"We start at once," he said. "There will be time to rest after we are out in the lake."
Ta-wan-ne-ars and I were slung like sacks of grain each upon the shoulders of a pair of warriors and so carried past several phlegmatically interested French soldiers to the bank of the river. Here we were laid carefully in the bottoms of separate canoes, which were shoved out into the swirling current and borne swiftly down-stream into the spreading waters of the Cadarakui Lake.
Despite the tightness of my bonds and the numbness they induced, I fell asleep, rocked by the easy motion of the canoe as it was driven along by the powerful arms of the Cahnuagas, who crouched in line, one behind the other, their paddles dipping in and out of the water like tireless machines.
XVII
LA VIERGE DU BOIS
A dash of water awakened me. One of the Cahnuagas was leaning down, his hideous face close to mine, his fingers wrestling with the knots in the rawhide bonds.
"You can not lie idle, my distinguished guest," called de Veulle from his place at the stern. "You must keep us dry."
As the rawhide strips were unwound I was able to sit up and look over the frail bark side. We were out of sight of land, and a moderate breeze was raising a slight swell, the crest of which occasionally broke over our bow. In the other canoe Ta-wan-ne-ars already was at work with a bark scoop.
The Cahnuagas were uneasy, and at times they muttered amongst themselves; but de Veulle kept them at the paddles, working in relays of four. It said much for his hold on the Indians that he was able to persuade them to navigate the treacherous waters of the open lake, a feat the savages will never attempt except under compulsion.
All of that day we were isolated on the restless surface of the huge inland sea. Just before dusk of the second day we sighted a rocky coast, and sheered away from it. Two nights later we passed a group of lights to the north, and the Cahnuagas murmured "Cadaraqui." Indeed, 'twas the French fort of that name, the key to the westerly defenses of Canada and the St. Lawrence outlet from the lake.[[1]] On the sixth day we passed out of the lake into the narrow channel of the great river, and landed in the evening at a palisaded post on the southern bank.