This text is in the public domain because the copyright has expired.
by Charles G. D. Roberts, 1905
Patiently, doggedly, yet with the light in his eyes that belongs to the enthusiast and the dreamer, young Jean Michaud had worked at it. Throughout the winter he had hewed the seasoned timbers and the diminutive hackmatack "knees" from the swamp far back in the Equille Valley; and whenever the sledding was good with his yoke of black oxen he had hauled his materials to the secret place of his shipbuilding by the winding shore of a deep tidal tributary of the Port Royal. In the spring he had laid the keel and riveted securely to it the squared hackmatack knees. It was unusual to use such sturdy and unmanageable timbers as these hackmatack knees for a craft so small as this which the young Acadian was building; but Jean Michaud's thoughts were long thoughts and went far ahead. He was putting all his hopes as well as all his scant patrimony into this little ship; and he was resolved that it should be strong to carry his fortunes.
Through all the green and blue and golden Acadian summer he had toiled joyously at bending the thin planks and riveting them soundly to the ribs, the stem and the sternpost. It was hot work, but white and savory, the clean spruce planks that he wrought with breathing sweet scents to his lungs as adze and chisel and saw set free the tonic spirit of their fibres. His chips soon spread a yellow carpet over the mossy sward and the tree-roots. The yellow sides of his graceful craft presently arose high among the green kissing branches of the water-ash and Indian pear. The tawny golden shimmering current of the creek lipped up at high tide close under the stern of the little ship and set afloat the lowest layers of the chips, while at ebb a gleaming abyss of red mud with walls sloping sharply to a mere rivulet at their foot seemed to tempt the structure to a premature launching and a wild swooping rush to oozy doom. Very secluded, far apart from beaten highway or forest byway, and quite aside from all the river traffic, was the place of Jean Michaud's shipbuilding. And so it came about that the clear ringing blows of his adze, the sharp staccato of his diligent hammer and the strident crying of his saw brought no answer but the chatter of the striped chipmunks among the near tree-roots, or the scolding of the garrulous and inquisitive red squirrels from the branches overhead. At the quiet of the noon hour, while Jean lay in the shade contemplating his handiwork, and weaving his many-colored dreams, and munching his brown-bread cakes and pale cheese, the clucking partridge hen would lead her brood out to investigate the edges of the chip-strewn open, where insects gathered in the heat. And afterward, when once more Jean's hammering set up its brisk and cheerful echoes, the big golden-wing woodpeckers would promptly accept the sound as a challenge, and begin an emolous rat-tat-tat-tat-ing on the resonant sound-board of a dead beech not far off.
By the time the partridge brood had taken to whirring up into the maple branches when alarmed, instead of scurrying to cover in the underbrush, the hull was completed; and a smell of smoking pitch drowned the woodsy odors as Jean calked the seams. Then the pale yellow of the timbers no more shone through the reddening leafage, but a sombre black bulk loomed impressively above the chips, daunting the squirrels for a few days with its strange shadow. By the time of the moose-calling, when the rowan-berries hung in great scarlet bunches and half the red leafage was turning brown, and the pale gold birch leaves fell in fluttering showers at every gust; two slim masts had raised their tops above the trees, and a white bowsprit was thrusting its nose into the branches of the nearest red maple. Under the bowsprit glittered a carved and gilded Madonna, the most auspicious figurehead to which, in Jean's eyes, he could intrust the fortunes of his handiwork. A few days more and the ship was done--so nearly complete that three or four hours of work would make her ready for sea. Being so small, it was feasible to launch her in this advanced state of equipment; and the conditions under which she had been built made it necessary that she should be prepared to hurry straight from the greased ways of the launching to the security of the open sea. The tidal creek in which she would first take water could give her no safe harborage; and once out of the creek she would have to make all speed; under cover of night, till Port Royal River and the sodded ramparts of Annapolis town should be left many miles astern.
