“Sacre! did ever human eyes behold so foul a thing!” he cried, his voice shaking, his hand shading his face. “’T will haunt me till the hour I die.”

“Bah!  ’T will all be forgotten with return of daylight,” I was quick to reply; for had found relief in action, and could perceive already that the clouds were becoming shapeless and drifting rapidly southward in a great billowy mass.  “Do not stand there moping like a day-blind owl, but aid me to make Mademoiselle see the foolishness of her fears.”

The sting of these words moved him more than a blow would have done; but as he knelt beside her, I noted there was little of the old reckless ring in his voice.

“’T is indeed true, Toinette,—­’t was but a cloud, and has already greatly changed in aspect.  ’T will be no more than cause for laughter when the sun gilds the plain, and will form a rare tale to tell to the gallants at Montreal.  Yet, Saint Guise! ’t was grewsome enough, and my knees quake still from the terror of the thing.”

Mademoiselle was as brave and cool-headed a girl as ever I knew; but so thoroughly had she been unnerved by this dreadful happening, that it was only after the most persistent urging on our part that she consented to be led below.  There, at the foot of the ladder, I stepped aside to permit De Croix to walk with her across the parade; but she would not go without a word of parting.

“Do not think me weak and silly,” she implored, her face, still white from the terror, upturned to me in the moonlight.  “It was so spectral and ghastly that I gave way to sudden fear.”

“You need no excuse,” I hastened to assure her.  “When the thing frightened De Croix and me, and even set so old a soldier as Captain Wells to raving, it was no wonder it unnerved a girl, however brave she might prove in the presence of real danger.  But you can sleep now, convinced it was naught but a floating cloud.”

She smiled at me over her shoulder, and I watched the pair with jealous eyes until they disappeared.  I noticed Captain Wells standing beside me.

“You thought I raved up yonder,” he said gravely; “to-morrow will prove that my interpretation of the vision was correct.”

“You believe it a prophecy of evil?”

“It was the warning of the Great Spirit—­the Death-Shadow of the Miamis.  Never has it appeared to men of our tribe except on the eve of great disaster, the forerunner of grave tragedy.  We ride forth from these gates to death.”

It was plain that no amount of reasoning could change his Indian superstition; and with a word more of expostulation I left him standing there, and sought a place where I might lie down.  Already the numbing sensation of supernatural fear had left me, for in the breaking up of that odd-formed cloud I realized its cause; and now the physical fatigue I felt overmastered all else.  I found a quiet corner, and, with a saddle for a pillow, was soon fast asleep.