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THE LADY OF FORT ST. JOHN

by

MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD

Author of "The Romance of Dollard"

[Illustration]

Boston and New YorkHoughton, Mifflin and CompanyThe Riverside Press, Cambridge1891Copyright, 1891, By Mary Hartwell Catherwood. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. , U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 

This book I dedicate

TO

TWO ACADIANS OF THE PRESENT DAY;

NATIVES OF NOVA SCOTIA WHO REPRESENT THE LEARNINGAND GENTLE ATTAINMENTS OF THENEW ORDER:

DR. JOHN-GEORGE BOURINOT, C. M. G. , ETC. CLERK OF THE CANADIAN HOUSE OF COMMONS, OFOTTAWA; AND

DR. GEORGE STEWART, OF QUEBEC. 

PREFACE. 

How can we care for shadows and types, when we may go back throughhistory and live again with people who actually lived?

Sitting on the height which is now topped by a Martello tower, at St. John in the maritime province of New Brunswick, I saw--not the oppositecity, not the lovely bay; but this tragedy of Marie de la Tour, thetragedy "which recalls" (says the Abbé Casgrain in his "Pčlerinage aupays d'Evangéline") "the romances of Walter Scott, and forces one to ownthat reality is stranger than fiction. "

In "Papers relating to the rival chiefs, D'Aulnay and La Tour, " of theMassachusetts Historical Collection, vol. Vii. , may be found theseprefatory remarks:--

"There is a romance of History as well as a History of Romance. To theformer class belong many incidents in the early periods of New Englandand its adjacent colonies. The following papers . . . Refer to twopersons, D'Aulnay and La Tour, . . . Individuals of respectable intellectand education, of noble families and large fortune. While the first wasa zealous and efficient supporter of the Roman Church, the second wasless so, from his frequent connection with others of a different faith. The scene of their . . . Prominent actions, their exhibition of variouspassions and talents, their conquests and defeats, their career and end, as exerting an influence on their associates as well as themselves, onother communities as well as their own--was laid in Nova Scotia. Thisphrase then comprised a territory vastly more extensive than it doesnow as a British Province. It embraced not only its present boundaries, which were long termed Acadia, but also about two thirds of the State ofMaine. "

It startles the modern reader, in examining documents of the Frencharchives relating to the colonies, to come upon a letter from LouisXIII. To his beloved D'Aulnay de Charnisay, thanking that governor ofAcadia for his good service at Fort St. John. Thus was that great racewho first trod down the wilderness on this continent continually andcruelly hampered by the man who sat on the throne in France. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE

 Prelude. At the Head of the Bay of Fundy 1

 I. An Acadian Fortress 13

 II. Le Rossignol 21

 III. Father Isaac Jogues 40

 IV. The Widow Antonia 55

 V. Jonas Bronck's Hand 64

 VI. The Mending 73

 VII. A Frontier Graveyard 82

 VIII. Van Corlaer 96

 IX. The Turret 107

 X. An Acadian Poet 121

 XI. Marguerite 133

 XII. D'Aulnay 143

 XIII. The Second Day 155

 XIV. The Struggle between Powers 173

 XV. A Soldier 191

 XVI. The Camp 211

 XVII. An Acadian Passover 227

 XVIII. The Song of Edelwald 252

Postlude. A Tide-Creek 273

LADY OF FORT ST. JOHN. 

PRELUDE. 

AT THE HEAD OF THE BAY OF FUNDY. 

The Atlantic rushed across a mile or two of misty beach, boring into allits channels in the neck of Acadia. Twilight and fog blurred thelandscape, but the eye could trace a long swell of earth risinggradually from the bay, through marshes, to a summit with a smallstockade on its southern slope. Sentinels pacing within the stockadefelt the weird influence of that bald land. The guarded spot seemed anisland in a sea of vapor and spring night was bringing darkness upon it. 

The stockade inclosed a single building of rough logs clumsily puttogether, and chinked with the hard red soil. An unhewn wall dividedthe house into two rooms, and in one room were gathered less than adozen men-at-arms. Their officer lay in one of the cupboard-like bunks, with his hands clasped under his head. Some of the men were alreadyasleep; others sat by the hearth, rubbing their weapons or spreadingsome garment to dry. A door in the partition opened, and the wife of oneof the men came from the inner room. 

"Good-night, madame, " she said. 

"Good-night, Zélie, " answered a voice within. 

"If you have further need of me, you will call me, madame?"

"Assuredly. Get to your rest. To-morrow we may have stormy weather forour voyage home. "

The woman closed the door, and the face of the one who had hearkened toher turned again to the fireplace. It was a room repeating the men'sbarrack in hewed floor, loophole windows, and rough joists. 

This frontier outpost on the ridge since called Beausejour was merely aconvenient halting-place for one of the lords of Acadia. It stood on adetached spot of his large seigniory, which he had received with otherportions of western Acadia in exchange for his grant of Cape Sable. 

Though in his early thirties, Charles de la Tour had seen long servicein the New World. Seldom has a man from central France met the northerncold and sea air with so white a favor. His clean-shaven skin and thesunny undecided color of his hair were like a child's. Part of his armorhad been unbuckled, and lay on the floor near him. He sat in a chair oftwisted boughs, made of refuse from trees his men had dragged out of theneighboring forest for the building of the outpost. His wife sat on apile of furs beside his knee. Her Huguenot cap lay on the shelf abovethe fire. She wore a black gown slashed in the sleeves with white, and akerchief of lace pushed from her throat. Her black hair, which Zéliehad braided, hung down in two ropes to the floor. 

"How soon, monsieur, " she asked, "can you return to Fort St. John?"

"With all speed possible, Marie. Soon, if we can work the miracle ofmoving a peace-loving man like Denys to action. "

"Nicholas Denys ought to take part with you. "

"Yet he will scarce do it. "

"The king-favored governor of Acadia will some time turn and push him ashe now pushes you. "

"D'Aulnay hath me at sore straits, " confessed La Tour, staring at theflame, "since he has cut off from me the help of the Bostonnais. "

"They were easily cut off, " said Marie. "Monsieur, those Huguenots ofthe colonies were never loving friends of ours. Their policy hath beento weaken this province by helping the quarrel betwixt D'Aulnay and you. Now that D'Aulnay has strength at court, and has persuaded the king todeclare you an outlaw, the Bostonnais think it wise to withdraw theirhired soldiers from you. We have not offended the Bostonnais as allies;we have only gone down in the world. "

La Tour stirred uneasily. 

"I dread that D'Aulnay may profit by this hasty journey I make tonorthern Acadia, and again attack the fort in my absence. "

"He hath once found a woman there who could hold it, " said Marie, checking a laugh. 

La Tour moved his palm over her cheek. Within his mind the province ofAcadia lay spread from Penobscot River to the Island of Sable, and fromthe southern tip of the peninsula now called Nova Scotia nearly to themouth of the St. Lawrence. This domain had been parceled in grants: thenorth to Nicholas Denys; the centre and west to D'Aulnay de Charnisay;and the south, with posts on the western coast, to Charles de la Tour. Being Protestant in faith, La Tour had no influence at the court ofLouis XIII. His grant had been confirmed to him from his father. He hadheld it against treason to France; and his loyal service, at least, wasregarded until D'Aulnay de Charnisay became his enemy. Even in that yearof grace 1645, before Acadia was diked by home-making Norman peasants orwatered by their parting tears, contending forces had begun to trampleit. Two feudal barons fought each other on the soil of the New World. 

"All things failing me"--La Tour held out his wrists, and looked at themwith a sharp smile. 

"Let D'Aulnay shake a warrant, monsieur. He must needs have you beforehe can carry you in chains to France. "

She seized La Tour's hands, with a swift impulse of atoning to them forthe thought of such indignity, and kissed his wrists. He set his teethon a trembling lip. 

"I should be a worthless, aimless vagrant without you, Marie. You areyoung, and I give you fatigue and heart-sickening peril instead ofjewels and merry company. "

"The merriest company for us at present, monsieur, are the men of ourhonest garrison. If Edelwald, who came so lately, complains not of thisNew World life, I should endure it merrily enough. And you know I seldomnow wear the jewels belonging to our house. Our chief jewel is buried inthe ground. "

She thought of a short grave wrapped in fogs near Fort St. John; of faircurls and sweet childish limbs, and a mouth shouting to send echoesthrough the river gorge; of scamperings on the flags of the hall; and ofthe erect and princely carriage of that diminutive presence the men hadcalled "my little lord. "

"But it is better for the boy that he died, Marie, " murmured La Tour. "He has no part in these times. He might have survived us to see hisinheritance stripped from him. "

They were silent until Marie said, "You have a long march before youto-morrow, monsieur. "

"Yes; we ought to throw ourselves into these mangers, " said La Tour. 

One wall was lined with bunks like those in the outer room. In the lowerrow travelers' preparations were already made for sleeping. 

"I am yet of the mind, monsieur, " observed Marie, "that you should havemade this journey entirely by sea. "

"It would cost me too much in time to round Cape Sable twice. NicholasDenys can furnish ship as well as men, if he be so minded. My lieutenantin arms next to Edelwald, " said La Tour, smiling over her, "my equalpartner in troubles, and my lady of Fort St. John will stand for myhonor and prosperity until I return. "

Marie smiled back. 

"D'Aulnay has a fair wife, and her husband is rich, and favored by theking, and has got himself made governor of Acadia in your stead. Shesits in her own hall at Port Royal: but poor Madame D'Aulnay! She hasnot thee!"

At this La Tour laughed aloud. The ring of his voice, and the clang ofhis breastplate which fell over on the floor as he arose, woke ananswering sound. It did not come from the outer room, where scarcely avoice stirred among the sleepy soldiery, but from the top row of bunks. Marie turned white at this child wail soothed by a woman's voice. 

"What have we here?" exclaimed La Tour. 

"Monsieur, it must be a baby!"

"Who has broken into this post with a baby? There may be men concealedoverhead. "

He grasped his pistols, but no men-at-arms appeared with the haggardwoman who crept down from her hiding-place near the joists. 

"Are you some spy sent from D'Aulnay?" inquired La Tour. 

"Monsieur, how can you so accuse a poor outcast mother!" whisperedMarie. 

The door in the partition was flung wide, and the young officer appearedwith men at his back. 

"Have you found an ambush, Sieur Charles?"

"We have here a listener, Edelwald, " replied La Tour, "and there may bemore in the loft above. "

Several men sprang up the bunks and moved some puncheons overhead. Alight was raised under the dark roof canopy, but nothing rewarded itssearch. The much-bedraggled woman was young, with falling strands ofsilken hair, which she wound up with one hand while holding the baby. Marie took the poor wailer from her with a divine motion and carried itto the hearth. 

"Who brought you here?" demanded La Tour of the girl. 

She cowered before him, but answered nothing. Her presence seemed to hima sinister menace against even his obscurest holdings in Acadia. Thestockade was easily entered, for La Tour was unable to maintain agarrison there. All that open country lay sodden with the breath of thesea. From whatever point she had approached, La Tour could scarcelybelieve her feet came tracking the moist red clay alone. 

"Will you give no account of yourself?"

"You must answer monsieur, " encouraged Marie, turning, from her careswith the child. It lay unwound from its misery on Marie's knees, watching the new ministering power with accepting eyes. Feminine andpiteous as the girl was, her dense resistance to command could only vexa soldier. 

"Put her under guard, " he said to his officer. 

"And Zélie must look to her comfort, " added Marie. 

"Whoever she may be, " declared La Tour, "she hath heard too much to gofree of this place. She must be sent in the ship to Fort St. John, andguarded there. "

"What else could be done, indeed?" asked Marie. "The child would die ofexposure here. "

The prisoner was taken to the other hearth; and the young officer, as heclosed the door, half smiled to hear his lady murmur over the wretchedlittle outcast, as she always murmured to ailing creatures, --

"Let mother help you. "

I. 

AN ACADIAN FORTRESS. 

At the mouth of the river St. John an island was lashed with drift, andtide-terraces alongshore recorded how furiously the sea had driven uponthe land. There had been a two days' storm on the Bay of Fundy, subsiding to the clearest of cool spring evenings. An amber light lay onthe visible world. The forest on the west was yet too bare of leaf budsto shut away sunset. 

A month later the headlands would be lined distinctly against a blue andquickening sky by freshened air and light and herbage. Two centuries anda half later, long streaks of electric light would ripple on thatsurface, and great ships stand at ease there, and ferry-boats rush backand forth. But in this closing dusk it reflected only the gray andyellow vaporous breath of April, and shaggy edges of a wilderness. Thehigh shores sank their shadows farther and farther from the water'sedge. 

Fort St. John was built upon a gradual ascent of rocks which rose to asmall promontory on the south side of the river. There were fourbastions guarded with cannon, the northeast bastion swelling above itsfellows in a round turret topped with battlements. On this tower theflag of France hung down its staff against the evening sky, for therewas scarcely any motion of the air. That coast lay silent like apictured land, except a hint of falls above in the river. It was ebbtide; the current of the St. John set out toward the sea instead ofrushing back on its own channel; and rocks swallowed at flood now brokethe surface. 

A plume of smoke sprang from one bastion, followed by the rollingthunder of a cannon shot. From a small ship in the bay a gun replied tothis salute. She stood, gradually clear of a headland, her sailshanging torn and one mast broken, and sentinel and cannoneer in thebastion saw that she was lowering a boat. They called to people in thefortress, and all voices caught the news:--

"Madame has come at last!"

Life stirred through the entire inclosure with a jar of closing doorsand running feet. 

Though not a large fortification, St. John was well and compactly builtof cemented stone. A row of hewed log-barracks stood against thesouthern wall, ample for all the troops La Tour had been able to musterin prosperous times. There was a stone vault for ammunition. A well, amill and great stone oven, and a storehouse for beaver and other skinswere between the barracks and the commandant's tower built massivelyinto the northeast bastion. This structure gave La Tour the advantage ofa high lookout, though it was much smaller than a castle he had formerlyheld at La Hčve. The interior accommodated itself to such compactness, the lower floor having only one entrance, and windows looking into thearea of the fort, while the second floor was lighted through deeploopholes. 

A drum began to beat, a tall fellow gave the word of command, and thegarrison of Fort St. John drew up in line facing the gate. A sentinelunbarred and set wide both inner and outer leaves, and a cheer burstthrough the deep-throated gateway, and was thrown back from the oppositeshore, from forest and river windings. Madame La Tour, with two womenattendants, was seen coming up from the water's edge, while two menpushed off with the boat. 

She waved her hand in reply to the shout. 

The tall soldier went down to meet her, and paused, bareheaded, to makethe salutation of a subaltern to his military superior. She respondedwith the same grave courtesy. But as he drew nearer she noticed himwhitening through the dusk. 

"All has gone well, Klussman, at Fort St. John, since your lord left?"

"Madame, " he said with a stammer, "the storm made us anxious about you. "

"Have you seen D'Aulnay?"

"No, madame. "

"You look haggard, Klussman. "

"If I look haggard, madame, it must come from seeing two women followyou, when I should see only one. "

He threw sharp glances behind her, as he took her hand to lead her upthe steep path. Marie's attendant was carrying the baby, and she liftedit for him to look at, the hairs on her upper lip moved by agood-natured smile. Klussman's scowl darkened his mountain-bornfairness. 

"I would rather, indeed, be bringing more men to the fort instead ofmore women, " said his lady, as they mounted the slope. "But this onemight have perished in the stockade where we found her, and your lordnot only misliked her, as you seem to do, but he held her in suspicion. In a manner, therefore, she is our prisoner, though never went prisonerso helplessly with her captors. "

"Yes, any one might take such a creature, " said Klussman. 

"Those are no fit words to speak, Klussman. "

He was unready with his apology, however, and tramped on without againlooking behind. Madame La Tour glanced at her ship, which would have towait for wind and tide to reach the usual mooring. 

"Did you tell me you had news?" she was reminded to ask him. 

"Madame, I have some news, but nothing serious. "

"If it be nothing serious, I will have a change of garments and mysupper before I hear it. We have had a hard voyage. "

"Did my lord send any new orders?"

"None, save to keep this poor girl about the fort; and that is easilyobeyed, since we can scarce do otherwise with her. "

"I meant to ask in the first breath how he fared in the outset of hisexpedition. "

"With a lowering sky overhead, and wet red clay under-foot. But Ithanked Heaven, while we were tossing with a broken mast, that he wasat least on firm land and moving to his expectations. "

They entered the gateway, Madame La Tour's cheeks tingling richly fromthe effort of climbing. She saluted her garrison, and her garrisonsaluted her, each with a courteous pride in the other, born of the jointvictory they had won over D'Aulnay de Charnisay when he attacked thefort. Not a man broke rank until she entered her hall. There was atidiness about the inclosure peculiar to places inhabited by women. Itadded grace even to military appointments. 

"You miss the swan, madame, " noted Klussman. "Le Rossignol is outagain. "

"When did she go?"

"The night after my lord and you sailed northward. She goes each time inthe night, madame. "

"And she is still away?"

"Yes, madame. "

"And this is all you know of her?"

"Yes, madame. She went, and has not yet come back. "

"But she always comes back safely. Though I fear, " said Madame La Touron the threshold, "the poor maid will some time fall into harm. "

He opened the door, and stood aside, saying under his breath, "I wouldcall a creature like that a witch instead of a maid. "

"I will send for you, Klussman, when I have refreshed myself. "

"Yes, madame. "

The other women filed past him, and entered behind his lady. 

The Swiss soldier folded his arms, staring hard at that crouchingvagrant brought from Beausejour. She had a covering over her face, andshe held it close, crowding on the heels in front of her as if she darednot meet his eye. 

II. 

LE ROSSIGNOL. 

A girlish woman was waiting for Marie within the hall, and the twoexchanged kisses on the cheek with sedate and tender courtesy. 

"Welcome home, madame. "

"Home is more welcome to me because I find you in it, Antonia. Hasanything unusual happened in the fortress while I have been settingmonsieur on his way?"

"This morning, about dawn, I heard a great tramping of soldiers in thehall. One of the women told me prisoners had been brought in. "

"Yes. The Swiss said he had news. And how has the Lady Dorinda fared?"

"Well, indeed. She has described to me three times the gorgeous pageantof her marriage. "

They had reached the fireplace, and Marie laughed as she warmed herhands before a pile of melting logs. 

"Give our sea-tossed bundle and its mother a warm seat, Zélie, " she saidto her woman. 

The unknown girl was placed near the hearth corner, and constrained totake upon her knees an object which she held indifferently. Antonia'seyes rested on her, detecting her half-concealed face, with silentdisapproval. 

"We found a child on this expedition. "

"It hath a stiffened look, like a papoose, " observed Antonia. "Is itwell in health?"

"No; poor baby. Attend to the child, " said Marie sternly to the mother;and she added, "Zélie must go directly with me to my chests before shewaits on me, and bring down garments for it to this hearth. "

"Let me this time be your maid, " said Antonia. 

"You may come with me and be my resolution, Antonia; for I have to setabout the unlocking of boxes which hold some sacred clothes. "

"I never saw you lack courage, madame, since I have known you. "

"Therein have I deceived you then, " said Marie, throwing her cloak onZélie's arm, "for I am a most cowardly creature in my affections, MadameBronck. "

They moved toward the stairs. Antonia was as perfect as a slim andblue-eyed stalk of flax. She wore the laced bodice and small cap of NewHolland. Her exactly spoken French denoted all the neat appointments ofher life. This Dutch gentlewoman had seen much of the world; havingtraveled from Fort Orange to New Amsterdam, from New Amsterdam toBoston, and from Boston with Madame La Tour to Fort St. John in Acadia. The three figures ascended in a line the narrow stairway which made adiagonal band from lower to upper corner of the remote hall end. Zéliewalked last, carrying her lady's cloak. At the top a little light fellon them through a loophole. 

"Was Mynheer La Tour in good heart for his march?" inquired Antonia, turning from the waifs brought back to the expedition itself. 

"Stout-hearted enough; but the man to whom he goes is scarce to becounted on. We Protestant French are all held alien by Catholics of ourblood. Edelwald will move Denys to take arms with us, if any one can. Mylord depends much upon Edelwald. This instant, " said Marie with a laugh, "I find the worst of all my discomforts these disordered garments. "

The stranger left by the fire gazed around the dim place, which waslighted only by high windows in front. The mighty hearth, inclosed bysettles, was like a roseate side-chamber to the hall. Outside of thisthe stone-paved floor spread away unevenly. She turned her eyes from thearms of La Tour over the mantel to trace seamed and footworn flags, andnoticed in the distant corner, at the bottom of the stairs, that theygave way to a trapdoor of timbers. This was fastened down with ironbars, and had a huge ring for its handle. Her eyes rested on it in fear, betwixt the separated settles. 

But it was easily lost sight of in the fire's warmth. She had been sochilled by salt air and spray as to crowd close to the flame and courtscorching. Her white face kindled with heat. She threw back hermufflers, and the comfort of the child occurring to her, she looked atits small face through a tunnel of clothing. Its exceeding stillnessawoke but one wish, which she dared not let escape in words. 

These stone walls readily echoed any sound. So scantily furnished wasthe great hall that it could not refrain from echoing. There were somechairs and tables not of colonial pattern, and a buffet holding silvertankards and china; but these seemed lost in space. Opposite thefireplace hung two portraits, --one of Charles La Tour's father, theother of a former maid of honor at the English court. The ceiling ofwooden panels had been brought from La Tour's castle at Cape Sable; itanswered the flicker of the fire with lines of faded gilding. 

The girl dropped her wrappings on the bench, and began to unroll thebaby, as if curious about its state. 

"I believe it _is_ dead!" she whispered. 

But the clank of a long iron latch which fastened the outer door wasenough to deflect her interest from the matter. She cast her cloak overthe baby, and held it loosely on her knees, with its head to the fire. When the door shut with a crash, and some small object scurried acrossthe stone floor, the girl looked out of her retreat with fear. Hereyelids and lips fell wider apart. She saw a big-headed brownie comingto the hearth, clad, with the exception of its cap, in the dun tints ofautumn woods. This creature, scarcely more than two feet high, had awoman's face, of beak-like formation, projecting forward. She was asbright-eyed and light of foot as any bird. Moving within the inclosureof the settles, she hopped up with a singular power of vaulting, andseated herself, stretching toward the fire a pair of spotted sealmoccasins. These were so small that the feet on which they were lacedseemed an infant's, and sorted strangely with the mature keen face abovethem. Youth, age, and wise sylvan life were brought to a focus in thatcountenance. 

To hear such a creature talk was like being startled by spoken wordsfrom a bird. 

"I'm Le Rossignol, " she piped out, when she had looked at the vagrantgirl a few minutes, "and I can read your name on your face. It'sMarguerite. "

The girl stared helplessly at this midget seer. 

"You're the same Marguerite that was left on the Island of Demons ahundred years ago. You may not know it, but you're the same. I know thatdownward look, and soft, crying way, and still tongue, and the very babyon your knees. You never bring any good, and words are wasted on you. Don't smile under your sly mouth, and think you are hiding anythingfrom Le Rossignol. "

The girl crouched deeper into her clothes, until those unwinking eyesrelieved her by turning with indifference toward the chimney. 

"I have no pity for any Marguerite, " Le Rossignol added, and she tossedfrom her head the entire subject with a cap made of white gull breasts. A brush of red hair stood up in thousands of tendrils, exaggerating byits nimbus the size of her upper person. Never had dwarf a sweetervoice. If she had been compressed in order to produce melody, her toneswere compensation, enough. She made lilting sounds while dangling herfeet to the blaze, as if she thought in music. 

Le Rossignol was so positive a force that she seldom found herselfoverborne by the presence of large human beings. The only man in thefortress who saw her without superstition was Klussman. He inclined tocomplain of her antics, but not to find magic in her flights andreturns. At that period deformity was the symbol of witchcraft. Blamefell upon this dwarf when toothache or rheumatic pains invaded thebarracks, especially if the sufferer had spoken against her unseenexcursions with her swan. Protected from childhood by the family of LaTour, she had grown an autocrat, and bent to nobody except her lady. 

"Where is my clavier?" exclaimed Le Rossignol. "I heard a tune in thewoods which I must get out of my clavier, --a green tune, the color ofquickening lichens; a dropping tune with sap in it; a tune like the windacross inland lakes. "

She ran along the settle, and thrust her head around its high back. 

Zélie, with white garments upon one arm, was setting solidly forth downthe uncovered stairs, when the dwarf arrested her by a cry. 

"Go back, heavy-foot, --go back and fetch me my clavier. "

"Mademoiselle the nightingale has suddenly returned, " muttered Zélie, ill pleased. 

"Am I not always here when my lady comes home? I demand the box whereinmy instrument is kept. "

"What doth your instrument concern me? Madame has sent me to dress thebaby. "

"Will you bring my clavier?"

The dwarf's scream was like the weird high note of a wind-harp. It hadits effect on Zélie. She turned back, though muttering against theoverruling of her lady's commands by a creature like a bat, who couldprobably send other powers than a decent maid to bring claviers. 

"And where shall I find it?" she inquired aloud. "Here have I been inthe fortress scarce half an hour, after all but shipwreck, and I mustsearch out the belongings of people who do naught but idle. "

"Find it where you will. No one hath the key but myself. The box maystand in Madame Marie's apartment, or it may be in my own chamber. Suchmatters are blown out of my head by the wind along the coast. Makehaste to fetch it so I can play when Madame Marie appears. "

Le Rossignol drew herself up the back of the settle, and perched at easeon the angle farthest from the fire. She beat her heels lightly againsther throne, and hummed, with her face turned from the listless girl, whowatched all her antics. 

Zélie brought the instrument case, unlocked it, and handed up acrook-necked mandolin and its small ivory plectrum to her tyrant. Atonce the hall was full of tinkling melody. The dwarf's threadlikefingers ran along the neck of the mandolin, and as she made the ivorydisk quiver among its strings her head swayed in rapturous singing. 

Zélie forgot the baby. The garments intended for its use were spreadupon the settle near the fire. She folded her arms, and wagged her headwith Le Rossignol's. But while the dwarf kept an eye on the stairway, watching like a lover for the appearance of Madame La Tour, the outerdoor again clanked, and Klussman stepped into the hall. His big presencehad instant effect on Le Rossignol. Her music tinkled louder and faster. The playing sprite, sitting half on air, gamboled and made droll facesto catch his eye. Her vanity and self-satisfaction, her pliant gestureand skillful wild music, made her appear some soulless little being fromthe woods who mocked at man's tense sternness. 

Klussman took little notice of any one in the hall, but waited by theclosed door so relentless a sentinel that Zélie was reminded of herduty. She made haste to bring perfumed water in a basin, and turned thelinen on the settle. She then took the child from its mother's limphands, and exclaimed and muttered under her breath as she turned it onher knees. 

"What hast thou done to it since my lady left thee?" inquired Zéliesharply. But she got no answer from the girl. 

Unrewarded for her minstrelsy by a single look from the Swiss, LeRossignol quit playing, and made a fist of the curved instrument toshake at him, and let herself down the back of the settle. She sat onthe mandolin box in shadow, vaguely sulking, until Madame La Tour, freshfrom her swift attiring, stood at the top of the stairway. That instantthe half-hid mandolin burst into quavering melodies. 

