upright.  This change of posture brought my eyes on a level with the tops of the cane on either side, and, my face being turned southward, there was outspread before me the full, broad sweep of the Mississippi, glinting under the westering sun, so that for a moment it dazzled eyes yet clogged with the heaviness of sleep.  Then I perceived what afforded me so severe a shock that I ducked hastily down into my covert, every faculty instantly alert.  Close in against the reeds, as though skirting the low line of the shore, loomed the black outline of a large boat.

Coming bow on toward the place of our concealment, every eye in her would naturally be scanning the spot where we lay hidden, and I durst not raise my head again until assured they had passed by.  I rolled partially over to gain view of the others of our own party.  Both were slumbering heavily, Eloise near the western edge of the little grass plot, wrapped within a great shawl so as to leave not even her head visible, while De Noyan rested within easy reach of my outstretched arm, breathing so heavily I felt it safer to arouse him, before that strange boat should come abreast.  It required severe shaking, his sleep being that of sheer exhaustion, yet he proved sufficiently a trained soldier to obey instantly my signal for silence.  Nor were words needed to explain the reason, as by this time the sound of oars was clearly audible.  Suddenly some one spoke, apparently at our very side.  Lying as I was I noticed the shawl pushed hastily down from Madame’s face, her brown eyes gazing questioningly across into my own; yet, with rare self-control, not so much as a limb quivered.

“I tell you, padre, there’s nothing along this cursed cane-marsh,” growled a deep rumbling voice in Spanish.  “It is a mere bog, in which a man would sink to his armpits, were he to venture outside the boat.”

“Bog it may be,” retorted a sharper, petulant voice, the sound of which was oddly familiar, “but I tell you this, Senor, ’tis on this very shore French gallants come hunting from New Orleans.  There is dry land in plenty beyond the fringe of reeds.”

“Saprista! there may be, as there may be water in Hell, but I ’ll never tangle my boat amid that mass of cane to make its discovery.  Let the frog-eaters have it, say I; the saints bless them.  Come, pull away sharply, lads, and we’ll see what the shore-line looks like above.”

The sound of dipping oars instantly increased in rapidity.

“You are one pig-headed fool of an officer, Senor,” snarled the sharp voice contemptuously.

“Mother of God!” roared the other, enraged.  “Speak so again, you dog of a French priest, and even your gray robe will not save you from tasting the mud at the bottom.  Do you want to know what I think of you?  Well, I ’ll tell you, you snivelling, drunken singer of paternosters—­you did more to help that fellow escape than you ’d care to have known.  Now you ’re trying to hold us back until he has time to get safely away up the river.  That’s my opinion of you, you snarling gray-back, and if you dare breathe another word, I ’ll give orders to chuck you overboard.”