Having made his preparations and gathered his materials far ahead, and devised his precautions with subtlety, and accustomed his neighbors to the idea that he was an erratic youth, given to long absences and futile schemes, not worth gossip, Jean had succeeded in keeping his enterprise a secret from all but two persons. These two, deep in his counsels from the first, were Barbe Dieudonne, his sweetheart, and Mich' Masson, his friend and ally:
Mich' Masson--whose home, which served him best as a place to stay away from, was in the village of Grand Pre; far up on the Basin of Minas--had been Jean's close friend since early boyhood, in the days before Port Royal town had been captured by the English and found its name changed to Annapolis. He was a daring adventurer, hunter, woods-ranger, an implacable partisan of the French cause, and just now deeply interested in the traffic between Acadie and the new French fortress city of Louisburg--a traffic which the English Governor was angrily determined to break up. Mich' Masson could sail a ship as well as set a dead-fall or lay an ambush. He had kept bright in Jean's heart the flame of hatred against the English conquerors of Acadie. It was he who had come to the aid of Jean's shipbuilding from time to time, when timbers had to be put in place which were too heavy for one pair of hands to work with. It was, indeed, at his suggestion that Jean had finally decided to sell his cottage on the outskirts of Annapolis town, his scrap of upland with its apple trees in full bearing, his strip of rich dikeland by the riverside--secretly to build his little ship for the forbidden traffic--and to settle under the walls of Louisburg, where the flag he loved should always wave over his roof-tree. It was Mich' Masson who had shown Jean how by this course he could quickly grow rich, and make a home for Barbe which that somewhat disconcerting and incomprehensible maiden would not scorn to accept. Mich' Masson loved his own honor. He loved Jean. He hated the English. Jean's secret was safe with him.
Mademoiselle Barbe, under a disguise of indifference which sometimes reduced Jean to the not unprofitable condition wherein hard work is the sole refuge from despair, hid a passionate interest in her lover's undertaking. She, too, hated the new domination. She, too, chafed to escape from Annapolis and take up life anew under her old Flag of the Fleur-de-lis. Moreover, her restless and fiery spirit could accept no contented tiller of green Acadian acres for a mate; and she was resolved that Jean's courageous heart and stirring dreams should translate themselves into action. She would have him not only the daring dreamer but the daring doer--the successful smuggler, the shrewd foiler of the English watch-dogs, the admired and consulted partisan leader. That he had it in him to be all these things she felt utterly convinced; but she proposed that the debilitating effects of too much happiness should have no chance of postponing his success. Her keen watchfulness detected every weak spot in Jean's enterprise, every unguarded point in his secret: and her two-edged mockery, which seemed as careless and inconsequent as the wind, at once accomplished the effects she had in view. Her fickleness of mood, her bewildering caprice, were the iridescent foam-bubbles veiling a deep and steady current. She knew that she loved Jean's love for her, of which she felt as certain as dawn does of the sunrise. She had a suspicion in the deep of her heart that she might be in love with Jean himself; but of this she was in no haste to be assured. She was loyal in every fibre: And Jean's secret was safe with her.
Thus the wonder came to pass that Jean's secret, though known to three people, yet remained so long a secret. Had the English Governor, behind his sodded ramparts overlooking the tide, got wind of it, never would Jean Michaud's little ship have sailed the open, save with an English captain and an English crew. It would have been confiscated, on the not unreasonable presumption that it was intended for the forbidden trade.
Early in the afternoon, on a day of mid-October, Jean stepped down the ladder which leaned against the starboard bow of his ship, and contemplated with satisfaction the name, "Mon Re^ve," which he had just painted in strong, gold lettering. The exultation in his eyes became a passion of love and worship, as he turned to the slim girl who lay curled up luxuriously on a sweet-smelling pile of dried ferns and marsh-grass, watching him.
"Since you won't let me name her directly after you, that is the nearest I can come to it, Barbe," he said. "You can't find fault with that. You are my dream--and all else besides."
