telling my
captor some truths to make his ears tingle.  But when I
heard the order to stand Marc up against a tree my
veins for an instant turned to ice.  Many men -- and
some women, too, God help me, I then being bound and
gagged, -- had I seen thus stood up against a tree, and
never but for one end.  I could not believe that such
an end was contemplated now, and that by a priest of
the Church, however unworthy of his office!  But I
checked my tongue and spoke the Abbe fair.

"It is quite plain to me, Monsieur," said I, quietly,
"that my son and I are the victims of some serious
mistake, for which you will, I am sure, feel
constrained to ask our pardon presently.  I await your
explanations."

La Garne, still smiling, looked me over slowly.  Never
before had I seen him face to face, though he had more
than once traversed my line of vision.  I had known the
tireless figure, as tall, almost, as Marc himself,
stoop-shouldered, but robust, now moving swiftly as if
propelled by an energy irresistible, now languid with
an affectation of indolence.  But the face -- I hated
the possessor of it with a personal hate the moment my
eyes fell upon that face.  Strong and inflexible was
the gaunt, broad, and thin jaw, cruel and cunning the
high, pinched forehead and narrow-set, palely glinting
eyes.  The nose, in particular, greatly offended me,
being very long, and thick at the end.  "I'll tweak it
for him, one fine day," says I to myself, as I boiled
under his steady smile.

"There is no mistake, Monsieur de Briart, believe me!"
he said, still smiling.  There could be no more fair
words, of course, after that avowal.

"Then, Sir Priest," said I, coldly, "you are both a
madman and a scurvy rogue, and you shall yet be on your
knees to me for this outrage.  You will see then the
nature of your mistake, I give you my word."

The priest's smile took on something of the complexion
of a snarl.

"Don't be alarmed, Monsieur de Briart," said he.
"You are quite safe, because I know you for a good servant
to France; and for your late disrespect to Holy Church,
in my person, while in talk with your pestilent son,
these bonds may be a wholesome and sufficient lesson to
you!"

"You shall have a lesson sufficient rather than
wholesome, I promise you!" said I.

"But as for this fellow," went on the Abbe, without
noticing my interruption, "he is a spy.  You understand
how spies fare, Monsieur!"  And a malignant light made
his eyes appear like two points of steel beneath the
ambush of his ragged brows.

I saw Marc's lean face flush thickly under the gross
accusation.

"It is a lie, you frocked hound!" he cried, careless of
the instant peril in which he stood.

But the Black Abbe never looked at him.

"I wish you joy of your son, a very good Englishman,
Monsieur, and now, I fear, not long for this world,"
said he, in a tone of high civility.  "He has long been
fouling with his slanders the names of those whom he
should reverence, and persuading the people to the
English.  But now, after patiently waiting, I have
proofs.  His treachery shall hang him!"

For a moment the dear lad's peril froze my senses, so
that it was but dimly I heard his voice, ringing with
indignation as he hurled back the charge upon the lying
lips that made it.

"If the home of lies be anywhere out of Hell, it is in
your malignant mouth, you shame of the Church," he
cried in defiance.  "There can be no proof that I am a
spy, even as there can be no proof that you are other
than a false-tongued assassin, defiling your sacred
office."

It was the galling defiance of a savage warrior at the
stake, and even in my fear my heart felt proud of it.
The priest was not galled, however, by these
penetrating insults.

"As for the proofs," said he, softly, never looking at
Marc, but keeping his eyes on my face, "Monsieur de
Ramezay shall judge whether they be proofs or not.
If he say they are not, I am content."

At a sign, a mere turn of his head it seemed to me, the
Indians loosed Marc's feet to lead him away.

"Farewell, Father," said he, in a firm voice, and
turned upon me a look of unshakable courage.

"Be of good heart, son," I cried to him.  "I will be
there, and this devil shall be balked!"

"You, Monsieur," said the priest, still smiling, "will
remain here for the present.  To-night I will send a
villager to loose your bonds.  Then, by all means, come
over and see Monsieur de Ramezay at Chignecto.  I may
not be there then myself, but this business of the spy
will have been settled, for the commander does not
waste time in such small matters!"

He turned away to follow his painted band, and I,
shaking in my impotent rage and fear, called after him:-

"As God lives and is my witness, if the lad comes to
any harm, these hands will visit it upon you an
hundredfold, till you scream for death's mercy!"

But the Black Abbe moved off as if he heard no word,
and left me a twisted heap upon the turf, gnawing
fiercely at the tough deer-hide of my bonds.



Chapter III

Tamin's Little Stratagem

I HAD been gnawing, gnawing in an anguish at the
thongs, for perhaps five minutes.  There had been no
more than time for the Abbe's wolf-pack to vanish by a
turn of the road.  Suddenly a keen blade slit the
thongs that bound my wrists.  Then my feet felt
themselves free.  I sat up, astonished, and saw
stooping over me the droll, broad face of Tamin the
Fisher, -- or Tamin Violet, as he was rightly, though
seldom, called.  His mouth was solemn, as always,
having never been known to wear a smile; but the little
wrinkles laughed about his small bright eyes.  I sprang
up and grasped his hand.

"We must not lose a moment, Tamin, my friend!" I
panted, dragging him into the thick shade of the wood.

"I was thinking you might be in a hurry, M'sieu," said
my rescuer.  "But unless the mouse wants to be back in
the same trap I've just let it out of, you'd better
keep still a half-minute and make up your mind.
They've a round road to go, and we'll go straight!"

"You saw it all?" I asked, curbing myself as best I
could, for I perceived the wisdom of his counsel.

"Oh, ay, M'sieu, I saw it!" replied the Fisher.  "And I
laughed in my bones to hear the lad talk up to the good
father.  There was more than one shot went home, I
warrant, for all the Black Abbe seemed so deaf.
They're festering under his soutane even now, belike!"

"But come!" said I.  "I've got my wind!"  And we darted
noiselessly through the cool of the great trees,
turning a little east from the road.

We ran silently for a space, my companion's short but
massive frame leaping, bending, gliding even as lightly
as my own, which was ever as lithe as a weasel's.
Tamin was a rare woodsman, as I marked straightway,
though I had known him of old rather as a faithful
tenant, and marvellously patient to sit in his boat all
day a-fishing on the drift of the Minas tides.

Presently he spoke, under his breath.

"Very like," said he, drily, "when we come up to them
they will all fall down.  So, we will take the lad and
walk away! eh, what, M'sieu?"

"Only let us come up to them," said I, "and learn their
plans.  Then we will make ours!"

"Something of theirs I know," said Tamin.  "Their
canoes are on the Canard maybe three furlongs to east
of the road.  Thence they will carry the lad to de
Ramezay, for the Black Abbe will have things in due
form when he can conveniently, and now it is plain he
has a scheme well ripe.  But if this wind holds, we'll
be there before them.  My boat is lying hard by."

"God be praised!" I muttered; for in truth I saw some
light now for the first time.  Presently, drawing near
the road again, I heard the voice of La Garne.  We at
once went softly, and, avoiding again, made direct for
where lay the canoes.  There we disposed ourselves in a
swampy thicket, with a little breadth of water lying
before and all the forest behind.  The canoes lay just
across the little water, and so close that I might have
tossed my cap into them.  The clean smell of the wet
salt sedge came freshly into the thicket.  The shadows
lay long on the water.  We had time to grow quiet, till
our breathing was no longer hasty, our blood no longer
thumped in our ears.  A flock of sand-pipers, with thin
cries, settled to feed on the red clay between the
canoes and the edge of the tide.  Suddenly they got up,
and puffed away in a flicker of white breasts and brown
wings; and I laid a hand on Tamin's shoulder.  The
painted band, Marc in their midst, La Garne in front,
were coming down the slope.

The lad's face was stern and scornful.  To my joy I saw
that there was to be no immediate departure.  The
redskins flung themselves down indolently.  The Black
Abbe saw his prisoner made fast to a tree, and then,
telling his followers that he had duties at Pereau
which would keep him till past sunset, strode off
swiftly up the trail.  Tamin and I, creeping as
silently as snakes back into the forest, followed him.

For half an hour we followed him, keeping pace for pace
through the shadow of the wood.  Then said I softly to
Tamin:-

"This is my quarrel, my friend!  Do you keep back, and
not bring down his vengeance on your head."

"That for his vengeance!" whispered Tamin, with a
derisive gesture.  "I will take service with de Ramezay,
as a regular soldier of France!"

"Even there," said I, "his arm might reach and pluck
you forth.  Keep back now, and let him not see your face!"

"Priest though he be, M'sieu," urged Tamin, anxiously,
"he is a mighty man of his hands!"

I turned upon him a face of scorn which he found
sufficient answer.  Then, signing to him to hold off,
I sped forward silently.  No weapon had I but a light
stick of green ash, just cut.  There was smooth, mossy
ground along the trail, and my running feet made no
more sound than a cat's.  I was within a pace of
springing upon his neck, when he must have felt my
coming.  He turned like a flash, uttered a piercing
signal cry, and whipped out a dagger.

"They'll never hear it," mocked I, and sent the dagger
spinning with a smart pass of my stick.  The same stroke
went nigh to breaking his wrist. He grappled bravely,
however, as I took him by the throat, and I was
astonished at his force and suppleness.  Nevertheless
the struggle was but brief, and the result a matter to
be sworn to beforehand; for I, though not of great
stature, am stronger than any other man, big or little,
with whom I have ever come to trial; and more than
that, when I was a prisoner among the English, I
learned their shrewd fashion of wrestling.  In a
little space the Black Abbe lay choked into submission,
after which I bound him in a way to endure, and seated
him against a tree.  Behind him I caught view of Tamin,
gesturing drolly, whereat I laughed till I marked an
amazement growing in the priest's malignant eyes.

"How like you my lesson, good Father?" I inquired.

But he only glared upon me.  I suppose, having no speech
that would fitly express his feelings, he conceived
that his silence would be most eloquent.  But I could
see that my next move startled him.  With my knife I cut
a piece from my shirt, and made therewith a neat gag.

"Though you seem so dumb at this present," said I,
"I suspect that you might find a tongue after my
departure.  Therefore I must beseech you to wear this
ornament, for my sake, for a little." And very civilly
prying his teeth open, I adjusted the gag.

"Do not be afraid!" I continued.  "I will leave you in
this discomfort no longer than you thought it necessary
to leave me so.  You shall be free after to-morrow's
sunrise, if not before.  Farewell, good Father, and may
you rest well!  Let me borrow this ring as a pledge for
the safe return of the fragment of my good shirt which
you hold so obstinately between your teeth!" And
drawing his ring from his finger I turned away and
plunged into the forest, where Tamin presently joined me.

Tamin chuckled, deep in his stomach.

"My turn now!" said he.  "Give me the ring, M'sieu, and
I'll give you the boy!"

"I see you take me!" said I, highly pleased at his
quick discernment.

We now made way at leisure back to the canoes, and our
plans ripened as we went.

Before we came within hearing of the Indians I gave
over the ring with final directions, to Tamin, and then
hastened toward the point of land which runs far out
beyond the mouth of the Habitants.  Around this point,
as I knew, lay the little creek-mouth wherein Tamin
kept his boat.  Beyond the point, perchance a furlong,
was a narrow sand-spit covered deep at every flood
tide.  In a thicket of fir bushes on the bluff over
against this sand-spit I lay down to wait for what
Tamin should bring to pass.  I had some little time to
wait; and here let me unfold, as I learned it after,
what Tamin did whilst I waited.

About sunset, the tide being far out, and the Indians
beginning to expect their Abbe's return, came Tamin to
them running in haste along the trail from Pereau, as
one who carried orders of importance.  Going straight to
the chief, he pointed derisively at Marc, whose back
was towards him, and cried:-

"The good father commands that you take this dog of a
spy straightway to the sand-spit that lies off the
point yonder.  There you will drive a strong stake into
the sand, and bind the fellow to it, and leave him
there, and return here to await the Abbe's coming.  You
shall do no hurt to the spy, and set no mark upon him.
When the tide next ebbs you will go again to the
sand-spit and bring his body back; and if the Abbe finds
any mark upon him, you will get no pay for this venture.
You will make your camp here to-night, and if the good
father be not returned to you by sunrise to-morrow, you
will go to meet him along the Pereau trail, for he will
be in need of you."

The tall chief grunted, and eyed him doubtfully.  After
a brief contemplation he inquired, in broken French:-

"How know you no lie to me?"

"Here is the holy father's ring, in warranty; and you
shall give it back to him when he comes."

"It is well," said the chief, taking the ring, and
turning to give some commands in his own guttural
tongue.  Tamin repeated his message word by word, then
strode away; and before he got out of sight he saw two
canoes put off for the sand-spit.  Then he made all
haste to join me on the point.

Long before he arrived the canoes had come stealing
around the point and were drawn up on the treacherous
isle of sand.

My heart bled for the horror of death which, as I knew,
must now be clutching at Marc's soul; but I kept
telling myself how soon I would make him glad.  It
wanted yet three hours or more till the tide should
cover the sand-spit.  I lay very still among the young
fir trees, so that a wood-mouse ran within an arm's
length of my face, till it caught the moving of my eyes
and scurried off with a frightened squeak.  I heard the
low change in the note of the tide as the first of the
flood began to creep in upon the weeds and pebbles.
Then with some farewell taunts, to which Marc answered
not a word, the savages went again to their canoes and
paddled off swiftly.

When they had become but specks on the dim water,
I doffed my clothes, took my knife between my teeth,
and swam across to the sand-spit.  There was a low moon,
obscured by thin and slowly drifting clouds, and as I
swam through the faint trail of it, Marc must have seen
me coming.  Nevertheless he gave no sign, and I could
see that his head drooped forward upon his breaSt. An
awful fear came down upon me, and for a second or two I
was like to sink, so numb I turned at the thought that
perchance the savages had put the knife to him before
quitting.  I recovered, however, as I called to mind the
orders which Tamin had rehearsed to me ere starting on
his venture; for I knew how sorely the Black Abbe was
feared by his savage flock.  What they deemed him to
have commanded, that would they do.

Drawing closer now, I felt the ground beneath my feet.

"Marc," I called softly, "I'm coming, lad!"

The drooped head was lifted.

"Father!" he exclaimed.  And there was something like a
sob in that cry of joy.  It caught my heart strangely,
telling me he was still a boy for all he had borne
himself so manfully in the face of sudden and appalling
peril.  Now the long tension was loosed.  He was alone
with me.  As I sprang to him and cut the thongs that
held him, one arm went about my neck and I was held
very close for the space of some few heart-beats.
Then he fetched a deep breath, stretched his cramped limbs
this way and that, and said simply, "I knew you would
come, Father!  I knew you would find a way!"



Chapter IV

The Governor's Signature

THE clouds slipped clear of the moon's face, and we
three -- Marc, I, and the stake -- cast sudden long
black shadows which led all the way down to the edge of
the increeping tide.  I looked at the shadows, and a
shudder passed through me as if a cold hand had been
laid upon my back.  Marc stood off a little, -- never
have I seen such quick control, such composure, in one
so inexperienced, -- and remarked to me:-

"What a figure of a man you are, Father, to be sure!"

I fell into his pretence of lightness at once, a high
relief after the long and deadly strain; and I laughed
with some pleasure at the praise.  In very truth,
I cherished a secret pride in my body.

"'Tis well enough, no doubt, in a dim light," said I,
"though by now surely somewhat battered!"

Marc was already taking off his clothes.  As he knotted
them into a convenient bundle, there came from the
woods, a little way back of the point, the hollow
"Too-hoo-hoo-whoo-oo!" of the small gray owl.

"There's Tamin!" said I, and was on the point of
answering in like fashion, when the cry was reiterated
twice.

"That means danger, and much need of haste for us,"
I growled.  Together we ran down into the tide, striking
out with long strokes for the fine white line that
seethed softly along the dark base of the point.
I commended the lad mightily for his swimming, as we
scrambled upon the beach and slipped swiftly into our
clothes.  Though carrying his bundle on his head, he had
given me all I could do to keep abreast of him.

We climbed the bluff, and ran through the wet,
keen-scented bushes toward the creek where lay the boat.
Ere we had gone half-way Tamin met us, breathless.

"What danger?" I asked.

"I think they're coming back to tuck the lad in for the
night, and see that he's comfortable!" replied Tamin,
panting heavily.  "I heard paddles when they should have
been long out of earshot."

"Something has put them in doubt!" said Marc.

"Sure," said I, "and not strange, if one but think of it!"

"Yet I told them a fair tale," panted Tamin, as he went
on swiftly toward his boat.

The boat lay yet some yards above the edge of tide,
having been run aground near high water.  The three of
us were not long in dragging her down and getting her
afloat.  Then came the question that was uppermost.

"Which way?" asked Tamin, laconically, taking the
tiller, while Marc stood by to hoist the dark and
well-patched sail.

I considered the wind for some moments.

"For Chignecto!" said I, with emphasis.  "We must see de
Ramezay and settle this hound La Garne.  Otherwise Marc
stands in hourly peril."

As the broad sail drew, and the good boat, leaning well
over, gathered way, and the small waves swished and
gurgled merrily under her quarter, I could hardly
withhold from laughing for sheer gladness.  Marc was
already smoking with great composure beside the mast,
his lean face thoughtful, but untroubled.  He looked,
I thought, almost as old as his war-battered sire who now
watched him with so proud an eye.  Presently I heard
Tamin fetch a succession of mighty breaths, as he
emptied and filled the ample bellows of his lungs.  He
snatched the green and yellow cap of knitted wool from
his head, and let the wind cool the sweating black
tangle that coarsely thatched his broad skull.

"Hein!" he exclaimed, with a droll glance at Marc,
"that's better than _that!_"  And he made an expressive
gesture as of setting a knife to his scalp.  To me this
seemed much out of place and time; but Tamin was ever
privileged in the eyes of a de Mer, so I grumbled not.
As for Marc, that phantom of a smile, which I had
already learned to watch for, just touched his lips,
as he remarked calmly:

"Vraiment, much better.  That, as you call it, my Tamin,
came so near to-night that my scalp needs no cooling
since!"

"But whither steering?" I inquired; for the boat was
speeding south-eastward, straight toward Grand Pre.

Tamin's face told plainly that he had his reasons, and
I doubted not that they were good.  For some moments
that wide, grave mouth opened not to make reply, while
the little, twinkling, contradictory eyes were fixed
intently on some far-off landmark, to me invisible.
This point being made apparently to his satisfaction,
he relaxed and explained.

"You see, M'sieu," said he, "we must get under the loom
o' the shore, so's we'll be out of sight when the
canoes come round the point.  If they see a sail, at
this time o' night, they'll suspicion the whole thing
and be after us.  Better let 'em amuse themselves for a
spell hunting for the lad on dry land, so's we won't be
rushed.  Been enough rush!"

"Yes!  Yes!" assented I, scanning eagerly the point
behind us.  And Marc said:-

"Very great is your sagacity, my Tamin.  The Black Abbe
fooled himself when he forgot to take you into his
reckoning!"

At this speech the little wrinkles gathered thicker
about Tamin's eyes.  At length, deeming us to have gone
far enough to catch the loom of the land, as it lay for
one watching from the sand-spit, Tamin altered our
course, and we ran up the basin.  Just then we marked
two canoes rounding the point.  They were plainly
visible to us, and I made sure we should be seen at
once; but a glance at Tamin's face reassured me.
The Fisher understood, as few even among old woodsmen
understand it, the lay of the shadow-belts on a wide
water at night.

Noiselessly we lowered our sail and lay drifting,
solicitous to mark what the savages might do.  The
sand-spit was by this so small that from where we lay it
was not to be discerned; but we observed the Indians run
their canoes upon it, disembark, and stoop to examine
the footprints in the sand.  In a moment or two they
embarked again, and paddled straight to the point.

"Shrewd enough!" said Marc.

"Yes," said I, "and now they'll track us straight to
Tamin's creek, and understand that we've taken the
boat.  But they won't know what direction we've taken!"

"No, M'sieu," muttered Tamin, "but no use loafing round
here till they find out!"

Which being undoubted wisdom of Tamin's, we again
hoisted sail and continued our voyage.

Having run some miles up the Basin, we altered our
course and stood straight across for the northern
shore.  We now felt secure from pursuit, holding it
highly improbable that the savages would guess our
purpose and destination.  As we sat contenting our eyes
with the great bellying of the sail, and the fine
flurries of spray that ever and again flashed up from
our speeding prow, and the silver-blue creaming of our
wake, Marc gave us a surprise.  Thrusting his hand into
the bosom of his shirt he drew out a packet and handed
it to me.

"Here, perhaps, are the proofs on which the gentle Abbe
relied!" said he.

Taking the packet mechanically, I stared at the lad in
astonishment.  But there was no information to be
gathered from that inscrutable countenance, so I
presently recollected myself, and unfolded the papers.
There were two of them.  The moon was partly clear at
the moment, and I made out the first to be an order,
written in English, on one Master Nathaniel Apthorp,
merchant, of Boston, directing him to pay Master Marc
de Mer, of Grand Pre in Nova Scotia, the sum of two
hundred and fifty pounds.  It was signed "Paul
Mascarene, Govr of Nova Scotia." The other paper was
written in finer and more hasty characters, and I could
not decipher it in the uncertain light.  But the
signature was the same as that appended to the order on
Mr. Apthorp.

"I cannot decipher this one, in this bad light," said
I; "but what does it all mean, Marc?  How comes the
English Governor to be owing you two hundred and fifty
pounds?"

"Does he owe me two hundred and fifty pounds?  That's
surely news of interest!" said Marc.

I looked at him, amazed.

"Do you mean to say that you don't know what is in
these papers?" I inquired, handing them back.

"How should I know that?" said Marc, with a calmness
which was not a little irritating.  "They were placed in
my pocket by the good Abbe; and since then my
opportunities of reading have been but scant!"

Tamin ejaculated a huge grunt of indignant
comprehension; and I, beholding all at once the whole
wicked device, threw up my hands and fell to whistling
an idle air.  It seemed to me a case for which curses
would seem but tame and pale.

"This other, then," said I, presently, "must be a
letter that would seem to have been written to you by
the Governor, and worded in such a fashion as to
compromise you plainly!"

"'Tis altogether probable, Father," replied Marc,
musingly, as he scanned the page.  He was trying to
prove his own eyesight better than mine, but found the
enterprise beyond him, -- as I knew he would.

"I can make out nothing of this other, save the
signature," he continued.  "We must even wait for
daylight.  And in the meanwhile I think you had better
keep the packet, Father, for I feel my wits and my
experience something lacking in this snarl."

I took the papers and hid them in a deep pocket which I
wore within the bosom of my shirt.

"The trap was well set, and deadly, lad," said I,
highly pleased at his confidence in my wisdom to
conduct the affair.  "But trust me to spring it.
Whatever this other paper may contain, de Ramezay shall
see them both and understand the whole plot."

"'Twill be hard to explain away," said Marc,
doubtfully, "if it be forged with any fair degree of
skill!"

"Trust my credit with de Ramezay for that.  It is
something the Black Abbe has not reckoned upon!" said
I, with assurance, stuffing my pipe contentedly with
the right Virginia leaf.  Marc, being well tired with
all that he had undergone that day, laid his head on
the cuddy and was presently sound asleep.  In a low
voice, not to disturb the slumberer, I talked with
Tamin, and learned how he had chanced to come so pat
upon me in my bonds.  He had been on the way up to the
Forge, coming not by the trail, but straight through
the forest, when he caught a view of the Indians, and
took alarm at the stealth of their approach.  He had
tracked them with a cunning beyond their own, and so
achieved to outdo them with their own weapons.

The moon now swam clear in the naked sky, the clouds
lying far below.  By the broad light I could see very
well to read the letter.  It was but brief, and ran
thus:-


To my good friend and trusted Helper Monsieur
Marc de Mer:-

DEAR SIR, -- As touching the affair which you have so
prudently carried through, and my gratitude for your so
good help, permit the enclosed order on Master Apthorp
to speak for me.  If I might hope that you would find it
in your heart and within your convenience to put me
under yet weightier obligations, I would be so bold as
to desire an exact account of the forces at Chignecto,
and of the enterprize upon which Monsieur de Ramezay is
purposing to employ them.

Believe me to be, my dear Sir, yours with high esteem
and consideration,

PAUL MASCARENE.


With a wonder of indignation I read it through, and
then again aloud to Tamin, who cursed the author with
such ingenious Acadian oaths as made me presently
smile.

"It is right shrewdly devised," said I, "but the
deviser knew little of the blunt English Governor, or
never would he have made him write with such courtly
circumlocutions.  De Ramezay, very like, will have seen
communications of Mascarene's before now, and will
scarce fail to note the disagreement."

"The fox has been known to file his tongue too smooth,"
said Tamin, sententiously.

By this we were come over against the huge black front
of Blomidon, but our course lay far outside the shadow
of his frown, in the silvery run of the seas.  The moon
floated high over the great Cape, yellow as gold, and
the bare sky was like an unruffled lake.  Far behind us
opened the mouth of the Piziquid stream, a bright gap
in the dark but vague shore-line.  On our right the
waters unrolled without obstruction till they mixed
pallidly with the sky in the mouth of Cobequid Bay.
Five miles ahead rose the lofty shore which formed the
northern wall of Minas Channel, -- grim and forbidding
enough by day; but now, in such fashion did the
moonlight fall along it wearing a face of fairyland,
and hinting of fountained palaces in its glens and high
hollows.  After I had filled my heart with the fairness
and the wonder of it, I lay down upon a thwart and fell
asleep.



Chapter V

In the Run of the Seas

IT seemed as if I had but fairly got my eyes shut, when
I was awakened by a violent pitching of the boat.  I sat
up, grasping the gunwale, and saw Marc just catching my
knee to rouse me.  The boat, heeling far over and hauled
close to the wind, was heading a little up the channel
and straight for a narrow inlet which I knew to be the
joint mouth of two small rivers.

"Where are you going?  Why is our course changed?"
I asked sharply, being nettled by a sudden notion that
they had made some change of plan without my counsel.

"Look yonder, Father!" said Marc, pointing.

I looked, and my heart shook with mingled wrath and
apprehension.  Behind us followed three canoes, urged on
by sail and paddle.

"They outsail us?" I inquired.

"Ay, before the wind, they do, M'sieu!" said Tamin.
"On this tack, maybe not.  We'll soon see!"

"But what's this but a mere trap we are running our
heads into?" I urged.

"I fear there's nothing else but to quit the boat and
make through the woods, Father," explained Marc; "that
is, if we're so fortunate as to keep ahead till we
reach land."

"In the woods, I suppose, we can outwit them or outfoot
them," said I; "but those Micmacs are untiring on the
trail."

"I know a good man with a good boat over by Shulie on
the Fundy shore," interposed Tamin.  "And I know the way
over the hills.  We'll cheat the rogue of a priest yet!"
And he shrewdly measured the distance that parted us
from our pursuers.

"It galls me to be running from these dogs!" I growled.

"Our turn will come," said Marc, glowering darkly at
the canoes.  "Do you guess the Black Abbe is with them?"

"Not he!" grunted Tamin.

"Things may happen this time," said I, "and the good
father may wish to keep his soutane clear of them.
It's all plain enough to me now.  The Indians, finding
themselves tricked, have gone back on the Pereau trail
and most inopportunely have released the gentle Abbe
from his bonds.  He has seen through our game, and has
sent his pack to look to it that we never get to de
Ramezay.  But _he_ will have no hand in it.  Oh, no!"

"What's plain to me now," interrupted Tamin, with some
anxiety in his voice, "is that they're gaining on us
faSt. They've put down leeboards; an' with leeboards
down a Micmac canoe's hard to beat."

"Oh!" I exclaimed bitterly, "if we had but our muskets!
Fool that was, thus to think to save time and not go
back for our weapons!  Trust me, lad, it's the first
time that Jean de Mer has had that particular kind of
folly to repent of!"

"But there was nought else for it, Father," said Marc.
"And if, as seems most possible, we come to close
quarters presently, we are not so naked as we might be.
Here's your two pistols, my good whinger, and Tamin's
fishy dirk.  And Tamin's gaff here will make a pretty
lance.  It is borne in upon me that some of the good
Abbe's lambs will bleat for their shepherd before this
night's work be done!"

