I told him.
"That should be sufficient."
"Not for a concerted attack."
"But who would make a concerted attack?"
I lengthened my stroke till the canoe quivered. "I am not sure. I have been shadowed. I thought it was by your order. I cannot talk and paddle, monsieur."
But I could paddle and think. And always I saw the meadow as we had found it that first day with drifts of white butterflies over the flowers, and the woods warm and beckoning. How would the meadow look now?
But when we came to it I thought it looked unchanged, save that the fog made all things sinister. We crashed through the guarding reeds, and I let the canoe drive hard upon the sand. No one was in sight, and a wolf was whining at the edge of the timber. I leaped to the shore.
I think that I called as I stumbled forward. I saw the ashes of a dead fire, and a cask that had held rum lying with the sides and end knocked in. Then I saw a dead body.
I did not hasten then. My feet crawled. The body lay sprawled and limp with its out-stretched fingers clutching. One hand pointed toward the woman's cabin.
I turned the corpse over. It was Simon. His scarlet head was still dripping, but his face was untouched. I saw that he had died despairing, and I laid him back with a prayer on my lips but with the lust to kill in my heart.