For a moment she watched him in silence. Her figure was of a childish slenderness, and there was a childish abandon in her attitude. The small hands crossed idly in her lap were very dark and thin and long-fingered, with rosy nails. She was dressed in skirt and bodice of the creamy Acadian homespun linen, the skirt reaching not quite to her slim ankles. Her mouth was full and red, half sorrowful, half mocking. Her face, small and rather thin; was tanned to a clear, dark brown, and of a type that suggested a strain of the ancient blood of the Basques. The thick black masses of her hair, with a rebel wave in them, and here and there a glint of flame, half covered her little ears and were gathered into a knot at the back of her neck. The brim of her low-crowned hat of quilted linen was tilted far down to shade her face; and her eyes, very green and clear and large, made a bewildering brilliance in the shadow.
The light in her eyes softened presently, and she said in a low voice:
"Poor boy, a very sharp reality you find me most of the time, I'm afraid."
For this unexpected utterance Jean had no words of answer ready, but his look was a sufficiently eloquent refutation. He took a few eager steps toward her; then, reading inhibition in the sudden gravity of her mouth, he checked himself.
"Day after to-morrow, about sundown," said he "our Lady and St. Joseph permitting, we will get her launched. The tide will be full then, and we will run down with it, and pass the fort before moonrise. If the wind's fair we will get out of the Basin and off to sea that same night; but if it fails us there'll be tide enough to get us round the Island and into a hidden anchorage in Hibert River. Then--a cargo of Acadian beef and barley for Louisburg! And then--money! And then--and then--you!"
He looked at her with pleading and longing in his eyes, but with a doggedness about his mouth which told of much pain endured and a determination which might bide its time, indeed, but would not be balked. The look of the mouth she was conscious of, deep down in her heart, and she in reality rested upon it; but it was the look in his eyes which she answered. She answered it lightly. A mocking smile played about the corners of her lips and her eyes sparkled upon him whimsically. The look both repulsed and invited him; and he hung for some moments, as it were, trembling midway between the promise and the denial.
"Don't be too sure of me!" she said at last. And his face fell--not so much at the words themselves as at their discouraging accent.
"But," he protested, "it is all planned, all done, just for you, Barbe. There is nothing in it at all, except you. It is all you. That is understood between us from the first, and all the time."
Still her mouth mocked him; and still her eyes gleamed upon him with their enigmatic light.
"You will have your beautiful little ship," she said slowly. "You will have wonderful adventures--and little time to think of me at all. You will make a wonderful deal of money. You will make your name famous and hated among these English. I am expecting you to do great things. But as for me--I am not won yet, Jean."
His eyes glowed upon her, and the lines of his face set themselves with a sudden masterfulness. He gave a little, soft laugh.
"You are mine! You will be my wife before I make my second voyage."
"If you believe that, you ought to be a very happy man," she retorted, and her smile softened almost imperceptibly as she said it. "You don't look quite as happy as you ought to, Jean!"
"Don't make me wait for my second voyage! Let me take you away from this unhappy country. Come with me--come with me now!"
He spoke swiftly, his voice thick with the sudden outburst of passion; long held in check; and he strode forward to catch her in his arms.
Instantaneous as a darting bird, or a flash of light on a wave, she was up from her resting-place and away behind the pile of grass and ferns.
"Stay there!" she commanded, "or I'll go home at once!" And Jean stayed.
She laughed at him gayly, mercilessly.
"Would you have me take you on trust, Jean?" she questioned, with her head on one side. "How do I know that you are going to be brave enough to fight the English, or clever enough to outwit them ? How do I know you will really do the great things I'm expecting of you ? I know your dreams are fine, Boy; but you must show me deeds."
"I will," he answered quietly. "Come here, Sweet, just for one minute!"
"No," she said with a very positive shake of her small head. "You must go on with your work. You have more to do yet than you realize. And I've something to do, too. I must go home at once."
"That's not fair, Barbe!" he pleaded.
"I don't care! It is good for you. No, don't come one step with me. Not one step. Go on with your work. I'm going to fly."
She ran lightly across the chips, at a safe distance from Jean's outstretched arms, and turned into the trail among the maples. There she paused, gave her lover one melting, caressing, but still half-mocking glance, and cried to him:
"I am making a flag for 'Mon Re^ve,' and it's not nearly done yet, Jean."
Then she disappeared among the bright branches.
