But the sergeant had heaved himself up with a curse and a lurch which sent the canoe rocking, and was scanning the boats for the fellow who had dared to insult him.
"How the devil can a man sing while that dog keeps barking!" he growled, and let out a kick at the limp legs of the young Highlander.
Another growl answered. It came from the wounded prisoner behind John—the man who had been muttering in Gaelic.
"It is a coward you are, big man. Go on singing your sculduddery, and let the lad die quiet!"
The sergeant scowled, not understanding. John, whose blood was up, obligingly translated the reproof into French. "He says—and I also—that you are a cowardly bully; and we implore you to sing in tune, another time. Par pitié, monsieur, ne scalpez-vous pas les demi-morts!"
The shaft bit, as he had intended, and the man's vanity positively foamed upon it. "Dog of a ros-bif, congratulate yourself that you are half dead, or I would whip you again as we whipped you yesterday, and as my regiment is even now again whipping your compatriots." He jerked a thumb towards the south where, far up the lake, a pale saffron glow spread itself upon the twilight.
"The English are burning your fort, maybe," John suggested amiably.
"They are burning the mill, more like—or their boats. But after such a defeat, who cares?"
"If our general had only used his artillery—"
"Eh, what is that you're singing? Oui-da, if your general had only used his artillery? My little friend, that's a fine battle—that battle of 'If.' It is always won, too—only it has the misfortune never to be fought. So, so: and a grand battle it is too, for reputations. 'If the guns had only arrivéd '; and 'if the brigadier Chose had brought up the reserves as ordered'; and 'if the right had extended itself, and that devil of a left had not straggled'—why then we should all be heroes, we ros-bifs. Whereas we came on four to one, and we were beaten; and we are being carried north to Montreal and our general is running south from an army one-third of his size and burning fireworks on his way. And at Albany the ladies will take your standards and stitch 'If' on them in gold letters a foot long. Eh, but it was a glorious fight—faith of Sergeant Barboux!"