There was a steady light in his eyes that rejoiced me
much, and his voice rose and fell as if fain to break
into a war song; and I said to myself, "The boy is a
fighter, and the fire is in his blood, for all his
scholar's prating of peace!" Yet he straightway turned
his back upon the enemy and with great indifference
went to filling his pipe.

"Ay, an' there be a right good gun in the cuddy!"
grunted Tamin, after a second or two of silence.

"The saints be praised!" said I.  And Marc's long arm
reached in to capture it.  It was a huge weapon, and my
heart beat high at sight of it.  Marc caressed it for an
instant, then reluctantly passed it to me, with the
powder-horn.

"I can shoot, a little, myself," said he, "but I would
be presumptuous to boast when you were by, Father!"

"Ay, vraiment," said Tamin, sharply; "don't think you
can shoot with the Sieur de Briart yet!"

"I don't," replied Marc, simply, as he handed me out a
pouch of bullets and a pouch of slugs.

The pursuing canoes were by this come within fair
range.  There came a strident hail from the foremost:-

"Lay to, or we shoot!"

"Shoot, dogs!" I shouted, ramming home the good measure
of powder which I had poured into my hand.  I followed
it with a fair charge of slugs, and was wadding it
loosely, when -

"Duck!" cries Tamin, bobbing his head lower than the
tiller.

Neither Marc nor I moved a hair.  But we gazed at the
canoes.  On the instant two red flames blazed out, with
a redoubled bang; and one bullet went through the sail
a little above my head.

"Not bad!" said Marc, glancing tranquilly at the bullet
hole.

But for my own part, I was angry.  To be fired upon
thus, at a priest's orders, by a pack of scurvy savages
in the pay of our own party, -- never before had Jean
de Briart been put to such indignity.  I kneeled, and
took a very cautious aim, -- not, however, at the
savages, but at the bow of the nearest canoe.

Tamin's big gun clapped like a cannon, and kicked my
shoulder very vilely.  But the result of the shot was
all that we could desire.  As I made haste to load again
I noticed that the savage in the bow had fallen
backward in his place, hit by a stray slug.  The bulk of
the charge, however, had torn a great hole in the bark,
close to the water-line.

"You've done it, Father!" said Marc, in a tone of quiet
exultation.

"Hein!" grunted Tamin.  "They don't like the wet!"

The canoe was going down by the bow.  The other two
craft ranged hurriedly alongside, and took in the
gesticulating crew, -- all but one, whom they left in
the stern to paddle the damaged canoe to land, being
loth to lose a serviceable craft.  With broken bow high
in air the canoe spun around, and sped off up the Basin
before the wind.  The remaining two resumed the chase of
us.  We had gained a great space during the confusion,
yet they came up upon us fast.

But now, ere I judged them to be within gunshot, they
slackened speed.

"They think better of it!" said I, raising the gun
again to my shoulder.  As I did so they sheered off in
haste to a safer distance.

"They are not such fools as I had hoped!" said Marc.

"I so far flatter myself as to think," said I, with
some complacency, "that they won't trust themselves
willingly again within range of this good barker."

By this we were come well within the wide mouth of the
estuary, and a steep, wooded point thrust out upon our
right.  All at once I muttered a curse upon my dulness.

"What fools we are, to be sure!" I cried.  "No reason
that we should toil across the mountains to your good
man's good boat at Shulie, my Tamin.  Put her about, and
we'll sail in comfort around to Chignecto; and let
these fellows come in range again at their peril!"

"To be sure, indeed!" grunted Tamin; and with a lurch
and great flapping we went about.

The canoes, indeed, now fled before us with excellent
discretion.  Our new course carried us under the gloom
of the promontory, whence, in a few minutes, we shot
out again into the moonlight.  It was pleasant to see
our antagonists making such courteous haste to give us
room.  I could not forbear to chuckle over it, and
wished mightily that the Black Abbe were in one of the
canoes.

"I fear me there's to be no work for Tamin's fishy dirk
or my good whinger," sighed Marc, with a nice air of
melancholy; and Tamin, with the little wrinkles thicker
than ever about his eyes, yelled droll taunts after our
late pursuers.  In fact, we were all three in immense
high feather, -- when on a sudden there came a crashing
bump that tumbled us headlong, the mast went overboard,
and there we were stuck fast upon a sharp rock.  The
boat was crushed in like an egg-shell, and lay over on
her side.  The short, chopping seas huddled upon us in a
smother.  As I rose up, sputtering, I took note of
Tamin's woollen cap washing away debonairly, snatched
off, belike, by a taut rope as the mast fell.  Then,
clinging all three to the topmost gunwale, the waves
jumping and sousing us derisively, we stared at each
other in speechless dismay.  But a chorus of triumphant
screeches from the canoes, as they noted our mishap and
made to turn, brought us to our senses.

"Nothing for it but to swim!" said I, thrusting down
the now useless musket into the cuddy, where I hoped it
might stay in case the wrecked boat should drift
ashore.  It was drenched, of course, and something too
heavy to swim with.  I emptied the slugs from my pocket.
Tamin ducked his head under water and fumbled in the
cuddy till I was on the point of plucking him forth,
fearing he would drown, -- Marc, meanwhile, looking on
tranquilly and silently, with that fleeting remembrance
of a smile.  But now Tamin arose, gasping, with a small
sack and a salted hake in his hands.  The fish he passed
over to me.

"Bread, M'sieu!" said he, holding up the drenched sack
in triumph.  "Now for the woods!"

'Twas but the toss of a biscuit to shore, and we had
gained it ere our enemies were come within gunshot.
Running swiftly along the strip of beach that skirted
the steep, we put the shoulder of the cape between,
and were safe from observation for a few minutes.

"To the woods, M'sieu!" cried Tamin, in a suppressed
voice.

"No!" said I, sternly.  "Straight along the beach,
till I give the word to turn in! Follow me!"

"'Tis the one chance, to get out of sight now!"
grumbled Tamin, running beside me, and clutching at his
wet sack of bread.

"Don't you suppose he knows what he is doing, my
Tamin?" interrupted Marc.  "'Tis for you and me to obey
orders!"

Tamin growled, but said no more.

"Now in with you to cover," I commanded, waving my salt
fish as it had been a marshal's baton.  At the same
moment I turned, ran up the wet slope where a spring
bubbled out of the wood's edge and spread itself over
the stones, and sprang behind a thick screen of
viburnums.  My companions were beside me on the instant,
-- but it was not an instant too soon.  As we paused to
look back, there were the canoes coming furiously
around the point.

Staying not long to observe them, I led the way
straight into the darkness of the woods, aiming for the
seashore at the other side of the point.  But Tamin was
not satisfied.

"Our road lies straight up yon river," said he

"My friend," said I, "we must e'en find another road to
Shulie.  Those fellows will be sure to agree that we
have gone that way.  Knowing that I am a cunning
woodsman, they will say, 'He will make them to run in
the water, and so leave no trail.' And they will give
hot chase up the river."

"But there be two rivers," objected Tamin.

"Bien," said I, "they will divide their party, and give
hot chase up two rivers!"

"And in the meanwhile?" inquired Marc.

"I'll find the way to Shulie," said I.  "The stars and
the sun are guide enough I know the main lay of all
these coasts."



Chapter Vl

Grul

THE undergrowth into which we had now come was thick
and hindering, so there was no further chance of
speech.  A few minutes more and we came out upon the
seaward slope of the point.  We pushed straight down to
the water, here sheltered from the wind and little
troubled.  That our footprints might be hidden, at least
for a time, we ran, one behind the other, along the lip
of the tide, where the water was about ankle deep.
In the stillness our splashing sounded dangerously loud,
and Tamin, yet in a grumbling humour, spoke of it.

"But you forget, my friend," said I, gently, "that
there is noise and to spare where our enemies are, --
across there in the wind!"

In a moment Tamin spoke again, pointing some little way
ahead.

"The land drops away yonder, M'sieu, 'twixt the point
and the main shore!" he growled, with conspicuous
anxiety in his voice.  He was no trembler; but it
fretted him to be taking what he deemed the weaker
course.  "Nothing," he added, "but a bit of bare beach
that the waves go over at spring tides when the wind's
down the Basin!"

I paused in some dismay.  But my mind was made up.

"We must go on," said I.  "But we will stoop low, and
lose no time in the passage.  They'll scarce be landed
yet."

And now, as I came to see how low indeed that strip of
perilous beach was, I somewhat misdoubted of success in
getting by unseen.  But we went a little deeper in the
tide, and bowed our bodies with great humbleness, and
so passed overwith painful effort but not a little
speed.  Being come again under shelter, we straightened
ourselves, well pleased, fetched a deep breath or two,
and ran on with fresh celerity.

"But if a redskin should think to step over the beach,
there'd be our goose cooked!" muttered Tamin.

"Well said!" I answered.  "Therefore let us strike
inland at once!" And I led the way again into the
darkness of the forest.

Dark as it was, there was yet light enough from the
moon to enable me to direct my course as I wished.
I struck well west of the course which would have taken
us most speedily to Shulie, being determined to avoid
the valley of the stream which I considered our
pursuers were most likely to ascend.  To satisfy Tamin's
doubts I explained my purpose, which was to aim
straight for Shulie as soon as we were over the water-shed.
And I must do him the justice to say he was
content, beginning now to come more graciously to my
view.  We went but slowly, climbing, ever climbing.
At times we would be groping through a great blackness of
hemlocks.  Again the forest would be more open, a
mingling of fir trees, and birches, and maples.
Coming at last to more level ground, we were still much
hindered by innumerable rocks, amid which the under-brush
and wild vines prepared pitfalls for our weary
feet.  But I was not yet willing to call a halt for
breath.  On, on we stumbled, the wet branches buffeting
our faces, but a cool and pleasant savour of the wild
herbs which we trod upon ever exhaling upwards to
refresh our senses.  As we crossed a little grassy
glade, I observed that Marc had come to Tamin's help,
and was carrying the sack of bread.  I observed, also,
that Tamin's face was drawn with fatigue, and that he
went with a kind of dogged heaviness.  I took pity upon
him.  We had put, I guessed, good miles between
ourselves and our pursuers, and I felt that we were, in
all reason, safe for the time.  At the further limit of
the glade there chattered a shallow brook, whose sweet
noise reminded me that I was parched with thirSt. The
pallor of first dawn was now coming into the sky, and
the tree tops began to lift and float in an aerial
grayness.  I glanced at Marc, and his eyes met mine with
a keen brightness that told me he was yet unwearied.
Nevertheless I cried:-

"Halt, and fall out for breakfast." And with the words
I flung myself down by the brook, thrust my burning
face into the babbling chill of it, and drank
luxuriously.  Tamin was beside me in an instant; but
Marc slaked his thirst at more leisure, when he had
well enjoyed watching our satisfaction.

We lay for a little, till the sky was touched here and
there with saffron and flying wisps of pink, and we
began to see the colour of grass and leaves.  Then we
made our meal, -- a morsel each of the salt hake which
I had clung to through our flight, and some bits of
Tamin's black bread.  This bread was wholesome, as I
well knew, and to our hunger it was not unsavoury; but
it was of a hardness which the seawater had scarce
availed to mitigate.

As we ground hastily upon the meagre fare, I felt,
rather than heard, a presence come behind me.  I turned
my head with a start, and at the same instant heard a
high, plangent voice, close beside us, crying slowly:-

"Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the day of her
desolation cometh."

It was an astonishing figure upon which my eyes fell, --
a figure which might have been grotesque, but was
not.  Instead of laughing, my heart thrilled with a kind
of awe.  The man was not old, -- his frame was erect and
strong with manhood; but the long hair hanging about
his neck was white, the long beard streaming upon his
half-naked breast was white.  He wore leathern breeches,
and the upper portion of his body was covered only by a
cloak of coarse woollen stuff, woven in a staring
pattern of black and yellow.  On his head was a rimless
cap of plaited straw, with a high, pointed crown; and
this was stuck full of gaudy flowers and feathers.
From the point of the crown rose the stump of what had been,
belike, a spray of goldenrod, broken by a hasty
journeying through the obstructions of the forest.
The man's eyes, of a wild and flaming blue, fixed
themselves on mine.  In one hand he carried a white
stick, with a grotesque carven head, dyed scarlet,
which he pointed straight at me.

"Do you lie down, like cows that chew the cud, when the
wolves are on the trail?" demanded that plangent voice.

"It's Grul!" cried Tamin, springing to his feet and
thrusting a piece of black bread into the stranger's
hand.

But the offering was thrust aside, while those wide
eyes flamed yet more wildly upon me.

"They are on the trail, I tell you!" he repeated.
"I hear their feet even now!  Go!  Run!  Fly!" and he
stooped, with an ear toward the ground.

"But which way should we fly?" I asked, half in doubt
whether his warning should be heeded or derided.
I could see that neither Marc nor Tamin had any such
doubts.  They were on the strain to be off, and only
awaited my word.

"Go up the brook," said he, in a lower voice.
"The first small stream on your left hand turn up that a
little way, and so -- for the wolves shall this time be
balked.  But the black wolf's teeth bite deep.  They
shall bite upon the throats of the people!" he
continued, his voice rising keenly, his white staff,
with its grinning scarlet head, waving in strange,
intricate curves.  We were already off, making at almost
full speed up the brook.  Glancing back, I saw the
fantastic form running to and fro over the ground where
we had lain; and when the trees hid him we heard those
ominous words wailed slowly over and over with the
reiterance of a tolling bell:-

"Woe, woe for Acadie the Fair, for the day of her
desolation cometh!"

"He'll throw them off the trail!" said Tamin,
confidently.

"But how did they ever get on it?" queried Marc.

"'Tis plain that they have seen or heard us as we
passed the strip of beach!" said I, in deep vexation,
for I hated to be overreached by any one in woodcraft.
"If we outwit them now, it's no thanks to my tactics,
but only to that generous and astonishing madman.
You both seemed to know him.  Who, in the name of all
the saints, might he be?  What was it you called him,
Tamin?"

"Grul!" replied Tamin; and said no more, discreetly
husbanding his wind.  But Marc spoke for him.

"I have heard him called no other name but Grul!  Madman
he is, at times, I think.  But sane for the most part,
and with some touches of a wisdom beyond the wisdom of
men.  The guise of madness he wears always; and the
Indians, as well as our own people, reverence him
mightily.  It is nigh upon three years since he first
appeared in Acadie.  He hates the Black Abbe, -- who,
they say, once did him some great mischief in some
other land than this, -- and his strange ravings, his
prodigious prophesyings, do something here and there to
weaken the Abbe's influence with our people."

"Then how does he evade the good father's wrath?"
I questioned, in wonder.

"Oh," said Marc, "the good father hates him cordially
enough.  But the Indians could not be persuaded, or
bullied, or bribed, to lift a hand against him.  They
say a Manitou dwells in him."

"Maybe they're not far wrong!" grunted Tamin.

And now I, like Tamin, found it prudent to spare my
wind.  But Marc, whose lungs seemed untiring, spoke from
time to time as he went, and told me certain incidents,
now of Grul's acuteness, now of his gift of prophecy,
now of his fantastic madness.  We came at length, after
passing two small rivulets on the right, to the stream
on the left which Grul had indicated.  It had a firm
bed, wherein our footsteps left no trace, and we
ascended it for perhaps a mile, by many windings.
Then, with crafty care, we crept up from the stream,
in such a fashion as to leave no mark of our divergence
if, as I thought not likely, our pursuers should come that
way.  After that we fetched a great circuit, crossed the
parent brook, and shortly before noon judged that we
might account ourselves secure.  Where a tiny spring
bubbled beneath a granite boulder and trickled away
north toward the Fundy shore, we stopped to munch black
bread and the remnant of the fish.  We rested for an
hour, -- Tamin and I sleeping, while Marc, who
protested that he felt no motion toward slumber, kept
watch.  When he roused us, we set off pleasantly
refreshed, our faces toward Shulie.

Till late that night we journeyed, having a clear moon
to guide us.  Coming at length to the edge of a small
lake set with islands, "Here," said I, "is the place
where we may sleep secure!"

We stripped, took our bundles on our heads, and swam
out into the shining stillness.  We swam past two
islets, and landed upon one which caught my fancy.
There we lay down in a bed of sweet-smelling fern, and
were well content.  As we supped on Tamin's good black
bread, two loons laughed to each other out on the
silver surface.  We saw their black, watchful heads,
moving slowly.  Then we slept.  It was high day when we
awoke.  The bread was now scarce, so we husbanded it,
and made such good speed all day that while it wanted
yet some hours of sunset we came out upon a bluff's
edge and saw below us the wash and roll of Fundy.  We
were some way west of Shulie, but not far, Tamin said,
from the house of his good friend with the good boat.

To this house we came within the hour.  It was a small,
home-like cabin, among apple trees, in a slant clearing
that over-hung a narrow creek.  There, by a little
jetty, I rejoiced to see the boat.  The man of the
house, one Beaudry, was in the woods looking for his
cow, but the goodwife made us welcome.  When Beaudry
came in he and Tamin fell on each other's necks.  And I
found, too, that the name of Jean de Briart, with
something of his poor exploits, was not all unknown in
the cabin.

How well we supped that night, on fresh shad well
broiled, and fresh sweet barley bread, and thin brown
buckwheat cakes!  It was settled at once that Beaudry
should put us over to de Ramezay's camp with the first
of the morrow's tide.  Then, over our pipes, sitting
under the apple tree by the porch, we told our late
adventures.  I say we, but Tamin told them, and gave
them a droll colouring which delighted me.  It must have
tickled Marc's fancy, too, for I took note that he let
his pipe out many times during the story.  Beaudry kept
crying "Hein!" and "Bien!" and "Tiens!" in an ecstasy
of admiration.  The goodwife, however, was seemingly
most touched by the loss of Tamin's knitted cap.  With a
face of great concern, as who should say "Poor soul!"
she jumped up, ran into the house, was gone a few
moments, and returned beaming benevolence.

"V'la!" she cried; and stuck upon Tamin's wiry black
head a bran-new cap of red wool.



Chapter VII

The Commander is Embarrassed

NEXT day we set out at a good hour, and came without
further adventure to Chignecto.  Having landed, amid a
little swarm of fishing-boats, we then went straight to
de Ramezay's head-quarters, leaving Beaudry at the
wharf among his cronies.  We crossed a strip of dyked
marsh, whereon were many sleek Acadian cattle cropping
the rich aftermath, and ascended the gentle slope of
the uplands.  Amid a few scattered cabins were ranged
the tents of the soldiers.  Camp fires and sheaves of
stacked muskets gave the bright scene a warlike
countenance.  Higher up the hill stood a white cottage,
larger than the rest, its door painted red, with green
panels; and from a staff on its gable, blown out
bravely by the wind which ever sweeps those Fundy
marshlands, flapped the white banner with the Lilies of
France.

The sentry who challenged us at the foot of the slope
knew me, -- had once fought under me in a border
skirmish, -- and, saluting with great respect, summoned
a guard to conduct us to headquarters.  As we climbed
the last dusty rise and turned in, past the long well-sweep
and two gaunt, steeple-like Lombardy poplars, to
the yard before the cottage, the door opened and the
commander himself stood before us.  His face lit up
gladly as I stepped forward to greet him, and with
great warmth he sprang to embrace me.

"My dear Briart!" he cried.  "I have long expected you!"

"I am but just returned to Acadie, my dear friend,"
said I, with no less warmth than he had evinced, "or
you would surely have seen me here to greet you on your
coming.  But the King's service kept me on the
Richelieu!"

"And even your restless activity, my Jean, cannot put
you in two places at once," said he, as he turned with
an air of courteous inquiry to my companions.
Perceiving at once by his dress that Tamin was a
habitant, his eyes rested upon Marc.

"My son Marc, Monsieur de Ramezay," said I.

The two bowed, Marc very respectfully, as became a
young man on presentation to a distinguished officer,
but de Ramezay with a sudden and most noticeable
coldness.  At this I flushed with anger, but the moment
was not one for explanations.  I restrained myself; and
turning to Tamin, I said in an altered tone:-

"And this, de Ramezay, is my good friend and faithful
follower, Tamin Violet, of Canard parish, who desires
to enlist for service under you.  More of him, and all
to his credit, I will tell you by and by.  I merely
commend him to you now as brave, capable, and a good
shot!"

"I have ever need of such!" said de Ramezay, quickly.
"As you recommend him he shall serve in Monsieur de
Ville d'Avray's company, which forms my own guard."

Summoning an orderly, he gave directions to this
effect.  As Tamin turned to depart with the orderly,
both Marc and I stepped up to him and wrung his hands,
and thanked him many times for the courage and craft
which had saved Marc's life as well as the honour of
our family.

"We'll see you again to-night or in the morning, my
Tamin," said Marc.

"And tell you how goes my talk with the commander,"
added I, quietly.

"And for the boat we wrecked," continued Marc, "why, of
course, we won't remain in your debt for a small thing
like that; though for the great matter, and for your
love, we are always your debtors gladly!"

"And in the King's uniform," said I, cutting short
Tamin's attempted protestations, "even the Black Abbe
will not try to molest you."

I turned again to de Ramezay, who was waiting a few
paces aside, and said, with a courtesy that was
something formal after the warmth of our first
greeting:-

"Your pardon, de Ramezay!  But Tamin has gone through
much with us and for us.  And now, my son and I would
crave an undisturbed conversation with you."

At once, and without a word, he conducted us into his
private room, where he invited us to be seated.  As we
complied, he himself remained standing, with every sign
of embarrassment in his frank and fearless countenance.
I had ever liked him well.  Good cause to like him,
indeed, I had in my heart, for I had once stood over
his body in a frontier skirmish, and saved his scalp
from the knives of the Onondagas.  But now my anger was
hot against him, for it was plain to me that he had
lent ear to some slanders against Marc.  For a second or
two there was a silence, then Marc sprang to his feet.

"Perhaps if I stand," said he, coldly, "Monsieur de
Ramezay will do us the honour of sitting."

De Ramezay's erect figure -- a very soldierly and
imposing figure it was in its uniform of white and gold
-- straightened itself haughtily for an instant.  Then
he began, but with a stammering tongue:-

"I bitterly regret -- it grieves me, -- it pains me to
even hint it, -- " and he kept his eyes upon the floor
as he spoke, -- "but your son, my dear friend, is
accused -- "

Here I broke in upon him, springing to my feet.

"Stop!" said I, sternly.

He looked at me with a face of sorrowful inquiry, into
which a tinge of anger rose slowly.

"Remember," I continued, "that whatever accusation or
imputation you make now, I shall require you to prove
beyond a peradventure, -- or to make good with your
sword against mine!  My son is the victim of a vile
conspiracy.  He is -- "

"Then he _is_ loyal, you say, to France?" interrupted
de Ramezay, eagerly.

"I say," said I, in a voice of steel, "that he has done
nothing that his father, a soldier of France, should
blush to tell, -- nothing that an honest gentleman
should not do." My voice softened a little as I noticed
the change in his countenance.  "And oh, Ramezay," I
continued, "had any man an hour ago told me that you
would condemn a son of mine unheard, -- that you, on
the mere word of a false priest or his wretched tools,
would have believed that a son of Jean de Mer could be
a traitor, I would have driven the words down his
throat for a black lie, a slander on my friend!"

De Ramezay was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed upon
the floor.  Then he lifted his head.

"I was wrong.  Forgive me, my friend!" said he, very
simply.  "I see clearly that I ought to have held the
teller of those tales in suspicion, knowing of him what
I do know.  And now, since you give me your word the
tales are false, they are false.  Pardon me, I beg of
you, Monsieur!" he added, turning to Marc and holding
out his hand.

Marc bowed very low, but appeared not to see the hand.

"If you have heard, Monsieur de Ramezay," said he,
"that, before it was made plain that France would seek
to recover Acadie out of English hands, I, a mere boy,
urged my fellow Acadians to accept the rule in good
faith; -- if you have heard that I then urged them not
to be misled to their own undoing by an unscrupulous
and merciless intriguer who disgraces his priestly
office; -- if you have heard that, since then, I have
cursed bitterly the corruption at Quebec which is
threatening New France with instant ruin, -- you have
heard but truly!"

De Ramezay bit his lips and flushed slightly.  Marc was
not making the situation easier; but I could scarce
blame him.  Our host, however, motioned us to our seats,
taking his own chair immediately that he saw us seated.
For my own part, my anger was quite assuaged.  I
hastened to clear the atmosphere.

"Let me tell you the whole story, Ramezay," said I,
"and you will understand.  But first let me say that my
son is wholly devoted to the cause of France.  His
former friendly intercourse with the English, a boyish
matter, he brought to an utter end when the war came
this way."

"And let me say," interrupted de Ramezay, manfully
striving to amend his error, "that when one whom I need
not name was filling my ear with matter not creditable
to a young man named Marc de Mer, it did not come at
all to my mind -- and can you wonder? -- that the
person so spoken of was a son of my Briart, of the man
who had so perilled his own life to save mine!  I
thought your son was but a child.  It was thus that the
accusations were allowed to stick in my mind, -- which
I do most heartily repent of!  And for which I again
crave pardon!"

"I beg of you, Monsieur, that you will think no more of
it!" said Marc, heartily, being by this quite appeased.

Then with some particularity I told our story, -- not
omitting Marc's visit to his little Puritan at
Annapolis, whereat de Ramezay smiled, and seemed to
understand something which had before been dark to him.
When the Black Abbe came upon the scene (I had none of
our host's reluctance to mention the Abbe's name!) de
Ramezay's brows gathered gloomily.  But he heard the
tale through with breathless attention up to the point
of our landing at Chignecto.

"And now, right glad am I that you are here," he
exclaimed, stretching out a hand to each of us.  The
frank welcome that illuminated the strong lines of his
face left no more shadow of anger in our hearts.

"And here are the Abbe's precious documents!" said I,
fetching forth the packet.

De Ramezay examined both letters with the utmost care.

"The reward," he said presently, with a dry smile, "is
on a scale that savours of Quebec rather more than of
thrifty New England.  When Boston holds the purse-strings,
information is bought cheaper than that!  As for the signature,
it is passable.  But I fear it would scarce satisfy
Master Apthorp!"

"I thought as much," said I, "though I have seen
Mascarene's signature but once."

De Ramezay fingered the paper, and held it up to the
light.

"But a point which will interest you particularly,
Monsieur," he continued, addressing Marc, "is the fact
that this paper was made in France!"

"It is gratifying to know that, Monsieur!" replied
Marc, with his vanishing smile.

"It would be embarrassing to some people," said de
Ramezay, "if they knew we were aware of it.  But I may
say here frankly that they must not know it.  You will
readily understand that my hands are something less
than free.  As things go now at Quebec, there are
methods used which I cannot look upon with favour, and
which I must therefore seem not to see.  I am forced to
use the tools which are placed in my hands.  This priest
of whom you speak is a power in Acadie.  He is thought
to be indispensable to our cause.  He will do the things
that, alas, have to be done, but which no one else will
do.  And I believe he does love France, -- he is surely
sincere in that.  But he rests very heavily, methinks,
on the conscience of his good bishop at Quebec, who,
but for the powers that interfere, would call him to a
sharp account.  I tell you all this so that you will see
why I must not charge the Abbe with this villany of
his.  I am compelled to seem ignorant of it."

I assured him that I apprehended the straits in which
he found himself, and would be content if he would
merely give the Abbe to understand that Marc was not to
be meddled with.

"Of course," said Marc, at this point, "I wish to enter
active service, with Father; and I shall therefore be,
for the most part, beyond the good Abbe's reach.  But we
have business at Grand Pre and Canard that will hold us
there a week or thereabouts; and it is annoying to walk
in the hourly peril of being tomahawked and scalped for
a spy!"

"I'll undertake to secure you in this regard," laughed
de Ramezay; "and in return, perchance I may count on
your support when I move against Annapolis, as my
purpose is to do ere many weeks!"

"Assuredly!" said Marc, "if my father have made for me
no other plans!" And he turned to me for my word in the
matter.