With a tumult in his heart Jean turned back to his ladder and paint-pot. Little twinges of angry disappointment ran along his nerves, only to be smothered straightway in a flood of passionate tenderness.
"Next voyage, anyway!" he muttered to himself as he worked feverishly. "I couldn't live longer than that without her!" And he went over and over in his imagination every detail of the girl's appearance; the changing moods of her radiant dark face, her hair, her hands, the tones of her voice.
Along the trail through the autumn maples, meanwhile Mademoiselle Barbe was speeding on light feet. The little smile was gone from the corners of her mouth, and into her eyes, now that Jean could no longer see them, was come a great gentleness. Her mockery, her impatience, her picturesque asperity were a kind of game which she played with herself, to disguise, sometimes even from herself; the greatness and the oversensitiveness of her heart. At this moment she was feeling sore at the nearness of Jean's departure, and was conscious of the pressure of his will urging her to go with him. This she was resolved she would not do; but she was equally resolved that her flag should be ready and go in her place. As for the next voyage--well, she thought to herself that Jean might persuade her by that time, if he tried hard. As to his success she had not really a grain of doubt. She knew well enough the quality of his fibre. Her light feet, as she hurried, made hardly a sound upon the soft mould of the trail, which was half-hidden by the bright autumn carpeting of the leaves. But presently she heard the noise of heavier footfalls approaching. Just ahead of her the trail turned sharply. Peering through the tangle of branches and thinned leafage, she caught glimpses of something that caused her face to grow pale, her heart to throb up into her throat; and she stepped behind the thick shelter of a fir bush to consider what was to be done.
The sight that so disturbed her was in itself no terrible one. A tall, ruddy-faced, keen-eyed man, carelessly dressed, but of erect, military bearing, came striding up the trail, a gun over his arm; a brown dog at his heels. Barbe recognized him at once--the English officer in command of the fort at Annapolis. She saw that he was out for partridges--but she saw, also, that he was walking at a pace that would speedily devour the scant two miles that divided him from the shipyard of "Mon Re^ve." It was evident that he had forgotten his shooting in his interest in this unknown trail upon which he had stumbled. If he went on the game was up for Jean's little ship!
She resolved that he should not go on. It took her just five seconds to decide the whole question. There was a large fallen tree close beside the trail, two or three paces from where she hid. Over this she threw herself discreetly, with a little choking scream, and lay moaning among the leaves beside it.
The Englishman darted forward and was at her side in a moment, bending over her with a mingling of alarm and admiration in his gray eyes.
"Mademoiselle," he cried, "what has happened? Are you much hurt?"
Receiving no answer, but more faint moans, he lifted her gently and stood her on her feet; but the instant he released her she collapsed upon the leaves, an appealing but intoxicating confusion of skirts, and slim brown hands, and crinkly dark hair, and the corner of a red mouth, and the glimpse of an ankle.
"Mademoiselle! Tell me what is the matter. Tell me what can I do. Let me do something; I beg of you!" Lifting her again, he seated her beside him on the fallen tree; and this time he did not at once release her. At first, her eyes closed and her face a little drawn as with pain, she clung instinctively to his arm, with hands that seemed to him the most maddening that he had ever seen. Then, after several minutes which were very agreeable to him in spite of his anxiety, she appeared to pull herself together with a mighty effort. She moved away from his clasp, sat up straight, and opened upon him great eyes of pain and gratitude.
"Oh, thank you, Monsieur!" she said simply. "I'm afraid I have been very troublesome. But, indeed, I thought I was going to die."
"But what is the matter, Mademoiselle? Tell me, and let me help you."
She sat cringing and setting her teeth hard. He noticed how white were the teeth, how scarlet the full lips.
"It is just my heart," she said. "I was looking through the bushes to see who was coming. Something startled me, I think; and the pain clutched at my heart so I could not breathe, and I fell off."
She paused, to moan a Little softly and catch her breath. Before he could say anything she went on:
"It's better now, but it hurts horribly."
"Let me support you, Mademoiselle," he urged with eager courtesy.