"Thou art back again, Nightingale?" called the lady, descending. 

"Yes, Madame Marie. "

"Madame!" exclaimed Klussman, and as his voice escaped repression itrang through the hall. He advanced, but his lady lifted her finger tohold him back. 

"Presently, Klussman. The first matter in hand is to rebuke thisrunaway. "

Marie's firm and polished chin, the contour of her glowing mouth, andthe kindling beauty of her eyes were forever fresh delights to LeRossignol. The dwarf watched the shapely and majestic woman moving downthe hall. 

"Madame, " besought Zélie, looking anxiously around the end of thesettle. But she also was obliged to wait. Marie extended a hand to theclaws of Le Rossignol, who touched it with her beak. 

"Thou hast very greatly displeased me. "

"Yes, Madame Marie, " said the culprit, with resignation. 

"How many times have you set all our people talking about these witchflights on the swan, and sudden returns after dark?"

"I forget, Madame Marie. "

"In all seriousness thou shalt be well punished for this last, " said thelady severely. 

"I was punished before the offense. Your absence punished me, MadameMarie. "

"A bit of adroit flattery will not turn aside discipline. The smallestvassal in the fort shall know that. A day in the turret, with a loaf ofbread and a jug of water, may put thee in better liking to stay athome. "

"Yes, Madame Marie, " assented the dwarf, with smiles. 

"And I may yet find it in my heart to have that swan's neck wrung. "

"Shubenacadie's neck! Oh, Madame Marie, wring mine! It would be thedeath of me if Shubenacadie died. Consider how long I have had him. Andhis looks, my lady! He is such a pretty bird. "

"We must mend that dangerous beauty of his. If these flights stop not, Iwill have his wings clipped. "

"His satin wings, --his glistening, polished wings, " mourned LeRossignol, "tipped with angel-finger feathers! Oh, Madame Marie, myheart's blood would run out of his quills!"

"It is a serious breach in the discipline of this fortress for even youto disobey me constantly, " said the lady, again severely, though sheknew her lecture was wasted on the human brownie. 

Le Rossignol poked and worried the mandolin with antennć-like fingers, and made up a contrite face. 

The dimness of the hall had not covered Klussman's large pallor. Theemotions of the Swiss passed over the outside of his countenance, inbulk like himself. His lady often compared him to a noble young bullockor other well-conditioned animal. There was in Klussman muchwholesomeness and excuse for existence. 

"Now, Klussman, " said Marie, meeting her lieutenant with the intentnessof one used to sudden military emergencies. He trod straight to thefireplace, and pointed at the strange girl, who hid her face. 

"Madame, I have come in to speak of a thing you ought to know. Has thatwoman told you her name?"

"No, she hath not. She hath kept a close tongue ever since we found herat the outpost. "

"She ever had a close tongue, madame, but she works her will in silence. It hath been no good will to me, and it will be no good will to the Fortof St. John. "

"Who is she, Klussman?"

"I know not what name she bears now, but two years since she bore thename of Marguerite Klussman. "

"Surely she is not your sister?"

"No, madame. She is only my wife. " He lifted his lip, and his blue eyesstared at the muffled culprit. 

"We knew not you had a wife when you entered our service, Klussman. "

"Nor had I, madame. D'Aulnay de Charnisay had already taken her. "

"Then this woman does come from D'Aulnay de Charnisay?"

"Yes, madame! And if you would have my advice, I say put her out of thegate this instant, and let her find shelter with our Indians above thefalls. "

"Madame, " exclaimed Zélie, lifting the half-nude infant, and thrustingit before her mistress with importunity which could wait no longer, "ofyour kindness look at this little creature. With all my chafing andsprinkling I cannot find any life in it. That girl hath let it die onher knees, and hath not made it known!"

Klussman's glance rested on the body with that abashed hatred which aman condemns in himself when its object is helpless. 

"It is D'Aulnay's child, " he muttered, as if stating abundant reason forits taking off. 

"I have brought an agent from D'Aulnay and D'Aulnay's child into ourfortress, " said Madame La Tour, speaking toward Marguerite's silentcover, under which the girl made no sign of being more than a hiddenanimal. Her stern face traveled from mother back to tiny body. 

There is nothing more touching than the emaciation of a baby. Its sunkentemples and evident cheekbones, the line of its jaw, the piteous partedlips and thin neck were all reflected in Marie's eyes. Her entire figuresoftened, and passionate motherhood filled her. She took the stillpliant shape from Zélie, held it in her hands, and finally pressed itagainst her bosom. No sign of mourning came from the woman called itsmother. 

"This baby is no enemy of ours, " trembled Madame La Tour. "I will nothave it even reproached with being the child of our enemy. It is mylittle dead lad come again to my bosom. How soft are his dear limbs! Andthis child died for lack of loving while I went with empty arms! Haveyou suffered, dear? It is all done now. Mother will give youkisses, --kisses. Oh, baby, --baby!"

Klussman turned away, and Zélie whimpered. But Le Rossignol thrust herhead around the settle to see what manner of creature it was over whichMadame Marie sobbed aloud. 

III. 

FATHER ISAAC JOGUES. 

The child abandoned by La Tour's enemy had been carried to the upperfloor, and the woman sent with a soldier's wife to the barracks; yetMadame La Tour continued to walk the stone flags, feeling that smallskeleton on her bosom, and the pressure of death on the air. 

Her Swiss lieutenant opened the door and uttered a call. Presently, witha clatter of hoofs on the pavement, and a mighty rasping of thehalf-tree which they dragged, in burst eight Sable Island ponies, shaggyfellows, smaller than mastiffs, yet with large heads. The settles werehastily cleared away for them, and they swept their load to the hearth. As soon as their chain was unhooked, these fairy horses shot out again, and their joyful neighing could be heard as they scampered around thefort to their stable. Two men rolled the log into place, set a table andthree chairs, and one returned to the cook-house while the other spreadthe cloth. 

Claude La Tour and his wife, the maid of honor, seemed to palpitate intheir frames, with the flickering expressions of firelight. The silentcompany of these two people was always enjoyed by Le Rossignol. She knewtheir disappointments, and liked to have them stir and sigh. In thedaytime, the set courtier smile was sadder than a pine forest. But thechimney's huge throat drew in the hall's heavy influences, and when thelog was fired not a corner escaped its glow. The man who laid the clothlighted candles in a silver candelabrum and set it on the table, andcarried a brand to waxlights which decorated the buffet. 

These cheerful preparations for her evening meal recalled Madame La Tourto the garrison's affairs. Her Swiss lieutenant yet stood by, his armsand chin settled sullenly on his breast; reluctant to go out and passthe barrack door where his wife was sheltered. 

"Are sentinels set for the night, Klussman?" inquired the lady. 

He stood erect, and answered, "Yes, madame. "

"I will not wait for my supper before I hear your news. Discharge itnow. I understand the grief you bear, my friend. Your lord will notforget the faithfulness you show toward us. "

"Madame, if I may speak again, put that woman out of the gate. If shelingers around, I may do her some hurt when I have a loaded piece in myhand. She makes me less a man. "

"But, Klussman, the Sieur de la Tour, whose suspicions of her you havejustified, strictly charged that we restrain her here until his return. She has seen and heard too much of our condition. "

"Our Indians would hold her safe enough, madame. "

"Yet she is a soft, feeble creature, and much exhausted. Could she beartheir hard living?"

"Madame, she will requite whoever shelters her with shame and trouble. If D'Aulnay has turned her forth, she would willingly buy back his favorby opening this fortress to him. If he has not turned her forth, she ishere by his command. I have thought out all these things; and, madame, Ishall say nothing more, if you prefer to risk yourself in her handsinstead of risking her with the savages. "

The dwarf's mandolin trembled a mere whisper of sound. She leaned herlarge head against the settle and watched the Swiss denounce his wife. 

"You speak good military sense, " said the lady, "yet there is monsieur'scommand. And I cannot bring myself to drive that exhausted creature to acold bed in the woods. We must venture--we cannot do less--to let herrest a few days under guard. Now let me hear your news. "

"It was only this, madame. Word was brought in that two priests fromMontreal were wandering above the falls and trying to cross the St. Johnin order to make their way to D'Aulnay's fort at Penobscot. So I setafter them and brought them in, and they are now in the keep, waitingyour pleasure. "

"Doubtless you did right, " hesitated Madame La Tour. "Even priests maybe working us harm, so hated are we of Papists. But have them outdirectly, Klussman. We must not be rigorous. Did they bear any papers?"

"No, madame; and they said they had naught to do with D'Aulnay, but wereon a mission to the Abenakis around Penobscot, and had lost their courseand wandered here. One of them is that Father Isaac Jogues who wasmaimed by the Mohawks, when he carried papistry among them, and theother his donné--a name these priests give to any man who of his ownfree will goes with them to be servant of the mission. "

"Bring them out of the keep, " said Madame La Tour. 

The Swiss walked with ringing foot toward the stairway, and dropped uponone knee to unbar the door in the pavement. He took a key from hispocket and turned it in the lock, and, as he lifted the heavy leaf ofbeams and crosspieces, his lady held over the darkness a candle, whichshe had taken from one of the buffet sconces. Out of the vault rose achill breath from which the candle flame recoiled. 

"Monsieur, " she spoke downward, "will you have the goodness to come upwith your companion?"

Her voice resounded in the hollow; and some movement occurred below assoft-spoken answer was made:--

"We come, madame. "

A cassocked Jesuit appeared under the light, followed by a man wearingthe ordinary dress of a French colonist. They ascended the stone steps, and Klussman replaced the door with a clank which echoed around thehall. Marie gave him the candle, and with clumsy touch he fitted it tothe sconce while she led her prisoners to the fire. The Protestant wasable to dwell with disapproval on the Jesuit's black gown, though itproved the hard service of a missionary priest; the face of FatherJogues none but a savage could resist. 

His downcast eyelids were like a woman's, and so was his delicate mouth. The cheeks, shading inward from their natural oval, testified to a lifeof hardship. His full and broad forehead, bordered by a fringe of hairleft around his tonsure, must have overbalanced his lower face, had thatnot been covered by a short beard, parted on the upper lip and peaked atthe end. His eyebrows were well marked, and the large-orbed eyes seemedso full of smiling meditation that Marie said to herself, "This lovely, woman-looking man hath the presence of an angel, and we have chilled himin our keep!"

"Peace be with you, madame, " spoke Father Jogues. 

"Monsieur, I crave your pardon for the cold greeting you have had inthis fortress. We are people who live in perils, and we may beover-suspicious. "

"Madame, I have no complaint to bring against you. "

Both men were shivering, and she directed them to places on the settle. They sat where the vagrant girl had huddled. Father Jogues warmed hishands, and she noticed how abruptly serrated by missing or maimedfingers was their tapered shape. The man who had gone out to thecook-house returned with platters, and in passing the Swiss lieutenantgave him a hurried word, on which the Swiss left the hall. The two menmade space for Father Jogues at their lady's board, and brought forwardanother table for his donné. 

"Good friends, " said Marie, "this Huguenot fare is offered you heartily, and I hope you will as heartily take it, thereby excusing the hunger ofa woman who has just come in from seafaring. "

"Madame, " returned the priest, "we have scarcely seen civilized foodsince leaving Montreal, and we need no urging to enjoy this bounty. But, if you permit, I will sit here beside my brother Lalande. "

"As you please, " she answered, glancing at the plain young Frenchman incolonial dress with suspicion that he was made the excuse for separatingRomanist and Protestant. 

Father Jogues saw her glance and read her thought, and silently accusedhimself of cowardice for shrinking, in his maimed state, from her tablewith the instincts of a gentle-born man. He explained, resting his handupon the chair which had been moved from the lady's to his servant'stable:--

"We have no wish to be honored above our desert, madame. We are onlyhumble missionaries, and often while carrying the truth have beenthankful for a meal of roots or berries in the woods. "

"Your humility hurts me, monsieur. On the Acadian borders we have bitterenmities, but the fort of La Tour shelters all faiths alike. We canhardly atone to so good a man for having thrust him into our keep. "

Father Jogues shook his head, and put aside this apology with a gesture. The queen of France had knelt and kissed his mutilated hands, and thecourtiers of Louis had praised his martyrdom. But such ordeals ofcompliment were harder for him to endure than the teeth and knives ofthe Mohawks. 

As soon as Le Rossignol saw the platters appearing, she carried hermandolin to the lowest stair step and sat down to play: a quaintminstrel, holding an instrument almost as large as herself. That part ofthe household who lingered in the rooms above owned this accustomedsignal and appeared on the stairs: Antonia Bronck, still disturbed bythe small skeleton she had seen Zélie dressing for its grave; and anelderly woman of great bulk and majesty, with sallow hair and face, whowore, enlarged, one of the court gowns which her sovereign, the queenof England, had often praised. Le Rossignol followed these two ladiesacross the hall, alternately aping the girlish motion of Antonia and herelder's massive progress. She considered the Dutch gentlewoman a sweetinterloper who might, on occasions, be pardoned; but Lady Dorinda wasthe natural antagonist of the dwarf in Fort St. John. Marie herselfseated her mother-in-law, with the graceful deference of youth to middleage and of present power to decayed grandeur. Lady Dorinda was not easyto make comfortable. The New World was hardly her sphere. In earlierlife, she had learned in the school of the royal Stuarts that somepeople are, by divine right, immeasurably better than others, --andexperience had thrust her down among those unfortunate others. 

Seeing there were strange men in the hall, Antonia divined that theprisoners from the keep had been brought up to supper. But Lady Dorindasettled her chin upon her necklace, and sighed a large sigh thatpriests and rough men-at-arms should weary eyes once used to revel incourt pageantry. She looked up at the portrait of her dead husband, which hung on the wall. He had been created the first knight of Acadia;and though this honor came from her king, and his son refused to inheritit after him, Lady Dorinda believed that only the misfortunes of the LaTours had prevented her being a colonial queen. 

"Our chaplain being absent in the service of Sieur de la Tour, " spokeMarie, "will monsieur, in his own fashion, bless this meal?"

Father Jogues spread the remnant of his hands, but Antonia did not heara word he breathed. She was again in Fort Orange. The Iroquois stalkedup hilly paths and swarmed around the plank huts of Dutch traders. Withthe savages walked this very priest, their patient drudge until some ofthem blasphemed, when he sternly and fearlessly denounced the sinners. 

Supper was scarcely begun when the Swiss lieutenant came again into thehall and saluted his lady. 

"What troubles us, Klussman?" she demanded. 

"There is a stranger outside. "

"What does he want?"

"Madame, he asks to be admitted to Fort St. John. "

"Is he alone? Hath he a suspicious look?"

"No, madame. He bears himself openly and like a man of consequence. "

"How many followers has he?"

"A dozen, counting Indians. But all of them he sends back to camp withour Etchemins. "

"And well he may. We want no strange followers in the barracks. Have youquestioned him? Whence does he come?"

"From Fort Orange, in the New Netherlands, madame. "

"He is then Hollandais. " Marie turned to Antonia Bronck, and was jarredby her blanching face. 

"What is it, Antonia? You have no enemy to follow you into Acadia?"

The flaxen head was shaken for reply. 

"But what brings a man from Fort Orange here?"

"There be nearly a hundred men in Fort Orange, " whispered Antonia. 

"He says, " announced the Swiss, "that he is cousin and agent of theseignior they call the patroon, and his name is Van Corlaer. "

"Do you know him, Antonia?"

"Yes. "

"And is he kindly disposed to you?"

"He was the friend of my husband, Jonas Bronck, " trembled Antonia. 

"Admit him, " said Marie to her lieutenant. 

"Alone, madame?"

"With all his followers, if he wills it. And bring him as quickly as youcan to this table. "

"We need Edelwald to manage these affairs, " added the lady of the fort, as her subaltern went out. "The Swiss is faithful, but he has manners asrugged as his mountains. "

IV. 

THE WIDOW ANTONIA. 

Antonia sat in tense quiet, though whitened even across the lips whereall the color of her face usually appeared; and a stalwart and courtlyman presented himself in the hall. Some of the best blood of the DutchRepublic had evidently gone to his making. He had the vital and reliablepresence of a master in affairs, and his clean-shaven face had firmmouth-corners. Marie rose up without pause to meet him. He was freshlyand carefully dressed in clothes carried for this purpose across thewilderness, and gained favor even with Lady Dorinda, as a man bearingaround him in the New World the atmosphere of Europe. He made hisgreeting in French, and explained that he was passing through Acadia ona journey to Montreal. 

"We stand much beholden to monsieur, " said Marie with a quizzical face, "that he should travel so many hundred leagues out of his way to visitthis poor fort. I have heard that the usual route to Montreal is thatshort and direct one up the lake of Champlain. "

Van Corlaer's smile rested openly on Antonia as he answered, --

"Madame, a man's most direct route is the one that leads to his object. "

"Doubtless, monsieur. And you are very welcome to this fort. We havecause to love the New Netherlanders. "

Marie turned to deliver Antonia her guest, but Antonia stood withoutword or look for him. She seemed a scared Dutch child, bending all herstrength and all her inherited quiet on maintaining self-control. Heapproached her, searching her face with his near-sighted large eyes. 

"Had Madame Bronck no expectation of seeing Arendt Van Corlaer inAcadia?"

"No, mynheer, " whispered Antonia. 

"But since I have come have you nothing to say to me?"

"I hope I see you well, mynheer. "

"You might see me well, " reproached Van Corlaer, "if you would look atme. "

She lifted her eyes and dropped them again. 

"This Acadian air has given you a wan color, " he noted. 

"Did you leave Teunis and Marytje Harmentse well?" quavered Antonia, catching at any scrap. Van Corlaer stared, and answered that Teunis andMarytje were well, and would be grateful to her for inquiring. 

"For they also helped to hide this priest from the Mohawks, " addedAntonia without coherence. Marie could hear her heart laboring. 

"What priest?" inquired Van Corlaer, and as he looked around his eyesfell on the cassocked figure at the other table. 

"Monsieur Corlaer, " spoke Father Jogues, "I was but waiting fitopportunity to recall myself and your blessed charity to your memory. "

Van Corlaer's baffled look changed to instant glad recognition. 

"That is Father Jogues!"

He met the priest with both hands, and stood head and shoulders tallerwhile they held each other like brothers. 

"I thought to find you in Montreal, Father Jogues, and not here, wherein my dim fashion I could mistake you for the chaplain of the fort. "

"Monsieur Corlaer, I have not forgot one look of yours. I was a greattrouble to you with, my wounds, and my hiding and fever. And what painsyou took to put me on board the ship in the night! It would be betterindeed to see me at Montreal than ever in such plight again at FortOrange, Monsieur Corlaer!"

"Glad would we be to have you at Fort Orange again, without pain toyourself, Father Jogues. "

"And how is my friend who so much enjoyed disputing about religion?"

"Our dominie is well, and sent by my hand his hearty greeting to thatvery learned scholar Father Jogues. We heard you had come back fromFrance. "

Van Corlaer dropped one hand on the donné's shoulder and leaned down toexamine his smiling face. 

"It is my brother Lalande, the donné of this present mission, " said thepriest. 

"My young monsieur, " said Van Corlaer, "keep Father Jogues out of theMohawks' mouths henceforth. They have really no stomach for religion, though they will eat saints. It often puzzles a Dutchman to handle thatIroquois nation. "

"Our lives are not our own, " said the young Frenchman. 

"We must bear the truth whether it be received or not, " said FatherJogues. 

"Whatever errand brought you into Acadia, " said Van Corlaer, turningback to the priest, "I am glad to find you here, for I shall now haveyour company back to Montreal. "

"Impossible, Monsieur Corlaer. For I have set out to plant a missionamong the Abenakis. They asked for a missionary. Our guides deserted us, and we have wandered off our course and been obliged to throw awaynearly all the furniture of our mission. But we now hope to make our wayalong the coast. "

"Father Jogues, the Abenakis are all gone northward. We passed throughtheir towns on the Penobscot. "

"But they will come back?"

"Some time, though no man at Penobscot would be able to say when. "

Father Jogues' perplexed brows drew together. Wanderings, hunger, andimprisonment he could bear serenely as incidents of his journey. But tohave his flock scattered before he could reach it was real calamity. 

"We must make shift to follow them, " he said. 

"How will you follow them without supplies, and without knowing wherethey may turn in the woods?"

"I see we shall have to wait for them at Penobscot, " said Father Jogues. 

"Take a heretic's advice instead. For I speak not as the enemy of yourreligion when I urge you to journey with me back to Montreal. You canmake another and better start to establish this mission. "

The priest shook his head. 

"I do not see my way. But my way will be shown to me, or word will comesending me back. "

Some sign from the lady of the fortress recalled Van Corlaer to his dutyas a guest. The supper grew cold while he parleyed. So he turned quicklyto take the chair she had set for him, and saw that Antonia was gone. 

"Madame Bronck will return, " said Marie, pitying his chagrin, andsearching her own mind for Antonia's excuse. "We brought a half-starvedbaby home from our last expedition, and it lies dead upstairs. Womenhave soft hearts, monsieur: they cannot see such sights unmoved. Shehath lost command of herself to-night. "

Van Corlaer's face lightened with tenderness. Bachelor though he was, hehad held infants in his hands for baptism, and not only the children ofFort Orange but dark broods of the Mohawks often rubbed about his knees. 

"You brought your men into the fort, Monsieur Corlaer?"

"No, madame. I sent them back to camp by the falls. We are wellprovisioned. And there was no need for them to come within the walls. "

"If you lack anything I hope you will command it of us. "

"Madame, you are already too bounteous; and we lack nothing. "

"The Sieur de la Tour being away, the conduct and honor of this fort areleft in my hands. And he has himself ever been friendly to the people ofthe colonies. "

"That is well known, madame. "

Soft waxlight, the ample shine of the fire, trained service, and housingfrom the chill spring night, abundant food and flask, all failed tobring up the spirits of Van Corlaer. Antonia did not return to thetable. The servingmen went and came betwixt hall and cook-house. Everytime one of them opened the door, the world of darkness peered in, andover the night quiet of the fort could be heard the tidal up-rush of theriver. 

"The men can now bring our ship to anchor, " observed Marie. FatherJogues and his donné, eating with the habitual self-denial of men whomust inure themselves to hunger, still spoke with Van Corlaer abouttheir mission. But during all his talk he furtively watched thestairway. 

The dwarf sat on her accustomed stool beside her lady, picking up bitsfrom a well heaped silver platter on her knees; and she watched VanCorlaer's discomfiture when Lady Dorinda took him in hand and Antoniayet remained away. 

V. 

JONAS BRONCK'S HAND. 

The guests had deserted the hall fire and a sentinel was set for thenight before Madame La Tour knocked at Antonia's door. 

Antonia was slow to open it. But she finally let Marie into her chamber, where the fire had died on the hearth, and retired again behind thescreen to continue dabbing her face with water. The candle was alsobehind the screen, and it threw out Antonia's shadow, and showed herdisordered flax-white hair flung free of its cap and falling to itslength. Marie sat down in the little world of shadow outside the screen. The joists directly above Antonia flickered with the flickering light. One window high in the wall showed the misty darkness which lay uponFundy Bay. The room was chilly. 

"Monsieur Corlaer is gone, Antonia, " said Marie. 

Antonia's shadow leaped, magnifying the young Dutchwoman's start. 

"Madame, you have not sent him off on his journey in the night?"

"I sent him not. I begged him to remain. But he had such cold welcomefrom his own countrywoman that he chose the woods rather than thehospitality of Fort St. John. "

Much as Antonia stirred and clinked flasks, her sobs grew audible behindthe screen. She ran out with her arms extended and threw herself on thefloor at Marie's knees, transformed by anguish. Marie in full compassiondrew the girlish creature to her breast, repenting herself while Antoniawept and shook. 

"I was cruel to say Monsieur Corlaer is gone. He has only left thefortress to camp with his men at the falls. He will be here two moredays, and to-morrow you must urge him to stay our guest. "

"Madame, I dare not see him at all!"

"But why should you not see Monsieur Corlaer?"

Antonia settled to the floor and rested her head and arms on herfriend's lap. 

"For you love him. "

"O madame! I did not show that I loved him? No. It would be horrible forme to love him. "

"What has he done? And it is plain he has come to court you. "

"He has long courted me, madame. "

"And you met him as a stranger and fled from him as a wolf!--thisHollandais gentleman who hath saved our French people--evenpriests--from the savages!"

"All New Amsterdam and Fort Orange hold him in esteem, " said Antonia, betraying pride. "I have heard he can do more with the Iroquois tribesthan any other man of the New World. " She uselessly wiped her eyes. Shewas weak from long crying. 

"Then why do you run from him?"

"Because he hath too witching a power on me, madame. I cannot spin orknit or sew when he is by; I must needs watch every motion of his if heonce fastens my eyes. "

"I have noticed he draws one's heart, " laughed Marie. 

"He does. It is like witchcraft. He sets me afloat so that I lose myfeet and have scarce any will of my own. I never was so disturbed by myhusband Jonas Bronck, " complained Antonia. 

"Did you love your husband?" inquired Marie. 

"We always love our husbands, madame. Mynheer Bronck was very good tome. "

"You have never told me much of Monsieur Bronck, Antonia. "

"I don't like to speak of him now, madame. It makes me shiver. "

"You are not afraid of the dead?"

"I was never afraid of him living. I regarded him as a father. "

"But one's husband is not to be regarded as a father. "

"He was old enough to be my father, madame. I was not more than sixteen, besides being an orphan, and Mynheer Bronck was above fifty, yet hemarried me, and became the best husband in the colony. He was far fromputting me in such states as Mynheer Van Corlaer does. "

"The difference is that you love Monsieur Corlaer. "

"Do not speak that word, madame. "

"Would you have him marry another woman?"

"Yes, " spoke Antonia in a stoical voice, "if that pleased him best. Ishould then be driven to no more voyages. He followed me to NewAmsterdam; and I ventured on a long journey to Boston, where I hadkinspeople, as you know. But there I must have broken down, madame, if Ihad not met you. It was fortunate for me that the English captainbrought you out of your course. For mynheer set out to follow me there. And now he has come across the wilderness even to this fort!"

"Confess, " said Marie, giving her a little shake, "how pleased you arewith such a determined lover!"

But instead of doing this, Antonia burst again into frenzied sobbing andhugged her comforter. 

"O madame, you are the only person I dare love in the world!"

Marie smoothed the young widow's damp hair with the quieting strokewhich calms children. 

"Let mother help thee, " she said; and neither of them remembered thatshe was scarcely as old as Antonia. In love and motherhood, in militaryperil, and contact with riper civilizations, to say nothing of inheritedexperience, the lady of St. John had lived far beyond Antonia Bronck. 

"Your husband made you take an oath not to wed again, --is it so?"

"No, madame, he never did. "

"Yet you told me he left you his money?"

"Yes. He was very good to me. For I had neither father nor mother. "

"And he bound you by no promise?

"None at all, madame. "

"What, then, can you find to break your heart upon in the suit ofMonsieur Corlaer? You are free. Even as my lord--if I were dead--wouldbe free to marry any one; not excepting D'Aulnay's widow. "

Marie smiled at that improbable union. 