As it chanced, this was exactly as I had purposed,
which I made at once to appear.  It was presently
agreed, therefore, that we should tarry some days at
Chignecto, returning thereafter to despatch our affairs
at home and await de Ramezay's summons.  As the
Commander's guests we were lodged in his own quarters,
and Tamin was detailed to act as our orderly.  The good
Beaudry, with his good boat, was sent home not empty-handed
to his goodwife near Shulie, with instructions
to come again for us in five days.  And Tamin, having
now no more need of it, sent back to Madame Beaudry,
with best compliments, her knitted cap of red wool.



Chapter VIII

The Black Abbe Comes to Dinner

OF the pleasant but something irrelevant matter of how
merrily we supped that night with de Ramezay and his
officers, -- many of whom I knew, all of whom knew me
or my adventurous repute, -- I will not linger to
discourse.  Nor of the costly dainties from France which
enriched the board, side by side with fair salmon from
the Tantramar and bursting-fat plover from the Joli-Coeur
marshes.  Nor of the good red wine of Burgundy
which so enhanced the relish of those delectable birds,
-- and of which I might perhaps have drunk more
sparingly had good Providence but made me more
abstemious.  Let it suffice to say, there was wit enough
to spice plainer fare, and courtesy that had shone at
Versailles.  The long bare room, with its low,
black-raftered ceiling and polished floor, its dark walls
patterned with shelves, was lit by the smoky flames of
two-score tallow candles.

By and by chairs were pushed back, the company sat with
less ceremony, the air grew clouded with the blue
vapours of the Virginia weed, and tongues wagged
something more loosely than before.  There were songs, --
catches from the banks of Rhone, rolling ballads of
our own voyageurs.  A young captain quite lately from
Versailles, the Sieur de Ville d'Avray, had an
excellent gift of singing.

But now, just when the Sieur de Ville d'Avray was
rendering, with most commendable taste and spirit, the
ballade of "Frere Lubin," there came an interruption.


"Il presche en theologien,
Mais pour boire de belle eau claire,
Faictes la boire a vostre chien,
Frere Lubin ne le peult faire," --


sang the gay voice, -- we all nodding our heads in
intent approval, or even, maybe, seeing that the wine
was generous, tapping the measure openly with our
fingers.  But suddenly, though there was no noise to
draw them, all eyes turned to the door-way, and the
singer paused in his song.  I tipped my chair back into
the shadow of a shelf, as did Marc, who sat a little
beyond me.  For the visitor, who thus boldly entered
unannounced, was none other than the Black Abbe
himself.

I flung de Ramezay a swift glance of anticipation,
which he caught as he arose in his place to greet the
new-comer.  On the faces around the table I took note of
an ill-disguised annoyance.  The Abbe, it was plain,
found small favour in that company.  But to do him
justice, he seemed but little careful to court favour.
He stood in the doorway, frowning, a piercing and
bitter light in his close-set eyes.  He waited for de
Ramezay to come forward and give him welcome, -- which
de Ramezay presently did, and would have led him to a
seat at the table.

But "No!" said the grim intruder.  "With all thanks for
your courtesy, Monsieur, I have no time, nor am I in
the temper, for revellings.  When I have said my word to
you I will get me to the house of one of my flock, and
sup plainly, and take what rest I may, for at dawn I
must set out for the Shubenacadie.  There is much to be
done, and few to do it, and the time grows short!" and
he swept a look of reprimand about the circle.

"Would you speak with me in private, Father?" asked de
Ramezay, with great civility.

"It is not necessary, Monsieur!" replied the Abbe.
"I have but to say that I arrested the pestilent young
traitor, Marc de Mer, on his father's estate at Canard,
and left him under guard while I went to attend to
other business.  I found upon his person clear proofs of
his treachery, which would have justified his hanging
on the instant.  But I preferred that you should be the
judge!"

"You did well!" said de Ramezay, gravely.  "I must ask
even you, Monsieur l'Abbe, to remember on all occasions
that I, and I only, am the judge, so long as I remain
in Acadie!"

To this rebuke, courteous though it was, the priest
vouchsafed no reply but a slight smile, which uncovered
his strong yellow teeth on one side, like a snarl.
He continued his report as if there had been no
interruption.

"In my brief absence his father, with some disaffected
habitants, deceived my faithful followers by a trick,
and carried off the prisoner.  But I have despatched a
strong party on the trail of the fugitives.  They will
certainly be captured, and brought at once -- "

But at this point his voice failed him.  His face worked
violently with mingled rage and amazement, and
following his gaze I saw Marc standing and bowing with
elaborate courtesy.

"They are already here, Sir Abbe," said he, "having
made haste that they might give you welcome!"

A ripple of laughter went around the table, as the
company, recovering from some moments of astonishment,
began to understand the situation.  I, too, rose to my
feet, smiling expectantly.  The priest's narrow eyes met
mine for a second, with a light that was akin to
madness.  Then they shifted.  But he found his voice
again.

"I denounce that man as a proved spy and traitor!" he
shouted, striding forward, and pointing a yellow finger
of denunciation across the table at Marc, while the
revellers over whom he leaned made way for him
resentfully.  "I demand his instant arrest."

"Gently, Monsieur l'Abbe," said de Ramezay.  "These are
serious charges to bring against French gentlemen, and
friends of the Commander; have you proofs -- such as
will convince me after the closest scrutiny?" he added,
with unmistakable significance.

"I have myself seen the proofs, I tell you," snarled
the Abbe, beginning to exert more self-control, but
still far unlike the cool, inexorable, smiling cynic
who had so galled my soul with his imperturbability
when I lay in his bonds beside the Forge.

"I would fain see them, too," insisted de Ramezay.

The priest glared at me, and then at Marc, baffled.

"I have them not," said he, in his slow and biting
tones; "but if you would do your duty as the King's
servant, Monsieur de Ramezay, and arrest yonder spy,
you would doubtless find the proofs upon his person,
if he has not taken the pains to dispose of them." Upon
this insolent speech, de Ramezay took his seat, and
left the priest standing alone.  When, after a pause, he
spoke, his voice was stern and masterful, as if he were
addressing a contumacious servant, though he retained
the forms of courtesy in his phrases.

"Monsieur," said he, "when I wish to learn my duty, it
will not be the somewhat well-known Abbe la Garne whom
I will ask to teach me.  I must require you not to
presume further upon the sacredness of your office.
Your soutane saves you from being called to account by
the gentleman whose honour you have aspersed.  Monsieur
Marc de Mer is the son of my friend.  He is also one of
my aides-de-camp.  I beg that you will understand me
without more words when I say that I have examined the
whole matter to which you refer.  For your own credit,
press it no further.  I trust you catch my meaning!"

"On the contrary," said the Abbe, coolly, being by this
time quite himself again, and seemingly indifferent to
the derisive faces confronting him -- "on the contrary,
your meaning altogether escapes me, Monsieur.  All that
I understand of your singular behaviour is what the
Governor and the Intendant, not I their unworthy
instrument, will be called to pass judgment upon."

"I will trouble you to understand also, Sir Priest,"
said de Ramezay, thoroughly aroused, his tones biting
like acid, "that if this young man is further troubled
by any of your faithful Shubenacadie flock, I will hold
you responsible; and the fact that you are useful,
having fewer scruples than trouble a mere layman, shall
not save you."

"Be not disturbed for your spy, Monsieur," sneered the
Abbe, now finely tranquil.  "I wash my hands of all
responsibility in regard to him; look you to that."

For the space of some seconds there was silence all
about that table of feasting, while the Abbe swept a
smiling, bitter glance around the room.  Last, his eyes
rested upon mine and leaped with a sudden light of
triumph, so that one might have thought not he but I
had been worsted in the present encounter.  Then he
turned on his heel and went out, scornful of courtesy.

A clamour of talk arose upon this most cherished
departure; but I heard it as in a dream, being wrapped
up in wonder as to the meaning of that look of triumph.

"Has the Black Abbe cast a spell upon you, Father?" I
heard Marc inquiring presently.  Whereupon I came to
myself with a kind of start, and made merry with the
rest of them.

It was late when Marc and I went to the little chamber
where our pallets were stretched.  There we found Tamin
awaiting us.  He was in a sweat of fear.

"What is it, my Tamin?" asked Marc.

"The Black Abbe," he grunted, the drollness all chased
out of the little wrinkles about his eyes.

"Well," said I, impatiently.  "The Black Abbe; and what
of him?  He is repenting to-night that he ever tried
conclusions with me, I'll wager."

I spoke the more confidently because in my heart I was
still troubled to know the meaning of the Abbe's
glance.

"Hein," said Tamin.  "He looked -- his eyes would lift a
scalp!  I was standing in the light just under the
window, when of a sudden the door closed; and there he
stood beside me, with no sound, and still as a heron.
He looked at me with those two narrow eyes, as if he
would eat my heart out; and I stood there, and shook.
Then, of a sudden, his face changed.  It became like a
good priest's face when he says the prayer for the soul
that is passing; and he looked at me with solemn eyes.
And I was yet more afraid.  'It is not for me to rebuke
you,' he said, speaking so that each word seemed an
hour long; 'Red runs your blood on the deep snow
beneath the apple tree.' And before I could steady my
teeth to ask him what he meant, he was gone.  'Red runs
your blood beneath the apple tree.' What did he mean by
that?"

"Oh," said I, speaking lightly to encourage him, though
in truth the words fell on me with a chill, "he said it
to spoil your sleep and poison your content.  It was a
cunning revenge, seeing that he dare not lift a hand to
punish you otherwise."

"To be sure, my Tamin, that is all of it," added Marc.
"Who has ever heard that the Black Abbe was a prophet?
Faith, 'tis as Father says, a cunning and a devilish
revenge.  But you can balk it finely by paying no heed
to it."

Tamin's face had brightened mightily, but he still
looked serious.

"Do you think so?" he exclaimed with eagerness.
"'Tis as you say indeed, -- the Black Abbe is no prophet.
Had it been Grul, now, that said it, there were something
to lie awake for, eh?"

"Yes, indeed, if Grul had said it," muttered Marc,
contemplating him strangely.

But for me, I was something impatient now to be asleep.

"Think no more of it, my friend," said I, and dismissed
him.  Yet sleepy as I was, I thought of it, and even I
must have begun to dream of it.  The white sheet of
moonlight that lay across my couch became a drift of
snow with blood upon it, and the patterned shadow upon
the wall an apparition leaning over, -- when out of an
immense distance, as it were, I heard Marc's voice.

"Father," he cried softly, "are you awake?"

"Yes, dear lad," said I.  "What is it?"

"I have been wondering," said he, "why the Black Abbe
looked at you, not me, in his going.  He had such a
countenance as warns me that he purposes some cunning
stroke.  But I fear his enmity has turned from me to
you."

"Well, lad, it was surely I that balked him.  What would
you have?" I asked.

"Oh," said he, heavily, "that I should have turned that
bloodhound onto your trail!"

"Marc, if it will comfort you to know it, carry this in
your memory," said I, with a cheerful lightness, like
froth upon the strong emotion that flooded my heart.
"When the Black Abbe strikes at me, it will be through
you.  He knows where I am like to prove most
vulnerable!"

"'Tis all right, then, so as we sink or swim together,
Father," said Marc, quietly.

"That's the way of it now, dear lad!  Sweet sleep to
you, and dreams of red hair!" said I.  And I turned my
face drowsily to the wall.



Chapter IX

The Abbe Strikes Again

THE few days of our stay at Chignecto were gay and busy
ones; and all through them hummed the wind steadily
across the pale green marshes, and buffeted the golden-rod
on our high shoulder of upland.  De Ramezay
gratified me by making much of Marc.  The three of us
rode daily abroad among the surrounding settlements.
And I spent many hours planning with de Ramezay a fort
which should be built on the site of this camp, in case
the coming campaign should fail to drive the English
out of Acadie.  De Ramezay, as was ever his wont, was
full of confidence in the event.  But of the sorry
doings at Quebec, of the plundering hands upon the
public purse, of the shamelessness in high places, he
hinted to me so broadly that I began to see much ground
for Marc's misgivings.  And my heart cried out for my
fair country of New France.

On the fifth day of our stay, -- it was a Wednesday,
and very early in the morning, -- the good Beaudry with
his good boat came for us.  The tide serving at about
two hours after sunrise, we set out then for Grand Pre,
well content with the jade Fortune whose whims had so
far favoured us.  De Ramezay and his officers were at
the wharf-end to bid us God-speed; and as I muse upon
it now they may have thought curiously of it to see the
loving fashion in which both Marc and I made a point to
embrace our faithful Tamin.  But that is neither here
nor there, so long as we let him plainly understand how
our hearts were towards him.

The voyage home was uneventful, save that we met
contrary winds, whereby it fell that not until evening
of the second day did we come into the Gaspereau mouth
and mark the maids of Grand Pre carrying water from the
village well.

The good Beaudry we paid to his satisfaction, and left
to find lodging in one of the small houses by the water
side; while Marc and I took our way up the long street
with its white houses standing amid their apple trees.
Having gone perhaps four or five furlongs, returning
many a respectful salutation from the doorways as we
passed, we then turned up the hill by a little lane
which was bordered stiffly with the poplar trees of
Lombardy, and in short space we came to a pleasant
cottage in a garden, under shadow of the tall white
church which stood sentinel over the Grand Pre roofs.
The cottage had some apple trees behind it, and many
late roses blooming in the garden.  It was the home of
the good Cure, Father Fafard, most faithful and most
gentle of priests.

With Father Fafard we lodged that night, and for some
days thereafter.  The Cure's round face grew unwontedly
stern and anxious as we told him our adventures, and
rehearsed the doings of the Black Abbe.  He got up from
time to time and paced the room, muttering once --
"Alas that such a man should discredit our holy office!
What wrath may he not bring down upon this land!" --
and more to a like purport.

My own house in Grand Pre, where Marc had inhabited of
late, and where I was wont to pay my flitting visits,
I judged well to put off my hands for the present,
foreseeing that troublous times were nigh.  I
transferred it in Father Fafard's presence to a trusty
villager by name Marquette, whom I could count upon to
transfer it back to me as soon as the skies should
clear again.  I knew that if, by any fortune of war,
English troops should come to be quartered in Grand
Pre, they would be careful for the property of the
villagers; but the house and goods of an enemy under
arms, such would belike fare ill.  I collected, also,
certain moneys due me in the village, for I knew that
the people were prosperous, and I did not know how long
their prosperity might continue.  This done, Marc and I
set out for my own estate beside the yellow Canard.
There I had rents to gather in, but no house to put off
my hands.  At the time when Acadie was ceded to England,
a generation back, the house of the de Mers had been
handed over to one of the most prosperous of our
habitants, and with that same family it had ever since
remained, yielding indeed a preposterously scant
rental, but untroubled by the patient conqueror.

My immediate destination was the Forge, where I
expected to find Babin awaiting me with news and
messages.  At the Forge, too, I would receive payment
from my tenants, and settle certain points which, as I
had heard, were at dispute amongst them.

As we drew near the Forge, through the pleasant autumn
woods, it wanted about an hour of noon.  I heard, far
off, the muffled thunder of a cock-partridge drumming.
But there was no sound of hammer on clanging anvil, no
smoke rising from the wide Forge chimney; and when we
entered, the ashes were dead cold.  It was plain there
had been no fire in the forge that day.

"Where can Babin be?" I muttered in vexation.  "If he
got my message, there can be no excuse for his
absence."

"I'll wager, Father," said Marc, "that if he is not off
on some errand of yours, then he is sick abed, or dead.
Nought besides would keep Babin when you called him."

I went to a corner and pulled a square of bark from a
seemingly hollow log up under the rafters.  In the
secret niche thus revealed was a scrap of birch bark
scrawled with some rude characters of Babin's, whence I
learned that my trusty smith was sick of a sharp
inflammation.  I passed the scrap over to Marc, and felt
again in the hollow.

"What, in the name of all the saints, is this?" I
exclaimed, drawing out a short piece of peeled stick.
A portion of the stick was cut down to a flat surface,
and on this was drawn with charcoal a straight line,
having another straight line perpendicular to it, and
bisecting it.  At the top of the perpendicular was a
figure of the sun, thus:-

[drawing]

"It's a message from Grul," said Marc, the instant that
his eyes fell upon it.

"H'm; and how do you know that?" said I, turning it
over curiously in my fingers.

"Well," replied Marc, "the peeled stick is Grul's sign
manual.  What does he say?"

"He seems to say that he is going to build a windmill,"
said I, with great seriousness; "but doubtless you will
give this hieroglyphic quite a different
interpretation."

Marc laughed, -- yes, laughed audibly.  And it is
possible that his Penobscot grandmother turned in her
grave.  It was good to know that the lad _could_ laugh,
which I had begun to doubt; but it was puzzling to me
to hear him laugh at the mere absurdity which I had
just uttered, when my most polished witticisms, of
which I had shot off many of late at Chignecto, and in
conversation with good Father Fafard, had never availed
to bring more than a phantom smile to his lips.
However, I made no comment, but handed him "Grul's sign
manual," as he chose to call it.

"Why, Father," said he, "you understand it well enough,
I know.  This is plainly the sun at high noon.  At high
noon, therefore, we may surely expect to see Grul.  He
has been here but a short time back; for see, the wood
is not yet dry."

"Sapristi!" said I, "do you call that the sun, lad?
It is very much like a windmill."

How Marc might have retorted upon me, I know not; for
at the moment, though it yet wanted much of noon, the
fantastic figure of the madman -- if he were a madman --
sped into the Forge.  He stopped abruptly before us
and scrutinized us for some few seconds in utter
silence, his eyes glittering and piercing like sword
points.  His long white hair and beard were disordered
with haste, the flowers and feathers in his pointed cap
were for the most part broken, even as when we had last
seen him, and his gaudy mantle was somewhat befouled
with river mud.  Yet such power was there in his look
and in his gesture, that when he stretched out his
little white staff toward me and said "Come," I had
much ado to keep from obeying him without question.
Yet this I would not permit myself, as was natural.

"Whither?" I questioned.  "And for what purpose?"

By this time he was out at the door, but he stopped.
Giving me a glance of scorn he turned to Marc, and
stretched out his staff.

"Come," he said.  And in a breath he was gone, springing
with incredible swiftness and smoothness through the
underbrush.

"We must follow, Father!" cried Marc; and in the same
instant was away.

For my own part, it was sorely against me to be led by
the nose, and thus blindly, by the madman -- whom I now
declared certainly to be mad.  But Marc had gone, so I
had no choice, as I conceived it, but to stand by the
lad.  I went too.  And seeing that I had to do it, I did
it well, and presently overtook them.

"What is this folly?" I asked angrily, panting a
little, I confess.

But Marc signed to me to be silent.  I obeyed, though
with ill enough grace, and ran on till my mouth was
like a board, my tongue like wool.  Then the grim light
of the forest whitened suddenly before us, and our
guide stopped.  Instinctively we imitated his motions,
as he stole forward and peered through a screen of
leafage.  We were on a bank overlooking the Canard.
A little below, and paddling swiftly towards the
river-mouth, were two canoes manned with the Abbe's
Micmacs. In the bottom of one canoe lay a little
fair-haired boy, bound.

"My God!" cried Marc, under his breath, "'tis the
child! 'tis little Philip Hanford."

Grul turned his wild eyes upon us.

"The power of the dog!" he muttered, "the power of the
dog!"

"We must get a canoe and follow them!" exclaimed Marc,
in great agitation, turning to go, and looking at me
with passionate appeal.  But before I could speak, to
assure him of my aid and support, Grul interfered.

"Wait!" he said, with meaning emphasis, thrusting his
little staff almost in the lad's face.  "Come!" and he
started up along the river bank, going swiftly but with
noiseless caution.  I expected Marc to demur, but not
so.  He evidently had a childlike faith in this
fantastic being.  He followed without a protest.
Needless to say, I followed also.  But all this mystery,
and this blind obedience, and this lordly lack of
explanation, were little to my liking.

We had not gone above half a mile when Grul stopped,
and bent his mad head to listen.  Such an attitude of
listening I had never seen before.  The feathers and
stalks in his cap seemed to lean forward like a horse's
ears; his hair and beard took on a like inclination of
intentness; even the grim little scarlet head upon his
staff seemed to listen with its master.  And Marc did as
Grul did.  Then came a sound as of a woman weeping, very
close at hand.  Grul motioned us to pass him, and creep
forward.  We did so, lying down and moving as softly as
lizards.  But I turned to see what our mysterious guide
was doing -- and lo, he was gone.  He might have faded
into a summer exhalation, so complete and silent was
his exit.

This was too much.  Only my experience as a woods-fighter,
my instinctive caution, kept me from springing
to my feet and calling him.  But my suspicions were all
on fire.  I laid a firm hand of detention on Marc's arm,
and whispered:-

"He's gone; 'tis a trap."

Marc looked at me in some wonder, and more impatience.

"No trap, Father; that's Grul's way."

"Well," I whispered, "we had better go another way, I'm
thinking."

As I spoke, the woman's weeping came to us more
distinctly.  Something in the sound seemed to catch
Marc's heart, and his face changed.

"'Tis all right, I tell you, Father!" came from between
his teeth.  "Come! come! Oh, I know the voice!" And he
crept forward resolutely.

And, of course, I followed.



Chapter X

A Bit of White Petticoat

WE had not advanced above a score of paces when,
peering stealthily between the stems of herbs and
underbrush, we saw what Grul had desired us to see.
Two more canoes were drawn up at the water's edge.
Four savages were in sight, sprawling in indolent attitudes
under the shade of a wide water-maple.  In their midst,
at the foot of the tree, lay a woman bound securely.
She was huddled together in a posture of hopeless
despair; and a dishevelled glory of gold-red tresses
fell over her face to hide it.  She lay in a moveless
silence.  Yet the sound of weeping continued, and Marc,
gripping my hand fiercely, set his mouth to my ear and
gasped:-

"'Tis my own maid!  'Tis Prudence!"

Then I saw where she sat, a little apart, a slender
maid with a lily face, and hair glowing dark red in the
full sun that streamed upon her.  She was so tied to
another tree that she might have no comfort or
companionship of her sister, -- for I needed now no
telling to convey it to me that the lady with the
hidden face and the unweeping anguish was Mistress
Mizpah Hanford, mother of the child whom I had just
seen carried away.

I grieved for Marc, whose eyes stared out upon the
weeping maid from a face that had fallen to the hue of
ashes.  But I praised the saints for sending to our aid
this madman Grul, -- whom, in my heart, I now
graciously absolved from the charge of madness.  Seeing
the Black Abbe's hand in the ravishment of these tender
victims, I made no doubt to cross him yet again, and my
heart rose exultantly to the enterprise.

"Cheer up, lad," I whispered to Marc.  "Come away a
little till we plot."

I showed my confidence in my face, and I could see that
he straightway took heart thereat.  Falling back softly
for a space of several rods, we paused in a thicket to
take counsel.  As soon as we could speak freely, Marc
exclaimed, "They may go at any moment, Father.  We must
haste."

"No," said I, "they'll not go till the cool of the day.
The others went because they have plainly been ordered
to part the child from his mother.  It is a most cunning
and most cruel malice that could so order it."

"It is my enemy's thrust at me," said Marc.  "How did he
know that I loved the maid?"

"His eyes are in every corner of Acadie," said I; "but
we will foil him in this as in other matters.  Marc, my
heart is stirred mightily by that poor mother's pain.
I tell you, lad," -- and I looked diligently to the
priming of my pistols as I spoke, -- "I tell you I will
not rest till I give the little one back into her
arms."

But Marc, as was not unnatural, thought now rather of
his lily maid sobbing under the tree.

"Yes, Father," said he, "but what is to be done now,
to save Prudence and Mizpah?"

"Of course, dear lad," I answered, smilingly, "that is
just what we are here for.  But let me consider." And
sitting down upon a fallen tree, I buried my face in my
hands.  Marc, the while, waited with what patience he
could muster, relying wholly upon my conduct of the
business, but fretting for instant action.

We were well armed (each with a brace of pistols and a
broadsword, the forest being no place for rapiers), and
I accounted that we were an overmatch for the four
redskins.  But there was much at stake, with always the
chance of accident.  And, moreover, these Indians were
allies of France, wherefore I was most unwilling to
attack them from the advantage of an ambush.  These
various considerations decided me.

"Marc, we'll fight them if needful," said I, lifting up
my head.  "But I'm going to try first the conclusions of
peace.  I will endeavour to ransom the prisoners.  These
Micmacs are mightily avaricious, and may yield.  It goes
against me to attack them from an ambush, seeing that
they are of our party and servants of King Louis."

At this speech Marc looked very ill content.

"But, Father," he objected, "shall we forego the
advantage of a surprise?  We are but two to their four,
and we put the whole issue at hazard.  And as for their
being of our party, they bring shame upon our party,
and greatly dishonour the service of King Louis."

"Nevertheless, dear lad," said I, "they have their
claim upon us, -- not lightly to be overlooked, in my
view of it.  But hear my plan.  You will go back to where
we lay a moment ago, and there be ready with your
pistols.  I will approach openly by the water side and
enter into parley with them.  If I can buy the captives,
well and good.  If they deny me, we quarrel.  You will
know when to play your part.  I am satisfied of that.
I shall feel safe under cover of your pistols, and shall
depend upon you to account for two of the four.
Only, do not be too hasty!"

"Oh, I'm cool as steel now, Father," said Marc.  "But I
like not this plan.  The danger is all yours.  And the
quarrel is mine.  Let us go into it side by side!"

"Chut, lad!" said I.  "Your quarrel's my quarrel, and
the danger is not more for me than for you, as you
won't be long away from me when the fight begins, --
if it comes to a fight.  And further, my plan is both an
honest one and like to succeed.  Come, let us be doing!"

Marc seized my hand, and gave me a look of pride and
love which put a glow at my heart.  "You know best,
Father," said he.  And turning away, he crept toward his
poSt. For me, I made a circuit, in leisurely fashion,
and came out upon the shore behind a point some rods
below the spot where the savages lay.  Then I walked
boldly up along the water's edge.

The Indians heard me before I came in view, and were on
their feet when I appeared around the point.  They
regarded me with black suspicion, but no hostile
movement, as I strode straight up to them and greeted,
fairly enough but coldly, a tall warrior, whom I knew
to be one of the Black Abbe's lieutenants.  He grunted,
and asked me who I was.

"You know well enough who I am," said I, seating myself
carelessly upon a rock, "seeing that you had a chief
hand in the outrages put upon me the other day by that
rascally priest of yours!"

At this the chief stepped up to me with an air of
menace, his high-cheeked, coppery face scowling with
wrath.  But I eyed him steadily, and raised my hand with
a little gesture of authority.  "Wait!" said I; and he
paused doubtfully.  "I have no grudge against you for
that," I went on.  "You but obeyed your master's orders
faithfully, as you will doubtless obey mine a few weeks
hence, when I take command of your rabble and try to
make you of some real service to the King.  I am one of
the King's captains."

At this the savage looked puzzled, while his fellows
grunted in manifest uncertainty.

"What you want?" he asked bluntly.

I looked at him for some moments without replying.  Then
I glanced at the form of Mizpah Hanford, still
unmoving, the face still hidden under that pathetic
splendour of loosened hair.  Prudence I could not catch
view of, by reason of another tree which intervened.
But the sound of her weeping had ceased.

"I am ready to ransom these prisoners of yours," said
I.

The savages glanced furtively at each other, but the
coppery masks of their features betrayed nothing.

"Not for ransom," said the chief, with a dogged
emphasis.

I opened my eyes wide.  "You astonish me!" said I.
"Then how will they profit you?  If you wanted their scalps,
those you might have taken at Annapolis."

At that word, revealing that I knew whence they came,
I took note of a stir in the silent figure beneath the
maple.  I felt that her eyes were watching me from
behind that sumptuous veil which her bound hands could
not put aside.  I went on, with a sudden sense of
exaltation.

"Give me these prisoners," I urged, half pleading, half
commanding.  "They are useless to you except for ransom.
I will give you more than any one else will give you.
Tell me your price."

But the savage was obstinate.

"Not for ransom," he repeated, shaking his head.

"You are afraid of your priest," said I, with slow
scorn.  "He has told you to bring them to him.  And what
will you get?  A pistole or two for each!  But I will
give you gold, good French crowns, ten times as much as
you ever got before!"