But she shrank away from the approaching ministration.
"No, Monsieur, I am better, really. But I must get home as quick as I can." She arose unsteadily.
The Englishman arose at the same time. The next moment Barbe sank back again, biting her lip to keep back a cry.
"Oh," she gasped, "I can't stand it! How can I get home?"
"You must let me see you home; Mademoiselle," said the officer, authority blending with palpable enthusiasm in his tones.
"You are so good, Monsieur;" she murmured gratefully. "But I could not think of taking you away back so far, almost to the village. It will spoil your afternoon's sport."
The sympathy of the Englishman's face gave way to amusement, and he hastened to assure her of her mistake.
"Not at all, indeed, Mademoiselle. It will be quite as much my pleasure as my duty to see you safely home. Your misfortune--if not too serious--is my great good fortune!"
Thanking him with a look, Barbe arose weakly and took the proffered arm. At first the homeward journey was very slow; but as the afternoon deepened, and the miles gathered between the English commandant and Jean's little ship, the girl began to let herself recover. By this time she felt that there was no danger of her escort leaving her one minute before he was obliged to; and she knew that now, for this night, the ship was safe. At last, as they emerged from the woods into a high pasture-ground, behind the cottage where Barbe lived with her aunt and uncle, the Englishman threw off the gallant for a moment and became the wide-awake officer. He paused, took his bearings, carefully, and scrutinized the trail behind him with searching eyes.
"I have not seen this road before, Mademoiselle," he remarked, "and it interests me. It is not down on our map of the Annapolis district. Whither does it lead, may I ask?"
Barbe's heart grew faint within her; but she answered lightly, with a look that somehow conveyed to him the impression that he should not be interested in roads when she was by.
"They haul wood over it, my uncle and his neighbors, in the winter," she answered, "and black mud in summer from the swamp back there."
The Englishman appeared satisfied; but she felt that his curiosity was aroused, and with all her arts she strove to divert his thoughts exclusively to herself. She succeeded in this to a degree that presently began to stir her apprehensiveness; and at her doorway she made her grateful farewells a trifle hurried. But the Englishman would listen to nothing more discouraging than au revoir. At last he said:
"I shall be shooting over these woods again to-morrow,"--Barbe clutched hard upon the latch and held her breath--"and shall give myself the pleasure of calling to ask after--but no!" he corrected himself "You are making me forget, Mademoiselle. I have a council-meeting to fill my day with drudgery to-morrow." (Barbe breathed again at this respite.) "I must deny myself till the day after. I may call then, may I not?"
There was a moment's pause, and in that moment the girl's swift brain made its decision.
"Certainly, Monsieur le Commandant," she said, sweeping his face with a brilliant glance that made his nerves tingle sweetly; "I shall be much honored. My aunt and I will be much honored!" And with a curtsy half mocking, half formal, and a disastrous curving of her scarlet lips, she slipped into the house.
"By Jove!" muttered the Englishman, as he strode away in a daze.
From the window, behind the bean vines, Barbe watched him go. The instant he was out of sight she darted from the door, sped swiftly over the rough pasture-lot, and disappeared among the twilights of the trail, where the afternoon shadows were already darkening to purple. She ran with the endurance of health and practice and a clean-breathing outdoor life; but presently her breath began to fail, her heart to thump madly against her slim sides. Then--around a bend of the trail came Jean, returning earlier than his wont. With an exclamation of glad surprise he sprang forward to meet her. Still more was his surprise when she caught him by the shoulders with both hands and leaned, gasping and sobbing, against his breast.
After one fierce clasp he held her lightly and tenderly like a child, and anxiously scanned her face.
"What is it, Barbe, beloved ? What is the matter?" he questioned eagerly.
"The ship," she panted, "must go! You must go--to-morrow night!"
"Why? But it is impossible!" he protested, bewildered. "Mich' won't be here till the day after and one man can't launch her, and can't sail her all by himself."
"I tell you, it must be done," she cried imperiously. "You must, you must!" And then, in a few edged words, she explained the situation. "If you can't, all is lost," she concluded, "for they will discover you, and seize the ship, the day after to-morrow. Jean, I would never believe that you had any such word as 'can't.' "
By this time Jean's face was white and his jaw was set.
