and the swish of its recoiling waters.  The girl had her way with him.  It did not occur to the officer of the Carignan regiment that he should direct the escape, or in any way oppose the will manifested for the first time in his favor.  She felt for the door of the, dark little chapel, and drew him in and closed it.  His judgment rejected the place, but without a word he groped at her side across to the chancel rail.  She lifted the loose slab of the platform, and tried to thrust him into the earthen-floored box.

“Hide yourself first,” whispered Saint-Castin.

They could hear feet running on the flinty approach.  The chase was so close that the English might have seen them enter the chapel.

“Get in, get in!” begged the Abenaqui girl.  “They will not hurt me.”

“Hide!” said Saint-Castin, thrusting her fiercely in.  “Would they not carry off the core of Saint-Castin’s heart if they could?”

She flattened herself on the ground under the platform, and gave him all the space at her side that the contraction of her body left clear, and he let the slab down carefully over their heads.  They existed almost without breath for many minutes.

The wooden door-hinges creaked, and stumbling shins blundered against the benches.

“What is this place?” spoke an English voice.  “Let some one take his tinder-box and strike a light.”

“Have care,” warned another.  “We are only half a score in number.  Our errand was to kidnap Saint-Castin from his hold, not to get ourselves ambushed by the Abenaquis.”

“We are too far from the sloop now,” said a third.  “We shall be cut off before we get back, if we have not a care.”

“But he must be in here.”

“There are naught but benches and walls to hide him.  This must be an idolatrous chapel where the filthy savages congregate to worship images.”

“Come out of the abomination, and let us make haste back to the boat.  He may be this moment marshaling all his Indians to surround us.”

“Wait.  Let a light first be made.”

Saint-Castin and his companion heard the clicks of flint and steel; then an instant’s blaze of tinder made cracks visible over their Heads.  It died away, the hurried, wrangling men shuffling about.  One kicked the platform.

“Here is a cover,” he said; but darkness again enveloped them all.

“Nothing is to be gained by searching farther,” decided the majority.  “Did I not tell you this Saint-Castin will never be caught?  The tide will turn, and we shall get stranded among the rocks of that bay.  It is better to go back without Saint-Castin than to stay and be burnt by his Abenaquis.”

“But here is a loose board in some flooring,” insisted the discoverer of the platform.  “I will feel with the butt of my gun if there be anything thereunder.”

The others had found the door, and were filing through it.

“Why not with thy knife, man?” suggested one of them.