As I spoke, one of the listening savages got up, his
eyes a-sparkle with eagerness, and muttered something
in Micmac, which I could not understand.  But the chief
turned upon him so angrily that he slunk back, abashed.

"Agree with me now," I said earnestly.  "Then wait here
till I fetch the gold, and I will deliver it into your
hands before you deliver the captives."

But the chief merely turned aside with an air of
settling the question, and repeated angrily:-

"I say white girls not for ransom."

I rose to my feet.

"Fools, you are," said I, "and no men, but sick women,
afraid of your rascal prieSt. I offered to buy when I
might have taken!  Now I will take, and you will get no
ransom!  Unloose their bonds!"

And I pointed with my sword, while my left hand rested
upon a pistol in my belt.  I am a very pretty shot with
my left hand.

Before the words were fairly out of my lips the four
sprang at me.  Stepping lightly aside, I fired the
pistol full at the chief's breast, and he plunged
headlong.  In the next instant came a report from the
edge of the underbrush, and a second savage staggered,
groaned, and fell upon his knees, while Marc leaped
down and rushed upon a third.  The remaining one
snatched up his musket (the muskets were forgotten at
the first, when I seemed to be alone), and took a hasty
aim at me; but before he could pull the trigger my
second pistol blazed in his face, and he dropped, while
his weapon, exploding harmlessly, knocked up some mud
and grass.  I saw Marc chase his antagonist to the
canoes at the point of his sword, and prick him lightly
for the more speed.  But at the same instant, out of the
corner of my eye, I saw the savage whom Marc's shot had
brought down struggle again to his feet and swing his
hatchet.  With a yell I was upon him, and my sword point
(the point is swifter than the edge in an emergency)
went through his throat with a sobbing click.  But I was
just too late.  The hatchet had left his hand; and the
flying blade caught Marc in the shoulder.  The sword
dropped from his grasp, he reeled, and sat down with a
shudder before I could get to his side.  I paid no
further heed to the remaining Indian, but was dimly
conscious of him launching a canoe and paddling away in
wild haste.

I lifted the dear lad into the shade, and anxiously
examined the wound.

"'Tis but a flesh wound," said he, faintly; but I found
that the blow had not only grievously gashed the flesh,
but split the shoulder blade.

"Flesh wound!" I muttered.  "You'll do no more fighting
in this campaign, dear lad, unless they put it off till
next spring.  This shoulder will be months in mending."

"When it does mend, will my arm be the same as ever?"
he asked, somewhat tremulously.  "'Tis my sword arm."

"Yes, lad, yes; you need not trouble about that," said
I.  "But it is a case for care."

In the meantime, I was cleansing the wound with salt
water which I had brought from the river in my cap.
Now, I cast about in my mind for a bandage; and I
looked at the prisoner beneath the maple.  Marc first,
courtesy afterwards, I thought in my heart; for I durst
not leave the wound exposed with so many flies in the
air.

The lady's little feet, bound cruelly, were drawn up in
part beneath her dark skirt, but so that a strip of
linen petticoat shone under them.  I hesitated, but only
for a second.  Lifting the poor little feet softly to
one side, with a stammered, "Your pardon, Madame, but
the need is instant!" I slit off a breadth of the soft
white stuff with my sword.  And I was astonished to feel
my face flush hotly as I did it.  With strangely
thrilling fingers, and the help of my sword edge,
I then set free her feet, and with no more words turned
hastily back to Marc, abashed as a boy.

In a few moments I had Marc's wound softly dressed, for
I had some skill in this rough and ready surgery.
I could see by his contracting pupils that the hurt was
beginning to agonize, but the dear lad never winced
under my fingers, and I commended him heartily as a
brave patient.  Then placing a bundle of cool ferns
under his head for a pillow, I turned to the captives,
from whom there had been never a word this while.



Chapter XI

I Fall a Willing Captive

THE lady whose feet I had freed had risen so far as to
rest crouching against the gnarled trunk of the maple
tree.  The glorious abundance of her hair she had shaken
back, revealing a white face chiselled like a
Madonna's, a mouth somewhat large, with lips curved
passionately, and great sea-coloured eyes which gazed
upon me from dark circles of pain.  But the face was
drawn now with that wordless and tearless anguish which
makes all utterance seem futile, -- the anguish of a
mother whose child has been torn from her arms and
carried she knows not whither.  Her hands lay in her
lap, tight bound; and I noted their long, white
slenderness.  I felt as if I should go on my knees to
serve her -- I who had but just now served her with
such scant courtesy as it shamed my soul to think on.
As I bent low to loose her hands, I sought in my mind
for phrases of apology that might show at the same time
my necessity and my contrition.  But lifting my eyes for
an instant to hers, I was pierced with a sense of the
anguish which was rending her heart, and straightway I
forgot all nice phrases.

What I said -- the words coming from my lips abruptly --
was this: "I will find him!  I will save him!  Be
comforted, Madame!  He shall be restored to you!"

In great, simple matters, how little explanation seems
needed.  She asked not who I was, how I knew, whom I
would save, how it was to be done; and I thrill proudly
even now to think how my mere word convinced her.  The
tense lines of her face yielded suddenly, and she broke
into a shaking storm of tears, moaning faintly over and
over -- "Philip! -- Oh, my Philip! -- Oh, my boy!" I
watched her with a great compassion.  Then, ere I could
prevent, she amazed me by snatching my hand and
pressing it to her lips.  But she spoke no word of
thanks.  Drawing my hand gently away, in great
embarrassment, I repeated: "Believe me, oh, believe me,
Madame; I _will_ save the little one." Then I went to
release the other captive, whom I had well-nigh
forgotten the while.

This lily maid of Marc's, this Prudence, I found in a
white tremour of amazement and inquiry.  From where she
sat in her bonds, made fast to her tree, she could see
nothing of what went on, but she could hear everything,
and knew she had been rescued.  It was a fair, frank,
childlike face she raised to mine as I smiled down upon
her, swiftly and gently severing her bonds; and I laid
a hand softly on that rich hair which Marc had praised,
being right glad he loved so sweet a maid as this.
I forgot that I must have seemed to her in this act a
shade familiar, my fatherly forty years not showing in
my face.  So, indeed, it was for an instant, I think;
for she coloured maidenly.  But seeing the great
kindness in my eyes, the thought was gone.  Her own eyes
filled with tears, and she sprang up and clung to me,
sobbing, like a child just awakened in the night from a
bad dream.

"Oh," she panted, "are they gone? did you kill them?
how good you are!  Oh, God will reward you for being so
good to us!" And she trembled so she would certainly
have fallen if I had not held her close.

"You are safe now, dear," said I, soothing her, quite
forgetting that she knew me not as I knew her, and
that, if she gave the matter any heed at all, my speech
must have puzzled her sorely.  "But come with me!" And I
led her to where Marc lay in the shade.

The dear lad's face had gone even whiter than when I
left him, and I saw that he had swooned.

"The pain and shock have overcome him!" I exclaimed,
dropping on my knees to remove the pillow of ferns from
under his head.  As I did so, I heard the girl catch her
breath sharply, with a sort of moan, and glancing up, I
saw her face all drawn with misery.  While I looked in
some surprise, she suddenly threw herself down, and
crushed his face in her bosom, quite shutting off the
air, which he, being in a faint, greatly needed.  I was
about to protest, when her words stopped me.

"Marc, Marc," she moaned, "why did you betray us?  Oh,
why did you betray us so cruelly?  But oh, I love you
even if you _were_ a traitor.  Now you are dead" (she
had not heard me, evidently, saying he had swooned),
"now you are dead I may love you, no matter what you
did.  Oh, my love, why did you, why did you?" And while
I listened in bewilderment, she sprang to her feet, and
her blue eyes blazed upon me fiercely.

"You killed him!" she hissed at me across his body.

This I remembered afterwards.  At the moment I only knew
that she was calling the lad a traitor.  That I was well
tired of.

"Madame!" said I, sternly.  "Do not presume so far as to
touch him again."

It was her turn to look astonished now.  Her eyes
faltered from my angry face to Marc's, and back again
in a kind of helplessness.

"Oh, you do well to accuse him," I went on, bitterly, --
perhaps not very relevantly.  "You shall not dishonour
him by touching him, you, who can believe vile lies of
the loyal gentleman who loves you, and has, it may be,
given his life for the girl who now insults him."

The girl's face was now in such a confusion of distress
that I almost, but not quite, pitied her.  Ere she could
find words to reply, however, her sister was at her
side, catching her hands, murmuring at her ear.

"Why, Prudence, child," she said, "don't you see it
all?  Didn't you see it all?  How splendidly Marc saved
us" (I blessed the tact which led her to put the first
credit on Marc) -- "Marc and this most brave and
gallant gentleman?  It was one of the savages who struck
Marc down, before my eyes, as he was fighting to save
us.  That dreadful story was a lie, Prudence; don't you
see?"

The maid saw clearly enough, and with a mighty
gladness.  She was for throwing herself down again
beside the lad to cover his face with kisses -- and
shut off the air which he so needed.  But I thrust her
aside.  She had believed Marc a traitor.  Marc might
forgive her when he could think for himself.  I was in
no mind to.

She looked at me with unutterable reproach, her eyes
filling and running over, but she drew back
submissively.

"I know," she said, "I don't deserve that you should
let me go near him.  But -- I think -- I think he would
want me to, sir!  See, he wants me!  Oh, let me!" And I
perceived that Marc's eyes had opened.  They saw no one
but the maid, and his left hand reached out to her.

"Oh, well!" said I, grimly.  And thereafter it seemed to
me that the lad got on with less air than men are
accustomed to need when they would make recovery from a
swoon.

I turned to Mizpah Hanford; and I wondered what sort of
eyes were in Marc's head, that he should see Prudence
when Mizpah was by.  Before I could speak, Mizpah began
to make excuses for her sister.  With heroic fortitude
she choked back her own grief, and controlled her voice
with a brave simplicity.  Coming from her lips, these
broken excuses seemed sufficient -- though to this day
I question whether I ought to have relented so readily.
She pleaded, and I listened, and was content to listen
so long as she would continue to plead.  But there was
little I clearly remember.  At last, however, these
words, with which she concluded, aroused me:-

"How could we any longer refuse to believe," she urged,
"when the good priest confessed to us plainly, after
much questioning, that it was Monsieur Marc de Mer who
had sent the savages to steal us, and had told them
just the place to find us, and the hour?  The savages
had told us the same thing at first, taunting us with
it when we threatened them with Marc's vengeance.  You
see, Monsieur, they had plainly been informed by some
one of our little retreat at the riverside, and of the
hour at which we were wont to frequent it.  Yet we
repudiated the tale with horror.  Then yesterday, when
the good priest told us the same thing, with a
reluctance which showed his horror of it, what _could_
we do but believe?  Though it did seem to us that if
Marc were false there could be no one true.  The priest
believed it.  He was kind and pitiful, and tried to get
the savages to set us free.  He talked most earnestly,
most vehemently to them; but it was in their own
barbarous language, and of course we could not
understand.  He told us at last that he could do nothing
at the time, but that he would exert himself to the
utmost to get us out of their hands by and by.  Then he
went away.  And then -- "

"And then, Madame," said I, "your little one was taken
from you at his orders!"

"Why, what do you mean, Monsieur?" she gasped, her
great sea-coloured eyes opening wide with fresh terror.
"At his orders?  By the orders of that kind priest?"

"Of what appearance was he?" I inquired, in return.

"Oh," she cried breathlessly, "he was square yet spare
of figure, dark-skinned almost as Marc, with a very
wide lower face, thin, thin lips, and remarkably light
eyes set close together, -- a strange, strong face that
might look very cruel if he were angry.  He looked angry
once when he was arguing with the Indians."

"You have excellently described our bitterest foe, and
yours, Madame," said I, smiling.  "The wicked Abbe La
Garne, the pastor and master of these poor tools of his
whom I would fain have spared, but could not." And I
pointed to the bodies of the three dead savages, where
they lay sprawling in various pathetic awkwardnesses of
posture.

She looked, seemed to think of them for the first time,
shivered, and turned away her pitiful eyes.

"Those poor wretches," I continued, "were sent by this
kind priest to capture you.  He knew when and where to
find you, because he had played the eaves-dropper when
Marc and I were talking of you."

"Oh," she cried, clenching her white hands desperately,
"can there be a priest so vile?"

"Ay, and this which you have heard is but a part of his
villany.  We have but lately baulked him in a plot
whereby he had nearly got Marc hanged.  This, Madame, I
promise myself the honour of relating to you by and by;
but now we must get the poor lad removed to some sort
of house and comfort."

"And, oh," cried this poor mother, in a voice of
piercing anguish and amazement, as if she could not yet
wholly realize it, -- "my boy, my boy!  He is in the
power of such a monster!"

"Be of good heart, I beseech you," said I, with a kind
of passion in my voice.  "I will find him, I swear I
will bring him back to you.  I will wait only so long as
to see my own boy in safe hands!"

Again that look of trust was turned upon me, thrilling
me with invincible resolve.

"Oh, I trust you, Monsieur!" she cried.  Then pressing
both hands to her eyes with a pathetic gesture, and
thrusting back her hair -- "I knew you, somehow, for
the Seigneur de Briart," she went on, "as soon as I
heard you demanding our release.  And I immediately felt
a great hope that you would set us free and save
Philip.  I suppose it is from Marc that I have learned
such confidence, Monsieur!"

I bowed, awkward and glad, and without a pretty word to
repay her with, -- I who have some name in Quebec for
well-turned compliment.  But before this woman, who was
young enough to be my daughter, I was like a green boy.

"You are too kind," I stammered.  "It will be my great
ambition to justify your good opinion of me."

Then I turned away to launch a canoe.

While I busied myself getting the canoe ready, and
spreading ferns in the bottom of it for Marc to lie on,
Mizpah walked up and down in a kind of violent
speechlessness, as it were, twisting her long white
hands, but no more giving voice to her grief and her
anxiety.  Once she sat down abruptly under the maple
tree, and buried her face in her hands.  Her shoulders
shook, but not a sound of sob or moan came to my ears.
My heart ached at the sight.  I determined that I would
give her work to do, such as would compel some
attention on her part.

As soon as the canoe was ready I asked:

"Can you paddle, Madame?"

She nodded an affirmative, her voice seeming to have
gone from her.

"Very well," said I, "then you will take the bow
paddle, will you not?"

"Yes, indeed!" she found voice to cry, with an
eagerness which I took to signify that she thought by
paddling hard to find her child the sooner.  But the
manner in which she picked up the paddle, and took her
place, and held the canoe, showed me she was no novice
in the art of canoeing.

I now went to lift Marc and carry him to the canoe.

"Let me help you," pleaded Prudence, springing up from
beside him.  "He must be so heavy!" Whereat I laughed.

"I can walk, I am sure, Father," said Marc, faintly,
"if you put me on my feet and steady me."

"I doubt it, lad," said I, "and 'tis hardly worth while
wasting your little strength in the attempt.  Now,
Prudence," I went on, turning to the girl, "I want you
to get in there in front of the middle bar, and make a
comfortable place for this man's head, -- if you don't
mind taking a _live_ traitor's head in your lap!"

At this the poor girl's face flushed scarlet, as she
quickly seated herself in the canoe; and her lips
trembled so that my heart smote me for the jest.

"Forgive me, child.  I meant it not as a taunt, but
merely as a poor jest," I hastened to explain.  "Your
sister has told me all, and you were scarce to blame.
Now, take the lad and make him as comfortable as a man
with a shattered shoulder can hope to be." And I laid
Marc gently down so that he could slip his long legs
under the bar.  He straightway closed his eyes from
sheer weakness; but he could feel his maid bend her
blushing face over his, and his expression was a
strangely mingled one of suffering and content.

Taking my place in the stern of the canoe, I pushed
out.  The tide was just beginning to ebb.  There was no
wind.  The shores were green and fair on either hand.
My dear lad, though sore hurt, was happy in the sweet
tenderness of his lily maid.  As for me, I looked
perhaps overmuch at the radiant head of Mizpah, at the
lithe vigorous swaying of her long arms, the play of
her gracious shoulders as she paddled strenuously.  I
felt that it was good to be in this canoe, all of us
together, floating softly down to the little village
beside the Canard's mouth.



Part II

Mizpah



Chapter XII

In a Strange Fellowship

I TOOK Marc and the ladies to the house of one Giraud,
a well-tried and trusted retainer, to whom I told the
whole affair.  Then I sent a speedy messenger to Father
Fafard, begging him to come at once.  The Cure of Grand
Pre was a skilled physician, and I looked to him to
treat Marc's wound better than I could hope to do.  My
purpose, as I unfolded it to Marc and to the ladies
that same evening, sitting by Marc's pallet at the open
cottage door, was to start the very next day in quest
of the stolen child.  I would take but one follower, to
help me paddle, for I would rely not on force but on
cunning in this venture.  I would warn some good men
among my tenants, and certain others who were in the
counsels of the Forge, to keep an unobtrusive guard
about the place, till Marc's wound should be so far
healed that he might go to Grand Pre.  And further, I
would put them all in the hands of Father Fafard, with
whom even the Black Abbe would scarce dare to meddle
openly.

"The Cure," said I, turning to Mizpah, "you may trust
both for his wisdom and his goodness.  With him you will
all be secure till my return."

Mizpah bowed her head in acknowledgment, and looked at
me gratefully, but could not trust herself to speak.
She sat a little apart, by the door, and was making a
mighty effort to maintain her outward composure.

Then I turned to where Marc's face, pallid but glad,
shone dimly on his pillow.  I took his hand, I felt his
pulse -- for the hundredth time, perhaps.  There was no
more fever, no more prostration, than was to be
accounted inevitable from such a wound.  So I said:-

"Does the plan commend itself to you, dear lad?  It
troubles me sore to leave you in this plight; but
Father Fafard is skilful, and I think you will not fret
for lack of tender nursing.  You will not _need_ me,
lad; but there is a little lad with yellow hair who
needs me now, and I must go to him."

The moment I had spoken these last words I wished them
back, for Mizpah broke down all at once in a terrible
passion of tears.  But I was ever a bungler where women
are concerned, ever saying the wrong thing, ever slow
to understand their strange, swift shiftings of mood.
This time, however, I understood; for with my words a
black realization of the little one's lonely fear came
down upon my own soul, till my heart cried out with
pity for him; and Prudence fell a-weeping by Marc's
head.  But she stopped on the instant, fearing to excite
Marc hurtfully, and Marc said:-

"Indeed, Father, think not a moment more of me.  'Tis
the poor little lad that needs you.  Oh that I too could
go with you on the quest !"

"To-morrow I go," said I, positively, "just as soon as
I have seen Father Fafard."

As I spoke, Mizpah went out suddenly, and walked with
rapid strides down the road, passing Giraud on the way
as he came from mending the little canoe which I was to
take.  I had chosen a small and light craft, not knowing
what streams I might have to ascend, what long carries
I might have to make.  As Mizpah passed him, going on to
lean her arms upon the fence and stare out across the
water, Giraud turned to watch her for a moment.  Then,
as he came up to the door where we sat, he took off his
woollen cap, and said simply, "Poor lady!  it goes hard
with her."

"My friend," said I, "will these, while I am gone, be
safe here from their enemies, -- even should the Black
Abbe come in person?"

"Master," he replied, with a certain proud nobility,
which had ever impressed me in the man, "if any hurt
comes to them, it will be not over my dead body alone,
but over those of a dozen more stout fellows who would
die to serve you."

"I believe you," said I, reaching out my hand.  He
kissed it, and went off quickly about his affairs.

Hardly was he gone when Mizpah came back.  She was very
pale and calm, and her eyes shone with the fire of some
intense purpose.  Had I known woman's heart as do some
of my friends whom I could mention, I should have
fathomed that purpose at her first words.  But as I have
said, I am slow to understand a woman's hints and
objects, though men I can read ere their thoughts find
speech.  There was a faint glory of the last of sunset
on Mizpah's face and hair as she stood facing me, her
lips parted to speak.  Behind her lay the little garden,
with its sunflowers and lupines, and its thicket of
pole beans in one corner.  Then, beyond the gray fence,
the smooth tide of the expanding river, violet-hued,
the copper and olive wood, the marshes all greenish
amber, and the dusky purple of the hills.  It was all
stamped upon my memory in delectable and imperishable
colours, though I know that at the moment I saw only
Mizpah's tall grace, her red-gold hair, the eyes that
seemed to bring my spirit to her feet.  I was thinking,
"Was there ever such another woman's face, or a
presence so gracious?" when I realized that she was
speaking.

"Do I paddle well, Monsieur?" she asked, with the air
of one who repeats a question.

"Pardon, a thousand pardons, Madame!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, you use your paddle excellently well."

"And I can shoot, I can shoot very skilfully," she went
on, with strong emphasis.  "I can handle both pistol and
musket."

"Indeed, Madame!" said I, considerably astonished.

"Ask Marc if I am not a cunning shot," she persisted,
while her eyes seemed to burn through me in their eager
intentness.

"Yes, Father," came Marc's whispered response out of
the shadow, where I saw only the bended head of the
maid Prudence.  "Yes, Father, she is a more cunning
marksman than I."

I turned again to her, and saw that she expected, that
she thirsted for, an answer.  But what answer?

"Madame," said I, bowing profoundly, and hoping to
cover my bewilderment with a courtly speech, "may I
hope that you will fire a good shot for me some day; I
should account it an honour above all others if I might
be indebted to such a hand for such succour."

She clasped her hands in a great gladness, crying,
"Then I may go with you?"

"Go with me!" I cried, looking at her in huge
amazement.

"She wants to help you find the child," whispered Marc.

The thought of this white girl among the perils which I
saw before me pierced my heart with a strange pang, and
in my haste I cried rudely:-

"Nonsense!  Impossible!  Why, it would be mere madness!"

So bitter was the pain of disappointment which wrung
her face that I put out both hands towards her in
passionate deprecation.

"Forgive me; oh, forgive me, Madame!" I pleaded.
"But how _could_ I bring you into such perils?"

But she caught my hands and would have gone on her
knees to me if I had not stayed her roughly.

"Take me with you," she implored.  "I can paddle, I can
serve you as well as any man whom you can get.  And I am
brave, believe me.  And how _can_ I wait here when my
boy, my darling, my Philip, is alone among those
beasts?  I would die every hour."

How could I refuse her?  Yet refuse her I would, I must.
To take her would be to lessen my own powers, I
thought, and to add tenfold to the peril of the
venture.  Nevertheless my heart did now so leap at the
thought of this strange, close fellowship which she
demanded, that I came near to silencing my better
judgment, and saying she might go.  But I shut my teeth
obstinately on the words.

At this moment, while she waited trembling, Marc once
more intervened.

"You might do far worse than take her, Father.  No one
else will serve you more bravely or more skilfully, I
think."

So Marc actually approved of this incredible proposal?
Then was it, after all, so preposterous?  My wavering
must have shown itself in my face, for her own began to
lighten rarely.

"But -- those clothes!" said I.

At this she flushed to her ears.  But she answered
bravely.

"I will wear others; did you think I would so hamper
you with this guise?  No," she added with a little
nervous laugh, "I will play the man; be sure."

And so, though I could scarce believe it, it was
settled that Mizpah Hanford should go with me.

That night I found little sleep.  My thoughts were a
chaos of astonishment and apprehension.  Marc, moreover,
kept tossing, for his wound fretted him sorely, and I
was continually at his side to give him drink.  At about
two in the morning there came a horseman to the garden
gate, riding swiftly.  Hurrying out I met him in the
path.  It was Father Fafard, come straight upon my word.
He turned his horse into Giraud's pasture, put saddle
and bridle in the porchway, and then followed me in to
Marc's bedside.

When he had dressed the wound anew, and administered a
soothing draught, Marc fell into a quiet sleep.

"He will do well, but it is a matter for long
patience," said the Cure.

Then we went out of the house and down to the garden
corner by the thicket of beans, where we might talk
freely and jar no slumberers.  Father Fafard fell in
with my plans most heartily, and accepted my charges.
To hold the Black Abbe in check at any point, would, he
felt, be counted unto him for righteousness.

My mind being thus set at ease, I resolved to start as
soon as might be after daybreak.

Before it was yet full day, I was again astir, and
goodwife Giraud was getting ready, in bags, our
provision of bacon and black bread.  I had many small
things to do, -- gathering ammunition for two muskets
and four pistols, selecting my paddles with care from
Giraud's stock, and loading the canoe to the utmost
advantage for ease of running and economy of space.
Then, as I went in to the goodwife's breakfast, I was
met at the door by a slim youth in leathern coat and
leggins, with two pistols and Marc's whinger.  I
recognized the carven hilt stuck bravely in his belt,
and Marc's knitted cap of gray wool on his head, well
pulled down.  The boy blushed, but met my eye with a
sweet firmness, and I bowed with great courtesy.  Even
in this attire I thought she could not look aught but
womanly -- for it was Mistress Mizpah.  Yet I could not
but confess that to the stranger she would appear but
as a singularly handsome stripling.  The glory of her
hair was hidden within her cap.

"These are the times," said I, seriously, "that breed
brave women."

Breakfast done, messages and orders repeated, and
farewells all spoken, the sun was perhaps an hour high
when we paddled away from the little landing under
Giraud's garden fence.  I waved my cap backwards to
Prudence and the Cure, where they stood side by side at
the landing.  My comrade in the bow waved her hand once,
then fell to paddling diligently.  I was still in a maze
of wonderment, ready at any time to wake and find it a
dream.  But the little seas that slapped us as we
cleared the river mouth, these were plainly real.  I
headed for the eastern point of the island, intending
to land at the mouth of the Piziquid and make some
inquiries.  The morning air was like wine in my veins.
There was a gay dancing of ripples over toward
Blomidon, and the sky was a clear blue.  A dash of cool
drops wet me.  It was no dream.

And so in a strange fellowship I set out to find the
child.



Chapter XIII

My Comrade

I COULD not sufficiently commend the ease and aptness
with which my beautiful comrade wielded her paddle.  But
in a while the day grew hot, and I bade her lie back in
her place and reSt. At first she would not, till I was
compelled to remind her in a tone of railing that I was
the captain in this enterprise, and that good soldiers
must obey.  Whereupon, though her back was toward me, I
saw a flush creep around to her little ears, and she
laid the paddle down something abruptly.  I feared that
I had vexed her, and I made haste to attempt an
explanation, although it seemed to me that she should
have understood a matter so obvious.

"I beg you to pardon me, Madame, if I seem to insist
too much," said I, with hesitation.  "But you must know
that, if you exhaust yourself at the beginning of the
journey, before you are hardened to the long
continuance of such work, you will be unable to do
anything to-morrow, and our quest will be much
hindered."

"Forgive me!" she cried; "you are right, of course.
Oh, I fear I have done wrong in hampering you!  But I am
strong, truly, and enduring as most men, Monsieur."

"Yes," I answered, "but to do one thing strenuously all
day long, and for days thereafter, that is hard.  I
believe you can do it, or I should have been mad indeed
to bring you.  But you must let me advise you at the
beginning.  For this first day, rest often and save
yourself as much as possible.  By this means you will be
able to do better to-morrow, and better still the day
after.  By the other means, you will be able to do
little to-morrow most likely, and perhaps nothing the
day after."

"Well," she said, turning her head partly around, so
that I could see the gracious profile, "tell me,
Monsieur, when to work and when to reSt. I will obey.
It is a lucky soldier, I know, who has the Seigneur de
Briart to command him."

"But I fear, Madame," said I, "that discipline would
sadly suffer if he had often such soldiers to command."

To this she made no reply.  I saw that she leaned back
in her place and changed her posture, so as to fulfil
my wish and rest herself to the best advantage.  I
thought my words over.  To me they seemed to have that
savour of compliment which I would now avoid.  I felt
that here, under these strange circumstances, in an
intimacy which might by and by be remembered by her
with some little confusion, but which now, while she
had no thought but for the rescue of the little one,
contained no shadow of awkwardness for her clear and
earnest soul, -- I felt that here I must hold myself
under bonds.  The play of graceful compliment, such as I
would have practised in her drawing-room to show her
the courtliness of my breeding, must be forsworn.  The
admiration, the devotion, the worship, that burned in
my eyes whensoever they dwelt upon her, must be
strictly veiled.  I must seem to forget that I am a man
and my companion the fairest of women.  Yes, I kept
telling myself, I must regard her as a comrade only,
and a follower, and a boy.  I must be frank and careless
in my manner toward her; kind, but blunt and positive.
She will think nothing of it now, and will blush the
less for it by and by, when the child is in her arms
again, and she can once more give her mind to little
matters.