"Of course," he said quietly, "it will be done somehow. I'm not beaten till I'm dead. But the chances are, Sweet, that after I get the little ship launched I'll run her aground somewhere down the river, and be caught next day like a rat in a barrel. It's ticklish navigating at best, down the river, and one man can't rightly manage even the foresail alone, and steer, in those eddies and twists in the channel. But--"
"But, Jean--" she interrupted, and then paused, leaning close against him, and looking up at him with eyes that seemed to him to make a brightness in the dark.
"But what, beautiful one?" he questioned, leaning his face over her, and growing suddenly tremulous with a vague, wonderful expectancy.
"I can help! Take me!" And she hid her eyes against his rough shirt-sleeve.
For one moment Jean stood tense, moveless, unable to apprehend this sudden realization of his dreams. Then he swung her light figure up into his arms, and covered her face and hair with kisses. With a little smile of content upon her lips she suffered his madness for a while. Then she made him put her down.
"There is no time now to make love to me," she said. "We've so much to do and plan. You've never run away with a ship and a girl before, Jean, and we must make sure you know just how to go about it."
That night Barbe snatched a few hours of sleep, being mindful of the witchery of her eyes. But Jean toiled all night long, driving his yoke of oxen to and fro between his cabin and his shipyard in the forest. And he was not weary. His heart was light as air and sang with every pulse. His strength and his star--he felt them equal to any crisis.
On the following afternoon, when it wanted yet an hour of high tide, and the shadows of the maples were beginning to creep over the yellow chips, all was ready. Full of a wild gayety, and untiring as a boy, Barbe had worked all day, getting the sails bent, the stores on board, the last of block and tackle into place. Suddenly, from a post of vantage in the high-pointing bowsprit, she looked down the trail and clapped her brown hands with a shout of delight.
"Mich' has come!" she cried. And Mich' Masson, striding into the open, threw down a big red bundle on the chips.
"Pretty nigh ready?" he inquired. "Why, what is the matter, mon gar'?"
Jean's face had fallen like his heart. There was no longer any necessity of Barbe's sharing his adventure. But he hurried forward and clasped his friend's hand.
"We've got to get away to-night," he stammered, struggling bravely to make his voice sound cheerful. "The English are coming over here to-morrow to find out what's going on--so it's time for us to be going off! Barbe was to help me through with it."
Mich' held to Jean's hand, and glanced questioningly from his troubled face to the girl's teasing one. But Barbe had burned her bridges and saw no reason to be unmerciful.
"I suppose I'll have to be just crew and cabin boy now, Mich'," she pouted. "Jean was going to let me be first mate, and there wasn't to be any crew."
A great joy broke over Jean's face, and Mich' removed his gray woolen cap with a sweeping bow. But before either could reply there came from a little way up the trail the excited yapping as of a dog that has treed a partridge. The three looked at each other, their eyes wide with apprehension. Then the report of a gun.
"The Englishman!" gasped Barbe. "He has not waited. Quick, hide, one each side of the trail, and take him prisoner. Don't shoot him. He was kind to me."
Jean snatched up his musket and the two men darted into the bush. By a rope from the bulwarks Barbe swung herself lightly to the ground. In haste she crossed the chip-strewn open, and then, carelessly swinging her hat in her hand, and singing a fitful snatch of song, she sauntered up the trail to meet the intruder.
The trail wound rapidly, so that before she had gone twoscore paces the ship was hid from her view. A few steps more and the Englishman came in sight, swinging forward alertly, a fluff of brown feathers dangling from his right hand. he was face to face with Barbe; and the delighted astonishment that came into his eyes was dashed with a faint chill of suspicion.
"How fate favors me, Mademoiselle!" He exclaimed, doffing his cap. "Gad, you are a brave girl to wander so far into the woods alone!"
