“Down!  Down!  It is a bomb!” cried De Catinat

But it lay at Du Lhut’s feet, and he had seen it clearly.  He took a cloth from the table and dropped it over it.

“It is not a bomb,” said he quietly, “and it was Jean Corbeil who died.”

For four hours sounds of riot, of dancing and of revelling rose up from the store-house, and the smell of the open brandy casks filled the whole air.  More than once the savages quarrelled and fought among themselves, and it seemed as if they had forgotten their enemies above, but the besieged soon found that if they attempted to presume upon this they were as closely watched as ever.  The major-domo, Theuriet, passing between a loop-hole and a light, was killed instantly by a bullet from the stockade, and both Amos and the old seigneur had narrow escapes until they blocked all the windows save that which overlooked the river.  There was no danger from this one, and, as day was already breaking once more, one or other of the party was forever straining their eyes down the stream in search of the expected succour.

Slowly the light crept up the eastern sky, a little line of pearl, then a band of pink, broadening, stretching, spreading, until it shot its warm colour across the heavens, tinging the edges of the drifting clouds.  Over the woodlands lay a thin gray vapour, the tops of the high oaks jutting out like dim islands from the sea of haze.  Gradually as the light increased the mist shredded off into little ragged wisps, which thinned and drifted away, until at last, as the sun pushed its glowing edge over the eastern forests, it gleamed upon the reds and oranges and purples of the fading leaves, and upon the broad blue river which curled away to the northward.  De Catinat, as he stood at the window looking out, was breathing in the healthy resinous scent of the trees, mingled with the damp heavy odour of the wet earth, when suddenly his eyes fell upon a dark spot upon the river to the north of them.  “There is a canoe coming down!” he cried.  In an instant they had all rushed to the opening, but Du Lhut sprang after them, and pulled them angrily towards the door.

“Do you wish to die before your time?” he cried.

“Ay, ay!” said Captain Ephraim, who understood the gesture if not the words.  “We must leave a watch on deck.  Amos, lad, lie here with me and be ready if they show.”

The two Americans and the old pioneer held the barricade, while the eyes of all the others were turned upon the approaching boat.  A groan broke suddenly from the only surviving censitaire.

“It is an Iroquois canoe!” he cried.

“Impossible!”

“Alas, your excellency, it is so, and it is the same one which passed us last night.”

“Ah, then the women have escaped them.”

“I trust so.  But alas, seigneur, I fear that there are more in the canoe now than when they passed us.”