And so I schooled myself; and as I watched her I began
to realize more and more, with a delicious warming of
my heart, what instant need I had of such schooling if
I would not have her see how I was not at all her
captain, but her bondsman.

At the mouth of the Piziquid stream there clustered a
few cottages, not enough to call a village; and here we
stopped about noon.  A meal of milk and eggs and freshly
baked rye cakes refreshed us, and eager as was our
haste, I judged it wise to rest an hour stretched out
in the shade of an apple tree.  To this halt, Mizpah,
after one glance of eager question at my face, made no
demur, and I replied to the glance by whispering:-

"That is a good soldier!  We will gain by this pause,
now.  We will travel late to-night."

The cottagers of whom we had our meal were folk unknown
to me; and being informed that the Black Abbe had some
followers in the neighbourhood, I durst give no hint of
our purpose.  By and by I asked carelessly if two
canoes, with Indians of the Shubenacadie, had gone by
this way.  I thought that the man looked at me with some
suspicion.  He hesitated.  But before he could reply his
goodwife answered for him, with the freedom of a clear
conscience.

"Yes, M'sieu," she chattered, "two canoes, and four
Indians.  They went by yesterday, toward sundown,
stopping here for water from our well, -- the finest
water hereabouts, if I do say it!"

"They went up the river, I suppose," said I.

"Oh, but no, M'sieu," clattered on the worthy dame.
"They went straight up the bay.  Yes, goodman," she
continued, changing her tone sharply, "whenever I open
my mouth you glare at me as if I was talking nonsense.
What have I said wrong now, I'd like to know.  Yes, I'd
like very much to know that, goodman.  Why should not
the gentleman know that they had -- "

But here the man interrupted her roughly.  "Will you
never be done your prating?" he cried.  "Can't you see
that you worry the gentlemen?  How should they care to
know that the red rascals made a good catch of shad off
the island?  Now, do go and get some of your fresh
buttermilk for the gentlemen to drink before they go.
Don't you see they are starting?"

And, indeed, Mizpah's impatience to be gone was plainly
evident, and we had rested long enough.  I durst not
look at her face, lest our host should perceive that I
had heard what I wanted to hear.  I spoke casually of
the weather, and inquired how his apples and his flax
were faring, and so filled the minutes safely until the
goodwife came with the butter-milk.  Having both drunk
gratefully of the cool, delicately acid, nourishing
liquor, we gave the man a piece of silver, and set out
in good heart.

"We are on the right track, comrade," said I, lightly,
steering my course along the shore toward Cobequid.

Her only answer was to fall a-paddling with such an
eagerness that I had to check her.

"Now, now," I said, "more haste, less speed."

"But I feel so strong now, and so rested," she cried
passionately.  "Might we not overtake them to-night?"

"Hardly so soon as that, I fear, Madame," I answered.
"This is a stern chase, and it is like to be a long
one; you must make up your mind to that, if you would
not have a fresh disappointment every hour."

"Oh," she broke out, "if it were your child you were
trying to find and save, you would not be so cool about
it."

"Believe me, Madame," said I, in a low voice, "I am not
perhaps as cool as I appear."

"Oh, what a weak and silly creature I must seem to
you!" she cried.  "But I will not be weak and silly when
it comes to trial, Monsieur, I promise you.  I _will_
prove worthy of your confidence.  But make allowance for
me now, and do not judge me harshly.  Every moment I
seem to hear him crying for me, Monsieur." And her head
drooped forward in unspeakable grief.

I could think of nothing, absolutely nothing, to say.
I could only mutter hoarsely, "I do not think you either
weak or silly, Madame."

This answer, feeble as it appeared to myself seemed in
a sense to relieve her.  She put down her paddle, leaned
forward upon the front bar, with her face in her hands,
and sobbed gently for a few minutes.  Then, while I
gazed upon her in rapt commiseration, she all at once
resumed the paddle briskly.

For my own part, being just lately returned from a long
expedition, my muscles were like steel; I felt that I
should never weary.  Steadily onward we pressed, past
the mouths of several small streams whose names I did
not know, past headland after headland of red clay or
pallid plaster rock.  As the tide fell, we were driven
far out into the bay, till sometimes there was a mile
of oozy red flats parting us from the edge of the
green.  But as the tide rose again, we accompanied its
seething vanguard, till at last we were again close in
shore.  A breeze soon after midday springing up behind
us, we made excellent progress.  But soon after sunset a
mist arose, which made our journey too perilous to be
continued.  I turned into a narrow cove between high
banks, where the brawling of a shallow brook promised
us fresh water.  And there, in a thicket of young fir
trees growing at the foot of a steep bank, I set up the
canoe on edge, laid some poles and branches against it,
and had a secluded shelter for my lady.  She looked at
it with a gratified admiration and could never be done
with thanking me.

Being now near the Shubenacadie mouth, I durst not
light a fire, but we uncomplainingly ate our black
bread; and then I said:

"We will start at first gray, comrade.  You will need
all the sleep you can win.  Good night, and kindly
dreams."

"Good night, Monsieur," she said softly, and
disappeared.  Then going down to the water's side, I
threw off my clothes, and took a swift plunge which
steadied and refreshed me mightily.  Swimming in the
misty and murmurous darkness, my venture and my strange
fellowship seemed more like a dream to me than ever,
and I could scarce believe myself awake.  But I was
awake enough to feel it when, in stumbling ashore, I
scraped my foot painfully on a jagged shell.  However,
that hurt was soon eased and staunched by holding it
for a little under the chill gushing of the brook;
after which I dressed myself, gathered a handful of
ferns for a pillow, and laid myself down across the
opening which led into the thicket.



Chapter XIV

My Comrade Shoots Excellently Well

FROM a medley of dreams, in which I saw Mizpah binding
the Black Abbe with cords of her own hair -- tight,
tighter, till they ate into his flesh, and I trembled
at the look of shaking horror in his face; in which
then I saw the child chasing butterflies before the
door of the Forge in the Forest, and heard Babin's
hammer beating musically on his anvil, till the sound
became the chiming of the Angelus over the roofs and
walls of Quebec, where Mizpah and I walked hand fast
together on the topmost bastion, -- from such a
fleeting and blending confusion as this, I woke to feel
a hand laid softly on my face in the dark.  I needed no
seeing to tell me whose was the hand, so slim, so cool,
so softly firm; and I had much ado to keep my lips from
reverently kissing it.

"Monsieur, Monsieur," came the whisper, "what is that
noise, that voice?"

"Pardon me, comrade, for sleeping so soundly," I
murmured, sitting up, and taking her hand in mine with
a rough freedom of goodwill, as merely to reassure her.
"What is it you hear?"

But before she could reply, I heard it myself, a
strange, chanting cry, slow and plangent, from far out
upon the water.  Presently I caught the words, and knew
the voice.

"Woe, woe to Acadie the fair," it came solemnly,
"for the day of her desolation draws nigh!"

"It is Grul," said I, "passing in his canoe, on some
strange errand of his."

"Grul?  Who is Grul?" she questioned, clinging a little
to my hand, and then dropping it suddenly.

"A quaint madman of these parts," said I; "and yet I
think his madness is in some degree a feigning.  He has
twice done me inestimable service -- once warning us of
an immediate peril, and again yesterday, in leading us
to the spot where you were held captive.  For some
reason unknown to me, he has a marvellous kindness for
me and mine.  But the Black Abbe he hates in deadly
fashion -- for some ancient and ineffaceable wrong, if
the tale tell true."

"And he brought you to us?" she murmured, with a sort
of stillness in her voice, which caught me strangely.

"Yes, Grul did!" said I.

And then there was silence between us, and we heard the
mysterious and solemn voice passing, and dying away in
the distance.  My ears at last being released from the
tension of listening, my eyes began to serve me, and
through the branches I marked a grayness spreading in
the sky.

"We must be stirring, Madame," said I, rising abruptly
to my feet.  "Let us take our bread down to the brook
and eat it there."

But she was already gone, snatching up the sack of
bread; and in a few minutes, having righted the canoe
and carried it down to a convenient landing-place, I
joined her.  She was stretched flat beside a little
basin of the brook, her cap off, her hair in a tight
coil high upon her head, her sleeves pulled up, while
she splashed her face and arms in the running coolness.
Without pulling down her sleeves or resuming her cap,
she seated herself on a stone and held out to me a
piece of bread.  In the coldly growing dawn her hair and
lips were colourless, the whiteness of her arms shadowy
and spectral.  Then as we slowly made our meal, I
bringing water for her in my drinking-horn, the rose
and fire and violet of sunrise began to sift down into
our valley and show me again the hues of life in
Mizpah's face.  I sprang up, handed her the woollen cap,
and tried hard to keep my eyes from dwelling upon the
sweet and gracious curves of her arms.

"Aboard!  Aboard!" I cried, and moved off in a bustling
fashion to get the paddles.  In a few minutes we were
under way, thrusting out from the shore, and pushing
through myriad little curling wisps of vapour, which rose
in pale hues of violet and pink all over the oil-smooth
surface of the tide.

For some time we paddled in silence.  Then, when the
sun's first rays fell fairly upon us, I exclaimed
lightly:-

"You must pull down your sleeves, comrade."

"Why?" she asked quickly, turning her head and pausing
in her stroke.

"For two excellent reasons besides the captain's
orders," said I.  "In the first place, your arms will
get so sore with sunburn, that you won't be able to do
your fair share of the work.  In the second place, if we
should meet any strangers, it would be difficult to
persuade them that those arms were manly enough for a
wood-ranger."

"Oh," she said quickly, and pulled down the sleeves in
some confusion.

All that morning we made excellent progress, with the
help of a light following wind.  When the sun was
perhaps two hours high, the mouth of the Shubenacadie
opened before us; and because this river was the great
highway of the Black Abbe's red people, I ran the canoe
in shore and concealed it till I had climbed a bluff
near by and scanned the lower reaches of the stream.
Finding all clear, we put out again, and with the
utmost haste paddled past the mouth.  Not till we were
behind the further point, and running along under the
shelter of a high bank, did I breathe freely.  Then I
praised Mizpah, for in that burst of speed her skill
and force had amazed me.

But she turned upon me with the question which I had
looked for.

"If that is the Black Abbe's river," said she, with
great eyes fixing mine, "and the Indians have gone that
way, why do we pass by?"

"I owe you an explanation, comrade," said I.  "I think
in all likelihood, that way leads straight to your
child; but if we went that way, we would be the Abbe's
prisoners within the next hour, -- and how would we
help the child then?  Oh, no; I am bound for the Black
Abbe's back door.  A few leagues beyond this lies the
River des Saumons, and on its banks is a settlement of
our Acadian folk.  Many of them are of the Abbe's
following, and all fear him; but I have there two
faithful men who are in the counsels of the Forge.
One of these dwells some two miles back from the river,
half a league this side of the village.  I will go to
him secretly, and send him on to the Shubenacadie for
information.  Then we will act not blindly."

To this of course she acquiesced at once, as being the
only wise way; but for all that, with each canoe-length
that we left the Shubenacadie behind, the more did her
paddle lag.  The impulse seemed all gone out of her.
Soon therefore I bade her lay down the blade and rest.
In a little, when she had lain a while with her face
upon her arms, -- whether waking or not I could not
tell, for she kept her face turned away from me, --
she became herself again.

No long while after noon, we ran into the mouth of the
des Saumons.  I was highly elated with the success that
had so far attended us, -- the speed we had made, our
immunity from hindrance and question.  We landed to eat
our hasty meal, but paused not long to rest, being
urged now by the keen spur of imagined nearness to our
goal.  Some two hours more of brisk paddling brought us
to a narrow and winding creek, up which I turned.  For
some furlongs it ran through a wide marsh, but at
length one bank grew high and copsy.  Here I put the
canoe to land, and stepped ashore, bidding Mizpah keep
her place.

Finding the spot to my liking, I pulled the canoe
further up on the soft mud, and astonished Mizpah by
telling her that I must carry her up the bank.

"But why?" she cried.  "I can walk, Monsieur, as well as
I could this morning -- though I am a little stiff,"
she added naively.

"The good soldier asks not why," said I, with affected
severity.  "But I will tell you.  In case any one
_should_ come in my absence, there must be but one
track visible, and that track mine, leading up and away
toward the settlement.  You must lie hidden in that
thicket, and keep guard.  Do you understand, Madame?"

"Yes," said she, -- "but how can you? -- I am awfully
heavy."

I laughed softly, picked her up as I would a child, and
carried her to the edge of the woods, where I let her
down on one end of a fallen tree.

"Now, comrade," said I, "if you will go circumspectly
along this log you will leave no trace.  Hide yourself
in the thicket there close to the canoe, keep your
pistols primed, and watch till I come back, -- and the
blessed Virgin guard you!" I added, with a sudden
fervour.

Then, having lifted the canoe altogether clear of the
water, I set forth at a swinging trot for Martin's
farm.

I found my trusty habitant at home, and ready to do any
errand of mine ere I could speak it.  But when I told
him what I wanted of him he started in some excitement.

"Why, Monsieur," he cried, "I have the very tidings you
seek.  I myself saw a canoe with two Indians pass up the
river this morning; and they had a little child with
them, -- a child with long yellow hair."

"Up _this_ river!" I exclaimed.  "Then whither can they
be taking him?"

"They did not leave him in the village," answered
Martin, positively, "for the word goes that they passed
on up in great haste.  By the route they have taken,
they are clearly bound for the Straits -- "

"Ay, they'll cross to the head of the Pictook, and
descend that stream," said I.  "But which way will they
turn then?" -- For I was surprised and confused at the
information.

"Well, Monsieur," said Martin, "when they get to the
Straits, who knows?  They may be going across to Ile St.
Jean.  They may turn south to Ile Royale; for the
English, I hear, have no hold there, save at Louisburg
and Canseau.  Or they may turn north toward Miramichi.
Who knows -- save the Black Abbe?"

"I must overtake them," said I, resolutely.  "Good-bye,
my friend and thank you.  If all goes well, you will get
a summons from the Forge ere the moon is again at the
full;" and I made haste back to the spot where Mizpah
waited.

As I swung along, I congratulated myself on the good
fortune which had so held me to the trail.  Then I fell
to thinking of my comrade, and the wonder of the
situation, and the greater wonder of her eyes and hair,
-- which thoughts sped the time so sweetly that ere I
could believe it I saw before me the overhanging
willows, and the thicket by the stream.  Then I stopped
as if I had been struck in the face, and shook with a
sudden fear.

At my very feet, fallen across the dead tree which I
have already mentioned, lay the body of an Indian.
Every line of the loose, sprawled body told me that he
had met an instant death, -- and a bullet hole in his
back showed me the manner of it.  Only for a second did
I pause.  Then I sprang into the thicket, with a horror
catching at my heart.  There was Mizpah lying on her
face, -- and a hoarse cry broke from my lips.  But even
as I flung myself down beside her I saw that she was
not dead.  No, she was shaking with sobs, -- and the
naturalness of it, strange to say, reassured me on the
instant.  I made to lift her, when she sprang at once to
her feet, and looked at me wildly.  I took her hand, to
comfort her; but she drew it away, and gazed upon it
with a kind of shrinking horror.

I understood now what had happened.  Nevertheless,
knowing not just the best thing to say, I asked her
what was the matter.

"Oh," she cried, covering her eyes, "I killed him.  He
threw up his hands, and groaned, and fell like a log.
How could I do it?  How could I do it?"

I tried to assure her that she had done well; but
finding that she would pay me no heed, I went to look
at her victim.  I turned him over, and muttered a
thanksgiving to Heaven as I recognized him for one of
the worst of the Black Abbe's flock.  I found his tracks
all about the canoe.  Then I went back to Mizpah.

"Good soldier!  Good comrade!" said I, earnestly.  "You
have killed Little Fox, the blackest and cruelest rogue
on the whole Shubenacadie.  Oh, I tell you you have done
a good deed this day!"

The knowledge of this appeared to ease her somewhat,
and in a few moments I gathered the details.  The Indian
had come suddenly to the bank, and seeing a canoe there
had examined it curiously, -- she, the while, waiting
in great fear, for she had at once recognized him as
one of her former captors, and one of whom she stood in
special dread.  While looking at our things in the
canoe, he had appeared all at once to understand.  He
had picked up my coat, and examined it carefully, --
and the grin that disclosed his long teeth disclosed
also that he recognized it.  Looking to the priming of
his musket, he started cautiously up the bank upon my
trail.

"As soon as he left the canoe," said Mizpah, still
shaken with sobs, "I knew that something must be done.
If he went away, it would be just to give the alarm,
and then we could not escape, and Philip would be lost
forever.  But I saw that, instead of going away, he was
going to track you and shoot you down.  I didn't know
what to do, or how I could ever shoot a man in cold
blood, -- but some-thing _made_ me do it.  Just as he
reached the end of the log, I seemed to see him already
shooting you, away in the woods over there, -- and then
I fired.  And oh, oh, oh, I shall never forget how he
groaned and fell over!" And she stared at her right
hand.

"Comrade," said I, "I owe my life to you.  He _would_
have shot me down; for, as I think of it, I went
carelessly, and seldom looked behind when I got into
the woods.  To be so incautious is not my way, believe
me.  I know not how it was, unless I so trusted the
comrade whom I had left behind to guard my trail.  And
now, here are news!  They have brought the child this
way, up this very river!  The saints have surely led us
thus far, for we are hot upon their track!"

And this made her forget to weep for the excellence of
her shooting.



Chapter XV

Grul's Hour

THOUGH we were in a hot haste to get away, it was
absolutely necessary first to bury the dead Indian,
lest a hue and cry should be raised that might involve
and delay us.  With my paddle, therefore, I dug him a
shallow grave in the soft mud at the edge of the tide,
which was then on the ebb.  This meagre inhumation
completed, I smoothed the surface as best I could with
my paddle; and then we set off, resting easy in the
knowledge that the next tide would smooth down all
traces of the work.

It was by this close upon sunset, and I felt a little
hesitation as to what we had best do.  I had no wish to
run through the settlement till after dark, nor was I
anxious to push on against the furious ebb of the des
Saumons, against which the strongest paddlers could
make slow head-way.  But it was necessary to get out of
the creek before the water should quite forsake us;
and, moreover, Mizpah was in a fever of haste to be
gone.  She kept gazing about as if she expected the
savage to rise from his muddy grave and point at her.
We ran out of the creek, therefore, and were instantly
caught in the great current of the river.  I suffered it
to sweep us down for half a mile, having noted on the
way up a cluster of haystacks in an angle of the dyke.
Coming to these, I pushed ashore at once, carried the
canoe up, and found that the place was one where we
might rest secure.  Here we ate our black bread and
drank new milk, for there were many cattle pasturing on
the aftermath, and some of the cows had not yet gone
home to milking.  Then, hiding the canoe behind the
dyke, and ourselves between the stacks, in great
weariness we sought our sleep.

There was no hint of dawn in the sky when I awoke with
a start; but the constellations had swung so wide an
arc that I knew morning was close at hand.  There was a
hissing clamour in the river-bed which told me the tide
was coming in.  That, doubtless, was the change which
had so swiftly aroused me.  I went to the other side of
the stack, where Mizpah lay with her cheek upon her
arm, her hair fallen adorably about her neck.  Touching
her forehead softly with my hand, I whispered:-

"Come, comrade, the tide has turned!  "Whereupon she sat
up quietly, as if this were for her the most usual of
awakenings, and began to arrange her hair.  I went out
upon the shadowy marsh and soon accomplished a second
theft of new milk, driving the tranquil cow which
furnished it into the corner behind the stacks, that
our dairy might be the more conveniently at hand.  Our
fast broken (and though I hinted nought of it to
Mizpah, I found black bread growing monotonous), I
carried the canoe down to the edge of the tide.  But
Mistress Mizpah's daintiness revolted at the mud,
whereupon she took off her moccasins and stockings
before she came to it, and I caught a gleam of slim
white feet at the dewy edge of the grass.  When I had
carried down the paddles, pole, and baggage, I found
her standing in a quandary.  She could not get into the
canoe with that sticky clay clinging to her feet, and
there was no place where she could sit down to wash
them.  Carelessly enough (though my heart the while
trembled within me), I stretched out my hand to her,
saying:-

"Lean on me, comrade, and then you can manage it all
right."

And so it was that she managed it; and so indifferently
did I cast my eyes about, now at the breaking dawn, now
at the swelling tide, that I am sure she must have
deemed that I saw not or cared not at all how white and
slender and shapely were her feet!

In few minutes we were afloat, going swiftly on the
tide.  The sky was all saffron as we slipped through the
settlement, and a fairy glow lay upon the white
cottages.  The banks on either hand took on the
ineffable hues of polished nacre.  To the door of one
cottage, close by the water, came a man yawning, and
hailed us.  But I flung back a mere _"Bon jour,"_ and
sped on.  Not till the settlement was out of sight
behind us, not till the cross on the spire of the
village was quite cut off from view, did I drop to the
even pace of our day-long journeying.  When at length we
got beyond the influence of the tide, des Saumons was a
shallow, sparkling, singing stream, its bed aglow with
ruddy-coloured rocks.  Here I laid aside my paddle and
thrust the canoe onwards by means of my long pole of
white spruce, while Mizpah had nought to do but lean
back and watch the shores creep by.

At the head of tide we had stopped to drink and to
breathe a little.  And there, seeing an old man working
in front of a solitary cabin, I had deemed it safe to
approach him and purchase a few eggs.  After this we
kept on till an hour past noon, when I stopped in a
bend of the river, at the foot of a perpendicular cliff
of red rock some seventy or eighty feet in height.  Here
was a thicket wherein we might hide both the canoe and
ourselves if necessary.  The canoe I hid at once, that
being a matter of the more time.  Then we both set
ourselves to gathering dry sticks, for it seemed to me
we might here risk the luxury of a fire, with a dinner
of roasted eggs.

We had gathered but a handful or two, when I heard a
crashing in the underbrush at the top of the cliff; and
in a second, catching Mizpah by the hand, I had dragged
her into hiding.  Through a screen of dark and drooping
hemlock boughs we gazed intently at the top of the
cliff, -- and I noted, without thinking worth while to
remedy my oversight, that I had forgotten to release
Mizpah's hand.

The crashing noise, mingled with some sharp outcries of
rage and fear, continued for several minutes.  Then
there was silence; and I saw at the brink a pointed cap
stuck full of feathers, and the glare of a black and
yellow cloak.

"Grul!" I whispered, in astonishment; and I felt an
answering surprise in the tightened clasp of Mizpah's
hand.

A moment more and Grul peered over the brink,
scrutinizing the upper and lower reaches of the river.
He held a coil of rope, one end of which he had made
fast to a stout birch tree which leaned well out over
the edge.

"What is he going to do?" murmured Mizpah, with wide
eyes.

"We'll soon see!" said I, marvelling mightily.

The apparition vanished for some minutes, then suddenly
reappeared close to the brink.  He carried, as lightly
as if it had been a bundle of straw, the body of a man,
so bound about with many cords as to remind me of
nothing so much as a fly in the death wrappings of some
black and yellow spider.  To add to the semblance, the
victim was dressed in black, -- and a closer scrutiny
showed that he was a priest.

"It is the Black Abbe, none other," I murmured, in a
kind of awe; while Mizpah shrank closer to my side with
a sense of impending tragedies.  "Grul has come to his
revenge!" I added.

In a business fashion Grul knotted the end of his coil
of rope about the prisoner's body, the feathers and
flowers in his cap, meanwhile, nodding with a kind of
satisfied rhythm.  Then he lowered the swathed and
helpless but silently writhing figure a little way from
the brink, governing the rope with ease by means of a
half-twist about a jutting stump.  There was something
indescribably terrifying in the sight of the fettered
form swinging over the deep, with shudderings and
twistings, and the safe edge not a yard length above
him.  I pitied him in spite of myself; and I put a hand
over Mizpah's eyes that she might not see what was
coming.  But she pushed my hand away, and stared in a
fascination.

For some moments Grul gazed down in silence upon his
victim.

I fancied I caught the soul-piercing flame of his mad
eyes; but this was doubtless due to my imagination
rather than to the excellence of my vision.  Suddenly
the victim, his fortitude giving way with the sense of
the deadly gulf beneath him, and with the pitiless
inquisition of that gaze bent down upon him, broke out
into wild pleadings, desperate entreaties, screams of
anguished fear, till I myself trembled at it, and
Mizpah covered her ears.

"Oh, stop it! save him!" she whispered to me, with
white lips.  But I shook my head.  I could not reach the
top of the cliff.  And moreover, I had small doubt that
Grul's vengeance was juSt. Nevertheless, had I been at
the top of the cliff instead of the bottom, I had
certainly put a stop to it.

After listening for some moments, with a sort of
pleasant attention, to the victim's ravings, Grul lay
flat, thrust his head and shoulders far out over the
brink, and reached down a long arm.  I saw the gleam of
a knife in his darting hand; and I drew a quick breath
of relief.

"That ends it," said I; and I shifted my position,
which I had not done, as it seemed to me, for an
eternity.  The victim's screaming had ceased before the
knife touched him.

But I was vastly mistaken in thinking it the end.

"He has not killed him," muttered Mizpah.

And then I saw that Grul had merely cut the cord which
bound his captive's hands.  The Abbe was swiftly freeing
himself; and Grul, meanwhile, was lowering him down the
face of the cliff.  When the unhappy captive had
descended perhaps twenty feet, his tormentor secured
the rope, and again lay down with his head and
shoulders leaning over the brink, his hands playing
carelessly with the knife.

The Abbe, with many awkward gestures, presently got his
limbs free, and the cord which had enwound him fell
trailing like a snake to the cliff foot.  Then, with
clawing hands and sprawling feet, he clutched at the
smooth, inexorable rock, in the vain hope of getting a
foothold.  It was pitiful to see his mad struggles, and
the quiet of the face above looking down upon them with
unimpassioned interest; till at last, exhausted, the
poor wretch ceased to struggle, and looked up at his
persecutor with the silence of despair.

Presently Grul spoke, -- for the first time, as far as
we knew.

"You know me, Monsieur l'Abbe, I suppose," he remarked,
in tone of placid courtesy.

"I know you, Francois de Grul," came the reply, gasped
from a dry mouth.

"Then further explanation, I think you will allow, is
not needed.  I will bid you farewell, and a pleasant
journey," went on the same civil modulations of Grul's
voice.  At the same moment he reached down with his
shining blade as if to sever the rope.

"I did not do it!  I did not do it!" screamed the Abbe,
once more clutching convulsively at the smooth rock.
"I swear to you by all the saints!"

Grul examined the edge of his knife.  He tested it with
his thumb.  I saw him glance along it critically.  Then
he touched it, ever so lightly, to the rope, so that a
single strand parted.

"Swear to me," he said, in the mildest voice, "swear to
me, Monsieur l'Abbe, that you had no part in it.  Swear
by the Holy Ghost, Monsieur l'Abbe!"

But the Abbe was silent.

"Swear me that oath now, good Abbe," repeated the
voice, with a kind of courteous insistence.

"I will not swear!" came the ghastly whisper in reply.

At this an astonishing change passed over the face that
peered down from the brink.  Its sane tranquillity
became a very paroxysm of rage.  The grotesque cap was
dashed aside, and Grul sprang to his feet, waving his
arms, stamping and leaping, his gaudy cloak a-flutter,
his long white hair and beard twisting as if with a
sentient fury of their own.  He was so close upon the
brink that I held my breath, expecting him to be
plunged headlong.  But all at once the paroxysm died out
as suddenly as it had begun; and throwing himself down
in his former position, Grul once more touched the
knife edge to the rope, severing fibre by fibre,
slowly, slowly.

With the first touch upon the rope rose the Abbe's
voice again, but no longer in vain entreaty and coward
wailings.  I listened with a great awe, and a sob broke
from Mizpah's lips.  It was the prayer for the passing
soul.  We heard it poured forth in steady tones but
swift, against the blank face of the cliff.  And we
waited to see the rope divided at a stroke.