"No, I do not feel free. " Antonia shivered close to her friend's knees. "Madame, I cannot tell you. But I will show you the token. "

"Show me the token, therefore. And a sound token it must be, to hold youwedded to a dead man whom in life you regarded as a father. "

Antonia rose upon her feet, but stood dreading the task before her. 

"I have to look at it once every month, " she explained, "and I havelooked at it once this month already. "

The dim chill room with its one eye fixed on darkness was an eddy inwhich a single human mind resisted that century's current ofsuperstition. Marie sat ready to judge and destroy whatever spell thecunning old Hollandais had left on a girl to whom he represented law andfamily. 

Antonia beckoned her behind the screen, and took from some readyhiding-place a small oak box studded with nails, which Marie had neverbefore seen. How alien to the simple and open life of the Dutch widowwas this secret coffer! Her face changed while she looked at it; grievedgirlhood passed into sunken age. Her lips turned wax-white, and droopedat the corners. She set the box on a dressing-table beside the candle, unlocked it and turned back the lid. Marie was repelled by a faint odoraside from its breath of dead spices. 

Antonia unfolded a linen cloth and showed a pallid human hand, its stumpconcealed by a napkin. It was cunningly preserved, and shrunken only bythe countless lines which denote approaching age. It was the right handof a man who must have had imagination. The fingers were sensitivelyslim, with shapely blue nails, and without knobs or swollen joints. Itwas a crafty, firm-possessing hand, ready to spring from its nest toseize and eternally hold you. 

The lady of St. John had seen human fragments scattered by cannon, andsword and bullet had done their work before her sight. But a faintnessbeyond the touch of peril made her grasp the table and turn from thatghastly hand. 

"It cannot be, Antonia"--

"Yes, it is Mynheer Bronck's hand, " whispered Antonia, subduing herselfto take admonition from the grim digits. 

"Lock it up; and come directly away from it. Come out of this room. Youhave opened a grave here. "

VI. 

The Mending. 

But Antonia delayed to set in order her hair and cap and all hermethodical habits of life. When Jonas Bronck's hand was snugly locked inits case and no longer obliged her to look at it, she took a pensivepleasure in the relic, bred of usage to its company. She came out of herchamber erect and calm. Marie was at the stairs speaking to the soldierstationed in the hall below. He had just piled up his fire, and itshomely splendor sent back to remoteness all human dreads. He hurried upthe stairway to his lady. 

"Go knock at the door of the priest, Father Jogues, and demand hiscassock, " she said. 

The man halted, and asked, --

"What shall I do with it?"

"Bring it hither to me. "

"But if he refuses to have it brought?"

"The good man will not refuse. Yet if he asks why, " said Madame La Toursmiling, "tell him it is the custom of the house to take away at nightthe cassock of any priest who stays here. "

"Yes, madame. "

The soldier kept to himself his opinion of meddling with black gowns, and after some parleying at the door of Father Jogues' apartment, received the garment and brought it to his lady. 

"We will take our needles, and sit by the hall fire, " said Marie toAntonia. "Did you note the raggedness of Father Jogues' cassock? I am anenemy to papists, especially D'Aulnay de Charnisay; but who can hardenher heart against a saint because he patters prayers on a rosary? Thouand I will mend his black gown. I cannot see even a transient member ofmy household uncomfortable. "

The soldier put two waxlights on the table by the hearth, and withdrewto the stairway. He was there to guard as prisoner the priest for whomhis lady set herself to work. She drew her chair to Antonia's and theyspread the cassock between them. It had been neatly beaten and pickedclear of burrs, but the rents in it were astonishing. Even withinsumptuous fireshine the black cloth taxed sight; and Marie pausedsometimes to curtain her eyes with her hand, but Antonia worked on withDutch steadiness. The touch of a needle within a woman's fingers coolsall her fevers. She stitches herself fast to the race. There is safetyand saneness in needlework. 

"This spot wants a patch, " said Antonia. 

"Weave it together with stitches, " said Marie. "Daughter of presumption!would you add to the gown of a Roman priest?"

"Priest or dominie, " commented Antonia, biting a fresh thread, "he wouldbe none the worse for a stout piece of cloth to his garment. "

"But we have naught to match with it. I would like to set in a littleheresy cut from one of the Sieur de la Tour's good Huguenot doublets. "

The girlish faces, bent opposite, grew placid with domestic interest. Marie's cheeks ripened by the fire, but the whiter Hollandaise warmedonly through the lips. This hall's glow made more endurable the image ofJonas Bronck's hand. "When was it cut off, Antonia?" murmured Marie, stopping to thread a needle. 

The perceptible blight again fell over Antonia's face as she replied, --

"After he had been one day dead. "

"Then he did not grimly lop it off himself?"

"Oh, no, " whispered Antonia with deep sighing. "Mynheer the doctor didthat, on his oath to my husband. He was the most learned cunning man inmedicine that ever came to our colony. He kept the hand a month in hisfurnace before it was ready to send to me. "

"Did Monsieur Bronck, before he died, tell you his intention to dothis?" pressed Marie, feeling less interest in the Dutch embalmer'smethod than in the sinuous motive of a man who could leave such abequest. 

"Yes, madame. "

"I do marvel at such an act!" murmured the lady of St. John, challengingJonas Bronck's loyal widow to take up his instant defense. 

"Madame, he was obliged to do it by a dream he had. "

"He dreamed that his hand would keep off intruders?" smiled Marie. 

"Yes, " responded Antonia innocently, "and all manner of evil fortune. Ihave to look at it once a month as long as I live, and carry it with meeverywhere. If it should be lost or destroyed trouble and ruin wouldfall not only on me but on every one who loved me. "

The woman of larger knowledge did not argue against this credulity. Antonia was of the provinces, bred out of their darkest hours ofsuperstition and savage danger. But it was easy to see how JonasBronck's hand must hold his widow from second marriage. What lover couldshe ask to share her monthly gaze upon it, and thus half realize thecontinued fleshly existence of Jonas Bronck? The rite was in its naturea secret one. Shame, gratitude, the former usages of her life, and athousand other influences, were yet in the grip of that rigid hand. Andif she lost or destroyed it, nameless and weird calamity, foreseen by adying man, must light upon the very lover who undertook to separate herfrom her ghastly company. 

"The crafty old Hollandais!" thought Marie. "He was cunning in hisknowledge of Antonia. But he hath made up this fist at a youngerHollandais who will scarce stop for dead hands. "

The Dutch gentlewoman snuffed both waxlights. Her lips were drawn ingrieved lines. Marie glanced up at one of the portraits on the wall, andsaid:--

"The agonies which men inflict on the beings they love best, must workperpetual astonishment in heaven. Look at the Sieur Claude de la Tour, anoble of France who could stoop to become the first English knight ofAcadia, forcing his own son to take up arms against him. "

The elder La Tour frowned and flickered in his frame. 

"Yet he had a gracious presence, " said Antonia. "Lady Dorinda says hewas the handsomest man at the English court. "

"I doubt it not; the La Tours are a beautiful race. And it was that verygraciousness which made him a weak prisoner in the hands of the English. They married him to one of the queen's ladies, and granted him allAcadia, which he had only to demand from his son, if he would turn itover to England and declare himself an English subject I can yet see hisships as they rounded Cape Sable; and the face of my lord when he readhis father's summons to surrender the claims of France. We were to beloaded with honors. France had driven us out on account of our faith;England opened her arms. We should be enriched, and live forever a happyand united family, sole lords of Acadia. "

Marie broke off another thread. 

"The king of France, who has outlawed my husband and delivered him tohis enemy, should have seen him then, Antonia. Sieur Claude La Tour putboth arms around him and pleaded. It was, 'My little Charles, do notdisgrace me by refusal;' and 'My father, I love you, but here Irepresent the rights of France. ' 'The king of France is no friend ofours, ' says Sieur Claude. 'Whether he rewards or punishes me, ' saysCharles, 'this province belongs to my country, and I will hold it whileI have life to defend it. ' And he was obliged to turn his cannon againstHis own father; and the ships were disabled and driven off. "

"Was the old mynheer killed?"

"His pride was killed. He could never hold up his head in England again, and he had betrayed France. My lord built him a house outside our fort, yet neither could he endure Acadia. He died in England. You know Ibrought his widow thence with me last year. She should have her dower oflands here, if we can hold them against D'Aulnay de Charnisay. "

The lady of the fort shook out Father Jogues' cassock and rose from themending. Antonia picked up their tools and flicked bits of thread fromher skirt. 

"I am glad it is done, madame, for you look heavy-eyed, as any oneought, after tossing two nights on Fundy Bay and sewing on a black gownuntil midnight cock-crow of the third. "

"I am not now fit to face a siege, " owned Marie. "We must get to bed. Though first I crave one more look at the dead baby Zélie hath incharge. There is a soft weakness in me which mothers even the outcastyoung of my enemy. "

VII. 

A FRONTIER GRAVEYARD. 

The next morning was gray and transparent: a hemisphere of mist filledwith light; a world of vapor palpitating with some indwelling spirit. That lonesome lap of country opposite Fort St. John could scarcely bedefined. Scraps of its dawning spring color showed through the mobilewinding and ascending veil. Trees rose out of the lowlands between thefort and the falls. 

Van Corlaer was in the gorge, watching that miracle worked every day inSt. John River. The tide was racing inland. The steep rapids withintheir throat of rock were clear of fog. Foam is the flower of water; andwhite petal after white petal was swept under by the driving waves. Asthe tide rose the tumult of falls ceased. The channel filled. All rockswere drowned. For a brief time another ship could have passed up thatnatural lock, as La Tour's ship had passed on the cream-smooth currentat flood tide the day before. 

Van Corlaer could not see its ragged sails around the breast of rock, but the hammering of its repairers had been in his ears since dawn; andthrough the subsiding wash of water he now heard men's voices. 

The Indians whose village he had joined were that morning breaking upcamp to begin their spring pilgrimage down the coast along variousfishing haunts; for agriculture was a thing unknown to these savages. They were a seafaring people in canoes. At that time even invadingEuropeans had gained little mastery of the soil. Camp and fortress wereon the same side of the river. Lounging braves watched indifferentlysome figures wading fog from the fort, perhaps bringing them a farewellword, perhaps forbidding their departure. The Indian often humored hisinvader's feudal airs, but he never owned the mastery of any white man. Squaws took down cone-shaped tents, while their half-naked babiessprawled in play upon the ashes of last winter's fires. Van Corlaer'smen sauntered through the vanishing town, trying at times to strike somespark of information from Dutch and Etchemin jargon. 

Near the river bank, between camp and fort, was an alluvial spot inwhich the shovel found no rock. A rough line of piled stones severed itfrom surrounding lands, and a few trees stood there, promising summershade, though, darkly moist along every budded twig, they now swayed intuneless nakedness. Here the dead of Fort St. John were buried; andthose approaching figures entered a gap of the inclosure instead ofgoing on to the camp. Three of La Tour's soldiers, with Father Joguesand his donné, had come to bury the outcast baby. One of the men wasZélie's husband, and she walked beside him. Marguerite lay sulking inthe barracks. The lady had asked Father Jogues to consecrate with therites of his church the burial of this little victim probably born intohis faith. But he would have followed it in any case, with that instinctwhich drove him to baptize dying Indian children with rain-drops andattempt to pluck converts from the tortures of the stake. 

"Has this child been baptized?" he inquired of Zélie on the path downfrom the fort. 

She answered, shedding tears of resentment against Marguerite, and withfervor she could not restrain, --

"I'll warrant me it never had so much as a drop of water on its head, and but little to its body, before my lady took it. "

"But hath it not believing parents?"

"Our Swiss says, " stated Zélie, with a respectful heretic's sparing ofthis priest, "that it is the child of D'Aulnay de Charnisay. " And sheadded no comment. The soldiers set their spades to last year's sod, cutan oblong wound, and soon had the earth heaped out and a grave made. Father Jogues, perplexed, and heavy of heart for the sins of hisenlightened as well as his savage children, concluded to consecrate thebaby's bed. The Huguenot soldiers stood sullenly by while a Romishservice went on. They or their fathers had been driven out of France bythe bitterness of that very religion which Father Jogues expressed insweetness. They had not the broad sympathy of their lady, who couldexcuse and even stoop to mend a priest's cassock; and they made theirpause as brief as possible. 

While the spat and clink of spades built up one child's hillock, Zéliewas on her knees beside another some distance from it, scraping awaydead leaves. Her lady had bid her look how this grave fared, and shenoticed fondly that fern was beginning to curl above the buried lad'shead. The heir of the La Tours lay with his feet toward the outcast ofthe Charnisays, but this was a chance arrangement. Soldiers andservants of the house were scattered about the frontier burial ground, and Zélie noted to report to her lady that winter had partly effaced anddriven below the surface some recent graves. Instead of being marked bya cross, each earthen door had a narrow frame of river stones builtaround it. 

Van Corlaer left the drowned falls and passed his own tents, and waitedoutside the knee-high inclosure for Father Jogues. The missionary, inhis usual halo of prayer, dwelt upon the open breviary. Many a treealong the Mohawk valley yet bore the name of Jesu which he had carved inits bark, as well as rude crosses. Such marks helped him to turn thewoods into one wide oratory. But unconverted savages, tearing with theirteeth the hands lifted up in supplication for them, had scarcely taxedhis heart as heretics and sinful believers taxed it now. The soldiers, having finished, took up their tools, and Van Corlaer joined FatherJogues as the party came out of the cemetery. 

The day was brightening. Some sea-birds were spreading their whitebreasts and wing-linings like flashes of silver against shifting vapor. The party descended to a wrinkle in the land which would be dry atebb-tide. Now it held a stream flowing inland upon grass--unshriveledlong grass bowed flat and sleeked to this daily service. It gavebeholders a delicious sensation to see the clean water rushing up soverdant a course. A log which would seem a misplaced and uselessfoot-bridge when the tide was out, was crossed by one after another; andas Van Corlaer fell back to step beside Father Jogues, he said:--

"The Abenakis take to the woods and desert their fishing, and theseEtchemins leave the woods and take to the coast. You never know where tohave your savage. Did you note that the village was moving?"

"Yes, I saw that, Monsieur Corlaer; and I must now take leave of thelady of the fort and join myself to them. "

"If you do you will give deep offense to La Tour, " said the Dutchman, pushing back some strands of light hair which had fallen over hisforehead, and turning his great near-sighted eyes on his friend. "TheseIndians are called Protestant. They are in La Tour's grant. Thou knowestthat he and D'Aulnay de Charnisay have enough to quarrel about withoutdrawing churchmen into their broil. "

Father Jogues trod on gently. He knew he could not travel with anybenighted soul and not try to convert it. These poor Etchemins appealedto his conscience; but so did the gracious lady of the fort. 

"If I could mend the rents in her faith, " he sighed, "as she hath mendedthe rents in my cassock!"

Two of the soldiers turned aside with their spades to a slope behind thefortress, where there was a stable for the ponies and horned cattle, andwhere last year's garden beds lay blackened under last year's refusegrowth. Having planted the immortal seed, their next duty was toprepare for the trivial resurrections of the summer. Frenchmen lovegreen messes in their soup. The garden might be trampled by besiegers, but there were other chances that it would yield something. Zélie'shusband climbed the height to escort the priest and report to his lady, but he had his wife to chatter beside him. Father Jogues' donné walkedbehind Van Corlaer, and he alone overheard the Dutchman's talk. 

"This lady of Fort St. John, Father Jogues, so housed, and so groundbetween the millstones of La Tour and D'Aulnay--she hath wrought up mymind until I could not forbear this journey. It is well known throughthe colonies that La Tour can no longer get help, and is outlawed by hisking. This fortress will be sacked. La Tour would best stay at home todefend his own. But what can any other man do? I am here to defend myown, and I will take it and defend it. "

Van Corlaer looked up at the walls, and his chest swelled with a largebreath of regret. 

"God He knoweth why so sweet a lady is set here to bear the brunts of afrontier fortress, where no man can aid her without espousing herhusband's quarrel!--while hundreds of evil women degrade the courts ofEurope. But I can only do mine errand and go. And you will best mendyour own expedition at this time by a new start from Montreal, FatherJogues. "

The priest turned around on the ascent and looked toward the vanishingIndian camp. He was examining as self-indulgence his strong andgentlemanly desire not to involve Madame La Tour in further troubles byproselyting her people. 

"Whatever way is pointed out to me, Monsieur Corlaer, " he answered, "that way I must take. For the mending of an expedition rests not in thehands of the poor instrument that attempts it. "

Their soldier signaled for the gates to be opened, and they entered thefort. Marie was on her morning round of inspection. She had just givenback to a guard the key of the powder magazine. Well, storehouse, fuel-house, barracks, were in military readiness. But refuse stuff hadbeen thrown in spots which her people were now severely cleaning. Shegreeted her returning guests, and heard the report of Zélie's husband. Alace mantle was drawn over her head and fastened under the chin, throwing out from its blackness the warm brown beauty of her face. 

"So our Indians are leaving the falls already?" she repeated, fixingZélie's husband with a serious eye. 

"Yes, madame, " witnessed Zélie. "I myself saw women packing tents. "

"Have they heard any rumor which scared them off early, --our good lazyEtchemins, who hate fighting?"

"No, madame, " Van Corlaer answered, being the only person who camedirectly from the camp, "I think not, though their language is not clearto me like our western tongues. It is simply an early spring, callingthem out. "

"They have always waited until Pâques week heretofore, " she remembered. But the wandering forth of an irresponsible village had little to dowith the state of her fort. She was going upon the walls to look at thecannon, and asked her guests to go with her. 

The priest and his donné and Van Corlaer ascended a ladder, and MadameLa Tour followed. 

"I do not often climb like a sailor, " she said, when Van Corlaer gaveher his hand at the top. "There is a flight of steps from mine ownchamber to the level of the walls. And here Madame Bronck and I havetaken the air on winter days when we felt sure of its not blowing usaway. But you need not look sad over our pleasures, monsieur. We havehad many a sally out of this fort, and monsieur the priest will tell youthere is great freedom on snowshoes. "

"Madame Bronck has allowed herself little freedom since I came to FortSt. John, " observed Van Corlaer. 

They all walked the walls from bastion to bastion, and Marie examinedthe guns, and spoke with her soldiers. On the way back Father Jogues andLalande paused to watch the Etchemins trail away, and to commune on whattheir duty directed them to do. Marie walked on with Van Corlaer towardthe towered bastion, talking quickly, and ungloving her right hand tohelp his imagination with it. A bar of sunlight rested with a long slantthrough vapor on the fortress. Far blue distances were opened on thebay. The rippling full river had already begun to subside and sink lineby line from its island. 

Van Corlaer gave no attention to the beautiful world. He listened toMadame La Tour with a broadening humorous face and the invincible portof a man who knows nothing of defeat. The sentinel trod back and forthwithout disturbing this intent conference, but other feet came rushingup the stone steps which let from Marie's room to the level of the wall. 

"Madame--madame!" exclaimed Antonia Bronck; but her flaxen head wasarrested in ascent beside Van Corlaer's feet, and her distressed eyesmet in his a whimsical look which stung her through with suspicion andresentment. 

VIII. 

VAN CORLAER. 

"What is it, Antonia?" demanded Marie. 

"Madame, it is nothing. "

Antonia owned her suitor's baring of his head, and turned upon thestairs. 

"But some alarm drove you out. "

Marie leaned over the cell inclosing the stone steps. It was not easy tojudge from Antonia's erect bearing what had so startled her. Her friendfollowed her to the door below, and the voices of the two women hummedindistinctly in that vault-like hollow. 

"You have told him, " accused Antonia directly. "He is laughing aboutMynheer Bronck's hand!"

"He does take a cheerful view of the matter, " conceded the lady of thefort. Antonia looked at her with all the asperity which could beexpressed in a fair Dutch face. 

"As long as I kept my trouble to myself I could bear it. But I show itto another, and the worst befalls me. "

"Is that hand lost, Antonia?"

"I cannot find it, or even the box which held it. "

"Never accuse me with your eye, " said Marie with droll pathos. "If itwere lost or destroyed by accident, I could bear without a groan to seeyou so bereaved. But the slightest thing shall not be filched in FortSt. John. When did you first miss it?"

"A half hour since. I left the box on my table last night instead ofreplacing it in my chest;--being so disturbed. "

"Every room shall be searched, " said Marie. "Where is Le Rossignol?"

"She went after breakfast to call her swan in the fort. "

"I saw her not. And I have neglected to send her to the turret for herpunishment. That little creature has a magpie's fondness for plunder. Perhaps she has carried off your box. I will send for her. "

Marie left the room. Antonia lingered to glance through a small squarepane in the door--an eye which the commandants of the fort kept on theirbattlements. It had an inner tapestry, but this remained as Marie hadpushed it aside that morning to take her early look at the walls. VanCorlaer was waiting on the steps, and as he detected Antonia in theguilty act of peeping at him, his compelling voice reached her in Dutch. She returned into the small stone cell formed by the stairs, and closedthe door, submitting defiantly to the interview. 

"Will you sit here?" suggested Van Corlaer, taking off his cloak andmaking for her a cushion upon the stone. Antonia reflected that he wouldbe chilly and therefore hold brief talk, so she made no objection, andsat down on one end of the step while he sat down on the other. Theyspoke Dutch: with their formal French fell away the formal phases ofthis meeting in Acadia. The sentinel's walk moved almost overhead, anddied away along the wall and returned again, but noises within the fortscarcely intruded to their rocky cell. They did not hear even the voicesof Lalande and Father Jogues descending the ladder. 

"We have never had any satisfactory talk together, Antonia, " began VanCorlaer. 

"No, mynheer, " breathed the girlish relict of Bronck, feeling her heartlabor as she faced his eyes. 

"It is hard for a man to speak his mind to you. "

"It hath seemed easy enough for Mynheer Van Corlaer, seeing how manytimes he hath done so, " observed Antonia, drawing her mufflings aroundher neck. 

"No. I speak always with such folly that you will not hear me. It is notso when I talk among men or work on the minds of savages. Let us nowbegin reasonably. I do believe you like me, Antonia. "

"A most reasonable beginning, " noted Antonia, biting her lips. 

"Now I am a man in the stress and fury of mid-life, hard to turn from mypurpose, and you well know my purpose. Your denials and puttings-off andflights have pleased me. But your own safety may waste no more good timein further play. I have not come into Acadia to tinkle a song under yourwindow, but to wed you and carry you back to Fort Orange with me. "

Antonia stirred, to hide her trembling. 

"Are you cold?" inquired Van Corlaer. 

"No, mynheer. "

"If the air chills you I will warm your hands in mine. "

"My hands are well muffled, mynheer. "

He adjusted his back against the wall and again opened the conversation. 

"I brought a young dominie with me. He wished to see Montreal. And Itook care to have with him such papers as might be necessary to themarriage. "

"He had best get my leave, " observed Madame Bronck. 

"That is no part of his duty. But set your mind at rest; he is a youngdominie of credit. When I was in Boston I saw a rich sedan chair madefor the viceroy of Mexico, but brought to the colonies for sale. It puta thought in my head, and I set skilled fellows to work, and they madeand we have carried through the woods the smallest, mostcunning-fashioned sedan chair that woman ever stepped into. I brought itfor the comfortable journeying of Madame Van Corlaer. "

"That unknown lady will have much satisfaction in it, " murmured Antonia. 

"I hope so. And be better known than she was as Jonas Bronck's wife. "

She colored, but hid a smile within her muffling. Her good-humoredsuitor leaned toward her, resting his arms upon his knees. 

"Touching a matter which has never been mentioned between us;--was thecuring of Bronck's hand well approved by you?"

"Mynheer, I am angry at Madame La Tour. Or did he, " gasped Antonia, notdaring to accuse by name the colonial doctor who had managed her darksecret, "did he show that to you?"

"Would the boldest chemist out of Amsterdam cut off and salt the memberof any honest burgher without leave of the patroon?" suggested VanCorlaer. "Besides, my skill was needed, for I was once learned inchemistry. "

It was so surprising to see this man over-ride her terror that Antoniastared at him. 

"Mynheer, had you no dread of the sight?"

"No; and had I known you would dread it the hand had spoiled in thecuring. I thought less of Jonas Bronck, that he could bequeath a morselof himself like dried venison. "

"Mynheer Bronck was a very good man, " asserted Antonia severely. 

"But thou knowest in thy heart that I am a better one, " laughed VanCorlaer. 

"He was the best of husbands, " she insisted, trembling with a woman'sanxiety to be loyal to affection which she has not too well rewarded. "It was on my account that he had his hand cut off. "

"I will outdo Bronck, " determined Van Corlaer. "I will have myselfskinned at my death and spread out as a rug to your feet. So good ahousekeeper as Antonia will beat my pelt full often, and so be obligedto think on me. "

Afloat in his large personality as she always was in his presence, sheyet tried to resist him. 

"The relic that you joke about, Mynheer Van Corlaer, I have done worsewith; I have lost it. "

"Bronck's hand?"

"Yes. It hath been stolen. "

"Why, I commend the taste of the thief!"

"And misfortune is sure to follow. "

"Well, let misfortune and the hand go together. "

"It was not so said. " She looked furtively at Bronck's powerful rival, loath to reveal to him the sick old man's prophecies. 

"I have heard of the hearts of heroes being sealed in coffers andtreasured in the cities from which they sprung, " said Van Corlaer, taking his hat from the step and holding it to shield his eyes frommounting light. "But Jonas was no hero. And I have heard of papistsvenerating little pieces of saints' bones. Father Jogues might do so, and I could behold him without smiling. But a Protestant woman shouldhave no superstition for relics. "

"What I cannot help dreading, " confessed Antonia, moving her handsnervously in their wrapping, "is what may follow this loss. "

"Why, let the hand go! What should follow its loss?"

"Some trouble might befall the people who are kindest to me. "

"Because Bronck's hand has been mislaid?" inquired Van Corlaer withshrewd light in his eyes. 

"Yes, mynheer, " hesitated Antonia. He burst into laughter and Antonialooked at him as if he had spoken against religion. 

She sighed. 

"It was my duty to open the box once every month. "

Van Corlaer threw his hat down again on the step above. 

"Are you cold, mynheer?" inquired Antonia considerately. 

"No. I am fired like a man in mid-battle. Will nothing move you to showme a little love, madame? Why, look you, there were French women amongcaptives ransomed from the Mohawks who shed tears on these hands ofmine. Strangers and alien people have some movement of feeling, but youhave none. "

"Mynheer, " pleaded Antonia, goaded to inconsistent and tremblingasperity, "you make my case very hard. I could not tell you why I darenot wed again, but since you know, why do you cruelly blame me? A womandoes not weep the night away without some movement of feeling. Yes, mynheer, you have taunted me, and I will tell you the worst. I havethought of you more than of any other person in the world, and felt suchsatisfaction in your presence that I could hardly forego it. Yet holdingme thus bound to you, you are by no means satisfied, " sobbed Antonia. 

Van Corlaer glowed over her a moment with some smiling compunction, andirresistibly took her in his arms. From the instant that Antonia foundherself there unstartled, her point of view was changed. She looked ather limitations no longer alone, but through Van Corlaer's eyes, and sawthem vanishing. The sentinel, glancing down from time to time with afurtive cast of his eye, saw Antonia nodding or shaking her flaxen headin complete unison with Van Corlaer's nods and negations, and caught thesweet monotone of her voice repeating over and over:--

"Yes, mynheer. Yes, mynheer. "

IX. 

