“The saints forefend!” exclaimed the girl, smiling at his fancy. “’Twould bring disaster with it! ’Tis a heathen name! We’ll christen our good raft in honor of the Virgin or the saints. They have been kind to us!”
“Ma foi, you speak the truth, ma chère! My patron saint, the kindly Maturin, has saved me from all blunders for a day. If ever I should see a godly land again, I’ll raise an altar to his memory.”
The mocking undertone in de Sancerre’s light, laughing voice recalled to Doña Julia the old days at Versailles when this same man, who, by a marvel wrought in Paradise, now stood beside her in a wilderness, had touched upon many things which she had held in high regard with the irreverent wit of a flippant tongue. But, on the instant, she felt that she had been unjust to de Sancerre in taking, even for a moment, the path along which memory led. The earnest, courageous, resourceful man at her side was not the debonair, satirical cavalier whom she had known at court. She had said to him that he would find a change in her, wrought by a year of danger and despair. She realized, through the quick intuitions of a loving heart, that during that same lapse of time the wild, stirring life which he had led had touched the nobler chords in the soul of de Sancerre, and had brought to view a manly earnestness and force which had stamped his mobile face with an imprint grateful to her eyes. At Versailles the courtier had fascinated her against her will. In the wilderness the man had won the unforced homage of her admiration. If, now and then, his tongue, by habit, used flippant words to speak of mighty mysteries, the saints in heaven would forgive him this, for he had grown to be a man well worthy of their tender care.
The truth of this came to Doña Julia with renewed insistence as she and de Sancerre, having made the final preparations for their embarkation, knelt beside old Noco’s corpse and, hand clasping hand, voiced a prayer for the repose of their faithful ally’s soul.
“I dare not wait to give her burial,” said de Sancerre, regretfully, as he and the girl left the hut, carrying to their raft what little corn-meal and gunpowder their frail craft allowed to them as cargo. “But well I know the saints will treat her well. Her claim upon them is the same as mine.”
Doña Julia glanced up at de Sancerre, questioningly. He looked into her dark, earnest eyes with his heart in his, and answered her in Spanish:
“Old Noco worshipped you, señora—as I do! Caramba! What is that?”
The Frenchman stood motionless for a moment watching an object which broke the monotony of the river’s broad expanse on their left. Presently he placed the keg of gunpowder, which he had been carrying, upon the shore, and, seizing the long, clumsy musket at his feet, examined the pan and hammer.
“What is it, señor?” asked the girl, calmly, glancing up the river at a bobbing, white speck far to the northward, and then looking into de Sancerre’s pale, set face with eyes in which no terror gleamed.
“I hardly know, señora!” exclaimed the Frenchman. “But I fancy ’tis a thing which has no hold upon the saints!”