But to our astonishment, Grul sprang to his feet again,
in another fury, and flung aside his knife.  With
twitching hands he loosened the rope and began lowering
his victim rapidly, till, within some twenty feet of
the bottom, the Abbe found a footing, and stopped.
Then Grul tossed the whole rope down upon him.

"Go!" he cried in his chanting, bell-like tones.
"The cup of your iniquity is not yet full.  You shall not die
till your soul is so black in every part that you will
go down straight into hell!" And turning abruptly, he
vanished.

The Black Abbe, as if seized with a faintness, leaned
against the rock for some minutes.  Then, freeing
himself from the rope, he climbed down to the foot of
the cliff, and moved off slowly by the water's edge
toward Cobequid.  We trembled lest he should see us, or
the canoe, -- I having no stomach for an attack upon
one who had just gone through so dreadful a torment.
But his face, neck, ears, were like a sweating candle;
and his contracted eyes seemed scarce to see the ground
before his feet.

"Seemed," I say.  Yet even in this supreme moment, he
tricked me.



Chapter XVI

I Cool My Adversaries' Courage

WE now, having been so long delayed, gave up our
purpose of a fire, and contented ourselves with the
eggs raw.  I also cut some very thin slices of the
smoked and salted bacon, to eat with our black bread,
for I knew that, working as we did, we needed strong
food.  But Mizpah would not touch the uncooked bacon,
though its savour, I assured her, was excellent.  We had
but well begun our meal, and I was stooping over the
hard loaf, when a startled exclamation from Mizpah made
me look up.  Close behind us stood Grul, impatiently
twisting his little white rod with the scarlet head.
His eyes were somewhat more piercing, more like blue
flame, than ordinarily, but otherwise he looked as
usual.  So little mark remained upon him of the scene
just enacted.  Both wise and mad!  I thought.

It struck me that he was pleased with the impression he
so plainly made on us both, and for a moment he looked
upon us in silence.  Then swiftly pointing his stick at
us, he said sharply:-

"Fools!  Do you wait here?  But the hound is on the
trail.  Do you dream he did not see you?"

Then he turned to go.  But Mizpah was at his side
instantly, catching him by the wrist, and imploring him
to tell us which way her child had been carried.

Grul stopped and looked down upon her with austere
dignity, but without replying.  Passionately Mizpah
entreated him, not to be denied; and at last, lightly
but swiftly removing her fingers from his wrist, he
muttered oracularly:-

"They will take him to the sea that is within the heart
of the land!  But go!" he repeated with energy, "or you
will not go far!" and with steps so smooth that they
seemed not to touch the ground, he went past the cliff
foot.  His gaudy mantle shone for a moment, and he was
gone.

The ominous urgency of his warning rang in our ears,
and we were not slow in making our own departure.

"What does he mean by 'the sea that is within the heart
of the land'?" asked Mizpah, as we hurriedly launched
the canoe.

"He means the Bras d'Or lakes," I said, "those
wonderful reaches of land-locked sea that traverse the
heart of Ile Royale.  It is a likely enough way for the
savages to go.  There are villages both of Acadians and
of Indians on the island."

As we were to learn afterwards, however, Grul had told
us falsely.  The child was not destined for Ile Royale.
Whether the strange being really thought he was
directing us aright, or, his vanity not permitting him
to confess that he did not know, trusted to a guess
with the hope that it might prove a prophecy, I have
never been able to determine.  As a matter of fact, Fate
did presently so take our affairs into her own hands,
that Grul's misinformation affected the end not at all.
But his warning and his exhortation to speed we had to
thank for our escape from the perils that soon came
upon us.  Had we not been thus warned, without doubt we
should have been taken unawares and perished miserably.

On the incidents of our journey for the rest of that
day, and up to something past noon of the day
following, I need not particularly dwell.  Suffice to
say that we accomplished prodigious things, and that
Mizpah showed incredible endurance.  It was as if she
saw her child ever a little way before her, and hoped
to come up with him the next minute.  When the stream
became hopelessly shallow, we got out and waded,
dragging the canoe.  The long portage to the head of the
Pictook waters we made in the night, the trail being a
clear one, and not overly rough.  At the further end of
the carry, when I set down the canoe at the stream's
edge, I could have dropped for weariness, yet from
Mizpah I heard no complaint; and her silent heroism
stirred my soul to a deepening passion of worship.  Over
and over I told myself that night that I would never
rest or count the cost till I had given the child back
to her arms.

Not till we had gone perhaps a mile down the Pictook
did I order a halt, thrusting the canoe into a secure
hiding-place.  We snatched an hour of sleep, lying where
we stepped ashore.  Then, rising in the redness of
daybreak, we hurried on, eating as we journeyed.  And
now, conceiving that it was necessary to keep up her
strength, Mizpah ate of the un-cooked bacon; though she
wore a face of great aversion as she did so.

When, after hours of unmitigated toil, we reached the
head of tide and the spacious open reaches of the lower
river, I insisted on an hour of reSt. Mizpah vowed that
she was not exhausted, -- but she slept instantly,
falling by the side of the canoe as she stepped out.
For myself I durst not sleep, but I rested, and
watched, and sucked an egg, and chewed strips of bacon.
When we pushed off again I felt that we must have put a
good space between us and our pursuers; and as the ebb
tide was helping me I made Mizpah go on sleeping, in
her place in the bow.

"I will need your help more by and by," said I when she
protested, "and then you must have all your strength to
give me!"

The river soon became a wide estuary, with arms and
indentations, -- a harbour fit to hold a hundred
fleets.  Straight down mid-channel I steered, the
shortest course to the mouth.  But by and by there
sprang up a light head-wind, delaying me.

"Wake up, comrade," I cried.  "I need your good arm now,
against this breeze!"

She had slept there an hour, and she woke now with a
childlike flush in her cheeks.

"How good of you to let me sleep so," she exclaimed,
turning to give me a grateful glance.  But the
expression upon her face changed instantly to one of
fear, and the colour all went out.

"Oh, look behind us!" she gasped.  I had not indeed
waited for her words.  Glancing over my shoulder, I
caught sight of a large canoe, with four savages
paddling furiously.  The one glimpse was enough.

"Now, comrade, work!" said I.  "But steady! not too
hard!  This is a long chase, remember!" and I bent
mightily to the paddle.

Our pursuers were a good half-mile behind; and had we
not been already wearied, I believe we could have held
our own with them all day.  Our canoe was light and
swift, Mizpah paddled rarely, and for myself, I have
never yet been beaten, by red man or white, in a fair
canoe-race.  But as it was, I felt that we must win by
stratagem, if the saints should so favour us as to let
us win at all.  Half a mile ahead, on our right, was a
high point.  Behind it, as I knew, was a winding estuary
of several branches, each the debouchement of a small
stream.  It was an excellent place in which to evade
pursuers.  I steered for the high point.

As we darted behind its shelter, a backward glance told
me that our enemies had not gained upon us.  The moment
we were hidden from their view I put across to the
other side of the channel, ran the canoe behind a
jutting boulder, and leapt out.  Not till we were
concealed, canoe and all, behind a safe screen of rocks
and underbrush, did Mizpah ask my purpose, though she
plainly marvelled that I should hide so close to the
entrance.

"A poor and something public hiding-place is often the
most secret," said I.  "The Indians know that up this
water there are a score of turns, and backwaters, and
brook-mouths, wherein we might long evade them.  As soon
as they saw us turn in here, they doubtless concluded
that the water was well known to me, and that I would
hope to baffle them in the inner labyrinths and escape
up one of the streams.  They will never dream of us
stopping here."

"I see!" she exclaimed eagerly.  "When they have passed
in to look for us, we will slip out, and push on." It
was haste she thought of rather than escape.  No moment
passed, I think, when her whole will, her whole being,
were not focussed upon the finding of the child.  And
the more I realized the intensity of her love and her
pain, the more I marvelled at the heroic self-control
which forbade her to waste her strength in tears and
wailings.  The conclusion at which she had now arrived,
as to my plan, was one I had not thought of, and I
considered it before replying.

"No," said I, presently; "that is not quite my purpose,
though I confess it is a good one.  But, comrade, this
is a safe ambush!  They must pass within close gunshot
of us!"

"Oh," she cried, paling, and clasping her hands, "must
there be more blood?  But yes, they bring it on
themselves," she went on with a sudden fierceness,
flushing again, and her mouth growing cruel.  "They
would keep us from finding him.  Their blood be on their
own heads!"

"I am glad you think of that," said I.  "They would have
no mercy for us if they should take us now.  But indeed,
if it will please you to have it so, we need not shoot
them down.  We can treat them to such a medicine as they
had before of me, sink their canoe, and leave them like
drowned rats on the other shore."

"Yes," said Mizpah, quietly; "if that will do as well,
it will please me much better."

And so it was agreed.  A very few minutes later the
canoe appeared, rounding into the estuary.  The savages
scanned both shores minutely, but rather from the habit
of caution than from any thought that we might have
gone to land.  If, however, I had not taken care to make
my landing behind a boulder, those keen eyes would have
marked some splashed spots on the shingle, and we would
have been discovered.

But no such evil fortune came about.  The four paddles
flashed onward swiftly.  The four fierce, painted and
feathered heads thrust forward angrily, expecting to
overtake us in one of the inner reaches.  I took up
Mizpah's musket (which was loaded with slugs, while my
own carried a bullet, in case I should be called upon
for a long and delicate shot), and waited until the
canoe was just a little more than abreast of us.  Then,
aiming at the waterline, just in front of the bow
paddle, I fired.

The effect was instant and complete.  The savage in the
bow threw up his paddle with a scream and sprang over-board.
He was doubtless wounded, and feared a second
shot.  We saw him swimming lustily toward the opposite
shore.  The others paddled desperately in the same
direction, but before they had gone half-way the canoe
was so deep in the water that she moved like a log.
Then they, too, seized with the fear of a second shot,
sprang overboard.  By this time I had the musket
reloaded.

"If they get the canoe ashore, with their weapons
aboard her," said I, "they will soon get her patched
up, and we will have it all to do over again.  Here goes
for another try, whatever heads may be in the way!"

Mizpah averted her face, but made no protest, and I
fired at the stern of the canoe, which was directly
toward me.  A swimmer's head, close by, went down; and
in a minute more the canoe did likewise.  Three
feathered heads remained in sight; and presently three
dark figures dragged themselves ashore -- one of them
limping badly -- and plunged into the woods.

"Without canoe or guns," said I, "they are fairly
harmless for a while." But Mizpah, as we re-embarked
and headed again for the sea, said nothing.  I think
that in her bosom, at this time, womanly compassion was
striving, and at some disadvantage, with the
vindictiveness of outraged motherhood.  I think -- and I
loved her the better for it -- she was glad I had
killed one more of her child's enemies; but I think,
too, she was filled with shame at her gladness.



Chapter XVII

A Night in the Deep

ONCE fairly out again into the harbour, I saw two
things that were but little to my satisfaction.  Far
away up the river were three more canoes.  I understood
at once that the savages whom we had just worsted were
the mere vanguard of the Black Abbe's attack.  The
newcomers, however, were so far behind that I had
excellent hopes of eluding them.  The second matter that
gave me concern was the strong head-wind that had
suddenly arisen.  The look of the sky seemed to promise,
moreover, that what was now a mere blow might soon
become a gale.  It was already kicking up a sea that
hindered us.  Most women would have been terrified at
it, but Mizpah seemed to have no thought of fear.  We
pressed on doggedly.  There was anger ahead, I knew, --
a very serious anger, which would tax all my skill to
overcome.  But the danger behind us was the more
menacing.  I felt that there was nothing for it but to
face the storm and force a passage around the cape.
This accomplished, -- if we could accomplish it, -- I
knew our pursuers would not dare to follow.

About sundown, though the enemy had drawn perceptibly
nearer, I concluded that we must rest and gather our
strength.  I therefore ran in behind a little headland,
the last shelter we could hope for until we should get
around the cape.  There we ate a hearty meal, drank from
a tiny spring, and lay stretched flat on the shore for
a quarter of an hour.  Then, after an apprehensive look
at the angry sea, and a prayer that was earnest enough
to make up for some scantness in length, I cried:-

"Come now, comrade, and be brave."

"I am not afraid, Monsieur," she answered quietly.
"If anything happens, I know It will not be because you
have failed in anything that the bravest and truest of
men could hope to do."

"I think that God will help us," said I.  That some one
greater than ourselves does sometimes help us in such
perils, I know, whatever certain hasty men who speak
out of a plentiful lack of experience may declare to
the contrary.  But whether this help be a direct
intervention of God himself, or the succour of the
blessed saints or the watchful care of one's guardian
spirit, I have never been able to conclude to my own
satisfaction: And very much thought have I given to the
matter by times, lying out much under the stars night
after night, and carrying day by day my life in my
hands.  However it might be, I felt sustained and
comforted as we put out that night.  The storm was now
so wild that it would have been perilous to face in
broad daylight and with a strong man at the bow paddle.
Yet I believed that we should win through.  I felt that
my strength, my skill, my sureness of judgment, were of
a sudden made greater than I could commonly account
them.

But whatever strength may have been graciously
vouchsafed to me that night, I found that I needed it
all.  The night fell not darkly, but with a clear sky,
and the light of stars, and a diffused glimmer from the
white crests of the waves.  The gale blew right on
shore, and the huge roar of the surf thundering in our
ears seemed presently to blunt our sense of peril.
The great waves now hung above us, white-crested and
hissing, till one would have said we were in the very
pit of doom.  A moment more, and the light craft would
seem to soar upward as the wave slipped under it, a
wrenching turn of my wrist would drive her on a slant
through the curling top of foam, and then we would
slide swiftly into the pit again, down a steep slope of
purplish blackness all alive with fleeting eyes of
white light.  The strain upon my wrist, the mighty
effort required at each wave lest we should broach to
and be rolled over, were something; that I had never
dreamed to endure.  Yet I did endure it.  And as for the
brave woman in the bow, she simply paddled on,
steadily, strongly, without violence, so that I learned
to depend on her for just so much force at each swift
following crisis.  For there was a new crisis every
moment, --  with a moment's grace as we slipped into
each succeeding pit.  At last we found ourselves off the
cape, -- and then well out into the open Strait, yet
not engulfed.  A little, -- just as much as I durst, and
that was very little, -- I shifted our course toward
south.  This brought a yet heavier strain upon my wrist,
but there was no help for it if we would hope to get
beyond the cape.  How long we were I know not.  I lost
the sense of time.  I had no faculty left save those
that were in service now to battle back destruction.
But at last I came to realize that we were well clear
of the cape, that the sound of the breakers had
dwindled, and that the time had come to turn.  To turn?
Ay, but could it be done?

It could but be tried.  To go on thus much longer was,
I knew, impossible.  My strength would certainly fail by
and by.

"Comrade," said I, -- and my voice sounded strange, as
if long unused, -- "keep paddling steadily as you are,
but the moment I say 'change,' paddle _hard_ on the
other side."

"Yes, Monsieur!" she answered as quietly as if we had
been walking in a garden.

I watched the approach of one of those great waves
which would, as I knew, have as vast a fellow to follow
upon it.  As soon as we were well over the crest I began
to turn.

"Change!" I shouted.  And Mizpah's paddle flashed to the
other side.  Down we slanted into the pit.  We lay at the
bottom for a second, broadside on, -- then we got the
little craft fairly about as she rose.  A second more,
and the wind caught us, and completed the turn, -- and
the next crest was fairly at my back.  I drew a huge
breath, praising God and St. Joseph; and we ran in
toward the hollow of the land before us.  That part of
the coast was strange to me, save as seen when passing
by ship; but I trusted there would be some estuary or
some winding, within which we might safely come to
land.

The strain was now different, and therefore my nerves
and muscles felt a temporary relief; but it was still
tremendous.  There was still the imminent danger of
broaching to as each wave-crest seized and twisted the
frail craft.  But having the wind behind me, I had of
course more steerage way; and therefore a more instant
and effective control.  We ran on straight before the
wind, but a few points off; and with desperate anxiety
I peered ahead for some hint of shelter on that wild
lee shore.  Mizpah, of course, knew the unspeakable
strain of wielding the stern paddle in such a sea.

"Are you made of steel, Monsieur?" she presently asked.
"I can hardly believe it possible that the strength of
human sinews should endure so long."

"Mine, alas, will not endure much longer, comrade,"
said I.

"And what then?" she asked, in a steady voice.

"I do not know," said I; "but there is lope.  I think we
have not been brought through all this for nothing."

The roar of the breakers grew louder and louder again,
as we gradually neared the high coast which seemed to
slip swiftly past on our right hand.  It was black and
appalling, serried along the crest with tops of fir
trees, white along the base with the great gnashing of
the breakers.  As we ran into the head of the bay, with
yet no sign of a shelter, the seas got more perilous,
being crowded together and broken so that I could not
calculate upon them.  Soon they became a mad smother;
and I knew my strength for this bout had but little
longer to last.

"The end!" said I; "but we may win through!  I will
catch you when the crash comes." And some blind prayer,
I know not what, kept repeating and repeating in the
inward silence of my soul.  New strength seemed then to
flow upon nerve and sinew, -- and I descried, almost
ahead of us, a space of smooth and sloping beach up
which the seas rushed without rock to shatter them.

"This is our chance," I shouted.  A wave came, smoother
and more whole than most, and paddling desperately I
kept awhile upon the crest of it.  Then like a flash it
curled thinly, rolled the canoe over, and hurled us far
up on the beach.  Half blinded, half stunned, and
altogether choking, I yet kept my wits; and catching
Mizpah by the arm, I dragged her violently forward
beyond reach of the next wave.  Dropping her without a
word, I turned back, and was just in time to catch the
rolling canoe.  It, too, I succeeded in dragging to a
place of safety; but it was so shattered and crushed as
to be useless.  The muskets however, were in it; for I
had taken care to lash them under the bars before
leaving the shelter of the inlet.

The remnants of the canoe I hauled far up on the beach,
and then I returned to Mizpah, who lay in utter
exhaustion just where I had dropped her, so close to
the water's edge that she was splashed by the spray of
every wave.

"Come, comrade," I said, lifting her gently.  "The
saints have indeed been kind to us." But she made no
reply.  Leaning heavily upon me, and moving as if in a
dream, she let me lead her to the edge of the wood,
where the herbage began behind a sort of windrow of
rocks.  There, seeing that the rocks shut off the wind,
I released her, and dropping on the spot, she went at
once to sleep.  Then I felt myself suddenly as weak as a
baby.  I had no more care for anything save to sleep.
I tried to pluck a bunch of herbage to put under Mizpah's
head for a pillow; but even as I stooped to gather it,
I forgot where I was, and the tide of dreams flowed
over me.



Chapter XVIII

The Osprey, of Plymouth

IT must have been a good two hours that I slept.  I woke
with a start, with a sense of some duty left undone.
I was in an awkward position, half on my side amid stones
and underbrush, my arms clasping the bundle of herbage
which I had meant for Mizpah's pillow.  The daylight was
fairly established, blue and cold, though the sun was
not yet visible.  The gale hummed shrilly as ever, the
huge waves thundered on the trembling beach, and all
seaward was such a white and purple hell of raving
waters that I shuddered at the sight of it.  Mizpah was
still sleeping.  As I looked at her the desire for sleep
came over me again with deadly strength, but I resisted
it, rushing down to the edge of the surf, and facing a
chill buffet of driven spume.  I took another glance at
the canoe.  It was past mending.  The two muskets were
there, but everything else was gone, washed away, or
ground upon the rocks.  After much searching, however,
to my delight I found a battered roll of bacon wedged
into a cleft.  Pouncing upon this, I bore it in triumph
to Mizpah.

"Wake up, comrade," I cried, shaking her softly.
"We must be getting away."

The poor girl roused herself with difficulty, and sat
up.  When she tried to stand, she toppled over, and
would have fallen if I had not caught her by the arms.
It was some minutes before she could control the
stiffness of her limbs.  At last the whipping of the
wind somewhat revived her, and sitting down upon a rock
she looked about with a face of hopeless misery.

"Eat a little," said I, gently, "for we must get away
from here at once, lest our enemies come over the hills
to look for us."

But she pushed aside the untempting, sodden food which
I held out to her.

"Whither shall we go?" she asked heavily.  "The canoe is
wrecked.  How can we find my boy?  Oh, I wish I could
die!"

Poor girl! my heart ached for her.  I knew how her utter
and terrible exhaustion had at last sapped that
marvellous courage of hers; but I felt that roughness
would be her best tonic, though it was far indeed from
my heart to speak to her roughly.

"Shame!" said I, in a voice of stern rebuke.  "Have you
struggled and endured so long, to give up now?  Will you
leave Philip to the savages because a canoe is broken?
Where is your boasted courage?  Why, we will walk,
instead of paddling.  Come at once."

Even this rebuke but half aroused her.  "I'm so
thirsty," she said, looking around with heavy eyes.
By good Providence, there was a slender stream trickling
in at this point, and I led her to it.  While she drank
and bathed her face, I grubbed in the long grasses
growing beside the stream, and found a handful of those
tuberous roots which the Indians call ground-nuts.
These I made her eat, after which she was able to
endure a little of the salt bacon.  Presently, she
became more like herself, and began to grieve at the
weakness which she had just shown.  Her humiliation was
so deep that I had much ado to comfort her, telling her
again and again that she was not responsible for what
she had said when she was yet but half awake, and in
the bonds of a weariness which would have killed most
women.  I told her, which was nothing less than true,
that I held her for the bravest of women, and that no
man could have supported me better than she had done.

We pushed our way straight over the height of land
which runs seaward and ends in Cape Merigomish.  Our way
lay through a steep but pleasant woodland, and by the
time the sun was an hour high we had walked off much of
our fatigue.  The tree tops rocked and creaked high
above us, but where we walked the wind troubled us not.

"Where are we going?" asked Mizpah, by and by --
somewhat tremulously for she still had in mind my
censure.

"Why, comrade," said I, in a cheerful, careless manner
of speech, a thousand miles away from the devotion in
my heart, -- "my purpose is to push straight along the
coast to Canseau.  There we will find a few of your
country-folk, fishermen mostly, and from them we will
get a boat to carry us up the Bras d'Or."

"But what will become of Philip, all this time?" she
questioned, with haggard eyes.

"As a matter of fact," I answered, "I don't think we
will lose much time, after all.  If we still had the
canoe, we would be storm-bound in the bay back there
till the wind changes or subsides -- and it may be days
before it does the one or the other.  As it is, the
worst that has befallen us is the loss of our
ammunition and our bread.  But we will make shift to
live, belike, till we reach Canseau."

"Oh, Monsieur," she cried, in answer, with a great
emotion in her voice, "you give me hope when my despair
is blackeSt. You seem to me more generous, more brave,
more strong, than I had dreamed the greatest could be.
What makes you so good to an unhappy mother, so
faithfully devoted to a poor baby whom you have never
seen?"

"Tut, tut!" said I, roughly; "I but do as any proper
minded man would do that had the right skill and the
fitting opportunity.  Thank Marc!" But might have told
her more if I had let my heart speak truth.

"I know whom to thank, and all my life long will I pray
Heaven to bless that one!" said Mizpah.

Thus talking by the way, but most of the way silent, we
came at length over Merigomish and down to the sea
again, fetching the shore at the head of a second bay.
This was all in a smother and a roar, like that we had
just left behind.  As we rounded the head of it, we came
upon a little sheltered creek, and there, safe out of
the gale, lay a small New England fishing schooner.
I knew her by the build for a New Englander, before I saw
the words OSPREY, PLYMOUTH, painted in red letters on
her stern.

"Here is fortune indeed!" said I, while a cry of
gladness sprang to Mizpah's lips.  "I'll charter the
craft to take us up the Bras d'Or."

The little ship lay in a very pleasant idleness.  The
small haven was full of sun, the green, wooded hills
sloping softly down about it and shutting off all
winds.  The water heaved and rocked; but smoothly,
stirred by the yeasty tumult that roared past the
narrow entrance.  The clamour of the surf outside made
the calm within the more excellent.

Several gray figures of the crew lay sprawling about
the deck, which we could see very well, by reason of
the steepness of the shore on which we stood.  In the
waist was a gaunt, brown-faced man, with a scant,
reddish beard, a nose astonishingly long and sharp, and
a blue woollen cap on the back of his head.  He stood
leaning upon the rail watching us, and spitting
contemplatively into the water from time to time.

We climbed down to the beach beside the schooner, and I
spoke to the man in English.

"Are you the captain?" I asked civilly.

"They do say I be," he answered in a thin, high, sing-song
of a voice.  "Captain Ezra Bean, Schooner _Osprey_,
of Plymouth, at your sarvice." And he waved his hand
with a spacious air.

I bowed with ceremony.  "And I am your very humble
servant," said I, "the Sieur de Briart, of Canard by
Grand Pre.  We were on our way to Canseau, but have lost
our canoe and stores in the gale.  We are bold to hope,
Captain, that you will sell us some bread, as also some
powder and bullets.  We did not lose our little money,
Heaven be praised!"

Knowing these New Englanders to be greedy of gain, but
highly honest, I made no scruple of admitting that we
had money about us.

"Come right aboard, good sirs!" said the captain; and
in half a minute the gig, which floated at the stern,
was thrust around to us, and we clambered to the deck
of the _Osprey_, where crew and captain, five in all,
gathered about us without ceremony.  The captain, I
could see at once, was just one of themselves, obeyed
when he gave orders, but standing in no sort of formal
aloofness.  Cold salt beef, and biscuit and cheese, and
tea, were soon set before us, and as we made a hasty
meal they all hung about us and talked, as if we had
been in one of their home kitchens on Massachusetts
Bay.  As for Mizpah, who felt little at ease in playing
her man's part, she spoke only in French, and made as
if she knew no word of English.  Captain Ezra Bean had
some French but no facility in it, and a pronunciation
that was beyond measure execrable.

But at last, being convinced that they were honest
fellows, I spoke of chartering the _Osprey_, and in
explanation told the main part of our story,
representing Mizpah as a youth of Canard.  But, alas, I
had not read my men aright.  Honest they were, and
exceeding eager to turn an honest penny, -- but they
had not the stomach for fighting.  When they found that
a war party of Micmacs was in chase of us, they fell
into a great consternation, and insisted on our instant
departure.

At this I was all taken aback, for I had ever found the
men of New England as diligent in war as in trade.  But
these fellows were in a shaking terror for their lives
and for their ship.

"Why, gentlemen," I said, in a heat, "here are seven of
us, well armed!  We will make short work of the red
rascals, if they are so foolhardy as to attack us."

But no!  They would hear none of it.

"It's no quarrel of mine!" cried Captain Ezra Bean, in
his high sing-song, but in a great hurry.  "My dooty's
to my ship.  There's been many of our craft fell afoul
of these here savages, and come to grief.  We're fast
right here till the wind changes, and we'll just speak
the redskins fair if they come nigh us, an' there ain't
goin' to be no trouble.  But you must go your ways,
gentlemen, begging your pardon; and no ill will, I
hope!" And the boat being hauled around for us, they
all made haste to bid us farewell.

Mizpah, with a flushed face, stepped in at once; but I
hung back a little, sick with their cowardly folly.

"At least," said I, angrily, "you must sell me a sack
of bread, and some powder and ball.  Till I get them I
swear I will not go."

"Sartinly!" sing-songed the captain; and in a twinkling
the supplies were in the boat.  "Now go, and God speed
ye!"

I slipped a piece of gold into his hand, and was off.
But frightened as he was, he was honest, and in half a
minute he called me back.

"Here is your silver," came the queer, high voice over
the rail.  "You have overpaid me three times," and I saw
his long arm reaching out to me.

"Keep it," I snapped.  "We are in more haste to be gone
than you to get rid of us."

In five minutes more the woods enfolded us, and the
little _Osprey_ was hid from our view.  I walked
violently in my wrathful disappointment, till at last
Mizpah checked me.  "If the good soldier," said she,
"might advise his captain, which would be, of course,
intolerable, I would dare to remind you of what you
have said to me more than once lately.  Is not this pace
too hot to last, Monsieur?" And stopping, she leaned
heavily on her musket.