THE TURRET. 

While Antonia continued her conference on the stone steps leading to thewall, the dwarf was mounting a flight which led to the turret. Klussmanwalked ahead, carrying her instrument and her ration for the day. Therewas not a loophole to throw glimmers upon the blackness. The ascentwound about as if carved through the heart of rock, and the tall Swissstooped to its slope. Such a mountain of unseen terraces made LeRossignol pant. She lifted herself from step to step, growing dizzy withthe turns and holding to the wall. 

"Wait for me, " she called up the gloom, and shook her fist at the unseensoldier because he gave her no reply. Klussman stepped out on the turretfloor and set down his load. Stretching himself from the cramp of thestairway, he stood looking over bay and forest and coast. Thebattlemented wall was quite as high as his shoulder. One small cannon, brought up with enormous labor, was here trained through an embrasure tocommand the mouth of the river. 

Le Rossignol emerged into the unroofed light and the sea air like apotentate, dragging a warm furred robe. She had fastened great hoops ofgold in her ears, and they gave her peaked face a barbaric look. It washer policy to go in state to punishment. The little sovereign stalkedwith long steps and threw out her arm in command. 

"Monsieur the Swiss, stoop over and give me thy back until I mount thebattlement. "

Klussman, full of his own bitter and confused thinking, looked blanklydown at her heated countenance. 

"Give me thy back!" sang the dwarf in the melodious scream which angernever made harsh in her. 

"Faith, yes, and my entire carcass, " muttered the Swiss. "I care notwhat becomes of me now. "

"Madame Marie sent you to escort me to this turret. You have the honorbecause you are an officer. Now do your duty as lieutenant of thisfortress, and make me a comfortable prisoner. "

Klussman set his hands upon his sides and smiled down upon his prisoner. 

"What is your will?"

"Twice have I told you to stoop and give me your back, that I may mountfrom the cannon to the battlements. Am I to be shut up here without anoutlook?"

"May I be hanged if I do that, " exclaimed Klussman. "Make a footstool ofmyself for a spoiled puppet like thee?"

Le Rossignol ran towards him and kicked his boots with the heel of hermoccasin. The Swiss, remonstrating and laughing, moved back before her. 

"Have some care--thou wilt break a deer-hoof on my stout leather. Andwhy mount the battlements? A fall from this turret edge would spreadthee out like a raindrop. Though the fewer women there are in the worldthe better, " added Klussman bitterly. 

"Presume not to call me a woman!"

"Why, what art thou?"

"I am the nightingale. "

"By thy red head thou art the woodpecker. Here is my back, clatterbill. Why should I not crawl the ground to be walked over? I have been worseused than that. "

He grinned fiercely as he bent down with his hands upon his knees. LeRossignol mounted the cannon, and with a couple of light bounds, makinghim a perch midway, reached an embrasure and sat arranging her robes. 

"Now you may hand me my clavier, " she said, "and then you shall have mythanks and my pardon. "

The Swiss handed her the instrument. His contempt was ruder than heknew. Le Rossignol pulled her gull-skin cap well down upon her ears, for though the day was now bright overhead, a raw wind came across thebay. She leaned over and looked down into the fortress to call her swan. The cook was drawing water from the well, and that soft sad note liftedhis eyes to the turret. Le Rossignol squinted at him, and the man wentinto the barracks and told his wife that he felt shooting pains in hislimbs that instant. 

"Come hither, gentle Swiss, " said the dwarf striking the plectrum intoher mandolin strings, "and I will reward thee for thy back and all thycourtly services. "

Klussman stepped to the wall and looked with her into the fort. 

"Take that sweet sight for my thanks, " said Le Rossignol, pointing toMarguerite below. The miserable girl had come out of the barracks andwas sitting in the sun beside the oven. She rested her head against itand met the sky light with half-shut eyes, lovely in silken hair andpallid flesh through all her sullenness and dejection. As Klussman sawher he uttered an oath under his breath, which the dwarf's hand on themandolin echoed with a bang. He turned his back on the sight and betookhimself to the stairway, the dwarf's laughter following him. She felthigh in the world and played with a good spirit. The sentinel belowheard her, but he took care to keep a steady and level eye. When theswan rose past him, spreading its wings almost against his face, heprudently trod the wall without turning his head. 

"Hé, Shubenacadie, " said the human morsel to her familiar as the widewings composed themselves beside her. "We had scarce said good-morningwhen I must be haled before my lady for that box of the Hollandaise. "The swan was a huge white creature of his kind, with fiery eyes. Therewas satin texture delightful to the touch in the firm and glisteningplumage of his swelling breast. Le Rossignol smoothed it. 

"They have few trinkets in that barbarous Fort Orange in the west. Idetest that Hollandaise more since she carries about such a casket. Letus be cozy. Kiss me, Shubenacadie. "

The swan's attachment and obedience to her were struggling against someswan-like instinct which made him rear a lofty head and twist itriverward. 

"Kiss me, I say! Shall I have to beat thee over the head with my clavierto teach thee manners?"

Shubenacadie darted his snake neck downward and touched bills with her. She patted his coral nostrils. 

"Not yet. Before you take to the water we must have some talk. I am shutup here to stay this whole day. And for what? Not because of the casket, for they know not what I have done with it. But because thou and Isometimes go out without the password. Stick out thy toes and let mepolish them. "

Shubenacadie resisted this mandate, and his autocrat promptly draggedone foot from under him, causing him to topple on the parapet. Hehissed at her. Le Rossignol looked up at the threatening flat head andhissed back. 

"You are as bad as that Swiss, " she laughed. "I will put a yoke on you. I will tie you to the settle in the hall. Why have all man creaturessuch tempers? Thank heaven I was not born to hose and doublet. Never didI see a mild man in my life except Edelwald. As for this Swiss, I amdone with him. He hath a wife, Shubenacadie. She sits down there by theoven now; a miserable thing turned off by D'Aulnay de Charnisay. Have Itold thee the Swiss had a soul above a common soldier and I picked himout to pay court to me? Beat me for it. Pull the red hair he condemned. I would have had him sighing for me that I might pity him. The populaceis beneath us, but we must amuse ourselves. Beat me, I demand. Punish mewell for abasing my eyes to that Swiss. "

Shubenacadie understood the challenge and the tone. He was used torendering such service when his mistress repented of her sins. Yet hegave his tail feathers a slight flirt and quavered some guttural tosustain his part in the conversation, and to beg that he might beexcused from holding the sword this time. As she continued to prod him, however, he struck her with his beak. Le Rossignol was human in neverfinding herself able to bear the punishment she courted. She flew at theswan, he spread his wings for ardent warfare, and they both dropped tothe stone floor in a whirlwind of mandolin, arms, and feathers. Thedwarf kept her hold on him until he cowered and lay with his neck alongthe pavement. 

"Thou art a Turk, a rascal, a horned beast!" panted Le Rossignol. Shubenacadie quavered plaintively, and all her wrath was gone. Shespread out one of his wings and smoothed the plumes. She nursed his headin her lap and sung to him. Two of his feathers, plucked out in thecontest, she put in her bosom. He flirted his tail and gathered himselfagain to his feet, and she broke her loaf and fed him and poured waterinto her palm for his bill. 

Le Rossignol esteemed the military dignity given to her imprisonment, and she was a hardy midget who could bear untold exposure when wanderingat her own will. She therefore received with disgust her lady's summonsto come down long before the day was spent, the messenger being onlyZélie. 

"Ah--h, mademoiselle, " warned the maid, stumping ponderously out of thestone stairway, "are you about to mount that swan again?"

"Who has ever seen me mount him?"

"I would be sworn there are a dozen men in the fort that have. "

"But you never have. "

"No. I have been absent with my lady. "

"Well, you shall see me now. "

The dwarf flung herself on Shubenacadie's back, and thrust her feet downunder his wings. He began to rise, and expanded, stretching his neckforward, and Zélie uttered a yell of terror. The weird little womanleaped off and turned her laughing beak toward the terrified maid. Herear-hoops swung as she rolled her mocking head. 

"Oh, if it frightens you I will not ride to-day, " she said. Shubenacadiesailed across the battlements, and though they could no longer see himthey knew he had taken to the river. 

"If I tell my lady this, " shivered Zélie, "she will never let you out ofthe turret. And she but this moment sent me to call you down out of thechill east wind. "

"Tell Madame Marie, " urged the dwarf insolently. 

"And do you ride that way over bush and brier, through mirk anddaylight?"

"I was at Penobscot this week, " answered Le Rossignol. 

Zélie gazed with a bristling of even the hairs upon her lip. 

"It goeth past belief, " she observed, setting her hands upon her sides. "And the swan, what else can he do besides carry thee like a dragon?"

"He sings to me, " boldly asserted Le Rossignol. "And many a good bit ofadvice have I taken from his bill. "

"It would be well if he turned his mind more to thinking and less toroving, " respectfully hinted Zélie. "I will go before you downstairs andleave the key in the turret door, " she suggested. 

"Take up these things and go when you please, and mind that I do nothear my clavier striking the wall. "

"Have you not felt the wind in this open donjon?"

"The wind and I take no note of each other, " answered the dwarf, liftingher chilled nose skyward. "But the cold water and bread have worked memost discomfort in this imprisonment. Go down and tell the cook for methat he is to make a hot bowl of the broth I like. "

"He will do it, " said Zélie. 

"Yes, he will do it, " said the dwarf, "and the sooner he does it thebetter. "

"Will you eat it in the hall?"

"I will eat it wherever Madame Marie is. "

"But that you cannot do. There is great business going forward and sheis shut with Madame Bronck in our other lady's room. "

"I like it when you presume to know better than I do what is goingforward in this fort!" exclaimed the dwarf jealously, a flush mountingher slender cheeks. 

"I should best know what has happened since you left the hall, "contended Zélie. 

"Do you think so, poor heavy-foot? You can only hearken to what iswhispered past your ear; but I can sit here on the battlements and readall the secrets below me. "

"Can you, Mademoiselle Nightingale? For instance, where is MadameBronck's box?"

The maid drew a deep breath at her own daring. 

"It is not about Madame Bronck's box that they confer. It is about themarriage of the Hollandaise, " answered Le Rossignol with a bold guess. "I could have told you that when you entered the turret. "

Zélie experienced a chill through her flesh which was not caused by thedamp breath of Fundy Bay. 

"How doth she find out things done behind her back--this clever littlewitch? And perhaps you will name the bridegroom, mademoiselle?"

"Who could that be except the big Hollandais who hath come out of thewest after her? Could she marry a priest or a common soldier?"

"That is true, " admitted Zélie, feeling her superstition allayed. 

"There must be as few women as trinkets in that wilderness Fort ofOrange from which he came, " added the dwarf. 

"Why?" inquired Zélie, wrinkling her nose and squinting in the sunlight. 

But Le Rossignol took no further trouble than to give her a look ofcontempt, and lifted the furred garment to descend the stairs. 

X. 

AN ACADIAN POET. 

"The woman who dispenses with any dignity which should attend hermarriage, doth cheapen herself to her husband, " said Lady Dorinda toAntonia Bronck, leaning back in the easiest chair of the fortress. Itwas large and stiff, but filled with cushions. Lady Dorinda's chamberwas the most comfortable one in Fort St. John. It was over the front ofthe great hall, and was intended for a drawing-room, being spacious, well warmed by a fireplace and lighted by windows looking into the fort. A stately curtained bed, a toilet table with swinging mirror, bearingmany of the ornaments and beauty-helpers of an elderly belle, andcountless accumulations which spoke her former state in the world, madethis an English bower in a French fort. 

Her dull yellow hair was coifed in the fashion of the early Stuarts. Sheheld a hand-screen betwixt her face and the fire, but the flush whichtouched its usual sallowness was not caused by heat. A wedding was adiversion of her exile which Lady Dorinda had never hoped for. There hadbeen some mating in the fort below among soldiers and peasant women, towhich she did not lower her thoughts. The noise of resultingmerrymakings sufficiently sought out and annoyed her ear. But thewedding of the guest to a man of consequence in the Dutch colony wassomething to which she might unbend herself. 

Antonia had been brought against her will to consult with this fadedauthority by Marie, who sat by, supporting her through the ordeal. Therewas never any familiar chat between the lady of the fort and the widowof Claude La Tour. Neither forgot their first meeting behind cannon, andthe tragedy of a divided house. Lady Dorinda lived in Acadia because shecould not well live elsewhere. And she secretly nursed a hope that inher day the province would fall into English hands, her knight bevindicated, and his son obliged to submit to a power he had defied tothe extremity of warring with a father. 

If the two women had no love for each other they at least stinted noceremony. Marie presented the smallest surface of herself to hermother-in-law. It is true they had been of the same household only a fewmonths; but months and years are the same betwixt us and the people whosolve not for us this riddle of ourselves. Antonia thought little ofLady Dorinda's opinions, but her saying about the dignity of marriagerites had the force of unexpected truth. Arendt Van Corlaer had used uphis patience in courtship. He was now bent on wedding Antonia andsetting out to Montreal without the loss of another day. His route wasplanned up St. John River and across-country to the St. Lawrence. 

"I would therefore give all possible state to this occasion, " addedLady Dorinda. "Did you not tell me this Sir Van Corlaer is an officer?"

"He is the real patroon of Fort Orange, my lady. "

"He should then have military honors paid him on his marriage, " observedLady Dorinda, to whom patroon suggested the barbarous but splendidvision of a western pasha. "Salutes should be fired and drums sounded. In thus recommending I hope I have not overstepped my authority, MadameLa Tour?"

"Certainly not, your ladyship, " murmured Marie. 

"The marriage ceremony hath length and solemnity, but I would have itlonger, and more solemn. A woman in giving herself away should greatlyimpress a man with the charge he hath undertaken. There be not manybridegrooms like Sir Claude de la Tour, who fasted an entire day beforehis marriage with me. The ceremonial of that marriage hath scarce beenforgotten at court to this hour. "

Lady Dorinda folded her hands and closed her eyes to sigh. Her voice hadrolled the last words in her throat. At such moments she looked verysuperior. Her double chins and dull light eyes held great reserves ofself-respect. A small box of aromatic seeds lay in her lap, and as herhands encountered it she was reminded to put a seed in her mouth andfind pensive comfort in chewing it. 

"Edelwald should be here to give the proper grace to this event, " addedLady Dorinda. 

"I thought of him, " said Marie. "Edelwald has so much the nature of atroubadour. "

"The studies which adorn a man were well thought of when I was atcourt, " said Lady Dorinda. "Edelwald is really thrown away upon thiswilderness. "

Antonia was too intent on Van Corlaer and his fell determination to turnher mind upon Edelwald. She had, indeed, seen very little of La Tour'ssecond in command, for he had been away with La Tour on expeditionsmuch of the time she had spent in Acadia. Edelwald was the only man ofthe fortress called by his baptismal name, yet it was spoken withrespect and deference like a title. He was of the family of De Born. Inan age when religion made political ties stronger than the ties ofnature, the La Tours and De Borns had fought side by side throughHuguenot wars. When a later generation of La Tours were struggling forfoothold in the New World, it was not strange that a son of the DeBorns, full of songcraft and spirit inherited from some troubadoursoldier of the twelfth century, should turn his face to the same land. From his mother Edelwald took Norman and Saxon strains of blood. He hadleft France the previous year and made his voyage in the same ship withMadame La Tour and her mother-in-law, and he was now La Tour's trustedofficer. 

Edelwald could take up any stringed instrument, strike melody out of itand sing songs he had himself made. But such pastimes were brief inAcadia. There was other business on the frontier; sailing, hunting, fighting, persuading or defying men, exploring unyielded depths ofwilderness. The joyous science had long fallen out of practice. Butwhile the grim and bloody records of our early colonies were being made, here was an unrecorded poet in Acadia. La Tour held this gift ofEdelwald's in light esteem. He was a man so full of action and ofschemes for establishing power that he touched only the martial side ofthe young man's nature, though in that contact was strong comradeship. Every inmate of the fortress liked Edelwald. He mediated betweencommandant and men, and jealousies and bickerings disappeared beforehim. 

"It would be better, " murmured Antonia, breaking the stately silence byLady Dorinda's fire, "if Mynheer Van Corlaer journeyed on to Montrealand returned here before any marriage takes place. "

"Think of the labor you will thereby put upon him, " exclaimed Marie. "Ispeak for Monsieur Corlaer and not for myself, " she added; "for by thatdelay I should happily keep you until summer. Besides, the priest wehave here with us himself admits that the town of Montreal is little tolook upon. Ville-Marie though it be named by the papists, what is it buta cluster of huts in the wilderness?"

"I was six months preparing to be wedded to Mynheer Bronck, " rememberedAntonia. 

"And will Monsieur Corlaer return here from Montreal?"

"No, madame. He will carry me with him. "

"I like him better for it, " said Marie smiling, "though it pleases meill enough. "

This was Antonia's last weak revolt against the determination of herstalwart suitor. She gained a three days' delay from him by submittingto the other conditions of his journey. It amused Marie to note thevarying phases of Antonia's surrender. She was already resigned to theloss of Jonas Bronck's hand, and in no slavish terror of theconsequences. 

"And it is true I am provided with all I need, " she mused on, in theline of removing objections from Van Corlaer's way. 

"I have often promised to show you the gown I wore at my marriage, " saidLady Dorinda, roused from her rumination on the aromatic seed, andleaving her chair to pay this gracious compliment to the Dutch widow. "It hath faded, and been discolored by the sea air, but you will notfind a prettier fashion of lace in anything made since. "

She had no maid, for the women of the garrison had all been found toorude for her service. When she first came to Acadia with Claude La Tour, an English gentlewoman gladly waited on her. But now only Zélie gave herconstrained and half-hearted attention, rating her as "my other lady, "and plainly deploring her presence. Lady Dorinda had one large boxbound with iron, hidden in a nook beyond her bed. She took the key fromits usual secret place and busied herself opening the box. Marie andAntonia heard her speak a word of surprise, but the curtained bed hidher from them. The raised lid of her box let out sweet scents ofEngland, but that breath of old times, though she always dreaded itssweep across her resignation, had not made her cry out. 

She found a strange small coffer on the top of her own treasures. Itskey stood in its lock, and Lady Dorinda at once turned that key, as aduty to herself. Antonia's loss of some precious casket had beenproclaimed to her, but she recollected that in her second thought, whenshe had already laid aside the napkin and discovered Jonas Bronck'shand. Lady Dorinda snapped the lid down and closed her own chest. Sherose from her place and stretched both arms toward the couch at the footof her bed. Having reached the couch she sank down, her head meeting acushion with nice calculation. 

"I am about to faint, " said Lady Dorinda, and having parted with herbreath in one puff, she sincerely lost consciousness and lay in extremecalm, her clay-colored eyelids shut on a clay-colored face. Marie wasused to these quiet lapses of her mother-in-law, for Lady Dorinda hadnot been a good sailor on their voyage; but Antonia was alarmed. Theybathed her face with a few inches of towel dipped in scented water, andrubbed her hands and fanned her. She caught life in again with a gasp, and opened her eyes to their young faces. 

"Your ladyship attempted too much in opening that box, " said Marie. "Itis not good to go back through old sorrows. "

"Madame La Tour may be right, " gasped Claude's widow. 

"I could not now look at that gown, Lady Dorinda, " protested Antonia. When her ladyship was able to sit again by the fire, she asked both ofthem to leave her; and being alone, she quieted her anxiety about hertreasures in the chest by a forced search. Nothing had been disturbed. The coals burned down red while Lady Dorinda tried to understand thishappening. She dismissed all thought of the casket's belonging toAntonia Bronck;--a mild and stiff-mannered young provincial who hadnothing to do with ghastly tokens of war. That hand was a politicalhint, mysteriously sent to Lady Dorinda and embodying some importantmessage. 

D'Aulnay de Charnisay may have sent it as a pledge that he intended todo justice to the elder La Tour while chastising the younger. There wasa strange girl in the fort, accused of coming from D'Aulnay. LadyDorinda could feel no enmity towards D'Aulnay. Her mind swarmed withfoolish thoughts, harmless because ineffectual. She felt her importancegrow, and was sure that the seed of a deep political intrigue lay hiddenin her chest. 

XI. 

MARGUERITE. 

The days which elapsed before Antonia Bronck's marriage were livedjoyfully by a people who lost care in any festival. Van Corlaer broughtthe sleek-faced young dominie from camp and exhibited him in all hispotency as the means of a Protestant marriage service. He could notspeak a word of French, but only Dutch was required of him. Allreligious rites were celebrated in the hall, there being no chapel inFort St. John, and this marriage was to be witnessed by the garrison. 

During this cheerful time a burning unrest, which she concealed from herpeople, drove Marie about her domain. She fled up the turret stairs andstood on the cannon to look over the bay. Her husband had been away buteight days. "Yet he often makes swift journeys, " she thought. The loadof his misfortunes settled more heavily upon her as she drew nearer tothe end of woman companionship. 

In former times, before such bitterness had grown in the feud betweenD'Aulnay and La Tour, she had made frequent voyages from Cape Sable upFundy Bay to Port Royal. The winters were then merry among nobleAcadians, and the lady of Fort St. Louis at Cape Sable was hostess of arich seigniory. Now she had the sickness of suspense, and the wasting oflife in waiting. Frequently during the day she met Father Jogues, whoalso wandered about disturbed by the evident necessity of his return toMontreal. 

"Monsieur, " said Marie once, "can you on your conscience bless aheretic?"

"Madame, " said Father Jogues, "heaven itself blesses a good andexcellent woman. "

"Well, monsieur, if you could lift up your hand, even with the signwhich my house holds idolatrous, and say a few words of prayer, Ishould then feel consecrated to whatever is before me. "

Perhaps Father Jogues was tempted to have recourse to his vial of holywater and make the baptismal signs. Many a soul he truly believed he hadsaved from burning by such secret administration. And if savages couldbe thus reclaimed, should he hold back from the only opportunity evergiven by this beautiful soul? His face shone. But with that graciousinstinct to refrain from intermeddling which was beyond his times, heonly lifted his stumps of fingers and spoke the words which she craved. A maimed priest is deprived of his sacred offices, but the pope had madea special dispensation for Father Jogues. 

"Thanks, monsieur, " said Marie. "Though it be sin to declare it, I willsay your religion hath mother-comfort in it. Perhaps you have felt, inthe woods among Iroquois, that sometime need of mother-comfort which acivilized woman may feel who has long outgrown her childhood. "

The mandolin was heard in the barracks once during those days, for LeRossignol had come out of the house determined to seek out Marguerite. She found the Swiss girl beside the powder magazine, for Marguerite hadbrought out a stool, and seemed trying to cure her sick spirit in thesun. The dwarf stood still and looked at her with insolent eyes. Soldiers' wives hid themselves within their doors, cautiously watching, or thrusting out their heads to shake at one another or to squall at anychild venturing too near the encounter. They did not like the strangegirl, and besides, she was in their way. But they liked the Nightingaleless, and pitied any one singled out for her attack. 

"Good day to madame the former Madame Klussman, " said the dwarf. Marguerite gathered herself in defense to arise and leave her stool. ButLe Rossignol gathered her mandolin in equal readiness to give pursuit. And not one woman in the barracks would have invited her quarry. 

"I was in Penobscot last week, " announced Le Rossignol, and heads poppedout of all the doors to lift eyebrows and open mouths at each other. Theswan-riding witch! She confessed to that impossible journey!

"I was in Penobscot last week, " repeated Le Rossignol, holding up hermandolin and tinkling an accompaniment to her words, "and there I sawthe house of D'Aulnay de Charnisay, and a very good house it is; but mylord should burn it. It is indeed of rough logs, and the windows are sohigh that one must have wings to look through them; but quite goodenough for a woman of your rank, seeing that D'Aulnay hath a palace forhis wife in Port Royal. "

"I know naught about the house, " spoke Marguerite, a yellow sheen ofanger appearing in her eyes. 

"Do you know naught about the Island of Demons, then?"

The Swiss girl muttered a negative and looked sidewise at herantagonist. 

"I will tell you that story, " said Le Rossignol. 

She played a weird prelude. Marguerite sat still to be baited, like ahare which has no covert. The instrument being heavy for the dwarf, shepropped it by resting one foot on the abutting foundation of thepowder-house, and all through her recital made the mandolin's effectsact upon her listener. 

"The Sieur de Roberval sailed to this New World, having with him among ashipload of righteous people one Marguerite. " She slammed her emphasison the mandolin. 

"There have ever been too many such women, and so the Sieur de Robervalfound, though this one was his niece. Like all her kind, madame, she hada lover to her scandal. The Sieur de Roberval whipped her, and prayedover her, and shut her up in irons in the hold; yet live a godly lifeshe would not. So what could he do but set her ashore on the Island ofDemons?"

"I do not want to hear it, " was Marguerite's muttered protest. 

But Le Rossignol advanced closer to her face. 

"And what does the lover do but jump overboard and swim after her? Andwell was he repaid. " Bang! went the mandolin. "So they went up the rockyisland together, and there they built a hut. What a horrible land wasthat!

"All day long fiends twisted themselves in mist. The waves made a saddermoaning there than anywhere else on earth. Monsters crept out of the seaand grinned with dull eyes and clammy lips. No fruit, no flower, scarcely a blade of grass dared thrust itself toward the sky on thatscaly island. Daylight was half dusk there forever. But the nights, thenights, madame, were full of howls, of contending beasts--the nightswere storms of demons let loose to beat on that island!

"All the two people had to eat were the stores set ashore by the Sieurde Roberval. Now a child was born in their hut, and the very next nighta bear knocked at the door and demanded the child. Marguerite fullfreely gave it to him. "

The girl shrunk back, and Le Rossignol was delighted until she herselfnoticed that Klussman had come in from some duty outside the gates. Hiseye detected her employment, and he sauntered not far off with hisshoulder turned to the powder-house. 

"Next night, madame, " continued Le Rossignol, and her tone and theaccent of the mandolin made an insult of that unsuitable title, "ahorned lion and two dragons knocked at the door and asked for the lover, and Marguerite full freely gave him to them. Kind soul, she would doanything to save herself!"

"Go away!" burst out the girl. 

"And from that time until a ship took her off, the demons of DemonIsland tried in vain to get Marguerite. They howled around her houseevery night, and gaped down her chimney, and whispered through thecracks and sat on the roof. But thou knowest, madame, that a woman ofher kind, so soft and silent and downward-looking, is more than a matchfor any demon; sure to live full easily and to die a fat saint. "

"Have done with this, " said Klussman behind the dwarf, who turned hergrotesque beak and explained, --

"I am but telling the story of the Island of Demons to Madame Klussman. "

As soon as she had spoken the name the Swiss caught her in his hand, mandolin and all, and walked across the esplanade, holding her at arm'slength, as he might have carried an eel. Le Rossignol ineffectuallysquirmed and kicked, raging at the spectacle she made for laughing womenand soldiers. She tried to beat the Swiss with her mandolin, but hetwisted her in another direction, a cat's weight of fury. Giving her nochance to turn upon him, he opened the entrance and shut her inside thehall, and stalked back to make his explanation to his wife. Klussman hadavoided any glimpse of Marguerite until this instant of taking up herdefense. 

