Presently they reached the main stream. This was much larger, with the shores farther off and clearer, though weird enough in the darkness. Stars were coming out. Jeanne watched them in the deep magnificent blue, golden, white, greenish and with crimson tints. Was the world beyond the stars as beautiful as this? But she knew no one there. She wondered a little about her mother—was she in that bright sphere? There was another Mother—
"O Mother of God," she cried in her soul, "have pity upon me! I put myself in thy care. Guard me from evil! Restore me to my home!"
For it seemed, amid these rough savages, she sorely needed a mother's tender care. And she thought now there had been no loving woman in her life save Pani. Madame Bellestre had petted her, but she had lost her out of her life so soon. There had been the schoolmaster, that she could still think of with affection for all his queer fatherly interest and kindness; there was M. Loisel; and oh, Monsieur St. Armand, who was coming back in the early summer, and had some plans to lay before her. Even M. De Ber had been kindly and friendly, but Madame had never approved her. Poor Madame Campeau had come to love her, but often in her wandering moments she called her Berthê.
The quiet, the lapping of the waves, and perhaps a little fatigue overcame her at length. She dropped back against the Indian's knee, and her soft breath rose and fell peacefully. He drew the blanket up over her.
"Ugh! ugh!" he ejaculated, but she heard it not. "The tide is good, we shall make the Point before dawn."
The others nodded. They lighted their pipes, and presently the Indian at the paddle changed with one of his comrades and they stole on and on, both wind and tide in their favor. Several times their charge stirred but did not wake. Youth and health had overcome even anxiety.
There was dawn in the eastern sky. Jeanne roused.
"Oh, where am I?" she cried in piercing accents; and endeavored to spring up.
"Thou art safe enough and naught has harmed thee," was the reply. "Keep quiet, that is all."
"Oh, where do you mean to take me? I am stiff and cold. Oh, let me change a little!"