"Forgive me," I exclaimed, flinging myself down on the
moss.  "And what a fool I am to be angry, too, just
because those poor bumpkins wouldn't take up our
quarrel."

The look of gratitude which Mizpah gave me for that
little phrase, "our quarrel," made my heart on a sudden
strong and light.  Presently we resumed our journey,
going moderately, and keeping enough inland to avoid
the windings of the coaSt. The little _Osprey_ we never
saw again; but months later, when it came to my ears
that a fishing vessel of Plymouth had been taken by the
Indians that autumn while storm-stayed at Merigomish,
and her crew all slain, I felt a qualm of pity for the
poor lads whose selfish fears had so misguided them.



Chapter XIX

The Camp by Canseau Strait

IT was perhaps to their encounter with the _Osprey_ we
owed it that we saw no more of our pursuers.  At any
rate we were no further persecuted.  After two days of
marching we felt safe to light fires.

We shot partridges, and a deer; and the fresh meat put
new vigour into our veins.  We came to the beginning of
the narrow strait which severs Ile Royale from the main
peninsula of Acadie; and with longing eyes Mizpah gazed
across, as if hoping to discern the child amid the
trees of the opposite shore.  At last, I could but say
to her:-

"We are a long, long way from Philip yet, my comrade;
were we across this narrow strait, we would be no
nearer to him, for the island is so cut up with inland
waters, many, deep, and winding, that it would take us
months to traverse its length afoot.  We must push on to
Canseau, for a boat is needful to us."

And all these days, in the quiet of the great woods, in
the stillness of the wilderness nights when often I
watched her sleeping, in the hours while she walked
patiently by my side, her brave, sweet face wan with
grief suppressed, her eyes heavy with longing, my love
grew.  It took possession of my whole being till this
doubtful, perilous journey seemed all that I could
desire, and the world we had left behind us became but
a blur with only Marc's white face in the midst to give
it consequence.  Nevertheless, though my eyes and my
spirit waited upon all her movements, I suffered no
least suggestion of my worship to appear, but ever with
rough kindliness played the part of companion-at-arms.

One morning, -- it was our fifth day from the _Osprey_,
but since reaching the Strait we had become involved in
swamps, and made a very pitifully small advance, -- one
morning, I say, when it wanted perhaps an hour of noon,
we were both startled by a sound of groaning.  Mizpah
came closer to me, and put her hand upon my arm.  We
stood listening intently.

"It is some one hurt," said I, in a moment, "and he is
in that gully yonder."

Cautiously, lest there should be some trap, we followed
the sound; and we discovered, at the bottom of a narrow
cleft, an Indian lad lying wedged between sharp rocks,
with the carcass of a fat buck fallen across his body.
It was plain to me at once that the young savage had
slipped while staggering under his load of venison.

I hesitated; for what more likely than that there
should be other Indians in the neighbourhood; but
Mizpah cried at once:-

"Oh, we must help him!  Quick!  Come, Monsieur!"

And in truth the lad's face appealed to me, for he was
but a stripling, little younger than Marc.  Very gently
we released him from his agonizing position; and when
we had laid him on a patch of smooth moss, his groaning
ceased.  His lips were parched, and when I brought him
water he swallowed it desperately.  Then Mizpah bathed
his face.  Presently his eyes opened, rested upon her
with a look of unutterable gratitude, and closed again.
Mizpah's own eyes were brimming with tears, and she
turned to me in a sort of appeal, as if she would say:-

"How can we leave him?"

"Let him be for a half hour now," said I, answering her
look.  "Then perhaps he will be able to talk to us."

We ate our meal without daring to light a fire.  Then we
sat in silence by the sleeping lad, till at last he
opened his eyes, and murmured in the Micmac tongue,
"water." When he had taken a drink, I offered him
biscuit, of which he ate a morsel.  Then, speaking in
French, I asked him whence he came; and how he came to
be in such a plight.

He answered faintly in the same tongue.  "I go from
Malpic," said he, "to the Shubenacadie, with messages.
I shot a buck, on the rock there, and he fell into the
gully.  As I was getting him out I fell in myself, and
the carcass on top of me.  I know no more till I open my
eyes, and my mouth is hard, and kind friends are giving
me water.  Then I sleep again, for I feel all safe," and
with a grateful smile his eyes closed wearily.  He was
fast asleep again, before I could ask any more
questions.

"Come away," I whispered to Mizpah, "till we talk about
this." She came, but first, with a tender
thoughtfulness, she leaned her musket against a tree,
with his own beside it, so that if he should wake while
we were gone he should at once see the two weapons, and
know that he was not deserted.

When we were out of earshot, I turned and looked into
her eyes.

"What is to be done with him?" I asked.

"We must stay and take care of him," said she,
steadily, "till he can take care of himself."

"And Philip?" I questioned.

She burst into tears, flung herself down, and buried
her face in her hands.  After sobbing violently for some
minutes she grew calm, dashed her tears away, and
looked at me in a kind of despair.

"The poor boy cannot be left to die here alone," she
said, in a shaken voice.  "It is perfectly plain what we
must do.  Oh, God, take care of my poor lonely little
one." And again she covered her eyes.  I took one of her
hands in mine, and pressed it firmly.

"If there is justice in Heaven, he will," I cried
passionately.  "And he will; I know he will.  I think
there never was a nobler woman than you, my comrade."

"You do not know me," she answered, in a low voice; and
rising, she returned to the sick boy's side.

Seeing that we were here for some days, or perchance a
week, I raised two hasty shelters of brush and poles.
That night the patient wandered in his mind, but in the
morning the fever had left him, and thenceforward he
mended swiftly.  His gratitude and his docility were
touching, and his eyes followed Mizpah as would the
eyes of a faithful dog.  I think his insight penetrated
her disguise, so that from the first he knew her for a
woman; but his native delicacy kept him from betraying
his knowledge.  As far as I could see, there were no
bones broken, and I guessed that in a week at furthest
he would be able to resume his journey without risk.

For three days I troubled him not with further
questions, Mizpah having so decreed.  She said that
questioning would hinder his recovery; but I think she
feared what questioning might disclose.  At last, as we
finished supper, of which he had well partaken, he rose
feebly but with determination, took a few tottering
paces, and then came back to his couch, where he lay
with gleaming eyes of satisfaction.

"I walk now pretty soon," said he.  "Not keep kind
friends here much longer.  Which way you going when you
stopped to take care of Indian boy?"

I looked across at Mizpah, then made up my mind to
speak plainly.  If I knew anything at all of human
nature, this boy was to be trusted.

"We are going to Ile Royale," said I, "to look for a
little boy whom some of your tribe have cruelly carried
off."

His face became the very picture of shame and grief.
He looked first at one of us, then the other; and
presently dropped his head upon his breast.

"Why, what is the matter, Xavier?" I asked.  He had said
his name was Xavier.

"I know," he answered, in a low voice.  "It was some of
my own people did it."

"_What_ do you know?  Tell us, oh, tell us everything!
Oh, we helped you!  You will surely help us find him!"
pleaded Mizpah, breathlessly.

"By all the blessed saints," he cried, with an
earnestness that I felt to be sincere, "I will try to
help you.  I will risk anything.  I will disobey the
Abbe.  I will -- "

"Where _is_ the child?  Do you know that?" I
interrupted.

"Yes, truly," he replied.  "They have taken him north to
Gaspe, and to the St. Lawrence.  My uncle, Etienne le
Batard, was in canoe that brought him to mouth of the
Pictook.  Then other canoe took him north, where a
French family will keep him.  The Abbe says he shall
grow up a monk.  But he is not starved or beaten, I
swear truly."

"How do you know all this?" I asked, looking at him
piercingly.  But his eye was clear and met mine right
honestly.

"My uncle came to Malpic straight," said he, "where the
warriors had a council.  Then I was sent with word to my
father, Big Etienne, who is on the Shubenacadie."

"What word?" I asked.

But the boy shook his head.  "It does not touch the
little boy.  It does not touch my kind friends.  I may
not tell it," he said, with a brave dignity.  I loved
him for this, and trusted him the more.

"This lad's tongue and heart are true," said I, looking
at Mizpah.  "We may trust him."

"I know it!" said she.  Whereupon he reached out,
grasped a hand of each, and kissed them with a freedom
of emotion which I have seldom seen in the full blood
Indian.

"You may trust me," he said, in a low voice, being by
this something wearied.  "You give me my life.  And I
will help you find your child."

And the manner of his speech, as if he considered the
child our child, though it was but accident, stirred me
sweetly at the heart, -- and I durst not trust myself
to meet Mizpah's eyes.

Thus it came about that, after all, we crossed not the
narrow strait, nor set foot in Ile Royale.  But when,
three days later, I judged our patient sufficiently
recovered, we set our faces again toward the
Shubenacadie.

The journey was exceeding slow, but to me very far from
tedious, for in rain or shine, or dark or bright, the
light shone on me of my mistress's face.

And at last, after many days of toilsome wandering, we
struck the head waters of the Shubenacadie.

From this point forward we went with more caution.  When
we were come within an hour of the Indian village,
Xavier parted company with us.  The river here making a
long loop, so to speak, we were to cross behind the
village at a safe distance, strike the tide again, and
hide at a certain point covered with willows till
Xavier should bring us a canoe.

We reached the point, hid ourselves among the willows,
and waited close upon two hours.  The shadows were
falling long across the river, and our anxieties rising
with more than proportioned speed, when, at last, a
canoe shot around a bend of the river, and made swiftly
for the point.  We saw Xavier in the bow, but there was
a tall, powerful warrior in the stern.  As the canoe
drew near, Mizpah caught me anxiously by the arm.

"That man was one of the band that captured us at
Annapolis," she whispered.  "What does it mean?  _Could_
Xavier mean to -- ?"

"No," I interrupted; "of course not, comrade.  These
Indians are never treacherous to those who have earned
their gratitude.  Savages though they be, they set
civilization a shining example in that.  There is
nothing to fear here."

Landing just below us, the two Indians came straight
toward our hiding-place.  At the edge of the wood the
tall warrior, whom I now knew for a certainty to be Big
Etienne himself, stopped, and held out both his hands,
palm upwards.  I at once stepped forth to meet him,
leaving my musket behind me.  But Mizpah who followed me
closely, clung to hers, -- which might have convinced
me, had I needed conviction, that hero though she was
she was yet all woman.

"You my brother and my sister!" said the tall warrior
at once, speaking with dignity, but with little of
Xavier's fluency.  He knew Mizpah.

"I am glad my brother's heart is turned towards us at
last," said I.  "My brother knows what injury has been
done to us, and what we suffer at the hands of his
people."

"Listen," said he, solemnly.  "You give me back my son,
my only son, my young brave," and he looked at Xavier
with loving pride; "for that I can never pay you; but I
give you back your son, too, see?  And, now, always, I
am your brother.  But now, you go home.  I find the child
away north, by the Great River.  I put him in your arms,
safe, laughing, -- so;" and he made as if to place a
little one in Mizpah's arms.  "Then you believe I love
you, and Xavier love you.  But now, come; not good to
stay here more." And, turning abruptly, he led the way
to the canoe, and himself taking the stern paddle,
while Xavier took the bow, motioned us to get in.  I
hesitated; whereupon he cried:-

"Many of our people out this way.  River not safe for
you now.  We take you to Grand Pre, Canard, Pereau, --
where you want.  Then go north.  Better so.

Seeing the strong reason in his words, I accepted his
offer thankfully, but insisted upon taking the bow
myself, because Xavier was not yet well enough to
paddle strongly.

Thus we set out, going swiftly with the tide.  As we
journeyed, Big Etienne was at great pains to make us
understand that it would take him many weeks to find
Philip and bring him back to us, because the way was
long and difficult.  He said we must not look to see the
lad before the snow lay deep; but he bound himself to
bring him back in safety, barring visitation of God.  I
saw that Mizpah now trusted the tall warrior even as I
did.  I felt that he would make good his pledge at any
hazard.  I urged, however, that he should take me with
him; but on this point he was obstinate, saying that my
presence would only make his task the more difficult,
for reasons which occurred to me very readily.  It cost
me a struggle to give up my purpose of being myself the
child's rescuer, and so winning the more credit in
Mizpah's eyes.  But this selfish prompting of my heart I
speedily crushed (for which I thank Heaven) when I saw
that Big Etienne's plan was the best that could be
devised for Philip.

Some miles below the point where the river was already
widening, we passed a group of Indians with their
canoes drawn up on the shore, waiting to ascend with
the returning tide.  Recognizing Big Etienne in the
stern, they paid us no attention beyond a friendly
hail.  Late in the evening we camped, well beyond the
river mouth.  Once on the following morning, when far
out upon the bosom of the bay, we passed a canoe that
was bound for the Shubenacadie, and again the presence
and parting hail of our protector saved us from
question.  Our halts for meals were brief and far apart,
but light head winds baffled us much on the journey, so
that it was not till toward evening of the second day
out from the Shubenacadie mouth that we paddled into
the Canard, and drew up at Giraud's little landing
under the bank.



Chapter XX

The Fellowship Dissolved

IN Giraud's cabin during our absence things had gone
tranquilly.  We found Marc mending, -- pale and weak
indeed, but happy; Prudence no longer pale, and with a
content in her eyes which told us that her time had not
been all passed in grieving for our absence.  Father
Fafard was in charge, of course; and of the Black Abbe
there had been nothing seen or heard since our
departure.

Nevertheless there was great news, and a word that
deeply concerned me.  De Ramezay had led his little army
against Annapolis.  Just ten days before had he passed
up the Valley; and for me he had left an urgent
message, begging me to Join him immediately on my
return.  This was a black disappointment; for just now
my soul desired nothing so much as a few days of quiet
converse with Mizpah, and the chance to show her a
courtesy something different from the rough comradeship
of our wilderness travels.  But this was not to be.
It was incumbent upon me to go in the morning.

That evening was a busy one; but I snatched leisure to
sit by Marc's bedside and give the dear lad a hasty
outline of our adventure.  The tale called a flush to
his face, and breathless exclamations from Prudence;
but Mizpah sat in silence, save for a faint protest
once or twice when I told of her heroism, and of her
noble self-sacrifice on behalf of the Indian lad.  She
was weighed down with a sadness which she could make no
pretence to hide, -- doubtless feeling the more little
Philip's absence and loneliness as she contemplated
Marc's joy on my return.  My hands and lips ached with a
longing to comfort her, but I firmly forbade myself to
intrude upon her sorrow.  By and by, when I spoke of my
positive determination to set out for Annapolis in the
early morning, both Marc and Prudence strove hard to
dissuade me, crying out fervently against my going; but
Mizpah said nothing more than --

"Why not take _one day_, at least, to rest?"

And I was somewhat hurt at the quiet way she said it.
Said I to myself within, "She might spare me a little
thought, now that she knows Philip is safe, and sure to
be brought back to her."

In the morning I saw Big Etienne and Xavier set forth
upon their quest, -- and Mizpah stood beside me to wish
them a grateful "God-speed." Pale and sad as was the
exquisite Madonna face, her lips were marvellously red,
and wore an unwonted tenderness.  Her eyes evaded mine,
which hurt me sorely, but I was comforted a little by
her word as the canoe slipped silently away.

"I wish we were going with them," said she, in a
wistful voice.

It was that "we" that stirred my heart.

"Would to God we were!" said I.

Half an hour later I hung over my dear lad's pallet,
pressing his hands, and bidding him adieu, and kissing
his gaunt cheeks.  When at last I turned away, dashing
some unexpected drops from my eyes (for I had eagerly
desired his comradeship in this venture, and had
dreamed of him fighting at my side), I found that
Prudence and the Cure had gone down to the landing to
see me off, and that Mizpah stood alone just outside
the door, looking pale and tired.  I think I was
aggrieved that she should not take the trouble to walk
down as far as the landing, -- and this may have lent
my voice a touch of reserve.

"Good-bye, Madame," said I, holding out my hand.
"May God keep you!"

In truth it lay heavily upon my soul that she should
not have one thought to spare from the child, for me.
Yet I was not prepared for the way she took my
farewell.

"It was 'comrade' but yesterday," she murmured,
flushing, and withdrawing her hand ere I could give it
an instant's pressure.  But growing straightway pale
again, she added with the stateliness so native to her:-

"Farewell, Monsieur.  May God keep you also!  My
gratitude to the most gallant of gentlemen, to the
bravest and truest succourer of those in need, I must
ask you to believe in without words; for truly I have
no words to express it." And with that she turned away,
leaving me most sore at heart for something more than
gratitude.

A few minutes later, when I had made my adieux to
Father Fafard, and kissed Marc's lily maid, as was my
right and duty, I had a surprise which sent me on my
way something more happily.  As our canoe (I had Giraud
with me now) slipped round a little bluff below the
settlement, I caught the flutter of a gown among the
trees; and the next instant Mizpah appeared, waving her
handkerchief.  She had gone a good half-mile to wave me
a last God-speed.

For an instant, as I bared my head, I had a vision of
her hair all down about her, a glory that I can never
think of without a trembling in my throat.  I saw a
speaking tenderness in her Madonna face, -- and I
seemed to hear in my heart a call which assuredly her
lips did not utter; then my eyes blurred, so hard was
it to keep from turning back.  I leaned my head forward
for a moment on my arms, as if I had been a soft boy,
but feeling the canoe swerve instantly from its course,
I rose at once and resumed my paddling.

Nevertheless I turned my head ever and anon toward the
shore behind, till I could catch no more the flutter of
her gown among the trees.

I have wondered many times since, how Mizpah's hair
chanced then to be down about her in that fashion.  Did
some wanton branch undo it as she came hastily through
the trees?  Or did her own long fingers loosen it for
me?


Of de Ramezay's vain march against Annapolis I need not
speak with any fulness here.  The September weather was
propitious, wherefore the expedition was an agreeable
jaunt for the troops.  But my good friend the Commander
found the fort too strong and too well garrisoned for
the force he had brought against it; and the great
fleet from France which was to have supported him came
never to drop anchor in the basin of secure Port Royal.
It is an ill tale for French ears to hear, for French
lips to relate, that which tells of the thronged and
mighty ships which sailed from France so proudly to
restore the Flag of the Lilies to her ancient
strongholds.  Oh, my Country, what hadst thou done, that
the stars in their courses should fight against thee?
For, indeed, the hand of fate upon the ships was heavy
from the firSt. Great gales scattered them.  By twos and
threes they met the English foe, and were destroyed; or
disease broke out amongst their crews, till they were
forced to flee back into port with their dying; or they
struggled on through infinite toil and pain, to be
hurled to wreck on our iron capes of Acadie.  The few
that came in safety fled back again when they knew the
fate of their fellows.  And our grim-visaged adversaries
of New England, rejoicing in their great deliverance,
set themselves to singing psalms of praise with great
lustihood through their noses.

And for my own part, when I reached de Ramezay's camp,
the enterprise was already as good as abandoned.  For a
week longer, less to annoy the enemy, than to spy out
the land and commune with the inhabitants, we lay
before Annapolis.  Then de Ramezay struck camp, and bade
his grumbling companions march back to Chignecto.

But of me he asked a service.  And, though I had hoped
to go at once to Canard, I could not, in honour, deny
him.  I saw him and his little army marching back
whither my heart was fain to drag me also; but my face
was set seaward, whither I had no desire to go.

For the matter was, that de Ramezay had affairs with
the Abenaqui chiefs of the Penobscot, which affairs he
was now unable to tend in person, and which he durst
hardly entrust to a subordinate, or to one unused to
dealing with our savage allies.  He knew my credit among
the Penobscot tribes, -- and indeed, he would have been
sorely put to it, had I denied him in the matter.  The
affair carried me from the Penobscot country on to the
St. Lawrence, and then to Montreal.  The story of it is
not pertinent to this narrative, and moreover, which is
more to the purpose, the affair was no less private in
its nature than public in its import.  Suffice to say of
it, therefore, that with my utmost despatch it engaged
me up to the closing of the year.  It was not till
January was well advanced that I found myself again in
de Ramezay's camp at Chignecto, and looked out across
the snow-glittering marshes to the dear hills of
Acadie.

I found that during my absence things had happened.
The English governor at Annapolis, conceiving that the
Acadians were restless to throw off the English yoke,
had called upon New England for reinforcements.  In
answer, Boston had sent five hundred of her gaunt and
silent soldiery, bitter fighters, drinkers of strong
rum, quaintly sanctimonious in their cups.  Their leader
was one Colonel Noble, a man of excellent courage, but
small discretion, and with a foolish contempt for his
enemies.  These men, as de Ramezay told me, were now
quartered in Grand Pre village, and lying carelessly.
It was his purpose to attack them at once.  But being
himself weak from a recent sickness, he was obliged to
place the conduct of the enterprise in the hands of his
second in command.  This, as I rejoiced to learn, was a
very capable and experienced officer, Monsieur de
Villiers, -- the same who, some years later, was to
capture the young Virginian captain, Mr. Washington, at
Fort Necessity.  Though our force was less than that of
the New Englanders, de Ramezay and de Villiers both
trusted to the advantages of a surprise and a night
attack.

For my own part I liked little this plan of a night
attack; for I love a fair defiance and an open field,
and all my years of bush fighting; have not taught me
another sentiment.  But I was well inclined toward any
action that would take me speedily to Canard.  Moreover,
I knew that de Ramezay's plan was justified by the
smallness of the force which he could place at de
Villiers' command.  I had further a shrewd suspicion
that there were enough of the villagers on the English
side to keep the New Englanders fairly warned of our
movements.  In this, as I learned afterwards, I
suspected rightly, but the blind over-confidence of
Colonel Noble made the warning of no effect.  The
preparations for our march went on briskly, and with an
eager excitement.  The bay being now impassable by
reason of the drifting ice, the journey was to be made
on snow-shoes, by the long, circuitous land route,
through Beaubassin, Cobequid, Piziquid, and so to the
Gaspereau mouth.  Every one was in high spirits with the
prospect of action after a long and inglorious delay.
But for me the days passed leadenly.  I was consumed
with impatience, and anxiety, and passionate desire for
a face that was never an hour absent from my thoughts.
My first act on arriving at Chignecto had been to ask
for Tamin, trusting that he might have tidings from
Canard.  But de Ramezay told me that he had sent the
shrewd fisherman-soldier to Grand Pre for information.

In a fever I awaited his return.

At last, but three days before the time set for our
departure, he arrived.  From him I learned that Marc was
so far recovered as to walk abroad for a short airing
whenever the weather was fine.  He, as well as the
ladies, was lying very close in Giraud's cottage, and
their presence was not known to the New Englanders at
Grand Pre, at which information I was highly gratified.

"And are the ladies in good health?" I asked.

"The little Miss looks rugged, and her eyes are like
stars," said Tamin; "but Madame -- Ah, she is pale, and
her eyes are heavy." Tamin's own eyes almost hid
themselves in a network of little wrinkles as he spoke
scrutinizing my face.  "She weeps for the child.  She
said perhaps you, Monsieur, would find him in your
travels, and bring him back to her!"

My heart sank at the word.  I could not go to Canard, --
I could not face Mizpah again, till I could go to her
with Philip in my arms.  I had hoped that he was
restored to her ere this.  What had happened?  Had Big
Etienne deceived me?  And Xavier, too?  I could not think
it.  Yet what else could I think?

"Ah, my friend," said I, with bitterness, "she will be
grievously disappointed in me.  She will say I promise
much, and perform little.  And alas, it seems even so.
I have not seen or heard of the child.  But has Big
Etienne come back?  _Surely_ he has not come back
without the child?"

Tamin, it was plain, had heard the whole story from
Marc, for he asked no questions, and showed no
surprise.

"No," said he, "they're both away Big Etienne and
Xavier, gone nigh onto four months.  Some says to Gaspe;
some says to Saguenay.  Who knows?  They're Injuns!" And
Tamin shrugged his shoulders, while his honest little
eyes grew beady with distrust.

But I no more distrusted, and my heart lightened
mightily.  They had been checked, baffled perhaps, for
weeks; but I felt that they were faithful and would
succeed.  I resolved that the moment this enterprise of
de Villiers' was accomplished I would go to help them.
But I had yet more questions for Tamin.

"And the Black Abbe?" I asked.  "Where is he?"

"At Baie Verte, minding his store, or at Cobequid with
his red lambs," replied Tamin, puckering his wide mouth
drolly.  "He is little at Chignecto since he met you
there, Monsieur.  And he has not been seen at Canard
since Giraud's cabin grew so hospitable.  But Grul is
much in the neighbourhood.  I think the Black Abbe fears
him."

Remembering the awful scene on the cliffs of the des
Saumons, I felt that Tamin's surmise was fairly
founded, and I blessed the strange being who thus kept
watch over those whom I loved.  But I said nothing to
Tamin of what was in my mind, thinking it became me to
keep Grul's counsel.



Chapter XXI

The Fight at Grand Pre

ON the 23d day of January, 1747, we set out from
Chignecto, four hundred tried bush fighters, white and
red, -- some three score of our men being Indians.  We
went on snow-shoes, for the world was buried in drifts.
There was much snow that winter, with steady cold and
no January thaw.  On the marsh the snow lay in mighty
windrows; but in the woods it was deep, deep, and
smotheringly soft.  The branches of fir and spruce and
hemlock bent to the earth beneath the white burden of
it, forming solemn aisles and noiseless fanes within.
We marched in column.  The leaders, who had the
laborious task of tramping the unbroken snow, would
keep their place for an hour, then fall to the rear,
and enjoy the grateful ease of marching in the
footsteps of their fellows.  Sometimes, as our column
wound along like a huge dark snake, some great branch,
awakened by our laughter, would let slip its burden
upon us in a sudden avalanche.  Sometimes, in crossing a
hidden water-course, the leading files would disappear,
to be dragged forth drenched and cursing and derided.

But there were as yet no enemies to beware of; so we
marched merrily, and cheered our nights with unstinted
blaze of camp fires.

On our fourth evening out from Chignecto, when we had
halted about an hour, there came visitors to the camp.
My ear was caught by the sentry's challenge.  I went
indifferently to see what the stir was all about.

"Monsieur, we are come!" cried a glad voice which I
keenly remembered; and Xavier, his face aglow in the
firelight, sprang forward to grasp my hand.  Behind him,
standing in moveless dignity, was Big Etienne, and at
his feet a light sledge, with a bundle wrapped in furs.

My heart gave a great bound of thankful joy; and I
stepped forward to seize the tall warrior's hand in
both of mine.

"He is well!  He sleeps!" said Big Etienne, gravely.
In dealing with men, I pride myself on knowing what to say
and how to say it.  But at this moment I was filled with
so many emotions that words were not at my command.
Some sort of thanks I stammered to express, -- but the
Indian understood and interrupted me.

"You thank me moons ago, brother," he said, in an
earnest voice.  "You give me my boy.  Now I give you
yours.  And we will not forget.  That's all."

"We will never forget, indeed, my brother," said I,
fervently, and again I clasped hands with him, thus
pledging a comradeship which in many a strait since
then has stood me in good stead.

During the rest of that long mid-winter march, Philip
remained in the care of young Xavier, to whom, as well
as to Big Etienne, he was altogether devoted; and I saw
a new side of the red man's character in the tenderness
of the stern chief toward the child.  For my own part I
lost no time in bidding for my share in Philip's
affections.  My love went out to the brave-eyed little
fellow as if he had been the child of my own flesh.  And
moreover I was fain to win an ally who would help me to
besiege his mother's heart.

Big Etienne had spoken within the mark in saying the
child was well.  His cheeks were dark with smoke and
with forgetfulness of soap and water; but the red blood
tinged them wholesomely.  His long yellow hair was
tangled, but it had the burnished resilience of health.
His mouth, a bow of strength and sweetness, -- his
mother's mouth, -- wore the scarlet of clean veins; and
the great sea-green eyes with which he stirred my soul
were unclouded by fear or sickness.  Before our march
brought us to the hills of Gaspereau, Philip had
admitted me to his favour, ranking me, I think, almost
as he did Xavier and Big Etienne.  More than that I
could not have dared to hope.