"I pulled that witch-midget off thee, " he said, speaking for thefortress to hear, "because I will not have her raising tumults in thefort. Her place is in the hall to amuse her ladies. "

Marguerite's chin rested on her breast. 

"Go in the house, " said Klussman roughly. "Why do you show yourself outhere to be mocked at?"

The poor girl raised her swimming eyes and looked at him in the fashionhe remembered when she was ill; when he had nursed her with agonies offear that she might die. The old relations between them were thussuggested in one blinding flash. Klussman turned away so sick that thewalls danced around him. He went outside the fort again, and wanderedaround the stony height, turning at every few steps to gaze and strainhis eyes at that new clay in the graveyard. 

"When she lies beside that, " muttered the soldier, "then I can be softto her, " though he knew he was already soft to her, and that her lookhad driven through him. 

XII. 

D'AULNAY. 

The swelling spring was chilled by cold rain, driving in from the bayand sweeping through the half budded woods. The tide went up St. JohnRiver with an impulse which flooded undiked lowlands, yet there was nostorm dangerous to shipping. Some sails hung out there in the whirl ofvapors with evident intention of making port. 

Marie took a glass up to the turret and stood on the cannon to watchthem. Rain fine as driven stings beat her face, and accumulated upon hermuffling to run down and drip on the wet floor. She could make outnothing of the vessels. There were three of them, each by its sails aship. They could not be the ships of Nicholas Denys carrying La Tour'srecruits. She was not foolish enough, however great her husband'sprosperity with Denys, to expect of him such a miraculous voyage aroundCape Sable. 

Sails were a rare sight on that side of the bay. The venturesome seamenof the Massachusetts colony chose other courses. Fundy Bay was asidefrom the great sea paths. Port Royal sent out no ships exceptD'Aulnay's, and on La Tour's side of Acadia his was the only vessel. 

Certain of nothing except that these unknown comers intended to enterSt. John River, Madame La Tour went downstairs and met Klussman on thewall. He turned from his outlook and said directly, --

"Madame, I believe it is D'Aulnay. "

"You may be right, " she answered. "Is any one outside the gates?"

"Two men went early to the garden, but the rain drove them back. Fortunately, the day being bad, no one is hunting beyond the falls. "

"And is our vessel well moored?"

"Her repairing was finished some days ago, you remember, madame, and shesits safe and comfortable. But D'Aulnay may burn her. When he was herebefore, my lord was away with the ship. "

"Bar the gates and make everything secure at once, " said Marie. "Andsalute these vessels presently. If it be D'Aulnay, we sent him back tohis seigniory with fair speed once before, and we are no worse equippednow. "

She returned down the stone steps where Van Corlaer's courtship hadsucceeded, and threw off her wet cloak to dry herself before the fire inher room. She kneeled by the hearth; the log had burned nearly away. Hermass of hair was twisted back in the plain fashion of the Greeks--thatold sweet fashion created with the nature of woman, to which the worldperiodically returns when it has exhausted new devices. The smallestcurves, which were tendrils rather than curls of hair, were blown out ofher fleece over forehead and ears. A dark woman's beauty is independentof wind and light. When she is buffeted by weather the rich inner colorcomes through her skin, and the brightest dayshine can do nothingagainst the dusk of her eyes. 

If D'Aulnay was about to attack the fort, Marie was glad that MonsieurCorlaer had taken his bride, the missionaries, and his people and setout in the opposite direction. Barely had they escaped a siege, for theywere on their way less than twenty-four hours. She had regretted theirfirst day in a chill rain. But chill rain in boundless woods is betterthan sunlight in an invested fortress. Father Jogues' happy face withits forward droop and musing eyelids came before Marie's vision. 

"I need another of his benedictions, " she said in undertone, when aknock on her door and a struggle with its latch disturbed her. 

"Enter, Le Rossignol, " said Madame La Tour. And Le Rossignol entered, and approached the hearth, standing at full length scarcely as high asher lady kneeling. The room was a dim one, for all apartments lookingout of the fort had windows little larger than portholes, set high inthe walls. Two or three screens hid its uses as bedchamber anddressing-room, and a few pieces of tapestry were hung, making occasionalpanels of grotesque figures. A couch stood near the fireplace. Thedwarf's prominent features were gravely fixed, and her bushy hair stoodin a huge auburn halo around them. She wet her lips with that suddenmotion by which a toad may be seen to catch flies. 

"Madame Marie, every one is running around below and saying thatD'Aulnay de Charnisay is coming again to attack the fort. "

"Your pretty voice has always been a pleasure to me, Nightingale. "

"But is it so, madame?"

"There are three ships standing in. "

Le Rossignol's russet-colored gown moved nearer to the fire. Shestretched her claws to warm and then lifted one of them near her lady'snose. 

"Madame Marie, if D'Aulnay de Charnisay be coming, put no faith in thatSwiss!"

"In Klussman?"

"Yes, madame. "

"Klussman is the best soldier now in the fort, " said Madame La Tourlaughing. "If I put no faith in him, whom shall I trust?"

"Madame Marie, you remember that woman you brought back with you?"

"I have not seen her or spoken with her, " said Marie self-reproachfully, "since she vexed me so sorely about her child. She is a poor creature. But they feed and house her well in the barracks. "

"Madame Marie, Klussman hath been talking with that woman every day thisweek. "

The dwarf's lady looked keenly at her. 

"Oh, no. There could be no talk between those two. "

"But there hath been. I have watched him. Madame Marie, he took me upwhen I went into the fort before Madame Bronck's marriage--when I wasbut playing my clavier before that sulky knave to amuse her--he took meup in his big common-soldier fingers, gripping me around the waist, andflung me into the hall. "

"Did he so?" laughed Marie. "I can well see that my Nightingale can putno more faith in the Swiss. But hearken to me, thou bird-child. There!Hear our salute!"

The cannon leaped almost over their heads, and the walls shook with itsboom and rebound. Marie kept her finger up and waited for a reply. Minute succeeded minute. The drip of accumulated rain-drops from thedoor could be heard, but nothing else. Those sullen vessels paid noattention to the inquiry of Fort St. John. 

"Our enemy has come. "

She relaxed from her tense listening and with a deep breath looked at LeRossignol. 

"Do not undermine the faith of one in another in this fortress. We mustall hold together now. The Swiss may have a tenderness for his wretchedwife which thou canst not understand. But he is not therefore faithlessto his lord. "

Taking the glass and throwing on her wet cloak, Marie again ran up tothe wall. But Le Rossignol sat down cross-legged by the fire, wise andbrooding. 

"If I could see that Swiss hung, " she observed, "it would scratch in mysoul a long-felt itch. "

When calamity threatens, we turn back to our peaceful days withastonishment that they ever seemed monotonous. Marie watched the ships, and thought of the woman days with Antonia before Van Corlaer came; ofembroidery, and teaching the Etchemins, and bringing sweet plunder fromthe woods for the child's grave; of paddling on the twilight river whenthe tide was up, brimming and bubble-tinted; of her lord's coming hometo the autumn-night hearth; of the little wheels and spinning, andEdelwald's songs--of all the common joys of that past life. The clumsyglass lately brought from France to master distances in the New World, wearied her hands before it assured her eyes. 

D'Aulnay de Charnisay was actually coming to attack Fort St. John asecond time. He warily anchored his vessels out of the fort's range; andhour after hour boats moved back and forth landing men and artillery onthe cape at the mouth of the river, a position which gave as littlescope as possible to St. John's guns. All that afternoon tents andearthworks were rising, and detail by detail appeared the deliberate andcareful preparations of an enemy who was sitting down to a siege. 

At dusk camp-fires began to flame on the distant low cape, and voicesmoved along air made sensitively vibrant by falling damp. There was thesuggested hum of a disciplined small army settling itself for the nightand for early action. 

Madame La Tour came out to the esplanade of the fort, and the Swiss mether, carrying a torch which ineffectual rain-drops irritated to constanthissing. He stood, tall and careworn, holding it up that his lady mightsee her soldiers. Everything in the fort was ready for the siege. Thesentinels were about to be doubled, and sheltered by their positions. 

"I have had you called together, my men, " she spoke, "to say a word toyou before this affair begins. "

The torch flared its limited circle of shine, smoke wavering in ahalf-seen plume at its tip, and showed their erect figures in line, nonevery distinct, but all keenly suggestive of life. Some wereblack-bearded and tawny, and others had tints of the sun in flesh andhair. One was grizzled about the temples, and one was a smooth-cheekedyouth. The roster of their familiar names seemed to her as precious as arosary. They watched her, feeling her beauty as keenly as if it were apain, and answering every lambent motion of her spirit. 

All the buildings were hinted through falling mist, and glowing hearthsin the barracks showed like forge lights; for the wives of the halfdozen married soldiers had come out, one having a child in her arms. They stood behind their lady, troubled, but reliant on her. She had withthem the prestige of success; she had led the soldiers once before, andto a successful defense of the fort. 

"My men, " said Marie, "when the Sieur de la Tour set out to northernAcadia he dreaded such a move as this on D'Aulnay's part. But I assuredhim he need not fear for us. "

The soldiers murmured their joy and looked at one another smiling. 

"The Sieur de la Tour will soon return, with help or without it. AndD'Aulnay has no means of learning how small our garrison is. Bindyourselves afresh to me as you bound yourselves before the otherattack. "

"My lady, we do!"

Out leaped every right hand, Klussman's with the torch, which lost andcaught its flame again with the sudden sweep. 

"That is all: and I thank you, " said Marie. "We will do our best. "

She turned back to the tower under the torch's escort, her soldiersgiving her a full cheer which might further have deceived D'Aulnay inthe strength of the garrison. 

XIII. 

THE SECOND DAY. 

The exhilaration of fighting quickened every pulse in the fort. By nextdawn the cannon began to speak. D'Aulnay had succeeded in plantingbatteries on a height eastward, and his guns had immediate effect. Thebarracks were set on fire and put out several times during the day. Allthe inmates gathered in the stone hall, and at its fireplace the cookprepared and distributed rations. Great balls plowed up the esplanade, and the oven was shattered into a storm of stone and mortar, itsadjoining mill being left with a gap in the side. 

Responsive tremors from its own artillery ran through the fortress'walls. The pieces, except that one in the turret, were all brought intotwo bastions, those in the southeast bastion being trained onD'Aulnay's batteries, and the others on his camp. The gunner in theturret also dropped shot with effect among the tents, and attempted toreach the ships. But he was obliged to use nice care, for the ironpellets heaped on the stone floor behind him represented the heavy laborof one soldier who tramped at intervals up the turret stair, carryingammunition. 

The day had dawned rainless but sullen. It was Good Friday. The womenhuddling in the hall out of their usual haunts noticed Marguerite'srefusal even of the broth the cook offered her. She was restless, like aleopard, and seemed full of electrical currents which found no dischargeexcept in the flicker of her eyes. Leaving the group of settles by thefireplace where these simple families felt more at home and leastintrusive on the grandeur of the hall, she put herself on a distantchair with her face turned from them. This gave the women a chance tobackbite her, to note her roused mood, and to accuse her amongthemselves of wishing evil to the fort and consequently to theirhusbands. 

"She hath the closest mouth in Acadia, " murmured one. "Doth anybody inthese walls certainly know that she came from D'Aulnay?"

"The Swiss, her husband, told it. "

"And if she find means to go back to D'Aulnay, it will appear where shecame from, " suggested Zélie. 

"I would he had her now, " said the first woman. "I have that feeling forher that I have for a cat with its hairs on end. "

Madame La Tour came to the hall and sat briefly and alone at her owntable to take her dinner and supper. Later in the siege she stood andmerely took food from the cook's hands, talking with and comforting herwomen while she ate. The surgeon of the fort was away with La Tour. Shelaid bandages ready, and felt obliged to dress not only the first butevery wound received. 

Pierre Doucett was brought from one of the bastions stunned andbleeding, and his wife rose up with her baby in her arms, filling thehall with her cries. The baby and her neighbors' children were moved tojoin her. But the eye of her lady was as awful as Pierre's wound. Heroutcry sunk to a whimper; she hushed the children, and swept them offthe settle so Pierre could lie there, and even paid out the roll ofbandage with one hand while her lady used it. Marie controlled her ownfaintness; for a woman on whom a man's labors are imposed must bearthem. 

The four little children stood with fingers in their mouths, looking atthese grim tokens of war. All day long they heard the crashing orthumping of balls, and felt the leap and rebound of cannon. The cook, when he came down from a bastion to attend to his kettles, gave themnice bits to eat, and in spite of solemnity, they counted it a holidayto be in the hall. Pierre Doucett groaned upon his settle, and MadameLa Tour being on the lookout in the turret, Pierre Doucett's wife againtook to wailing over him. The other women comforted her with theirignorant sympathy, and Marguerite sat with her back to it all. But thechildren adapted themselves to the situation, and trooped across to thefoot of the stairway to play war. On that grim pavement door which leddown into the keep they shot each other with merry cannonading and werelaid out in turn on the steps. 

Le Rossignol passed hours of that day sitting on the broad door-sill ofthe tower. She loved to watch the fiery rain; but she was also waitingfor a lull in the cannonading that she might release her swan. He wasalways forbidden the rooms in the tower by her lady; for he was apugnacious creature, quick to strike with beak or wings any one whoirritated him. Especially did he seem tutored in the dwarf's dislike ofLady Dorinda. In peaceful times when she descended to the ground andtook a sylvan excursion outside the fort, he ruffled all his feathersand pursued her even from the river. Le Rossignol had a forked branchwith which she yoked him as soon as D'Aulnay's vessels alarmed the fort. She also tied him by one leg under his usual shelter, the pent-house ofthe mill. He always sulked at restraint, but Le Rossignol maintaineddiscipline. In the destruction of the oven and the reeling of the mill, Shubenacadie leaped upward and fell back flattened upon the ground. Thefragments had scarcely settled before his mistress had him in her arms. At the risk of her life she dragged him across to the entrance, and satdesolately crumbling away between her fingers such feathers as weresinged upon him, and sleeking his long gasping neck. She swallowedpiteously with suspense, but could not bring herself to examine hisbody. He had his feet; he had his wings; and finally he sat up of hisown accord, and quavered some slight remark about the explosion. 

"What ails thee?" exclaimed the dwarf indignantly. "Thou great coward!To lie down and gasp and sicken my heart for the singeing of a fewfeathers!"

She boxed the place where a swan's ear should be, and Shubenacadie bither. It was a serene and happy moment for both of them. Le Rossignolopened the door and pushed him in. Shubenacadie stood awkwardly with hisfeet sprawled on the hall pavement, and looked at the scenes to whichhis mistress introduced him. He noticed Marguerite, and hissed at her. 

"Be still, madman, " admonished the dwarf. "Thou art an intruder here. The peasants will drive thee up chimney. Low-born people, when they getinto good quarters, always try to put their betters out. "

Shubenacadie waddled on, scarcely recovered from the prostration of hisfright, and inclined to hold the inmates of the tower accountable forit. Marie had just left Pierre Doucett, and his nurses were so busy withhim that the swan was not detected until he scattered the children fromthe stairs. 

"Now, Mademoiselle Nightingale, " said Zélie, coming heavily across theflags, "have we not enough strange cattle in this tower, that you mustbring that creature in against my lady's orders?"

"He shall not stand out there under D'Aulnay's guns. Besides, MadameMarie hath need of him, " declared Le Rossignol impudently. "She wouldhave me ride to D'Aulnay's camp and bring her word how many men havefallen there to-day. "

Zélie shivered through her indignation. 

"Do you tell me such a tale, when you were shut in the turret for thatvery sin?"

"Sin that is sin in peace is virtue in war, " responded Le Rossignol. "Mount, Shubenacadie. "

"My lady will have his neck, wrung, " threatened Zélie. 

"She dare not. The chimney will tumble in. The fort will be taken. "

"Art thou working against us?" demanded the maid wrathfully. 

"Why should I work for you? You should, indeed, work for me. Pick me upthis swan and carry him to the top of the stairs. "

"I will not do it!" cried Zélie, revolting through every atom of herample bulk. "Do I want to be lifted over the turret like thistledown?"

The dwarf laughed, and caught her swan by the back of his neck. Withwebbed toes and beating wings he fought every step; but she pulledherself up by the balustrade and dragged him along. His bristlingplumage scraped the upper floor until he and his wrath were shut withinthe dwarf's chamber. 

"Naught but muscle and bone and fire and flax went to the making of thatstunted wight, " mused Zélie, setting her knuckles in her hips. "What apity that she escapes powder and ball, when poor Pierre Doucett is shotdown!--a man with wife and child, and useful to my lady besides. "

It was easy for Claude La Tour's widow to fill her idleness with visionsof political alliance, but when D'Aulnay de Charnisay began to batterthe walls round her ears, her common sense resumed sway. She could be ofno use outside her apartment, so she took her meals there, trembling, but in her fashion resolute and courageous. The crash of cannon-shot wasforever associated with her first reception in Acadia. Therefore thissiege was a torture to her memory as well as a peril to her body. Thetower had no more sheltered place, however, than Lady Dorinda's room. Zélie had orders to wait upon her with strict attention. The cannonadingdying away as darkness lifted its wall between the opposed forces, shehoped for such sleep as could be had in a besieged place, and waitedZélie's knock. War, like a deluge, may drive people who detest eachother into endurable contact; and when, without even a warning stroke onthe panel, Le Rossignol slipped in as nimbly as a spider, Lady Dorindafelt no such indignation as she would have felt in ordinary times. 

"May I sit by your fire, your highness?" sweetly asked the dwarf. LadyDorinda held out a finger to indicate the chimney-side and to stayfurther progress. The sallow and corpulent woman gazed at the beak-facedatom. 

"It hath been repeated a thousand times, but I will say again I am nohighness. "

Le Rossignol took the rebuke as a bird might have taken it, her brightround eyes reflecting steadily the overblown mortal opposite. She hadnever called Lady Dorinda anything except "her highness. " The dullestsoldier grinned at the apt sarcastic title. When Marie brought her toaccount for this annoyance, she explained that she could not call LadyDorinda anything else. Was a poor dwarf to be punished because peoplemade light of every word she used? Yet this innocent creature took apleasure of her own in laying the term like an occasional lash on thewoman who so despised her. Le Rossignol sat with arms around her knees, on the hearth corner. Lady Dorinda in her cushioned chair chewedaromatic seeds. 

The room, like a flower garden, exhaled all its perfumes at evening. Bottles of essences and pots of pomade and small bags of powders wereset out, for the luxurious use of its inmate when Zélie prepared her forthe night. Le Rossignol enjoyed these scents. The sweet-odoredatmosphere which clung about Lady Dorinda was her one attribute approvedby the dwarf. Madame Marie never in any way appealed to the nose. MadameMarie's garments were scentless as outdoor air, and the freshness ofoutdoor air seemed to belong to them. Le Rossignol liked to have hersenses stimulated, and she counted it a lucky thing to sit by that deepfire and smell the heavy fragrance, of the room. A branched silvercandlestick held two lighted tapers on the dressing-table. The bedcurtains were parted, revealing a huge expanse of resting-place within;and heavy folds shut the starlit-world from the windows. One could hereforget that the oven was blown up, and the ground of the fort plowedwith shot and sown with mortar. 

"Is there no fire in the hall?" inquired Lady Dorinda. 

"It hath all the common herd from the barracks around it, " explained LeRossignol. "And Pierre Doucett is stretched there, groaning over theloss of half his face. "

"Where is Madame La Tour?"

"She hath gone out on the walls since the firing stopped. Our gunner inthe turret told me that two guns are to be moved back before moonriseinto the bastions they were taken from. Madame Marie is afraid D'Aulnaywill try to encompass the fort to-night. "

"And what business took thee into the turret?"

"Your highness"--

"Ladyship, " corrected Lady Dorinda. 

--"I like to see D'Aulnay's torches, " proceeded the dwarf, withoutaccepting correction. "His soldiers are burying the dead over there. Heneeds a stone tower with walls seven feet thick like ours, doesD'Aulnay. "

Lady Dorinda put another seed in her mouth, and reflected that Zélie'sattendance was tardier than usual. She inquired with shadings ofdisapproval, --

"Is Madame La Tour's woman also on the walls?"

"Not Zélie, your highness"--

"Ladyship, " insisted Lady Dorinda. 

"That heavy-foot Zélie, " chuckled the dwarf, deaf to correction, "a finebit of thistledown would she be to blow around the walls. Zélie islaying beds for the children, and she hath come to words with the cookthrough trying to steal eggs to roast for them. We have but few wildfowl eggs in store. "

"Tell her that I require her, " said Lady Dorinda, fretted by theirregularities of life in a siege. "Madame La Tour will account with herif she neglects her rightful duties. "

Le Rossignol crawled reluctantly up to stand in her dots of moccasins. 

"Yes, your highness"--

"Ladyship, " repeated Claude La Tour's widow, to whom the sting wasforever fresh, reminding her of a once possible regency. 

"But have you heard about the woman that was brought into the fortressbefore Madame Bronck went away?"

"What of her?"

"The Swiss says she comes from D'Aulnay. "

"It is Zélie that I require, " said Lady Dorinda with discouragingbrevity. Le Rossignol dropped her face, appearing to give round-eyedspeculation to the fire. 

"It is believed that D'Aulnay sent by that strange woman a box of poisoninto the fort to work secret mischief. But, " added the dwarf, looking upin open perplexity, "that box cannot now be found. "

"Perhaps you can tell what manner of box it was, " said Lady Dorinda withirony, though a dull red was startled into her cheeks. 

"Madame Marie says it was a tiny box of oak, thick set with nails. Shewould not alarm the fort, so she had search made for it in MadameBronck's name. "

Lady Dorinda, incredulous, but trembling, divined at once that the dwarfhad hid that coffer in her chest. Perhaps the dwarf had procured thehand and replaced some valuable of Madame Bronck's with it. She longedto have the little beast shaken and made to confess. While she wasconsidering what she could do with dignity, Zélie rapped and wasadmitted, and Le Rossignol escaped into outside darkness. 

Hours passed, however, before Shubenacadie's mistress sought hissociety. She undressed in her black cell which had but one loopholelooking toward the north, and taking the swan upon her bed tried toreconcile him to blankets. But Shubenacadie protested with both wingsagainst a woolly covering which was not in his experience. The timeswere disjointed for him. He took no interest in Lady Dorinda and thebox of Madame Bronck, and scratched the pallet with his toes and thenail at the end of his bill. But Le Rossignol pushed him down andpressed her confidences upon this familiar. 

"So her highness threw that box out into the fort. I had to shiver andwait until Zélie left her, but I knew she would choose to rid herself ofit through a window, for she would scarce burn it, she hath notadroitness to drop it in the hall, show it to Madame Marie she wouldnot, and keep it longer to poison her court gowns she dare not. She hathfound it before this. Her looking-glass was the only place apter thanthat chest. I would give much to know what her yellow highness thoughtof that hand. Here, mine own Shubenacadie, I have brought thee thissweet biscuit moistened with water. Eat, and scratch me not. 

"And little did its studding of nails avail the box, for the fall splitit in three pieces; and I hid them under rubbish, for mortar and stonesare plentiful down there. You should have seen my shade stretch underthe moon like a tall hobgoblin. The nearest sentinel on the wallchallenges me. 'Who is there?' 'Le Rossignol. ' 'What are you doing?''Looking: for my swan's yoke. ' Then he laughs--little knowing how Imeant to serve his officer. The Hollandais mummy hath been of more useto me than trinkets. I frightened her highness with it, and now it isset to torment the Swiss. Let me tell thee, Shubenacadie: punishmentcomes even on a swan who would stretch up his neck and stand taller thanhis mistress. Wert thou not blown up with the oven? Hide thy head andtake warning. "

XIV. 

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN POWERS. 

The dwarf's report about Klussman forced Madame La Tour to watch thestrange girl; but Marguerite seemed to take no notice of any soldier whocame and went in the hall. As for the Swiss, he carried trouble on hisself-revealing face, but not treachery. Klussman camped at night on thefloor with other soldiers off guard; screens and the tall settles beingplaced in a row between this military bivouac and women and children ofthe household protected near the stairs. He awoke as often as the guardwas changed, and when dawn-light instead of moonlight appeared with thelast relief, he sprang up, and took the breastplate which had been laidaside for his better rest. Out of its hollow fell Jonas Bronck's hand, bare and crouching with stiff fingers on the pavement. The soldiersabout to lie down laughed at themselves and Klussman for recoiling fromit, and fury succeeded pallor in his blond face. 

"Did you do that?" he demanded of the men, but before they could utterdenials, his suspicion leaped the settles. Spurning Jonas Bronck'streasured fragment with his boot in a manner which Antonia could neverhave forgiven, Klussman sent it to the hearth and strode after it. Hehad not far to look for Marguerite. As his eye traveled recklessly intothe women's camp, he encountered her beside him, sitting on the floorbehind a settle and matching the red of a burning tree trunk with thered of her bruised eyelids. 

"Did you put that in my breastplate?" said Klussman, pointing to thehand as it lay palm upwards. Marguerite shuddered and burst out crying. This had been her employment much of the night, but the nervous fit ofchildish weeping swept away all of Klussman's self-control. 

"No; no;" she repeated. "You think I do everything that is horrible. "And she sobbed upon her hands. 

Klussman stooped down and tossed the hand like an escaped coal behindthe log. As he stooped he said, --

"I don't think that. Don't cry. If you cry I will shoot myself. "

Marguerite looked up and saw his helplessness in his face. He had soughther before, but only with reproaches. Now his resentment was broken. Twice had the dwarfs mischief thrown Marguerite on his compassion, andthereby diminished his resistance to her. Jonas Bronck's hand, in itsred-hot seclusion behind the log, writhed and smoked, discharging itsgrosser parts up the chimney's shaft. Unseen, it lay a wire-like outlineof bone; unseen, it became a hand of fairy ashes, trembling in everyfilmy atom; finally an ember fell upon it, and where a hand had beensome bits of lime lay in a white glow. 

Klussman went out and mounted one of the bastions, where the gunnerswere already preparing for work. The weather had changed in the night, and the sky seemed immeasurably lifted while yet filled with theuncertainties of dawn. Fundy Bay revealed more and more of its cleanblue-emerald level, and far eastward the glassy water shaded up to aflushing of pink. Smoke rose from the mess fires in D'Aulnay's camp. Thefirst light puff of burnt powder sprung from his batteries, and theartillery duel again began. 

"If we had but enough soldiers to make a sally, " said Madame La Tour toher officer, as she also came for an instant to the bastion, "we mighttake his batteries. Oh, for monsieur to appear on the bay with a stoutshipload of men. "

"It is time he came, " said the Swiss. 

"Yes, we shall see him or have news of him soon. "

In the tumult of Klussman's mind Jonas Bronck's hand never again cameuppermost. He cared nothing and thought nothing about that weirdfragment, in the midst of living disaster. It had merely been theoccasion of his surrendering to Marguerite. He determined that when LaTour returned and the siege was raised, if he survived he would take hiswife and go to some new colony. Live without her he could not. Yetneither could he reëspouse her in Fort St. John, where he had himselfopenly denounced her. 

