It was a beautiful shot.  The whole charge took the canoe about six feet behind the bow, and doubled her up like an eggshell.  Before the smoke had cleared she had foundered, and the second canoe had paused to pick up some of the wounded men.  The others, as much at home in the water as in the woods, were already striking out for the shore.

“Quick!  Quick!” cried the seigneur.  “Load the gun!  We may get the second one yet!”

But it was not to be.  Long before they could get it ready the Iroquois had picked up their wounded warriors and were pulling madly up-stream once more.  As they shot away the fire died suddenly down in the burning cottages and the rain and the darkness closed in upon them.

“My God!” cried De Catinat furiously, “they will be taken.  Let us abandon this place, take a boat, and follow them.  Come!  Come!  Not an instant is to be lost!”

“Monsieur, you go too far in your very natural anxiety,” said the seigneur coldly.  “I am not inclined to leave my post so easily!”

“Ah, what is it?  Only wood and stone, which can be built again.  But to think of the women in the hands of these devils!  Oh, I am going mad!  Come!  Come!  For Christ’s sake come!” His face was deadly pale, and he raved with his clenched hands in the air.

“I do not think that they will be caught,” said Du Lhut, laying his hand soothingly upon his shoulder.  “Do not fear.  They had a long start and the women here can paddle as well as the men.  Again, the Iroquois canoe was overloaded at the start, and has the wounded men aboard as well now.  Besides, these oak canoes of the Mohawks are not as swift as the Algonquin birch barks which we use.  In any case it is impossible to follow, for we have no boat.”

“There is one lying there.”

“Ah, it will but hold a single man.  It is that in which the friar came.”

“Then I am going in that!  My place is with Adele!” He flung open the door, rushed out, and was about to push off the frail skiff, when some one sprang past him, and with a blow from a hatchet stove in the side of the boat.

“It is my boat,” said the friar, throwing down the axe and folding his arms.  “I can do what I like with it.”

“You fiend!  You have ruined us!”

“I have found you and you shall not escape me again.”

The hot blood flushed to the soldier’s head, and picking up the axe, he took a quick step forward.  The light from the open door shone upon the grave, harsh face of the friar, but not a muscle twitched nor a feature changed as he saw the axe whirl up in the hands of a furious man.  He only signed himself with the cross, and muttered a Latin prayer under his breath.  It was that composure which saved his life.  De Catinat hurled down the axe again with a bitter curse, and was turning away from the shattered boat, when in an instant, without a warning, the great door of the manor-house crashed inwards, and a flood of whooping savages burst into the house.