It was indeed a most extraordinary face which confronted them as they advanced.  It was that of a man who might have been of any age and of any nation, for the features were so distorted that nothing could be learned from them.  One eyelid was drooping with a puckering and flatness which showed that the ball was gone.  The other, however, shot as bright and merry and kindly a glance as ever came from a chosen favourite of fortune.  His face was flecked over with peculiar brown spots which had a most hideous appearance, and his nose had been burst and shattered by some terrific blow.  And yet, in spite of this dreadful appearance, there was something so noble in the carriage of the man, in the pose of his head and in the expression which still hung, like the scent from a crushed flower, round his distorted features, that even the blunt Puritan seaman was awed by it.

“Good-evening, my children,” said the stranger, picking up his pictures again and advancing towards them.  “I presume that you are from the fort, though I may be permitted to observe that the woods are not very safe for ladies at present.”

“We are going to the manor-house of Charles de la Noue at Sainte Marie,” said De Catinat, “and we hope soon to be in a place of safety.  But I grieve, sir, to see how terribly you have been mishandled.”

“Ah, you have observed my little injuries, then!  They know no better, poor souls.  They are but mischievous children—­merry-hearted but mischievous.  Tut, tut, it is laughable indeed that a man’s vile body should ever clog his spirit, and yet here am I full of the will to push forward, and yet I must even seat myself on this log and rest myself, for the rogues have blown the calves of my legs off.”

“My God!  Blown them off!  The devils!”

“Ah, but they are not to be blamed.  No, no, it would be uncharitable to blame them.  They are ignorant poor folk, and the prince of darkness is behind them to urge them on.  They sank little charges of powder into my legs and then they exploded them, which makes me a slower walker than ever, though I was never very brisk.  ‘The Snail’ was what I was called at school in Tours, yes, and afterwards at the seminary I was always ‘the Snail.’”

“Who are you then, sir, and who is it who has used you so shamefully?” asked De Catinat.

“Oh, I am a very humble person.  I am Ignatius Morat, of the Society of Jesus, and as to the people who have used me a little roughly, why, if you are sent upon the Iroquois mission, of course you know what to expect.  I have nothing at all to complain of.  Why, they have used me very much better than they did Father Jogues, Father Breboeuf, and a good many others whom I could mention.  There were times, it is true, when I was quite hopeful of martyrdom, especially when they thought my tonsure was too small, which was their merry way of putting it.  But I suppose I was not worthy of it; indeed I know that I was not, so it only ended in just a little roughness.”