Thanks to the early tidings which the guardsman had brought with him, his little party was now ahead of the news.  As they passed through the village of Louvier in the early morning they caught a glimpse of a naked corpse upon a dunghill, and were told by a grinning watchman that it was that of a Huguenot who had died impenitent, but that was a common enough occurrence already, and did not mean that there had been any change in the law.  At Rouen all was quiet, and Captain Ephraim Savage before evening had brought both them and such property as they had saved aboard of his brigantine, the Golden Rod.  It was but a little craft, some seventy tons burden, but at a time when so many were putting out to sea in open boats, preferring the wrath of Nature to that of the king, it was a refuge indeed.  The same night the seaman drew up his anchor and began to slowly make his way down the winding river.

And very slow work it was.  There was half a moon shining and a breeze from the east, but the stream writhed and twisted and turned until sometimes they seemed to be sailing up rather than down.  In the long reaches they set the yard square and ran, but often they had to lower their two boats and warp her painfully along, Tomlinson of Salem, the mate, and six grave, tobacco-chewing, New England seamen with their broad palmetto hats, tugging and straining at the oars.  Amos Green, De Catinat, and even the old merchant had to take their spell ere morning, when the sailors were needed aboard for the handling of the canvas.  At last, however, with the early dawn the river broadened out and each bank trended away, leaving a long funnel-shaped estuary between.  Ephraim Savage snuffed the air and paced the deck briskly with a twinkle in his keen gray eyes.  The wind had fallen away, but there was still enough to drive them slowly upon their course.

“Where’s the gal?” he asked.

“She is in my cabin,” said Amos Green.  “I thought that maybe she could manage there until we got across.”

“Where will you sleep yourself, then?”

“Tut, a litter of spruce boughs and a sheet of birch bark over me have been enough all these years.  What would I ask better than this deck of soft white pine and my blanket?”

“Very good.  The old man and his nephew, him with the blue coat, can have the two empty bunks.  But you must speak to that man, Amos.  I’ll have no philandering aboard my ship, lad—­no whispering or cuddling or any such foolishness.  Tell him that this ship is just a bit broke off from Boston, and he’ll have to put up with Boston ways until he gets off her.  They’ve been good enough for better men than him.  You give me the French for ‘no philandering,’ and I’ll bring him up with a round turn when he drifts.”

“It’s a pity we left so quick or they might have been married before we started.  She’s a good girl, Ephraim, and he is a fine man, for all that their ways are not the same as ours.  They don’t seem to take life so hard as we, and maybe they get more pleasure out of it.”