Spring that day leaped forward to a semblance of June. The sun pouredwarmth; the very air renewed life. But to Klussman it was the brilliancyof passing delirium. He did not feel when gun-metal touched his hands. The sound of the incoming tide, which could be heard betwixt artilleryboomings, and the hint of birds which that sky gave, were mute againsthis thoughts. 

Though D'Aulnay's loss was visibly heavy, it proved also an ill day forthe fort. The southeast bastion was raked by a fire which disabled theguns and killed three men. Five others were wounded at various posts. The long spring twilight sunk through an orange horizon rim and filledup the measure which makes night, before firing reluctantly stopped. Marie had ground opened near the powder magazine to make a temporarygrave for her three dead. They had no families. She held a taper in herhand and read a service over them. One bastion and so many men beingdisabled, a sentinel was posted in the turret after the gunnersdescended. The Swiss took this duty on himself, and felt his way up thepitch-black stairs. He had not seen Marguerite in the hall when hehurriedly took food, but she was safe in the tower. No woman venturedout in the storm of shot. The barracks were charred and battered. 

As Klussman reached the turret door he exclaimed against some humantouch, but caught his breath and surrendered himself to Marguerite'sarms, holding her soft body and smoothing her silk-stranded hair. 

"I heard you say you would come up here, " murmured Marguerite. "And thedoor was unlocked. "

"Where have you been since morning?"

"Behind a screen in the great hall. The women are cruel. "

Klussman hated the women. He kissed his wife with the first kiss sincetheir separation, and all the toils of war failed to unman him like thatkiss. 

"But there was that child!" he groaned. 

"That was not my child, " said Marguerite. 

"The baby brought here with you!"

"It was not mine. "

"Whose was it?"

"It was a drunken soldier's. His wife died. They made me take care ofit, " said Marguerite resentfully. 

"Why didn't you tell me that?" exclaimed Klussman. "You made me lie tomy lady!"

Marguerite had no answer. He understood her reticence, and thedegradation which could not be excused. 

"Who made you take care of it?"

"He did. "

"D'Aulnay?" Klussman uttered through his teeth. 

"Yes; I don't like him. "

"_I_ like him!" said the savage Swiss. 

"He is cruel, " complained Marguerite, "and selfish. "

The Swiss pressed his cheek to her soft cheek. 

"I never was selfish and cruel to thee, " he said, weakly. 

"No, you never were. "

"Then why, " burst out the husband afresh, "did you leave me to followthat beast of prey?"

Marguerite brought a sob from her breast which was like a sword throughKlussman. He smoothed and smoothed her hair. 

"But what did I ever do to thee, Marguerite?"

"I always liked you best, " she said. "But he was a great lord. The womenin barracks are so hateful, and a common soldier is naught. "

"You would be the lady of a seignior, " hissed Klussman. 

"Thou knowest I was fit for that, " retorted Marguerite with spirit. 

"I know thou wert. It is marrying me that has been thy ruin. " He groanedwith his head hanging. 

"We are not ruined yet, " she said, "if you care for me. "

"That was a stranger child?" he repeated. 

"All the train knew it to be a motherless child. He had no right tothrust it on me. "

"I demand no testimony of D'Aulnay's followers, " said Klussman roughly. 

He let her go from his arms, and stepped to the battlements. His gazemoved over the square of the fortress, and eastward to that blur ofwhiteness which hinted the enemy's tents, the hint being verified by alight or two. 

"I have a word to tell you, " said Marguerite, leaning beside herhusband. 

"I have this to tell thee, " said the Swiss. "We must leave Acadia. " Hisarm again fondled her, and he comforted his sore spirit with aninstant's thought of home and peace somewhere. 

"Yes. We can go to Penobscot, " she said. 

"Penobscot?" he repeated with suspicion. 

"The king will give you a grant of Penobscot. "

"The king will give it to--me?"

"Yes. And it is a great seigniory. "

"How do you know the king will do that?"

"He told me to tell you; he promised it. "

"The king? You never saw the king. "

"No. "

"D'Aulnay?"

"Yes. "

"I would I had him by the throat!" burst out Klussman. Marguerite leanedher cheek on the stone and sighed. The bay seemed full of salty spice. It was a night in which the human soul must beat against casements tobreak free and roam the blessed dark. All of spring was in the air. Directly overhead stood the north star, with slow constellationswheeling in review before him. 

"So D'Aulnay sent you to spy on my lord, as my lord believed?"

"You shall not call me a spy. I came to my husband. I hate him, " sheadded in a resentful burst. "He made me walk the marshes, miles andmiles alone, carrying that child. "

"Why the child?"

"Because the people from St. John would be sure to pity it. "

"And what word did he send you to tell me?" demanded Klussman. "Give methat word. "

Marguerite waited with her face downcast. 

"It was kind of him to think of me, " said the Swiss; "and to send youwith the message!"

She felt mocked, and drooped against the wall. And in the midst of hisscorn he took her face in his hands with a softness he could not master. 

"Give me the word, " he repeated. Marguerite drew his neck down andwhispered, but before she finished whispering Klussman flung her againstthe cannon with an oath. 

"I thought it would be, betray my lord's fortress to D'Aulnay deCharnisay! Go down stairs, Marguerite Klussman. When I have less matterin hand, I will flog thee! Hast thou no wit at all? To come from a manwho broke faith with thee, and offer his faith to me! Bribe me withPenobscot to betray St. John to him!"

Marguerite sat on the floor. She whispered, gasping, --

"Tell not the whole fortress. "

Klussman ceased to talk, but his heels rung on the stone as he paced theturret. He felt himself grow old as silence became massive betwixt hiswife and him. The moon rose, piercing the cannon embrasure, and showedMarguerite weeping against the wall. The mass of silence drove himresistless before her will. That soft and childlike shape did notpropose treason to him. He understood that she thought only of herselfand him. It was her method of bringing profit out of the times. He heardhis relief stumble at the foot of the turret stairs, and went down thewinding darkness to stop and send the soldier back to bed. 

"I am not sleepy, " said Klussman. "I slept last night. Go and rest tilldaybreak. " And the man willingly went. Marguerite had not moved a foldof her gown when her husband again came into the lighted tower. TheSwiss lifted her up and made her stand beside him while he stanched hertears. 

"You hurt me when you threw me against the cannon, " she said. 

"I was rough. But I am too foolish fond to hold anger. It has worn meout to be hard on thee. I am not the man I was. "

Marguerite clung around him. He dumbly felt his misfortune in beingthralled by a nature of greater moral crudity than his own. But she washis portion in the world. 

"You flung me against the cannon because I wanted you made a seignior. "

"It was because D'Aulnay wanted me made a traitor. "

"What is there to do, indeed?" murmured Marguerite. "He said if youwould take the sentinels off the wall on the entrance side of the fort, at daybreak any morning, he will be ready to scale that wall. "

"But how will he know I have taken the sentinels off?"

"You must hold up a ladder in your hands. "

"The tower is between that side of the fort and D'Aulnay's camp. No onewould see me standing with a ladder in my hands. "

"When you set the ladder against the outside wall, it is all you have todo, except to take me with you as you climb down. It is their affair tosee the signal. "

"So D'Aulnay plans an ambush between us and the river? And suppose I didall that and the enemy failed to see the signal? I should go down thereto be hung, or my lady would have me thrown into the keep here, andperhaps shot. I ought to be shot. "

"They will see the signal, " insisted Marguerite. "I know all that is tobe done. He made me say it over until I tired of it. You must mount thewall where the gate is: that side of the fort toward the river, the campbeing on another side. "

Klussman again smoothed her hair and argued with her as with a child. 

"I cannot betray my lady. You see how madame trusts me. "

She grieved against his hard breastplate with insistence which piercedeven that. 

"I am indeed not fit to be thought on beside the lady!"

"I would do anything for thee but betray my lady. "

"And when you have held her fort for her will she advance you by so muchas a handful of land?"

"I was made lieutenant since the last siege. "

"But now you may be a seignior with a holding of your own, " repeatedMarguerite. So they talked the night away. She showed him on one hand afuture of honor and plenty which he ought not to withhold from her; andon the other, a wandering forth to endless hardships. D'Aulnay hadworked them harm; but this was in her mind an argument that he shouldnow work them good. Being a selfish lord, powerful and cruel, he coulddemand this service as the condition of making her husband master ofPenobscot; and the service itself she regarded as a small one comparedto her lone tramping of the marshes to La Tour's stockade. D'Aulnay wascertain to take Fort St. John some time. He had the king and all Francebehind him; the La Tours had nobody. Marguerite was a woman who couldsee no harm in advancing her husband by the downfall of his mereemployers. Her husband must be advanced. She saw herself lady ofPenobscot. 

The Easter dawn began to grow over the world. Klussman remembered whatday it was, and lifted her up to look over the battlements at lightbreaking from the east. 

Marguerite turned her head from point to point of the dewy world oncemore rising out of chaos. She showed her husband a new trench and a lineof breastworks between the fort and the river. These had been made inthe night, and might have been detected by him if he had guarded hispost. The jutting of rocks probably hid them from sentinels below. 

"D'Aulnay is coming nearer, " said the Swiss, looking with haggardindifferent eyes at these preparations, and an occasional head venturingabove the fresh ridge. Marguerite threw her arms around her husband'sneck, and hung on him with kisses. 

"Come on, then, " he said, speaking with the desperate conviction of aman who has lost himself. "I have to do it. You will see me hang forthis, but I'll do it for you. "

XV. 

A SOLDIER. 

Marie felt herself called through the deepest depths of sleep, and satup in the robe of fur which she had wrapped around her for her nightbivouac. There was some alarm at her door. The enemy might be on thewalls. She tingled with the intense return of life, and was opening thedoor without conscious motion. Nobody stood outside in the hall exceptthe dwarf, whose aureole of foxy hair surrounded features pinched byanxiety. 

"Madame Marie--Madame Marie! The Swiss has gone to give up the fort toD'Aulnay. "

"Has gone?"

"He came down from the turret with his wife, who persuaded him. Ilistened all night on the stairs. D'Aulnay is ready to mount the wallwhen he gives the signal. I had to hide me until the woman and the Swisspassed below. They are now going to the wall to give the signal. "

Through Marie passed that worst shock of all human experience. To seeyour trusted ally transmuted into your secret most deadly foe, sickensthe heart as death surely cannot sicken it. Like many a pierced wretchwho has collapsed suddenly into the dust while the stab yet held theknife, she whispered feebly, --

"He could not do that!"

The stern blackness of her eyes seemed to annihilate all the rest of herface. Was rock itself stable under-foot? Why should one care to prolonglife, when life only proved how cruel and worthless are the people forwhom we labor?

"Madame Marie, he is now doing it. He was to hold up a ladder on thewall. "

"Which wall?"

"This one--where the gate is. "

Marie looked through the glass in her door which opened toward thebattlements, rubbed aside moisture, and looked again. While one breathcould be drawn Klussman was standing in the dawn-light with a ladderraised overhead. She caught up a pair of long pistols which had lainbeside her all night. 

"Rouse the men below--quick!" she said to Le Rossignol, and ran up thesteps to the wall. No sentinels were there. The Swiss had alreadydropped down the ladder outside and was out of sight, and she heard therunning, climbing feet of D'Aulnay's men coming to take the advantageafforded them. Sentinels in the other two bastions turned with surpriseat her cry. They had seen Klussman relieving the guard, but his subtleaction escaped their watch-worn eyes. They only noticed that he had thestrange woman with him. 

D'Aulnay's men were at the foot of the wall planting ladders. They wereswarming up. Marie met them with the sentinels joining her and thesoldiers rushing from below. The discharge of firearms, the clash ofopposing metals, the thuds of falling bodies, cries, breathlessstruggling, clubbed weapons sweeping the battlements--filled one vastminute. Ladders were thrown back to the stones, and D'Aulnay's repulsedmen were obliged to take once more to their trench, carrying the stunnedand wounded. A cannon was trained on their breastworks, and St. Johnbelched thunder and fire down the path of retreat. The Swiss's treasonhad been useless to the enemy. The people of the fort saw him hurriedmore like a prisoner than an ally towards D'Aulnay's camp, his wifebeside him. 

"Oh, Klussman, " thought the lady of St. John, as she turned to stationguards at every exposed point and to continue that day's fight, "youknew in another way what it is to be betrayed. How could you put thisanguish upon me?"

The furious and powder-grimed men, her faithful soldiers, hooted at theSwiss from their bastions, not knowing what a heart he carried withhim. He turned once and made them a gesture of defiance, more patheticthan any wail for pardon, but they saw only the treason of the man, andshot at him with a good will. Through smoke and ball-plowed earth, D'Aulnay's soldiers ran into camp, and his batteries answered. Artilleryechoes were scattered far through the woods, into the very depths ofwhich that untarnished Easter weather seemed to stoop, coaxing growthsfrom the swelling ground. 

Advancing and pausing with equal caution, a man came out of the northernforest toward St. John River. No part of his person was covered witharmor. And instead of the rich and formal dress then worn by theHuguenots even in the wilderness, he wore a complete suit of hunter'sbuckskin which gave his supple muscles a freedom beautiful to see. Hisyoung face was freshly shaved, showing the clean fine texture of theskin. For having nearly finished his journey from the head of FundyBay, he had that morning prepared himself to appear what he was in FortSt. John--a man of good birth and nurture. His portables were rolledtightly in a blanket and strapped to his shoulders. A hunting-knife andtwo long pistols armed him. His head was covered with a cap of beaverskin, and he wore moccasins. Not an ounce of unnecessary weight hamperedhim. 

The booming of cannon had met him so far off on that day's march that heunderstood well the state of siege in which St. John would be found; andlong before there was any glimpse of D'Aulnay's tents and earthworks, the problem of getting into the fort occupied his mind. For D'Aulnay'sguards might be extended in every direction. But the first task in handwas to cross the river. One or two old canoes could be seen on the otherside; cast-off property of the Etchemin Indians who had broken camp. Being on the wrong bank these were as useless to him as dream canoes. But had a ferryman stood in waiting, it was perilous to cross in openday, within possible sight of the enemy. So the soldier moved carefullydown to a shelter of rocks below the falls, opposite that place whereVan Corlaer had watched the tide sweep up and drown the rapids. Fromthis post he got a view of La Tour's small ship, yet anchored and safeat its usual moorings. No human life was visible about it. 

"The ship would afford me good quarters, " said the soldier to himself, "had I naught to do but rest. But I must get into the fort this night;and how is it to be done?"

All the thunders of war, and all the effort and danger to be undertaken, could not put his late companions out of his mind. He lay with handsclasped under his head, and looked back at the trees visibly leafing inthe warm Easter air. They were much to this man in all their differencesand habits, their whisperings and silences. They had marched with himthrough countless lone long reaches, passing him from one to anotherwith friendly recommendation. It hurt him to notice a broken or deformedone among them; but one full and nobly equipped from root to top crownwas Nature's most triumphant shout. There is a glory of the sun and aglory of the moon, but to one who loves them there is another glory ofthe trees. 

"In autumn, " thought the soldier, "I have seen light desert the skiesand take to the trees and finally spread itself beneath them, a materialglow, flake on flake. But in the spring, before their secret is spoken, when they throb, and restrain the force driving through them, then haveI most comfort with them, for they live as I live. "

Shadows grew on the river, and ripples were arrested and turned back toflow up stream. There was but one way for him to cross the river, andthat was to swim. And the best time to swim was when the tide brimmedover the current and trembled at its turn, a broad and limpid expanseof water, cold, dangerous, repellent to the chilled plunging body; butsafer and more easily paddled through than when the current, angular asa skeleton, sought the bay at its lowest ebb. 

Fortunately tide and twilight favored the young soldier together. Hestripped himself and bound his weapons and clothes in one tight packeton his head. At first it was easy to tread water: the salt brine upheldhim. But in the middle of the river it was wise to sink close to thesurface and carry as small a ripple as possible; for D'Aulnay's guardsmight be posted nearer than he knew. The water, deceptive at its outeredges in iridescent reflection of warm clouds, was cold as glacierdrippings in midstream. He swam with desperate calmness, guardinghimself by every stroke against cramp. The bundle oppressed him. Hewould have cast it off, but dared not change by a thought of variationthe routine of his struggle. Hardy and experienced woodsman as he was, he staggered out on the other side and lay a space in the sand, tooexhausted to move. 

The tide began to recede, leaving stranded seaweed in green or brownstreaks, the color of which could be determined only by the dullness orvividness of its shine through the dusk. As soon as he was able, thesoldier sat up, shook out his blanket and rolled himself in it. Thefirst large stars were trembling out. He lay and smelled gunpowdermingling with the saltiness of the bay and the evening incense of theearth. 

There was a moose's lip in his wallet, the last spoil of his wildernessmarch, taken from game shot the night before and cooked at his morningfire. He ate it, still lying in the sand. Lights began to appear in thedirection of D'Aulnay's camp, but the fort held itself dark and close. He thought of the grassy meadow rivulet which was always empty at lowtide, and that it might afford him some shelter in his nearer approachto the fort. He dressed and put on his weapons, but left everything elseexcept the blanket lying where he had landed. In this venture littlecould be carried except the man and his life. The frontier graveyardoutlined itself dimly against the expanse of landscape. The new-turnedclay therein gave him a start. He crept over the border of stones, wentclose, and leaned down to measure the length of the fresh grave with hisoutstretched hands. A sigh of relief which was as strong as a sob burstfrom the soldier. 

"It is only that child we found at the stockade, " he murmured, andstepped on among the older mounds and leaped the opposite boundary, todescend that dip of land which the tide invaded. Water yet shone thereon the grass. Too impatient to wait until the tide ran low, he found thelog, and moved carefully forward, through increasing dusk, on hands andknees within closer range of the fort. Remembering that his buckskinmight make an inviting spot on the slope, he wrapped his dark blanketaround him. The chorus of insect life and of water creatures, which hadscarcely been tuned for the season, began to raise experimental notes. And now a splash like the leap of a fish came from the river. The moonwould be late; he thought of that with satisfaction. There was a littlemist blown aloft over the stars, yet the night did not promise to becloudy. 

The whole environment of Fort St. John was so familiar to the youngsoldier that he found no unusual stone in his way. That side toward thegarden might be the side least exposed to D'Aulnay's forces at night. Ifhe could reach the southwest bastion unseen, he could ask for a ladder. There was every likelihood of his being shot before the sentinelsrecognized him, yet he might be more fortunate. Balancing these chances, he moved toward that angle of shadow which the fortress lifted againstthe southern sky. Long rays of light within the walls were thrown up andmoved on darkness like the pulsing motions of the aurora. 

"Who goes there?" said a voice. 

The soldier lay flat against the earth. He had imagined the browsingsound of cattle near him. But a standing figure now condensed itselffrom the general dusk, some distance up the slope betwixt him and thebastion. The challenger was entirely apart from the fort. As heflattened himself in breathless waiting for a shot which might follow, aclatter began at his very ears, some animal bounded over him with aglancing cut of its hoof, and galloped toward the trench below St. John's gate. He heard another exclamation, --this rapid traveler hadprobably startled another sentinel. The man who had challenged himlaughed softly in the darkness. All the Sable Island ponies must beloose upon the slope. D'Aulnay's men had taken possession of the stableand cattle, and the wild and frightened ponies were scattered. As hisear lay so near the ground the soldier heard other little hoofs startledto action, and a snort or two from suspicious nostrils. He crept awayfrom the sentinel without further challenge. It was evident thatD'Aulnay had encompassed the fort with guards. 

The young soldier crept slowly down the rocky hillock, avoided anothersentinel, and, after long caution and self-restraint and polishing theearth with his buckskin, crawled into the empty trench. The Sable Islandponies continually helped him. They were so nervous and so agile thatthe sentinels ceased to watch moving shadows. 

The soldier looked up at St. John and its tower, knowing that he mustenter in some manner before the moon rose. He dreaded the red brightnessof moon-dawn, when guards whom he could discern against the stony ascentmight detect his forehead above the breastwork. Behind him stretched analluvial flat to the river's sands. The tide was running swiftly out, and under starlight its swirls and long muscular sweeps could befollowed by a practiced eye. 

As the soldier glanced warily in every direction, two lights leftD'Aulnay's camp and approached him, jerking and flaring in the hands ofmen who were evidently walking over irregular ground. They might becoming directly to take possession of the trench. But why should theyproclaim their intention with torches to the batteries of Fort St. John?He looked around for some refuge from the advancing circle of smokyshine, and moved backwards along the bottom of the trench. The lightstretched over and bridged him, leaving him in a stream of deep shadow, protected by the breastwork from sentinels above. He could thereforelift a cautious eye at the back of the trench, and scan the group nowmoving betwixt him and the river. There were seven persons, only one ofwhom strode the stones with reckless feet. This man's hands were tiedbehind his back, and a rope was noosed around his neck and held at theother end by a soldier. 

"It is Klussman, our Swiss!" flashed through the soldier in the trench, with a mighty throb of rage and shame, and anxiety for the lady in thefort. If Klussman had been taken prisoner, the guns of St. John wouldsurely speak in his behalf when he was about to be hanged before itsvery gate. Such a parade of the act must be discovered on the walls. Itwas plain that Klussman had deserted to D'Aulnay, and was now enjoyingD'Aulnay's gratitude. 

"The tree that doth best front the gates, " said one of the men, pointingwith his torch to an elm in the alluvial soil: "my lord said the treethat doth best front the gates. "

"That hath no fit limbs, " objected another. 

"He said the tree that doth best front the gates, " insisted the firstman. "Besides this one, what shrub hereabouts is tall enough for ouruse?"

They moved down towards the elm. A stool carried by one man showed itslong legs grotesquely behind his back. There were six persons besidesthe prisoner, all soldiers except one, who wore the coarse, long, cord-girdled gown of a Capuchin. His hood was drawn over his face, andthe torches imperfectly showed that he was of the bare-footed order andwore only sandals. He held up a crucifix and walked close besideKlussman. But the Swiss gazed all around the dark world which he was sosoon to leave, and up at the fortress he had attempted to betray, andnever once at the murmuring friar. 

The soldier in the trench heard a breathing near him, and saw that anumber of the ponies, drawn by the light, had left their fitful grazingand were venturing step by step beyond the end of the trench. Someassociation of this scene with soldiers who used to feed them at night, after a hard day of drawing home the winter logs, may have stirredbehind their shaggy foreheads. He took his hunting-knife with sudden anddesperate intention, threw off his moccasins, cut his leggins short atthe middle of the leg, and silently divided his blanket into strips. 

Preparations were going forward under the elm. One of the soldiersclimbed the tree and crept out upon an arched limb, catching the ropeend thrown up to him. Both torches were given to one man, that all theothers might set themselves to the task. Klussman stood upon the stool, which they had brought for the purpose from the cook's galley in one oftheir ships. His blond face, across which all his thoughts used toparade, was cast up by the torches like a stiffened mask, hopeless yetfearless in its expression. 

"Come, Father Vincent, " said the man who had made the knot, sliding downthe tree. "This is a Huguenot fellow, and good words are lost on him. Iwonder that my lord let him have a friar to comfort him. "

"Retire, Father Vincent, " said the men around the stool, with moreroughness than they would have shown to a favorite confessor ofD'Aulnay's. The Capuchin turned and walked toward the trench. 

The soldier in the trench could not hear what they said, but he had timefor no further thought of Klussman. He had been watching the ponieswith the conviction that his own life hung on what he might drive themto do. They alternately snuffed at Klussman's presence and put theirnoses down to feel for springing grass. Before they could start andwheel from the friar, the soldier had thrown his hunting-knife. Itstruck the hind leg of the nearest pony and a scampering and snortinghurricane swept down past the elm. Klussman's stool and the torch-bearerwere rolled together. Both lights were stamped out by the panic-struckmen, who thought a sally had been made from the fort. Father Vincent sawthe knife thrown, and turned back, but the man in the trench seized himwith steel muscles and dragged him into its hollow. If the good fatheruttered cry against such violence, there was also noise under the elm, and the wounded pony yet galloped and snorted toward the river. Theyoung soldier fastened his mouth shut with a piece of blanket, strippedoff his capote and sandals and tied him so that he could not move. Having done all most securely and put the capote and sandals uponhimself, the soldier whispered at the friar's ear an apology which musthave amused them both, --

"Pardon my roughness, good father. Perhaps you will lend me yourclothes?"

XVI. 

THE CAMP. 

D'Aulnay's sentinels about the walls, understanding that all thisconfusion was made by a stampede of ponies, kept the silence which hadbeen enjoined on them. But some stir of inquiry seemed to occur in thebastions. Father Vincent, lying helpless in the trench, and feeling thechill of lately opened earth through his shaven head and partly nudebody, wondered if he also had met D'Aulnay's gratitude for his recentinquiry into D'Aulnay's fitness to receive the sacraments. 

"But I will tell my lord of Charnisay the truth about his sins, " thoughtFather Vincent, unable to form any words with a pinioned mouth, "thoughhe should go the length of procuring my death. "

The soldier with his buckskin covered by Father Vincent's capote steppedout into the starlight and turned his cowled face toward the fort. Heintended to tell the sentinels that D'Aulnay had sent him with a messageto the commandant of St. John. The guards, discerning his capote, wouldperhaps obey a beckoning finger, and believe that he had been chargedwith silence; for not having heard the churchman's voice he dared nottry to imitate it, and must whisper. But that unforeseen element whichthe wisest cannot rule out of their fate halted him before he took adozen steps up the hill. 

"Where is Father Vincent de Paris?" called some impatient person belowthe trench. Five figures coming from the tree gained distinctness asthey advanced, but it was a new-comer who demanded again, --

"Where is Father Vincent de Paris? Did he not leave the camp with you?"

The soldier went down directly where his gray capote might speak foritself to the eye, and the man who carried the stool pointed with ittoward the evident friar. 

"There stands the friar behind thee. He hath been tumbled into thetrench, I think. "

"Is your affair done?"

"And well done, except that some cattle ran mad among us but now, and wethought a sally had been made, so we put out our torches. "

"With your stupid din, " said the messenger from camp, "you will wake upthe guns of the fort at the very moment when Sieur D'Aulnay would sendhis truce bearer in. "

"I thank the saints I am not like to be used for his agent, " said theman who had been upset with the torches, "if the walls are to be stormedas they were this morning. "

"He wants Father Vincent de Paris, " said the under officer from camp. "Good father, you took more license in coming hither than my lordintended. "

The soldier made some murmured noise under his cowl. He walked besidethe officer and heard one man say to another behind him, --

"These holy folks have more courage than men-at-arms. My lord was mindedto throw this one out of the ship when he sailed from Port Royal. "

"The Sieur D'Aulnay hath too much respect to his religion to do that, "answered the other. 

"You had best move in silence, " said the officer, turning his headtoward them, and no further words broke the march into camp. D'Aulnay'scamp was well above the reach of high tide, yet so near the river thatsoft and regular splashings seemed encroaching on the tents. The soldiernoticed the batteries on their height, and counted as ably as he couldfor the cowl and night dimness the number of tents holding this littlearmy. Far beyond them the palpitating waters showed changeful surfaceson Fundy Bay. 