"No, Monsieur, fate does not favor you," retorted Barbe with a sort of intimate petulance, holding out her brown fingers. "You had no business coming to-day when you said you were not coming till to-morrow. Now, you are going to find out a secret of mine which I didn't want any one to find out."
"But you are not angry at seeing me," he protested.
"N-n-o-o!" she answered, her head upon one side in doubt, while she bewildered him with her eyes. "But I'm sorry in a way! Well, come and I'll show you. Forgive me for lying to you yesterday about this road!"
And she turned to accompany him, walking very close to his side, so that her slim shoulder touched his arm and blurred his sagacity.
The next instant came the sharp order: "Halt! Don't stir, or you're dead!"
The Englishman found himself facing two leveled muskets. At the same moment his own weapon went flying into the underbrush, twitched from his hold by a dexterous catch of Barbe's fingers.
He stood still and very straight, his arms at his sides, eying his assailants steadily. His first impulse was to dart upon them with his naked hands; but he saw the well-knit form of Jean, almost his own height, the lean, set face, a certain exultation in the eyes which he read aright; and he saw the shrewd, dark, confident look of Mich', the experienced master of situations. The red mounted slowly to his face, and he turned upon Barbe a look wherein reproach at once gave way to scorn and a kind of shame.
Barbe herself flushed under that look.
"You wrong me, Monsieur!" she cried impetuously. "I did it to save you. You are a brave man, and would have tried to fight, and they would have killed you!"
He bowed stiffly and turned to the men.
"What do you want of me?"
"Your parole!" said Jean. "Give us your word that you will come with us quietly, making no resistance and no effort to escape."
The Englishman shut his lips doggedly.
"Then you must be bound," said Mich' with curt decision. "We've no time to waste."
"Let me bind you, Monsieur," said Barbe, taking his wrists gently and putting them behind his back. "It is no dishonor to be captive to a woman."
With a silk scarf from her waist, and a feminine cunning in knots, she quickly tied his hands together so that he felt himself quite hopeless of escape. Then, in a cold wrath, he was led forward, with no constraint but Barbe's touch upon his arm. The ship, high on her stocks, came into view. And he understood.
Seating him upon a log, with his back against a tree, Mich' passed a rope about his waist and made him fast to the trunk. There he sat and chewed his indignation, while his captors went in haste about their work. But presently he grew interested. He saw the blocks knocked out from under the little ship's sides, so that she came down upon the greased ways and slid smoothly into the flood. He saw her checked gradually by a rope turned once around a tree trunk, so that she was kept from running aground on the opposite side of the Basin. He saw a small boat dragged down from the bushes to the edge of the tide, and oars put into it. By this time he had revolved many aspects of the case in his mind. Then came to him Barbe and Jean.
"Monsieur" said Jean, "I regret to have inconvenienced you in this way. But you would without mercy have wrecked all my hopes. I have put all my means into this little ship, built with my own hands. My heart is set on removing from the land of Acadie, to live once more under my own flag of France. But I do not wish to take you a prisoner to Louisburg, or to put you to any further annoyance. To Mademoiselle Dieudonne you showed yourself yesterday a most kind and courteous gentleman. All Acadie knows you are brave. Give me your word that you will in no way seek to stop or hinder our departure, and let me set you free!"
"Give your parole, Monsieur!" begged Barbe, "or you will have to devote yourself to entertaining me all the way to Louisburg."
The Englishman's face brightened.
"Almost you make me wish to go to Louisburg, Mademoiselle. With the duty you apportion me I should be much happier, I assure you, than here in Annapolis trying to govern your good fellow-countrymen. But I will give my parole. I promise you, sir," and he turned his face to Jean, "that I will not in any way interfere with the departure of you and your ship from Acadie."
"Thank you," said Jean, and he undid the rope and the scarf.
The Englishman arose, walked down to the waterside with Barbe, and with elaborate courtesy helped her into the boat. He bent his lips over her hand as he said good-by, and stood bareheaded as women spectators.
Turning upon him then a laughing face of farewell, Barbe cried.
"Never, never will I pardon you, Monsieur, for consenting to give your parole!"
"Mademoiselle," he answered, "I am your prisoner still, and always."