At sundown of the ninth of February, the seventeenth
day of our march from Chignecto, we halted in a fir
wood only three miles from the Gaspereau mouth.  We lit
no camp fires now, but supped cold, though heartily.  We
had been met the day before by messengers from Grand
Pre, who told de Villiers the disposition of the
English troops.  With incredible carelessness they were
scattered throughout the settlement.  About one hundred
and fifty, under Colonel Noble himself, were quartered
along a narrow lane, which, running at right angles to
the main street, climbed the hillside at the extreme
west of the village.  For my own part, though de
Villiers' senior in military rank, I was but a
volunteer in this expedition, and served the chief as a
kind of informal aide-de-camp and counsellor.

Together we formed the plan of attack.  It was resolved
that one half our company, under de Villiers himself,
should fall upon the isolated party in the lane and cut
them to pieces.  That left us but two hundred men with
whom to engage the remaining three hundred and fifty of
the New Englanders, -- a daring venture, but I
undertook to lead it.  I undertook by no means to defeat
them, however.  I knew the fine mettle of these vinegar-faced
New Englanders, but I swore (and kept my oath)
that I would occupy them pleasantly till de Villiers,
making an end of the other detachment, should come to
my aid and clinch the victory.

The plan of attack thus settled, I turned my attention
to Philip.  Nigh at hand was a cottage where I was
known, -- where I believed the folk to be very kindly
and honeSt. I told Big Etienne that we would put the
child there to sleep, and after the battle take him to
his mother at Canard.

"And, my brother," said I, laying my hand on his arm,
and looking into his eyes with meaning, "let Xavier
stay with him, for he will be afraid among strangers."

"Xavier must fight," replied the tall warrior.  But his
eyes shifted from mine, and there was indecision in his
voice.

"Xavier is but a boy yet, my brother," I insisted.
"And this is a night attack.  It is no place for an untried
boy.  No glory, but great peril, for one who has not
experience!  For my sake bid Xavier stay with the child."

"You are right, brother.  He shall stay," said the
Indian.

And Xavier was not consulted.  He stayed.  But his was a
face of sore disappointment when we left him with
Philip at the cottage, -- "to guard with your life, if
need be!" said I, in going.  And thus gave him a sense
of responsibility and peril to cheer his bitter
inaction.

It had been snowing all day, but lightly.  After
nightfall there blew up a fitful wind, now fierce, now
breathless.  At one moment the air would be thick with
drift, and the great blasts would buffet us in the
teeth.  At another, there would seem to be in all the
dim-glimmering world no movement and no breathing but
our own.

It was far past midnight when we came upon the hill-slope
overlooking Grand Pre village; and the village
was asleep.  Not a light was visible save in one long
row of cottages at the extreme east end, close by the
water side.  Thither, at our orders, the villagers had
quietly withdrawn before midnight.  The rash New England
men lay sleeping, with apparently no guards set.  If
there were sentries, then the storm had driven them
indoors.

The great gusts swirled and roared past their windows,
piling the drift more deeply about their thresholds.  If
any woke, they turned perchance luxuriously in their
beds and listened to the blasts, and praised God that
the Acadian peasants builded their houses warm.  They
had no thought of the ruin that drew near through the
drifts and the whirling darkness.  I have never heard
that one of them was kept awake with strange terrors,
or had any prevision, or made special searching of his
soul before sleep.

It would seem as if Heaven must have forgotten them for
a little.  Or perhaps the saints remembered that the
English were not a people to take advice kindly, or to
change their plans for any sort of warning that might
seem to them irregular.  But among us French, that
night, there was one at least who was granted some
prevision.

Just before the two columns separated, Tamin came to me
and wrung my hand.  He was with de Villiers' detachment.
There was a certain awe, a something of farewell, in
his manner, and it moved my heart mightily.  But I
clapped him on the back.  "No forebodings, now, my
friend," said I; "keep a good heart and your eyes wide
open."

"The snow is deep to-night, Monsieur!" said he gravely,
as he turned away.

"True," I answered; "but the apple trees are at the
other end of the village; and who ever heard that the
Black Abbe was a prophet?"

Even as I spoke my heart smote me, and I would have
given much to wring the loyal fellow's hand once more.
But I feared to add to his depression.

My men all knew their parts before I led them from the
camp.  Once in the village, only a few whispered orders
were necessary.  Squad by squad, dim forms like phantoms
in the drift, filed off stealthily to their places.

I, with two dozen others, Big Etienne at my elbow, took
post about the centre of the village, where three large
houses, joined together, seemed to promise a rough
bout.  Then we waited.  Saints, how long we waited, as it
seemed!  The snow invaded us.  But the apple trees were
many, and we leaned against them, gnawing our fingers,
and protecting our primings with the long flaps of our
coats.  At last there came a musket-shot from the far-off
lane, and straightway there-upon a crashing volley,
followed by a dreadful outcry -- shouts and screams,
and the yelling of the Indians.

Our waiting was done.  We sprang forward to dash in the
nearest windows, to batter down the nearest doors.
Lights gleamed.  Then came crashes of musketry from the
points where I had placed my several parties, and I
knew they had found their posts.  The fight once begun,
there was little room for generalship in that driven
and shrieking dark.  I could see but what was before me.
In those three houses there were brave men, that I
knew.  Springing from sleep in their shirts, they seemed
to wake full armed, and were already firing upon us as
we tried to force our way in through the windows.  The
main door of the biggest house we strove to carry with
a rush, but that, too, belched lead and fire in our
faces, and we came upon a barrier of household stuff
just inside.  By the light of a musket flash, I saw a
huge, sour-faced fellow in his shirt, standing on the
barrier, with his gun-stock swung back.  I made at him
nimbly with my sword.  I reached him, and the uplifted
weapon fell somewhere harmless in the dark.  The next
moment I felt a sword point, thrusting blindly, furrow
across my temple, tearing as if it were both hot and
dull, and at the same instant I was dragged out again
into the snow.  Three of us, however, as I learned
afterwards, stayed on the floor within.

It was Big Etienne who had saved me.  I was dizzy for a
moment with my wound, the blood throbbing down in a
flood; but I ordered all to fall back under the shelter
of the apple trees, and keep up a steady firing upon
the doors and windows.  The order was passed along, and
in a few minutes the firing was steady.  Then winding my
kerchief tightly about my temples, I bade Big Etienne
knot it for me, and for the time I thought no more of
that sword-scratch.

Though my men were heavily outnumbered, the enemy could
not guess how few we were.  Moreover, we had the shelter
of the trees, and our fire had their windows to
converge upon.  We held them, therefore, with no great
loss, except for those that fell in the first
onslaught, which was bloody for both sides.  Presently a
tongue of flame shot up, and I knew that they had set
fire to one of the houses on the lane.  The shouting
there, and the yelling, died away, but a scattering
crackle of musketry continued.  Then another building
burst into flame.  The night grew all one red, wavering
glare.  As the smoke clouds blew this way and that, the
shadows rose and fell.  The squalls of drift blurred
everything; but in the lulls men stood out suddenly as
simple targets, and were shot with great precision.  Yet
we had shelter enough, too; for every house, every barn
and shed, cast a block of thick darkness on its
northern side.  Then men began to gather in upon the
centre.  Here a squad of my own fellows -- yelling and
cheering with triumph, if they were Indians, quietly
exultant if they were veterans -- would come from the
conquest of a cottage.  There a knot of half-clad
English, fleeing reluctantly and firing over their
shoulders as they fled, would arrive, beat at the doors
before us, and be let in hastily under our fire,
leaving always some of their number on the threshold.
It was like no other fight I had ever fought, for the
strange confusion of it; or perhaps my wound confused
me yet a little.  At length a louder yelling, a sharper
firing, a wilder and mightier clamour, arose in the
direction of the lane.  Our own firing slackened.  All
eyes turned to watch a little band which, fighting
furiously, was forcing its way hither through a swarm
of assailants.  "The vinegar-faces can fight!" I cried,
"but we must stop them.  Come on, lads!" And with a
score at my back I rushed to meet the newcomers.
Rushed, did I say?  But I should have said struggled and
floundered.  For, the moment we were clear of the
trampled area, and found ourselves in the open fields,
the snow went nearly to our middles.  Yet we met the
gallant little band, which having shaken off its
assailants, now fell upon us with a welcome of most
earnest curses.  Men speak of the bloody ferocity of a
duel in a dark room.  It is nothing to the blind,
blundering, reckless, snarling rage of that struggle in
the deep snow, and under that swimming delusive light.
Having emptied my musket and my pistols, I threw them
all away, and fell to playing nimbly with my sword.  Big
Etienne I saw close beside me, swinging his musket by
the barrel.  Suddenly its deadly sweep missed its
object.  The tall warrior fell headforemost, carried off
his uneasy balance by the force of the blow.  Ere he
could flounder up again a foeman was upon him with
uplifted sword.  But with a mighty lunge, hurling myself
forward from the drift that held my feet, I reached the
man's neck with my own point, and fell at his feet.
He came down in a heap on top of me.  His knee, as I
suppose it was, struck me violently on the head.
Perhaps I was already weakened by that cut upon the
temple.  The noise all died suddenly away.  I remember
thinking how warm the snow felt against my face.  And
the rest of the fight was no concern of mine.



Chapter XXII

The Black Abbe Strikes in the Dark

I WAS awakened to consciousness by some one gently
lifting me.  I struggled at once to my feet, leaning
upon him.  It was Big Etienne.

"You much hurt?" he queried, in great concern.

"Why, no!" said I, presently.  "Head feels sore.  I think
I'll be all right in a minute."

It was in the red and saffron of dawn.  The snow had
stopped falling.  The muskets had stopped clattering.
The battle was apparently at an end.  All around lay
bodies, or rather parts of bodies; for they were more
or less hidden in the snow.  Close by me just a pair of
knees was visible, thrust up through a drift into which
the man had plunged in falling.

The snow was all mottled with blood and powder, a very
hideous colour to look upon.  I stood erect and
stretched myself.

"Why, brother," I exclaimed, in great relief, "I am as
good as new.  Where is the commander?"

Big Etienne pointed in silence to the street before the
three houses.  There I saw our men drawn up in menacing
array.  In and behind the houses were crowded the dark
masses of the New Englanders, punctuated here and there
with the scarlet of an officer's coat.

De Villiers greeted me as one recovered from the grave.
I asked eagerly how he had sped, and how the matter now
rested.

"Success, everywhere success, Briart!" he answered,
with a sort of controlled elation.  "You held these
fellows, while we wiped out those yonder.  But it was a
cruel and bloody affair, and I would the times, and the
straits of New France, required not such killing in the
dark.  But they set fire to a house and barn that they
might fight in the light, and so a band of them escaped
us and cut their way through here, -- what was left of
them, at least, after they got done with you!  And now
their remnant is hemmed in yonder."

"We've got them, then," said I.

"Surely," he answered.  "But it will cost our best blood
to end it.  They have fought like heroes, though they
kept guard like fools.  And they will battle it out, I
think, while a man of them stands."

"Yes, 'tis the breed of them!" said I, looking across
with admiration at the silent and dangerous ranks.  "But
they have done all that brave men could do.  They will
accept honourable terms, I think; and such we may offer
them without any touch of discredit.  What do you say?"

This was, indeed what de Villiers had in his heart.
He withdrew his troops some little distance, that
negotiations might be the less embarrassed; and I
myself, feeling a fresh dizziness, retired to a cottage
where I might have my wound properly tended.  But barely
had I got the bandage loosened, -- a black-eyed Acadian
maid standing by, with face of deep commiseration and
holding a basin of hot water for me, -- when there
broke out a sudden firing.  I clapped the bloody bandage
to my head, and ran forth; but I saw there was no need
of me.  The English had sallied with a fierce heat,
hoping to retrieve their fortunes.  But the deep snow
was like an army to shut them in.  Before they could
come at us they were exhausted, and our muskets dropped
them swiftly in the drifts.  Sullenly they fell back
again upon their houses.  I turned to my basin and my
bandaging.

"That settles that!" said I to the damsel.

"Settles what, Monsieur?" she asked.  But as she spoke I
saw a look of sudden concern cross her face, a
faintness came over me, and I lay down, feeling her arm
support me as I sank.

Sleep is the best of medicines for me.  I woke late in
the afternoon to find my head neatly bandaged, and the
dizziness all gone.  Men came and went softly.  I found
that de Villiers was lying in the same house, having
got a serious wound just after I left him.  La Corne, a
brave Canadian, was in command.  The English had
capitulated toward noon, and had pledged themselves to
depart for Annapolis within forty-eight hours, not to
bear arms again in Acadie within six months.  We had
redeemed at Grand Pre our late failure at Annapolis.

My first act was to send a runner, on snow-shoes, to
Canard, with a scrawled note to Mizpah.  Explaining
nothing, I merely begged that she and Prudence, with
Marc and Father Fafard, should meet me at the Forge
about noon of the following day.  In the case of Marc
not being yet strong enough to journey so far, I prayed
Mizpah herself, in any event, to come without fail.
My next was to send a messenger for Xavier and Philip.
My heart had fallen to aching curiously for the child, --
insomuch that I marvelled at it, till at length I set
it down as a mere whimsical counterfeit of my longing
for his mother.

Being now refreshed and altogether myself again,
I went to visit the lane wherein the fight had opened.
The very first house, whose shattered door and windows,
blood-smeared threshold, and dripping window-sills,
showed that the fight had there raged long and madly,
had one great apple tree beside its garden gate.
A chill of foreboding smote me as I marked it.
I approached with a curious and painful expectancy,
the words of the Black Abbe ringing again in my ears.
At the foot of the apple tree the snow was drifted deep.
It half covered a pitifully huddled body.

I lifted the body.  It was Tamin.

He had been shot through the lungs, and his blood,
melting the snow, had gathered in a crimson pool
beneath him.  Here was one grim prophecy fulfilled.
Carrying him into the house, I laid him gently on a
bed.  Then I turned away with a very sorrowful heart;
for there was much to do, and the dead are not urgent.

Even as I turned, my heart jumped with a new and
sickening dread.  Xavier stood before me -- Xavier, with
wild eyes, and face darkly clotted with blood.  The next
instant he threw himself at my feet.

"The child!" he muttered, covering his face.  "They have
carried him away.  They have carried Philip away!"

"What do you mean?" I cried, in a voice which my fear
made harsh, while at the same time I dragged him to his
feet.  "Who have carried him away?  Who?"

But I knew the answer ere he could speak it, -- I knew
my enemy had seized the chances of the battle and the
night.

"The Black Abbe," wailed the lad, in a voice of
poignant sorrow.  "He came in the night, with two
Chepody Acadians dressed up like Indians, and seized me
asleep, and bound me."

"But Philip!" I cried.  "Where have they taken him?" And
even as I spoke I was planning swiftly.

"The Abbe started westward with him," answered Xavier.
"From what I heard say, he would go to Pereau; but
which way after, I could not find out."

"Come!" I ordered roughly, "we must follow them!" But
as I spoke I saw the lad totter.  I caught him by the
arm and held him up, perceiving now for the first time
how he was both wounded and utterly spent.

"Let us go first to your father," I said more gently,
leading him, and putting what curb I could upon the
fierceness of my haste.

"How did you get here?" I asked him presently.

A gleam came into the lad's faint eyes.

"The Chepody men stayed till morning," said he, "and
then set out on the road toward Piziquid, taking me
with them.  They thought I was nothing but a boy.  As we
went, I got my hands loose, so, -- and waited.  At noon
one man went into a house, -- and -- _so!_ -- I was
free, and had the other dog by the throat.  He make no
noise; but he fight hard, and hurt me.  I got away, and
left him in the snow, and ran back all the way to tell
you the Black Abbe -- "

But here the poor lad's voice failed, and he hung upon
me with all his weight.  He had fainted, indeed; and now
that I thought of his wound, his hunger, his grief, and
his prodigious exertions, I wondered not at his
swooning.  Picking him up in my arms, I carried him to
the cottage where the kind damsel had so
compassionately tended my own bruises.

As I entered the thronged cottage with my burden, men
came about me with many questions; but I kept my own
counsel, not knowing whom I could trust, or where the
Black Abbe might not have his spies posted.  Moreover, I
was so distracted with anxiety about the child, that I
had small patience wherewith to take questioning
civilly.  Every bed and every settle being occupied with
our wounded, I laid Xavier on the floor, with his head
upon a blue petticoat which the kind damsel -- who came
to me as soon as she saw me enter -- fetched from a
cupboard and rolled up deftly for me.  After a careful
examination I found no wound upon the lad save two
shallow flesh cuts, one across his forehead and one
down his cheSt. I thereupon concluded that exhaustion,
together with the loss of blood, had brought him to
this pass, and that with a few days' care he would be
altogether restored.  Having put some brandy between his
lips, and seen his eyelids tremble with recovering
consciousness, I turned to the maiden and said:-

"Take care of him for me, Cherie.  He deserves your best
care; and I trust him to your good heart.  Give him
something to eat now, -- soup, hot milk, at firSt. And
I will come back in two days from now, at furthest."

"But Monsieur must rest!"

"No rest for me to-night!" I interrupted, in a low
voice, as I straightened myself up.  "Do you know where
I may find the lad's father, the chief, Big -- "

But there was no need for me to finish the question.
There, close behind me, stood the tall Indian, looking
down at Xavier, with trouble in his eyes.  He had just
entered, in his silent fashion.

"There is no danger!  He is worn out!" I whispered.
"He has done all a brave man could do; but the child is
stolen!  Come outside with me."

Big Etienne stooped quickly and laid his hand upon the
lad's breast, and then, most gently, upon his lips.
A second later he had followed me out into the deepening
twilight.

In few words I told him what had happened, and my
purpose of going instantly in pursuit.  Without a word
he strode off toward a small cabin about a stone's
throw from the cottage which we had just left.

"Where are you going?" I asked, astonished at this
abruptness.

"My snow-shoes!" he replied.  "And bread.  I go with you,
my brother!"

This, in very truth, was just what I had hoped for.
But, in my haste, I had forgotten the need of eating;
and, as for my snow-shoes, usually strapped at my back,
they had been left at the outskirts of the village the
night before in order that my sword arm might have the
freer play.  It was no time now to go back for them.
I slipped into the cottage, borrowed a pair, and was
presently forth again to meet Big Etienne.  The Indian,
instead of bread, had brought a goodly lump of dried
beef.  Side by side, and in silence, we set out for the
cabin on the Gaspereau where Philip and Xavier had been
captured.

We found the place deserted.  Either the man of the
house had been a tool of La Garne, or he feared that I
would hold him responsible.  Which it was, I know not to
this day; and, at the time, we gave small thought to
the question, merely commending the fellow's wisdom in
removing himself from our indignation.  What engaged our
concern was a single snow-shoe track making westward,
followed by the trail of a little sledge.

"Yes," said I; "Xavier is surely right.  The Abbe has
gone to cross the Habitants and the Canard where they
are little, and will then, belike, turn down the valley
to Pereau!"

"Very like!" grunted my companion; and, at a long lope,
we started up the trail.

This pace, however, soon told upon me, and brought it
into my mind that I had, that day, eaten nothing but a
bowl of broth.  We halted, therefore, and rested half an
hour in the warmth of a dense spruce coppice, and ate
abundantly of that very savoury beef.  Then, much
revived, we set out again.  Treading one behind the
other, we marched, in silence, through the glimmering
dark; for Big Etienne was no talker, while I, for my
part, was gnawing my heart with rage, and hope
frustrated, and the picture of Mizpah's anguish.  We
never stayed our pace till we came, at the edge of
dawn, to the spot where the trail went over the
dwindled upper current of the Habitants.

Here, to our astonishment, the trail turned eastward,
following down the course of the river.

I looked at the Indian in wondering consternation.
"What can it mean?" I cried.  "Can there be any new plot
of his hatching at Canard?"

"Maybe!" said Big Etienne.

At thought of further perils threatening Mizpah and
Marc, the weariness which had been growing upon me
vanished, and I sprang forward as briskly as if we had
but just set out.  Even Big Etienne, though he had no
such incentive as mine, seemed to win new vigour with
the contemplation of this new coil of the enemy's.  If,
indeed, he appeared somewhat fresher than I throughout
the latter half of this hard march, it is but justice
to myself to say that he bore no wound from the late
battle.

At last, when it was well past ten of the morning, the
trail led us out upon the main Canard track, and turned
toward the settlement.

"Yes," said I, with bitter conviction; "he has gone to
Canard.  He would never go there had he not some deep
scheme of mischief afoot.  God grant we be in time!"

In less than half an hour we came within sight of the
Forge in the ForeSt. To my astonishment, the smoke was
pouring in furious volume from the forge chimney.

"What can Babin be about?  Or can Mizpah and Marc be
there already?" I wondered aloud; but got no answer
from my companion.  A moment later, a turn of the track
brought us to a post of vantage whence we could see
straight into the forge.  The sight which met our eyes
brought us to an instant stop from sheer amazement.



Chapter XXIII

The Rendezvous at the Forge

BESIDE the forge-fire stood Grul.  On his left arm was
perched Philip, half wrapped in the black-and-yellow
cloak, and playing with Grul's white wand.  At the back
of the forge, fettered to the wall, and with his hands
bound behind him, stood the black form of our
adversary.  Grul was heaving upon the bellows, and in
the fierce white glow of the coal stuck a number of
irons heating.  These he turned and twisted with
fantastic energy, now and then drawing one forth and
brandishing it with a kind of mad glee, so as best to
show the intensity of its colour; and whenever he did
so little Philip shouted with delight.

The joy that surged through my breast as I took in all
this astonishing turn of affairs, was something which I
have no words to tell of.

"Mary, Mother of Heaven, be praised for this!" I cried
fervently.

"What will he do with irons?" queried Big Etienne, with
a curiously startled note in his voice.

Indeed, what now followed was sufficiently startling.
Grul had caught sight of us.  Immediately he set the
child down, heaved twice or thrice mightily upon the
bellows, and then drew from the fire two white-hot rods
of iron.  With these, one in each hand, he approached
the Black Abbe, treading swiftly and sinuously like a
panther.  I darted forward, chilled with sudden horror.
A short scream of mortal fear came from the wretched
captive's lips.

"Stop!  stop!" I shouted, as those terrible brands went
circling hither and thither about the cringing form.
The next instant, and ere I could reach the scene to
interfere, the Abbe gave a huge bound, reached the
door, and plunged out into the snow, pursued by a peal
of wild laughter from Grul's lips.  This most whimsical
of madmen had befooled his captive, in much the same
fashion as once before on the cliff beside the des
Saumons.  He had used the deadly iron merely to free him
from his bonds, and again held in reserve his full
vengeance.

Fetching a huge breath of relief, I joined in Grul's
mocking laughter; while Big Etienne gave a grunt of
manifest dissatisfaction.  As for the Black Abbe, though
the sweat of his terror stood in beads upon his
forehead, he recovered his composure marvellously.
Having run some dozen paces he stopped, turned, and
gazed steadily upon Grul for perhaps the space of a
full minute.  Then, sweeping a scornful glance across
the child, the Indian, and myself, he half opened his
lips to speak.  But if he judged himself not then best
ready to speak with dignity, -- let no one marvel at
that.  He changed his purpose, folded his arms across
his breast, and strode off slowly and in silence along
the track toward Grand Pre.

I thought his shadow, as it fell long and sinister
across the snow, lay blacker than was the common wont
of shadows.

Big Etienne was already within, and Philip in his arms.
As I entered the forge door Grul cried solemnly, as if
to extenuate his act in freeing the prisoner:-

"His cup is not yet full."

Seizing both his hands in mine, I tried with stammering
lips to thank him; but, something to my chagrin, he cut
me short most ungraciously.  Snatching his hands away,
he stepped outside the door, and raised his thrilling,
bell-like chant:-

"Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the day of her
desolation cometh."

Beyond all words though my gratitude was, I could not
refrain from shrugging my shoulders at this fantastic
mummery, as I turned to embrace little Philip.  My heart
was rioting with joy and hope, and I could not trouble
my wits with these mad whimsies of Grul's.  When he had
quit prophesying and come again within the forge, I
tried to draw from him some account of how he had so
achieved the child's rescue and the Black Abbe's utter
discomfiture.  But he wandered from the matter, whether
wilfully or not I could by no means decide; and
presently, catching a ghost of a smile on the face of
Big Etienne, I gave up and rested thankful for what I
had got.  As for Philip, he was amiably gracious to both
Big Etienne and myself, but it was manifest that all
his little heart had gone out to Grul; and the two were
presently playing together in a corner of the forge, at
some game which none but themselves could understand.

It wanted yet an hour of noon, when, as I stood in the
door consuming my heart with impatience, yet unwilling
to go and meet Mizpah and so mar the climax which I had
plotted for, I caught sight of two figures approaching.
I needed not eyes to tell me one was Mizpah, for the
blood shook in all my veins at sight of her.  The other
was Father Fafard.

"Marc," said I to myself, "is not yet strong enough to
venture so far; and the maid Prudence has stayed with
him.  But Mizpah is here -- Mizpah is here!"

With eyes of delight I dwelt upon her tall, slim form,
in its gown of blue woollen cloth which set off so
rarely the red-gold enchantment of her hair.  But when
she was come near enough for me to mark the eager
welcome in her eyes and on her lips, I waved at her,
clumsily enough, and turned within to catch at a little
self-possession.  Not having my snow-shoes on, I could
not be expected to go and meet her; and that waiting in
the door-way was too much for me to endure.

"Keep Philip behind the chimney, out of sight," I
whispered eagerly to Grul; and somewhat to my wonder he
obeyed.

On the next instant Mizpah stood in the door, smiling
upon me, her face all aglow with expectation and
greeting; and I found myself clasping both of her white
hands.  But my tongue refused to speak, -- deeming,
perchance, that my eyes were usurping its office.

Finding at length a word of welcome for the good
priest, I wrung his hand fervently, then turned again
to Mizpah.

But my first speech was stupid, -- so stupid that I
wished most heartily that I had held my tongue.

"Comrade," said I, "this is a glad day for me."

Her face fell, and her eyes reproached me.

"Because you have defeated and slain my people?" she
asked.

My face grew hot for the flat ineptitude of my words.

"No!  no!  Not for that!" I cried passionately, "but for
_this!_"

And I turned to snatch Philip from his corner behind
the chimney.

But Grul was too quick for me.  He could play no second
part at any time, he.  Evading my hands, he slipped past
me, and himself placed the child in Mizpah's arms.

I cursed inwardly at his abruptness, though in truth he
had done just what I was intending to do myself.  As
Mizpah, with a gasping cry, crushed the little one to
her bosom, she went white as a ghost and tottered
against the anvil.  I sprang to support her, but
withheld my arm ere it touched her waist, for even on
the instant she had recovered herself.  With wordless
mother-cries she kissed Philip's lips and hair, and
buried her face in his neck, he the while clinging to
her as if never again for a moment could he let her go.

Presently, while I waited in great hunger for a word,
she turned to Big Etienne and Grul.

"My friends!" she cried, in a shaken voice which
faithfully uttered her heart, "my true and loyal
friends!" Whereupon she wrung their hands, and wrung
them, and would have spoken further but that her voice
failed her.

Then, after a moment or two, she turned to me, --
yet not wholly.

The paleness had by this well vanished, and her eyes,
those great sea-coloured eyes, which she would not lift
to mine, were running over with tears.  Philip took one
sturdy little arm from her neck, and stretched out his
hand to me; but I ignored the invitation.

"And what -- what have you got for me, Mizpah?" I
asked, in a very low voice, indeed -- a voice perhaps
not just as steady as that of a noted bush-fighter is
supposed to be at a crisis.

The flush grew, deepening down along the clear
whiteness of her neck, and she half put out one hand to
me.

"Do you want thanks?" she asked softly.

"You _know_ what I want, -- what have wanted above all
else in life from the moment my eyes fell upon you!" I
cried with a great passion, grown suddenly forgetful of
Grul and Big Etienne, who doubtless found my emotion
more or less interesting.

For a second or two Mizpah made no answer.  Then she
lifted her face, gave me one swift look straight in the
eyes, -- a look that told me all I longed to know, --
and suddenly, with a little laugh that was mostly a
sob, put Philip into my arms.

"There!" she whispered, dropping her eyes.

And by some means it so came about that, as I took the
child, my arms held Mizpah also.

THE END