The capote was long for him. He kept his hands within the sleeves. Before the guard-line was passed he saw in the middle of the camp anopen tent. A long torch stood in front of it with the point stuck in theground. The floating yellow blaze showed the tent's interior, its simplefittings for rest, the magnificent arms and garments of its occupant, and first of all, D'Aulnay de Charnisay himself, sitting with a rudecamp table in front of him. He was half muffled in a furred cloak fromthe balm of that Easter night. Papers and an ink-horn were on the table, and two officers stood by, receiving orders. 

This governor of Acadia had a triangular face with square temples andpointed beard, its crisp fleece also concealing his mouth except thethin edges of his lips. It was a handsome nervous face of black tones;one that kept counsel, and was not without humor. He noticed hissubordinate approaching with the friar. The men sent to execute Klussmanwere dispersed to their tents. 

"The Swiss hath suffered his punishment?" he inquired. 

"Yes, my lord D'Aulnay. I met the soldiers returning. "

"Did he say anything further concerning the state of the fort?"

"I know not, my lord. But I will call the men to be questioned. "

"Let it be. He hath probably not lied in what he told me to-day of itsweak garrison. But help is expected soon with La Tour. Perhaps he toldmore to the friar in their last conference. "

"Heretics do not confess, my lord. "

"True enough; but these churchmen have inquisitive minds which go intomen's affairs without confession, " said the governor of Acadia with asmile which lengthened slightly the thread-lines of his lips. D'Aulnayde Charnisay had an eye with a keen blue iris, sorting not at all withthe pigments of his face. As he cast it on the returned friar his merereview deepened to a scrutiny used to detecting concealments. 

"Hath this Capuchin shrunk?" exclaimed D'Aulnay. "He is not as tall ashe was. "

All present looked with quickened attention at the soldier, who expectedthem to pull off his cowl and expose a head of thrifty clusters whichhad never known the tonsure. His beaver cap lay in the trench with thereal Father Vincent. 

He folded his arms on his breast with a gesture of patience which hadits effect. D'Aulnay's followers knew the warfare between their seigniorand Father Vincent de Paris, the only churchman in Acadia who insistedon bringing him to account; and who had found means to supplant afavorite priest on this expedition, for the purpose of watching him. D'Aulnay bore it with assumed good-humor. He had his religious scruplesas well as his revenges and ambitions. But there were ways in which anintruding churchman could be martyred by irony and covert abuse, and bydiscomfort chargeable to the circumstances of war. Father Vincent deParis, on his part, bore such martyrdom silently, but stinted no word ofneeded rebuke. A woman's mourning in the dusky tent next to D'Aulnay'snow rose to such wildness of piteous cries as to divert even him fromthe shrinkage of Father Vincent's height. No other voice could be heard, comforting her. She was alone with sorrow in the midst of an army offray-hardened men. A look of embarrassment passed over De Charnisay'sface, and he said to the officer nearest him, --

"Remove that woman to another part of the camp. "

"The Swiss's wife, my lord?"

"The Swiss's widow, to speak exactly. " He turned again with a frowningsmile to the silent Capuchin. "By the proofs she gives, my kindness hathnot been so great to that woman that the church need upbraid me. "

Marguerite came out of the tent at a peremptory word given by theofficer at its opening. She did not look toward D'Aulnay de Charnisay, the power who had made her his foolish agent to the destruction of theman who loved her. Muffling her heartbroken cries she followed thesubaltern away into darkness--she who had meant at all costs to bemistress of Penobscot. When distance somewhat relieved their ears, D'Aulnay took up a paper lying before him on the table and spoke in somehaste to the friar. 

"You will go with escort to the walls of the fort, Father Vincent, anddemand to speak with Madame La Tour. She hath, it appears, littleaversion to being seen on the walls. Give into her hand this paper. "

The soldier under the cowl, dreading that his unbroken silence might benoted against him, made some muttering remonstrance, at which D'Aulnaylaughed while tying the packet. 

"When churchmen go to war, Father Vincent, they must expect to share itsrisks, at least in offices of mediation. Look you: they tell me theJesuits and missionaries of Quebec and Montreal are ever before thesoldier in the march upon this New World. But Capuchins are a lazy, selfish order. They would lie at their ease in a monastery, exertingthemselves only to spy upon their neighbors. "

He held out the packet. The soldier in the capote had to step forward toreceive it, and D'Aulnay's eye fell upon the sandal advanced near thetorch. 

"Come, this is not our Capuchin, " he exclaimed grimly. "This man hath afoot whiter than my own!"

The feeling that he was detected gave the soldier desperate boldness andscorn of all further caution. He stood erect and lifted his face. Thoughthe folds of the cowl fell around it, the governor caught hiscontemptuous eye. 

"Wash thy heart as I have washed my feet, and it also will be white, D'Aulnay de Charnisay!"

"There spoke the Capuchin, " said D'Aulnay with a nod. His close faceallowed itself some pleasure in baiting a friar, and if he had suspectedFather Vincent of changed identity, his own men were not sure of hissuspicion the next instant. 

"Our friar hath washed his feet, " he observed insolently, pointing outthe evident fact. "Such penance and ablution he hath never before putupon himself since he came to Acadia! I will set it down in mydispatches to the king, for his majesty will take pleasure in suchnews:--'Father Vincent de Paris, on this blessed Pâques day of the year1645, hath washed his feet. '"

The men laughed in a half ashamed way which apologized to the holy manwhile it deferred to the master, and D'Aulnay dismissed his envoy withseriousness. The two officers who had taken his orders lighted anothertorch at the blaze in front of the tent, and led away the willing friar. D'Aulnay watched them down the avenue of lodges, and when their figuresentered blurred space, watched the moving star which indicated theirprogress. The officer who had brought Father Vincent to this conference, also stood musing after them with unlaid suspicion. 

"Close my tent, " said D'Aulnay, rising, "and set the table within. "

"My lord, " spoke out the subordinate, "I did not tell you the men werethrown into confusion around the Swiss. "

"Well, monsieur?" responded D'Aulnay curtly, with an attentive eye. 

"There was a stampede of the cattle loosened from the stable. FatherVincent fell into the empty trench. They doubtless lost sight of himuntil he came out again. "

"Therefore, monsieur?"

"It seemed to me as your lordship said, that this man scarce had thebearing of a friar, until, indeed, he spoke out in denunciation, andthen his voice sounded a deeper tone than I ever heard in it before. "

"Why did you not tell me this directly?"

"My lord, I had not thought it until he showed such readiness to movetoward yon fort. "

"Did you examine the trench?"

"No, my lord. I hurried the friar hither at your command. "

"It was the part of a prudent soldier, " sneered his master, "to leave adark trench possibly full of La Tour's recruits, and trot a friar intocamp. "

"But the sentinels are there, monsieur, and they gave no alarm. "

"The sentinels are like you. They will think of giving an alarmto-morrow sunrise, when the fort is strengthened by a new garrison. Takea company of men, surround that trench, double the guards, send me backthat friar, and do all with such haste as I have never seen thee show inmy service yet. "

"Yes, my lord. "

While the officer ran among the tents, D'Aulnay walked back and forthoutside, nervously impatient to have his men gone. He whispered with alaugh in his beard, "Charles de Menou, D'Aulnay de Charnisay, are you tobe twice beaten by a woman? If La Tour hath come back with help andentered the fort, the siege may as well be raised to-morrow. "

The cowled soldier taxed his escort in the speed he made across thatdark country separating camp and fortress. 

"Go softly, good father, " remonstrated one of the officers, stumblingamong stones. "The Sieur D'Aulnay meant not that we should break ournecks at this business. "

But he led them with no abatement and a stern and offended mien;wondering secretly if the real Father Vincent would by this time be ableto make some noise in the trench. Unaccountable night sounds startledthe ear. He turned to the fortress ascent while the trench yet laydistant. 

"There is an easier way, father, " urged one of the men, obliged, however, to follow him and bend to the task of climbing. The discomfortof treading stony soil in sandals, and the sensibility of his uncoveredshins to even that soft night air, made him smile under the cowl. Asentinel challenged them and was answered by his companions. Passing on, they reached the wall near the gate. Here the hill sloped less abruptlythan at the towered corner. The rocky foundation of Fort St. John madea moat impossible. Guards on the wall now challenged them, and themuzzles of three guns looked down, distinct eyes in the liftedtorchlight, but at the sign of truce these were withdrawn. 

"The Sieur D'Aulnay de Charnisay sends this friar with dispatches to thelady of the fort, " said one of the officers. "Call your lady to receivethem into her own hand. These are our orders. "

"And put down a ladder, " said the other officer, "that he may ascendwith them. "

"We put down no ladders, " answered the man leaning over the wall. "Wewill call our lady, but you must yourselves find an arm long enough tolift your dispatches to her. "

During this parley, the rush of men coming from the camp began to beheard. The guards on the wall listened, and two of them promptly trainedthe cannon in that direction. 

"You have come to surprise us again, " taunted the third guard, leaningover the wall; "but the Swiss is not here now!"

The soldier saw his escape was cut off, and desperately casting back hismonk's hood, he shouted upwards, --

"La Tour! La Tour! Put down the ladder--it is Edelwald!"

XVII. 

AN ACADIAN PASSOVER. 

At that name, down came a ladder as if shot from a catapult. Edelwaldsprung up the rounds and both of D'Aulnay's officers seized him. He haddrawn one of his long pistols and he clubbed it on their heads so thatthey staggered back. The sentinels and advancing men fired on him, butby some muscular flash he was flat upon the top of the wall, and thecannon sprung with a roar at his enemies. They were directly in itstrack, and they took to the trench. Edelwald, dragging the ladder upafter him, laughed at the state in which they must find Father Vincent. The entire garrison rushed to the walls, and D'Aulnay's camp stirredwith the rolling of drums. Then there was a pause, and each partywaited further aggression from the other. The fort's gun had spoken butonce. Perhaps some intelligence passed from trench to camp. Presentlythe unsuccessful company ventured from their breastwork and moved away, and both sides again had rest for the night. 

Madame La Tour stood in the fort, watching the action of her garrisonoutlined against the sky. She could no longer ascend the wall by herprivate stairs. Cannon shot had torn down her chimney and piled its rockin a barricade against the door. Sentinels were changed, and therelieved soldiers descended from the wall and returned to that greatroom of the tower which had been turned into a common camp. It seemedunder strange enchantment. There was a hole beside the portrait ofClaude La Tour, and through its tunnel starlight could be seen and thenight air breathed in. The carved buffet was shattered. The usual log, however, burned in cheer, and families had reunited in distinct nests. Apavilion of tapestry was set up for Lady Dorinda and all her treasures, near the stairs: the southern window of her chamber had been made atarget. 

Le Rossignol sat on a table, with the four expectant children stilldancing in front of her. Was it not Pâques evening? The alarm being overshe again began her merriest tunes. Irregular life in a besiegedfortress had its fascination for the children. No bedtime laws could beenforced where the entire household stirred. But to Shubenacadie suchturmoil was scandalous. He also lived in the hall during the day, and aslate at night as his mistress chose, but he lived a retired life, squatted in a corner, hissing at all who passed near him. Perhaps hepined for water whereon to spread his wings and sail. Sometimes hequavered a plaintive remark on society as he found it, and sometimes hestretched up his neck to its longest length, a sinuous white serpent, and gazed wrathfully at the paneled ceiling. The firelight revealed himat this moment a bundle of glistening satin, wrapped in sleep and hiswings from the alarms of war. 

Marie stood at the hearth to receive Edelwald. He came striding fromamong her soldiers, his head showing like a Roman's above the cowl. Itwas dark-eyed, shapely of feature, and with a mouth and inward curveabove the chin so beautiful that their chiseled strength was always asurprise. As he faced the lady of the fortress he stood no taller thanshe did, but his contour was muscular. 

After dropping on his knee to kiss her hand, he stood up to bear thesearch of her eyes. They swept down his friar's dress and found it notso strange that it should supplant her immediate inquiry, --

"Your news? My lord is well?"

"Yes, my lady. "

"Is he without?"

"My lady, he is at the outpost at the head of Fundy Bay. "

Her face whitened terribly. She knew what this meant. La Tour could getno help. Nicholas Denys denied him men. There was no hope of rescue forFort St. John. He was waiting in the outpost for his ship to bring himhome--the home besieged by D'Aulnay. The blood returned to her face witha rush, her mouth quivered, and she sobbed two or three times withouttears. La Tour could have taken her in his arms. But Edelwald folded hisempty arms across his breast. 

"My lady, I would rather be shot than bring you this message. "

"Klussman betrayed us, Edelwald! and I know I hurt men, hurt them withmy own hands, striking and shooting on the wall!"

She threw herself against the settle and shook with weeping. It was therevolt of womanhood. The soldier hung his head. It relieved him todeclare savagely, --

"Klussman hath his pay. D'Aulnay's followers have just hanged him belowthe fort. "

"Hanged him! Hanged poor Klussman? Edelwald, I cannot haveKlussman--hanged!"

Le Rossignol had stopped her mandolin, and the children clustered nearEdelwald waiting for his notice. One of them now ran with the news toher. 

"Klussman is hanged, " she repeated, changing her position on the tableand laying the mandolin down. "Faith, we are never satisfied with ourgood. I am in a rage now because they hanged not the woman in hisstead. "

Marie wiped off her tears. The black rings of sleeplessness around hereyes emphasized her loss of color, but she was beautiful. 

"How foolish doth weariness make a woman! I expected no help fromDenys--yet rested my last hope on it. You must eat, Edelwald. By yourdress and the alarm raised you have come into the fort through dangerand effort. "

"My lady, if, you will permit me first to go to my room, I will findsomething which sorts better with a soldier than this churchman's gown. My buckskin, I was obliged to mutilate to make me a proper friar. "

"Go, assuredly. But I know not what rubbish the cannon of D'Aulnay havebattered down in your room. The monk's frock will scarce feel lonesomein that part of our tower now: we have had two Jesuits to lodge theresince you left. "

"Did they carry away Madame Bronck? I do not see her among your women. "

"She is fortunate, Edelwald. A man loved her, and traveled hither fromthe Orange settlement. They were wed five days ago, and set out with theJesuits to Montreal. "

Marie did not lift her heavy eyelids while she spoke, and anguish passedunseen across Edelwald's face. Whoever was loved and fortunate, he stoodoutside of such experience. He was young, but there was to be no wooingfor him in the world, however long war might spare him. The women of thefort waited with their children for his notice. His stirring to turntoward them rustled a paper under his capote. 

"My lady, " he said pausing, "D'Aulnay had me in his camp and gave medispatches to you. "

"You were there in this friar's dress?"

Marie looked sincerely the pride she took in his simple courage. 

"Yes, my lady, though much against my will. I was obliged to knock downa reverend shaveling and strip him. But the gown hath served fairly forthe trouble. "

"Hath D'Aulnay many men?"

"He is well equipped. "

Edelwald took the packet from his belt and gave it to her. Marie brokethe thread and sat down on the settle, spreading D'Aulnay's paper to thefirelight. She read it in silence, and handed it to Edelwald. He leanedtoward the fire and read it also. 

D'Aulnay de Charnisay demanded the surrender of Fort St. John with allits stores, ammunition, moneys and plate, and its present smallgarrison. When Edelwald looked up, Marie extended her hand for thedispatch and threw it into the fire. 

"Let that be his answer, " said Edelwald. 

"If we surrender, " spoke the lady of the fort, "we will make our ownterms. "

"My lady, you will not surrender. "

As she looked at Edelwald, the comfort of having him there softened theresolute lines of her face into childlike curves. Being about the sameage she felt always a youthful comradeship with him. Her eyes againfilled. 

"Edelwald, we have lost ten men. "

"D'Aulnay has doubtless lost ten or twenty times as many. "

"What are men to him? Cattle, which he can buy. But to us, they arepriceless. To say nothing of your rank, Edelwald, you alone are worthmore than all the armies D'Aulnay can muster. "

He sheltered his face with one hand as if the fire scorched him. 

"My lady, Sieur Charles would have us hold this place. Consider: it ishis last fortress except that stockade. "

"You mistake him, Edelwald. He would save the garrison and let the fortgo. If he or you had not come to-night I must have died of mytroubles. "

She conquered some sobbing, and asked, "How does he bear this despair, Edelwald? for he knew it must come to this without help. "

"He was heartsick with anxiety to return, my lady. "

She leaned against the back of the settle. 

"Do not say things to induce me to sacrifice his men for his fort. "

"Do you think, my lady, that D'Aulnay would spare the garrison if hegets possession of this fort?"

"On no other condition will he get the fort. He shall let all my bravemen go out with the honors of war. "

"But if he accepts such terms--will he keep them?"

"Is not any man obliged to keep a written treaty?"

"Kings are scarce obliged to do that. "

"I see what you would do, " said Marie, "and I tell you it is useless. You would frighten me with D'Aulnay into allowing you, our onlyofficer, and these men, our only soldiers, to ransom this fort with yourlives. It comes to that. We might hold out a few more days and end bybeing at his mercy. "

"Let the men themselves be spoken to, " entreated Edelwald. 

"They will all, like you, beg to give themselves to the holding ofCharles La Tour's property. I have balanced these matters night and day. We must surrender, Edelwald. We must surrender to-morrow. "

"My lady, I am one more man. And I will now take charge of the defense. "

"And what could I say to my lord if you were killed?--you, the friend ofhis house, the soldier who lately came with such hopes to Acadia. Ourfortunes do you harm enough, Edelwald. I could never face my lord againwithout you and his men. "

"Sieur Charles loves me well enough to trust me with his most dangerousaffairs, my lady. The keeping of this fortress shall be one of them. "

"O Edelwald, go away from me now!" she cried out piteously. He droppedhis head and turned on the instant. The women met him and the childrenhung to him; and that little being who was neither woman nor child soresented the noise which they made about him as he approached her tablethat she took her mandolin and swept them out of her way. 

"How fares Shubenacadie?" he inquired over the claw she presented tohim. 

"Shubenacadie's feathers are curdled. He hath greatly soured. Confess meand give me thy benediction, Father Edelwald for I have sinned. "

"Not since I took these orders, I hope, " said Edelwald. "As a Capuchin Iam only an hour old. "

"Within the hour, then, I have beaten my swan, bred a quarrel amongstthese spawn of the common soldier, and wished a woman hanged. "

"A naughty list, " said Edelwald. 

"Yes, but lying is worse than any of these. Lying doth make the soulsick. "

"How do you know that?"

"I have tried it, " said Le Rossignol. "Many a time have I tried it. Scarce half an hour ago I told her forlorn old highness that the fortwas surely taken this time, and I think she hath buried herself in herchest. "

"Edelwald, " said a voice from the tapestried pavilion. Lady Dorinda'shead and hand appeared, with the curtains drawn behind them. 

As the soldier bent to his service upon the hand of the old maid ofhonor, she exclaimed whimsically, --

"What, Edelwald! Are our fortunes at such ebb that you are taking to aRomish cloister?"

"No cloister for me. Your ladyship sees only a cover which I think ofrendering to its owner again. He may not have a second capote in theworld, being friar extraordinary to D'Aulnay de Charnisay, who isnotable for seizing other men's goods. "

"Edelwald, you bring ill news?"

"There was none other to bring. "

"Is Charles La Tour then in such straits that we are to have no reliefin this fortress?"

"We can look for nothing, Lady Dorinda. "

"Thou seest now, Edelwald, how France requites his service. If he hadlistened to his father he might to-day be second to none in Acadia, withmen and wealth in abundance. "

"Yet, your ladyship, we love our France!"

"Oh, you do put me out of patience! But the discomforts and perils ofthis siege have scarce left me any. We are walled together here likesheep. "

"It is trying, your ladyship, but if we succeed in keeping the butcherout we may do better presently. "

Marie sent her woman for writing tools, and was busy with them whenEdelwald returned in his ordinary rich dark dress. She made him a placebeside her on the settle, and submitted the paper to his eye. The womenand children listened. They knew their situation was desperate. Whispering together they decided with their lady that she would do bestto save her soldiers and sacrifice the fort. 

Edelwald read the terms she intended to demand, and then looked aside atthe beautiful and tender woman who had borne the hardships of war. Sheshould do anything she wished. It was worth while to surrender ifsurrendering decreased her care. All Acadia was nothing when weighedagainst her peace of mind. He felt his rage mounting against Charles LaTour for leaving her exposed in this frontier post, the instrument ofher lord's ambition and political feud. In Edelwald's silent andunguessed warfare with his secret, he had this one small half hour'struce. Marie sat under his eyes in firelight, depending on the comfortof his presence. Rapture opened its sensitive flower and lifeculminated for him. Unconscious of it, she wrote down his suggestions, bending her head seriously to the task. 

Edelwald himself finally made a draft of the paper for D'Aulnay. Theweary men had thrown themselves down to sleep, and heard no colloquy. But presently the cook was aroused from among them and bid to set outsuch a feast as he had never before made in Fort St. John. 

"Use of our best supplies, " directed Marie. "To-morrow we may give upall we have remaining to the enemy. We will eat a great supper togetherthis Pâques night. "

The cook took an assistant and labored well. Kettles and pans multipliedon coals raked out for their service. Marie had the men bring such doorsas remained from the barracks and lay them from table to table, makingone long board for her household; and this the women dressed in the bestlinen of the house. They set on plate which had been in La Tour'sfamily for generations. Every accumulation of prosperity was brought outfor this final use. The tunnel in the wall was stopped with blankets, and wax candles were lighted everywhere. Odors of festivity filled thechildren with eagerness. It was like the new year when there was alwaysmerry-making in the hall, yet it was also like a religious ceremony. Themen rose from their pallets and set aside screens, and the news wasspread when sentinels were changed. 

Marie called Zélie up to her ruined apartment, and standing amidst stoneand plaster, was dressed in her most magnificent gown and jewels. Sheappeared on the stairs in the royal blackness of velvet whitened bylaces and sparkling with points of tinted fire. Edelwald led her to thehead of the long board, and she directed her people to range themselvesdown its length in the order of their families. 

"My men, " said Madame La Tour to each party in turn as they wererelieved on the walls to sit down at the table below her, "we areholding a passover supper this Pâques night because it may be our lastnight in Fort St. John. You all understand how Sieur de la Tour hathfared. We are reduced to the last straits. Yet not to the last straits, my men, if we can keep you. With such followers your lord can make somestand elsewhere. D'Aulnay has proposed a surrender. I refused his terms, and have set down others, which will sacrifice the fort but save thegarrison. Edelwald, our only officer, is against surrender, because he, like yourselves, would give the greater for the less, which I cannotallow. "

"My lady, " spoke Glaud Burge, a sturdy grizzled man, rising to speak forthe first squad, "we have been talking of this matter together, and wethink Edelwald is right. The fort is hard beset, and it is true thereare fewer of us than at first, but we may hold out somehow and keep thewalls around us. We have no stomach to strike flag to D'Aulnay deCharnisay. "

"My lady, " spoke Jean le Prince, the youngest man in the fortress, whowas appointed to speak for the second squad when their turn came to sitdown at the table, "we also think Edelwald is right in counseling younot to give up Fort St. John. We say nothing of D'Aulnay's hangingKlussman, for Klussman deserved it. But we would rather be shot down manby man than go out by the grace of D'Aulnay. "

She answered both squads, --

"Do not argue against surrender, my men. We can look for no help. Thefort must go in a few more days anyhow, and by capitulating we can maketerms. My lord can build other forts, but where will he find otherfollowers like you? You will march out not by the grace of D'Aulnay butwith the honors of war. Now speak of it no more, and let us make this afestival. "

So they made it a festival. With guards coming and going constantly, every man took the pleasure of the hall while the walls were kept. 

Such a night was never before celebrated in Fort St. John. A heavierrace might have touched the sadness underlying such gayety; or havefathomed moonlight to that terrible burden of the elm-tree down theslope. But this French garrison lent themselves heartily to the hour, enjoying without past or future. Stories were told of the New World andof France, tales of persecuted Huguenots, legends which their fathershad handed down to them, and traditions picked up among the Indians. Edelwald took the dwarf's mandolin and stood up among them singing thesongs they loved, the high and courageous songs, loving songs, and songsof faith. Lady Dorinda, having shut her curtain for the night, declinedto take any part in this household festivity, though she contributedsome unheard sighs and groans of annoyance during its progress. Aphlegmatic woman, fond of her ease, could hardly keep her tranquillity, besieged by cannon in the daytime, and by chattering and laughter, thecracking of nuts and the thump of soldiers' feet half the night. 

But Shubenacadie came out of his corner and lifted his wings for battle. Le Rossignol first soothed him and then betrayed him into shoes of birchbark which she carried in her pocket for the purpose of makingShubenacadie dance. Shubenacadie began to dance in a wild untutored trotmost laughable to see. He varied his paddling on the flags by sallieswith bill and wings against the dear mistress who made him a spectacle;and finally at Marie's word he was relieved, and waddled back to hiscorner to eat and doze and mutter swan talk against such orgies in FortSt. John. The children had long fallen asleep with rapturous fatigue, when Marie stood up and made her people follow her in a prayer. Thewaxlights were then put out, screens divided the camp, and quietfollowed. 

Of all nights in Le Rossignol's life this one seemed least likely to bechosen as her occasion for a flight. The walls were strictly guarded, and at midnight the moon spread its ghostly day over all visible earth. Besides, if the fortress was to be surrendered, there was immediateprospect of a voyage for all the household. 

The dwarf's world was near the ground, to which the thinking of the tallmen and women around her scarcely stooped. But she seized on and weighedand tried their thoughts, arriving at shrewd issues. Nobody had askedher advice about the capitulation. Without asking anybody's advice shedecided that the Hollandais Van Corlaer and the Jesuit priest FatherJogues would be wholesome checks upon D'Aulnay de Charnisay when herlady opened the fort to him. The weather must have prevented Van Corlaerfrom getting beyond the sound of cannon, and neither he nor the priestcould indifferently leave the lady of St. John to her fate, and MadameAntonia would refuse to do it. Le Rossignol believed the party that hadset out early in the week must be encamped not far away. 

Edelwald mounted a bastion with the sentinels. That weird light of themoon which seems the faded and forgotten ghost of day, restedeverywhere. The shadow of the tower fell inward, and also partly coveredthe front wall. This enchanted land of night cooled Edelwald. He threwhis arms upward with a passionate gesture to which the soldiers hadbecome accustomed in their experience of the young chevalier. 

"What is that?" exclaimed the man nearest him, for there was disturbancein the opposite bastion. Edelwald moved at once across the interval ofwall and found the sentinels in that bastion divided between laughterand superstitious awe. 

"She's out again, " said one. 

"Who is out?" demanded Edelwald. 

"The little swan-riding witch. "

"You have not let the dwarf scale this wall? If she could do thatunobserved, my men, we are lax. "

"She is one who will neither be let nor hindered. We are scarce sure weeven saw her. There was but the swoop of wings. "

"Why, Renot, my lad, " insisted Edelwald, "we could see her white swannow in this noon of moonlight, if she were abroad. Besides, D'Aulnay hassentinels stationed around this height. They will check her. "

"They will check the wind across Fundy Bay first, " said the other man. 

