Part 20 (2/2)

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

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

”I thank the saints I am not like to be used for his agent,” said the man who had been upset with the torches, ”if the walls are to be stormed as 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 lord intended.”

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

”These holy folks have more courage than men-at-arms. My lord was minded to throw this one out of the s.h.i.+p 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 head toward them, and no further words broke the march into camp. D'Aulnay's camp was well above the reach of high tide, yet so near the river that soft and regular splas.h.i.+ngs seemed encroaching on the tents. The soldier noticed the batteries on their height, and counted as ably as he could for the cowl and night dimness the number of tents holding this little army. Far beyond them the palpitating waters showed changeful surfaces on Fundy Bay.

The capote was long for him. He kept his hands within the sleeves.

Before the guard-line was pa.s.sed he saw in the middle of the camp an open tent. A long torch stood in front of it with the point stuck in the ground. The floating yellow blaze showed the tent's interior, its simple fittings for rest, the magnificent arms and garments of its occupant, and first of all, D'Aulnay de Charnisay himself, sitting with a rude camp table in front of him. He was half m.u.f.fled in a furred cloak from the 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 and pointed beard, its crisp fleece also concealing his mouth except the thin edges of his lips. It was a handsome nervous face of black tones; one that kept counsel, and was not without humor. He noticed his subordinate approaching with the friar. The men sent to execute Klussman were 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 its weak garrison. But help is expected soon with La Tour. Perhaps he told more to the friar in their last conference.”

”Heretics do not confess, my lord.”

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

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

All present looked with quickened attention at the soldier, who expected them to pull off his cowl and expose a head of thrifty cl.u.s.ters which had never known the tonsure. His beaver cap lay in the trench with the real Father Vincent.

He folded his arms on his breast with a gesture of patience which had its effect. D'Aulnay's followers knew the warfare between their seignior and Father Vincent de Paris, the only churchman in Acadia who insisted on bringing him to account; and who had found means to supplant a favorite priest on this expedition, for the purpose of watching him.

D'Aulnay bore it with a.s.sumed good-humor. He had his religious scruples as well as his revenges and ambitions. But there were ways in which an intruding churchman could be martyred by irony and covert abuse, and by discomfort chargeable to the circ.u.mstances of war. Father Vincent de Paris, on his part, bore such martyrdom silently, but stinted no word of needed rebuke. A woman's mourning in the dusky tent next to D'Aulnay's now rose to such wildness of piteous cries as to divert even him from the 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 of fray-hardened men. A look of embarra.s.sment pa.s.sed over De Charnisay's face, and he said to the officer nearest him,--

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

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