"You cannot think Le Rossignol has risen in the air on her swan's back?That is too absurd, " said Edelwald. "No one ever saw her play suchpranks. And you could have winged the heavy bird as he rose. "

"I know she is out of Fort St. John at this minute, " insisted RenotBabinet. "And how are you to wing a bird which gets out of sight beforeyou know what has happened?"

"I say it is no wonder we have trouble in this seigniory, " growled theother man. "Our lady never could see a mongrel baby or a witch dwarf ora stray black gown anywhere, but she must have it into the fort and makeit free of the best here. "

"And God forever bless her, " said Edelwald, baring his head. 

"Amen, " they both responded with force. 

The silent cry was mighty behind Edelwald's lips;--the cry which heintrusted not even to his human breath--

"My love--my love! My royal lady! God, thou who alone knowest my secret, make me a giant to hold it down!"

XVIII. 

THE SONG OF EDELWALD. 

At daybreak a signal on the wall where it could be seen from D'Aulnay'scamp brought an officer and his men to receive Madame La Tour'sdispatches. Glaud Burge handed them, down at the end of a ramrod. 

"But see yonder, " he said to François Bastarack his companion, as theystood and watched the messengers tramp away. He pointed to Klussmanbelow the fort--poor Klussman whom the pearly vapors of morning couldnot conceal. "I could have done that myself in first heat, but I likenot treating with a man who did it coolly. "

Parleying and demurring over the terms of surrender continued untilnoon. All that time ax, saw and hammer worked in D'Aulnay's camp as ifhe had suddenly taken to ship-building. But the pastimes of a victoriousforce are regarded with dull attention by the vanquished. Finally thepapers were handed up bearing D'Aulnay's signature. They guaranteed toMadame La Tour the safety of her garrison, who were to march out withtheir arms and personal belongings, the household goods of her people;and La Tour's ship with provisions enough to stock it for a voyage. Themoney, merchandise, stores, jewels and ordnance fell to D'Aulnay withthe fort. 

D'Aulnay marched directly on his conquest. His drums approached, and thegarrison ran to throw into a heap such things as they and their familieswere to take away. Spotless weather and a dimpled bay adorned this lostseigniory. It was better than any dukedom in France to these firstexiled Acadians. Pierre Doucett's widow and another bereaved woman kneltto cry once more over the trench by the powder-house. Her baby, hid in acase like a bolster, hung across her shoulder. Lady Dorinda'sbelongings, numbered among the goods of the household, were also placednear the gate. She sat within the hall, wrapped for her journey, composed and silent. For when the evil day actually overtook LadyDorinda, she was too thorough a Briton to cringe. She met her secondrepulse from Acadia as she had met her first, when Claude La Tour foundher his only consolation. In this violent uprooting of family life solong grown to one place, Le Rossignol was scarcely missed. Each onethought of the person dearest to himself and of that person's comfort. Marie noted her absence, but the dwarf never came to harm. She wascertain to rejoin the household somewhere, and who could blame her foravoiding the capitulation if she found it possible? The littleNightingale could not endure pain. Edelwald drew the garrison up in lineand the gates were opened. 

D'Aulnay entered the fort with his small army. He was splendidlydressed, and such pieces of armor as he wore dazzled the eye. As hereturned the salute of Edelwald and the garrison, he paused and whitenedwith chagrin. Klussman had told him something of the weakness of theplace, but he had not expected to find such a pitiful remnant of men. Twenty-three soldiers and an officer! These were the precious creatureswho had cost him so much, and whom their lady was so anxious to save! Hesmiled at the disproportionate preparations made by his hammers andsaws, and glanced back to see if the timbers were being carried in. Theywere, at the rear of his force, but behind them intruded Father Vincentde Paris wrapped in a blanket which one of the soldiers had provided forhim. The scantiness of this good friar's apparel should have restrainedhim in camp. But he was such an apostle as stalks naked to duty if needbe, and he felt it his present duty to keep the check of religion uponthe implacable nature of D'Aulnay de Charnisay. 

D'Aulnay ordered the gates shut. He would have shut out Father Vincent, but it could not be managed without great discourtesy, and there arelimits to that with a churchman. The household and garrison ready todepart saw this strange action with dismay, and Marie stepped directlydown from her hall to confront her enemy. D'Aulnay had seen her at PortRoyal when he first came to Acadia. He remembered her motion in thedance, and approved of it. She was a beautiful woman, though herHuguenot gown and close cap now gave her a widowed look--becoming to awoman of exploits. But she was also the woman to whom he owed one defeatand much humiliation. 

He swept his plume at her feet. 

"Permit me, Madame La Tour, to make my compliments to an amazon. My owntaste are women who stay in the house at their prayers, but the Sieur dela Tour and I differ in many things. "

"Doubtless, my lord De Charnisay, " responded Marie with the dignitywhich cannot taunt, though she still believed the outcast child to behis. "But why have you closed on us the gates which we opened to you?"

"Madame, I have been deceived in the terms of capitulation. "

"My lord, the terms of capitulation were set down plainly and I holdthem signed by your hand. "

"But a signature is nothing when gross advantage hath been taken of oneof the parties to a treaty. "

The mistake she had made in trusting to the military honor of D'Aulnayde Charnisay swept through Marie. But she controlled her voice toinquire, --

"What gross advantage can there be, my lord D'Aulnay--unless you areabout to take a gross advantage of us? We leave you here ten thousandpounds of the money of England, our plate and jewels and furs, and ourstores except a little food for a journey. We go out poor; yet if ourtreaty is kept we shall complain of no gross advantage. "

"Look at those men, " said D'Aulnay, shaking his glove at her soldiers. 

"Those weary and faithful men, " said Marie: "I see them. "

"You will see them hanged as traitors, madame. I have no time toparley, " exclaimed D'Aulnay. "The terms of capitulation are notsatisfactory to me. I do not feel bound by them. You may take your womenand withdraw when you please, but these men I shall hang. "

While he spoke he lifted and shook his hand as if giving a signal, andthe garrison was that instant seized, by his soldiers. Her womenscreamed. There was such a struggle in the fort as there had been uponthe wall, except that she herself stood blank in mind, and pulseless. The actual and the unreal shimmered together. But there stood hergarrison, from Edelwald to Jean le Prince, bound like criminals, regarding their captors with that baffled and half ashamed look of thesurprised and overpowered. Above the mass of D'Aulnay's busy soldierytimber uprights were reared, and hammers and spikes set to work on thelikeness of a scaffold. The preparations of the morning made thecompletion of this task swift and easy. D'Aulnay de Charnisay intendedto hang her garrison when he set his name to the paper securing theirlives. The ringing of hammers sounded far off to Marie. 

"I don't understand these things, " she articulated. "I don't understandanything in the world!"

D'Aulnay gave himself up to watching the process, in spite of FatherVincent de Paris, whose steady remonstrances he answered only by shrugs. In that age of religious slaughter the Capuchin could scarcely object todecreasing heretics, but he did object as a man and a priest to suchbarbarous treachery toward men with whom a compact had been made. Therefined nurture of France was not recent in D'Aulnay's experience, buthe came of a great and honorable house, and the friar's appeal was madeto inherited instincts. 

"Good churchman, " spoke out Jean le Prince, the lad, shaking his hairback from his face, "your capote and sandals lie there by the door ofthe tower, where Edelwald took thought to place them for you. But youwho have the soldier's heart should wear the soldier's dress, and hideD'Aulnay de Charnisay under the cowl. "

"You men-at-arms, " Glaud Burge exhorted the guards drawn up, on eachside of him and his fellow-prisoners, "will you hang us up like dogs? Ifwe must die we claim the death of soldiers. You have your pieces in yourhands; shoot us. Do us such grace as we would do you in like extremity. "

The guards looked aside at each other and then at their master, shamedthrough their peasant blood by the outrage they were obliged to put upona courageous garrison. But Edelwald said nothing. His eyes were uponMarie. He would not increase her anguish of self-reproach by the changeof a muscle in his face. The garrison was trapped and at the mercy of amerciless enemy. His most passionate desire was to have her taken awaythat she might not witness the execution. Why was Sieur Charles La Toursitting in the stockade at the head of Fundy Bay while she must endurethe sight of this scaffold?

Marie's women knelt around her crying. Her slow distracted gaze traveledfrom Glaud Burge to Jean le Prince, from Renot Babinet to FrançoisBastarack, from Ambroise Tibedeaux along the line of stanch faces toEdelwald. His calm uplifted countenance--with the horrible platform ofdeath growing behind it--looked, as it did when he happily met the seawind or went singing through trackless wilderness. She broke from hertrance and the ring of women, and ran before D'Aulnay de Charnisay. 

"My lord, " said Marie--and she was so beautiful in her ivory pallor, sowonderful with fire moving from the deep places of her dilated blackeyes that he felt satisfaction in attending to her--"it is useless totalk to a man like you. "

"Quite, madame, " said D'Aulnay. "I never discuss affairs with a woman. "

"But you may discuss them with the king when he learns that you havehanged with other soldiers of a ransomed garrison a young officer of thehouse of De Born. "

D'Aulnay ran his eye along the line. The unrest of Edelwald at Marie'sslightest parley with D'Aulnay reminded the keen governor of the face hehad last night seen under the cowl. 

"The king will be obliged to me, " he observed, "when one less hereticalDe Born cumbers his realm. "

"The only plea I make to you, my lord D'Aulnay, is that you hang mealso. For I deserve it. My men had no faith in your military honor, andI had. "

"Madame, you remind me of a fact I desired to overlook. You are indeed atraitor deserving death. But of my clemency, and not because you are awoman, for you yourself have forgotten that in meddling with war, I willonly parade you upon the scaffold as a reprieved criminal. Bring hithera cord, " called D'Aulnay, "and noose it over this lady's head. " Edelwaldraged in a hopeless tearing at his bonds. The guards seized him, but hestruggled with unconquered strength to reach and protect his lady. Father Vincent de Paris had taken his capote and sandals at Jean lePrince's hint, and entered the tower. He clothed himself behind one ofthe screens of the hall, and thought his absence short, but during thattime Marie was put upon the finished scaffold. A skulking reluctantsoldier of D'Aulnay's led her by a cord. She walked the long roughplanks erect. Her garrison to a man looked down, as they did atfunerals, and Edelwald sobbed in his fight against the guards, the tearsstarting from under his eyelids as he heard her foot-fall pass near him. Back and forth she trod, and D'Aulnay watched the spectacle. Hergarrison felt her degradation as she must feel their death. The grizzledlip of Glaud Burge moved first to comfort her. 

"My lady, though our hands be tied, we make our military salute to you, "he said. 

"Fret not, my lady, " said Renot Babinet. 

"Edelwald can turn all these mishaps into a song, my lady, " declaredJean le Prince. Marie had that sensation of lost identity which hasconfused us all. In her walk she passed the loops dangling ready for hermen. A bird, poised for one instant on the turret, uttered a sweet longtrill. She could hear the river. It was incredible that all thoseunknown faces should be swarming below her; that the garrison wasobliged to stand tied; that Lady Dorinda had braved the rabble ofsoldiery and come out to wait weeping at the scaffold end. Marie lookedat the row of downcast faces. The bond between these faithful soldiersand herself was that instant sublime. 

"I crave pardon of you all, " said Marie as she came back and the rustleof her gown again passed them, "for not knowing how to deal with thecrafty of this world. My foolishness has brought you to this scaffold. "

"No, my lady, " said the men in full chorus. 

"We desire nothing better, my lady, " said Edelwald, "since your walkingthere has blessed it. "

Father Vincent's voice from the tower door arrested the spectacle. Hiscowl was pushed back to his shoulders, baring the astonishment of hislean face. 

"This is the unworthiest action of your life, my son De Charnisay, " hedenounced, shaking his finger and striding down at the governor, whoowned the check by a slight grimace. 

"It is enough, " said D'Aulnay. "Let the scaffold now be cleared for themen. "

He submitted with impatience to a continued parley with the Capuchin. Father Vincent de Paris was angry. And constantly as D'Aulnay walkedfrom him he zealously followed. 

The afternoon sunlight sloped into the walls, leaving a bank of shadowbehind the timbered framework, which extended an etching of itselftoward the esplanade. The lengthened figures of soldiers passed also incloudy images along the broken ground, for a subaltern's first duty hadbeen to set guards upon the walls. The new master of Fort St. John wasnow master of all southern and western Acadia; but he had heard nothingwhich secured him against La Tour's return with fresh troops. 

"My friends, " said D'Aulnay, speaking to the garrison, "this good friarpersuades in me more softness than becomes a faithful servant of theking. One of your number I will reprieve. "

"Then let it be Jean le Prince, " said Edelwald, speaking for the firsttime to D'Aulnay de Charnisay. "The down has not yet grown on the lad'slip. "

"But I pardon him, " continued the governor, "on condition that he hangsthe rest of you. "

"Hang thyself!" cried the boy. "Thou art the only man on earth I wouldchoke with a rope. "

"Will no one be reprieved?"

D'Aulnay's eye, traveled from scorn to scorn along the row. 

"It is but the pushing aside of a slab. They are all stubborn heretics, Father Vincent. We waste time. I should be inspecting the contents ofthis fort. "

The women and children were flattening themselves like terrifiedswallows against the gate; for through the hum of stirring soldierypenetrated to them from outside a hint of voices not unknown. Thesentinels had watched a party approaching; but it was so small, andhampered, moreover, by a woman and some object like a tiny gilded sedanchair, that they did not notify the governor. One of the party was aJesuit priest by his cassock, and another his donné. These never camefrom La Tour. Another was a tall Hollandais; and two servants lightlycarried the sedan up the slope. A few more people seemed to wait behindfor the purpose of making a camp, and there were scarce a dozen of theentire company. 

Marie had borne without visible exhaustion the labors of this siege, theanguish of treachery and disappointment, her enemy's breach of faith andcruel parade of her. The garrison were ranged ready upon the plank; butshe held herself in tense control, and waited beside Lady Dorinda, withher back toward the gate, while her friends outside parleyed with herenemy. D'Aulnay refused to admit any one until he had dealt with thegarrison. The Jesuit was reported to him as Father Isaac Jogues, and thename had its effect, as it then had everywhere among people of the Romanfaith. No soldier would be surprised at meeting a Jesuit priest anywherein the New World. But D'Aulnay begged Father Jogues to excuse him whilehe finished a moment's duty, and he would then come out and escort hisguest into the fortress. 

The urgent demand, however, of a missionary to whom even the king hadshown favor, was not to be denied. D'Aulnay had the gates set ajar; andpushing through their aperture came in Father Jogues with his donné andtwo companions. 

The governor advanced in displeasure. He would have put out all but thepriest, but the gates were slammed to prevent others from entering, andslammed against the chair in which the sentinels could see a red-headeddwarf. The weird melody of her screaming threats kept them dubious whilethey grinned. The gates being shut, Marie fled through ranks ofmen-at-arms to Antonia, clung to her and gave Father Jogues and VanCorlaer no time to stand aghast at the spectacle they saw. Crying andtrembling, she put back the sternness of D'Aulnay de Charnisay, and thepity of Father Vincent de Paris, and pleaded with Father Jogues and theHollandais for the lives of her garrison as if they had come withheavenly authority. 

"You see them with ropes around their necks, Monsieur Corlaer andMonsieur Jogues, when here is the paper the governor signed, guaranteeing to me their safety. Edelwald is scarce half a year fromFrance. Speak to the governor of Acadia; for you, Monsieur Corlaer, area man of affairs, and this good missionary is a saint--you can moveD'Aulnay de Charnisay to see it is not the custom, even in warfare withwomen, to trap and hang a garrison who has made honorable surrender. "

A man may resolve that he will not meddle with his neighbor's feuds, orinvolve a community dependent on him with any one's formidable enemy. Yet he will turn back from his course the moment an appeal is made forhis help, and face that enemy as Van Corlaer faced the governor ofAcadia, full of the fury roused by outrage. But what could he and FatherJogues and the persevering Capuchin say to the parchment which thegovernor now deigned to pass from hand to hand among them in reply?--thepermission of Louis XIII. To his beloved D'Aulnay de Charnisay (whom Godhold in His keeping) to take the Fort of St. John and deal with itsrebellious garrison as seemed to him fit, for which destruction ofrebels his sovereign would have him in loving remembrance. 

During all this delay Edelwald stood with his beautiful head erect abovethe noose, and his self-repressed gaze still following Marie. The wivesof other soldiers were wailing for their husbands. But he must diewithout wife, without love. He saw Antonia holding her and weeping withher. His blameless passion filled him like a great prayer. That changingphantasm which we call the world might pass from before his men and himat the next breath; yet the brief last song of the last troubadour burstfrom his lips to comfort the lady of Fort St. John. 

There was in this jubilant cry a gush and grandeur of power outmasteringforce of numbers and brute cunning. It reached and compelled everyspirit in the fortress. The men in line with him stood erect and liftedtheir firm jaws, and gazed forward with shining eyes. Those who hadfaded in the slightest degree from their natural flush of blood felt thestrong throbs which paint a man's best on his face. They could not singthe glory of death in duty, the goodness of God who gave love and valorto man; but they could die with Edelwald. 

The new master of Fort St. John was jealous of such dying as the songceased and he lifted his hand to signal his executioners. Father Joguesturned away praying with tremulous lips. The Capuchin strode toward thehall. But Van Corlaer and Lady Dorinda and Antonia held with thestrength of all three that broken-hearted woman who struggled like agiantess with her arms stretched toward the scaffold. 

"I _will_ save them--I _will_ save them! My brave Edelwald--all my bravesoldiers shall not die!--Where are my soldiers, Antonia? It is dark. Icannot see them any more!"

POSTLUDE. 

A TIDE-CREEK. 

When ordinary days had settled flake on flake over this tragedy inAcadia until memory looked back at it as at the soft outlines of asnow-obliterated grave, Madame Van Corlaer stood one evening beside theHudson River, and for half an hour breathed again the salt breath ofFundy Bay. Usually she was abed at that hour. But Mynheer had beenexpected all day on a sailing vessel from New Amsterdam, and she couldnot resist coming down once more through her garden to the wharf. 

Van Corlaer's house, the best stone mansion in Rensselaerswyck--thatoverflow of settlement around the stockade of Fort Orange--stood up theslope, and had its farm appended. That delight of Dutchmen, an amplegarden, extended its central path almost like an avenue to the river. Antonia need scarcely step off her own domain to meet her husband at thewharf. She had lingered down the garden descent; for sweet herbs weregiving their souls to the summer night there; and not a cloud of a sailyet appeared on the river. Some fishing-boats lay at the wharf, but nomen were idling around under the full moon. It was pleasanter to visitand smoke from door to door in the streets above. 

Antonia was not afraid of any savage ambush. Her husband kept theIroquois on friendly terms with the settlement. The years through whichshe had borne her dignity of being Madame Van Corlaer constantlyincreased her respect for that colonial statesman. The savages in theMohawk valley used the name Corlaer when they meant governor. Antoniafelt sure that the Jesuit missionary, Father Isaac Jogues, need not havedied a martyr's death if Van Corlaer had heard in time of his return tothe Mohawks. 

At the bottom of her garden she rested her hands upon a gate in the lowstone wall. The mansion behind her was well ordered and prosperous. Nodrop of milk was spilled in Antonia's domain without her knowledge. Shehad noted, as she came down the path, how the cabbages were roundingtheir delicately green spheres. Antonia was a housewife for whom maidslabored with zeal. She could manipulate so deftly the comfort-makingthings of life. Neither sunset nor moonrise quite banished the dreamyblue light on these rolling lands around the head-waters of the Hudson. Across her tranquil commonplace happiness blew suddenly that oceanbreath from Fundy Bay; for the dwarf of Fort St. John, leading a whitewaddling bird, whose feathers even in that uncertain light showed soil, appeared from the screening masonry of the wall. 

She stood still and looked at Antonia; and Antonia inside the gatelooked at her. That instant was a bubble full of revolving dyes. Itbrought a thousand pictures to Antonia's sight. Thus silently had thatsame dwarf with her swan appeared to a camp in the Acadian woods, announcing trouble at Fort St. John. 

Again Antonia lived through confusion which was like pillage of thefort. Again she sat in her husband's tent, holding Marie's dying head onher arm while grief worked its swift miracle in a woman formed to suchfullness of beauty and strength. Again she saw two graves and a longtrench made in the frontier graveyard for Marie and her officer Edelwaldand her twenty-three soldiers, all in line with her child. Once moreAntonia saw the household turn from that spot weeping aloud; and DeCharnisay's ships already sailing away with the spoil of the fort toPenobscot; and his sentinels looking down from the walls of St. John. She saw her husband dividing his own party, and sending all the men hecould spare to navigate La Tour's ship and carry the helpless women andchildren to the head of Fundy Bay. All these things revolved beforeher, in that bubble of an instant, before her own voice broke it, saying, --

"Is this you, Le Rossignol?"

"Shubenacadie and I, " responded the dwarf, lilting up sweetly. 

"Where do you come from?" inquired Antonia, feeling the weirdness of hervisitor as she had never felt it in the hall at Fort St. John. 

"Port Royal. I have come from Port Royal on purpose to speak with you. "

"With me?"

"With you, Madame Antonia. "

"You must then go directly to the house and eat some supper, " saidAntonia, speaking her first thought but reserving her second: "Ourpeople will take to the fields when they see the poor little creature bydaylight, and as for the swan, it is worse than a drove of Mynheer'sIndians. "

"I am not eating to-night, I am riding, " answered Le Rossignol, bold inmystery while the moon made half uncertain the draggled state ofShubenacadie's feathers. She placed her hands on his back and pressedhim downward, as if his plumage foamed up from an over-fullpacking-case. Shubenacadie waddled a step or two reluctantly, andsquatted, spreading his wings and curving his head around to look ather. The dwarf sat upon him as upon a throne, stroking his neck with herright hand while she talked. She seemed a part of the river's whisper, or of that world of summer night insects which shrilled around. 

"I have come to tell you about the death of D'Aulnay de Charnisay, " saidthis pigmy. 

"We have long had that news, " responded Antonia, "and worse whichfollowed it. "

Madame Van Corlaer despised Charles La Tour for repossessing himself ofall he had lost and becoming the first power in Acadia by marryingD'Aulnay's widow. 

"No ear, " declared the dwarf, "hath ever heard how D'Aulnay de Charnisaydied. "

"He was stuck in a bog, " said Antonia. 

"He was stuck in no bog, " said Le Rossignol, "for I alone was beside himat the time. And I ride from Port Royal to tell thee the whole of it andfree my mind, lest I be obliged to fling it in my new lady's face thenext time she speaks of his happy memory. Widows who take secondhusbands have no sense about the first one. "

Antonia slightly coughed. It is not pleasant to have your classdisapproved of, even by a dwarf. And she did still secretly respect herfirst husband's prophecy. Had it not been fulfilled on the friend shebest loved, if not on the husband she took?

"Mynheer Van Corlaer will soon be home from New Amsterdam, whither hemade a voyage to confer with the governor, " said Antonia. "Let me takeyou to the house, where we can talk at our ease. "

"I talk most at my ease on Shubenacadie's back, " answered Le Rossignol, holding her swan's head and rubbing her cheek against his bill. "Youwill not keep me a moment at Fort Orange. I fell out of patience withevery place while we lived so long in poverty at that stockade at thehead of Fundy Bay. "

"Did you live there long?" inquired Antonia. 

"Until D'Aulnay de Charnisay died out of my lord's way. What could mylord do for us, indeed, with nothing but a ship and scarce a dozen men?He left some to keep the stockade and took the rest to man his ship whenhe started to Newfoundland to send her forlorn old highness back toEngland. Her old highness hath had many a dower fee from us since thatday. "

"Your lord hath mended his fortunes, " remarked Antonia without approval. 

"Yes, we are now the greatest people in Acadia; we live in grand stateat Port Royal. You would never know him for the careworn man hewas--except once, indeed, when he came from viewing the ruins of FortSt. John. It is no longer maintained as a fortress. But I like not allthese things. I rove more now than when Madame Marie lived. "

Silence was kept a moment after Madame La Tour's name, between Antoniaand her illusive visitor. The dwarf seemed clad in sumptuous garments. Acap of rich velvet could be discerned on her flaring hair instead of thegull-breast covering she once made for herself. 

"Yet I roved much out of the peasants' way at the stockade, " shecontinued, sending the night sounds again into background. "Peasants whohave no master over them become like swine. We had two goats, and Itended them, and sat ages upon ages on the bank of a tide-creek whichruns up among the marshes at the head of Fundy Bay. Madame Antonia, youshould see that tide-creek. It shone like wet sleek red carnelian whenthe water was out of it. I loved its basin; and the goats would go downto lick the salt. They had more sense than D'Aulnay de Charnisay, forthey knew where to venture. I thought D'Aulnay de Charnisay was one ofour goats by his bleat, until I looked down and saw him part sunk in aquicksand at the bottom of the channel. The tide was already frothing inlike yeast upon him. How gloriously the tide shoots up that tide-creek!It hisses. It comes like thousands of horses galloping one behind theother and tumbling over each other, --fierce and snorting spray, andclimbing the banks, and still trampling down and flying over the oneswho have galloped in first. "

"But what did D'Aulnay de Charnisay do?" inquired Antonia. 

"He stuck in the quicksand, " responded Le Rossignol. 

"But did he not call for help?"

"He did nothing else, indeed, until the tide's horses trampled himunder. "

"But what did you do?"

"I sat down and watched him, " said the dwarf. 

"How could you?" shuddered Antonia, feeling how little this tiny being'shumanity was developed. 

"We had some chat, " said Le Rossignol. "He promised me a seigniory if Iwould run and call some men with ropes. 'I heard a Swiss's wife saythat you promised him a seigniory, ' quoth I. 'And you had enough ropesthen. ' He pledged his word and took oath to make me rich if I would gethim only a priest. 'You pledged your word to the lady of Fort St. John, 'said I. The water kept rising and he kept stretching his neck above it, and crying and shouting, and I took his humor and cried and shouted withhim, naming the glorious waves as they rode in from the sea:--

"'Glaud Burge!'

"'Jean le Prince!'

"'Renot Babinet!'

"'Ambroise Tibedeaux!'

"And so on until François Bastarack the twenty-third roller flowed overhis head, and Edelwald did not even know he was beneath. "

Antonia dropped her face upon her hands. 

"So that is the true story, " said Le Rossignol. "He died a good saltdeath, and his men pulled him out before the next tide. "

Presently Antonia looked up. Her eye was first caught by a coming sailon the river. It shone in the moonlight, moving slowly, for there was solittle wind. Her husband must be there. She turned to say so to LeRossignol; who was gone. 

Antonia opened the gate and stepped outside, looking in every directionfor dwarf and swan. She had not even noticed a rustle, or the pat ofShubenacadie's feet upon sand. But Le Rossignol and her familiar haddisappeared in the wide expanse of moonlight; whether deftly behind treeor rock, or over wall, or through air above, Antonia had no mind to findout. 

Even the approaching sail took weirdness. The ship was too distant forher to yet hear the hiss of water around its prow. But in that, VanCorlaer and the homely good happiness of common life was approaching. With the dwarf had disappeared that misty sweet sorrowful Acadian world.