“You think it is—”
“I fear it is a war-canoe of white-robed devils, whose only claim to mercy is that they knew you were from God. But listen, ma chère. They must not see you here! There is no safety for us within the woods, for they would find my raft and track us quickly to the trees. The weird moon-magic of this snaphance gun must turn them from their course. Go back into the hut, and let their black eyes search for you in vain. With good St. Maturin’s most timely gift I’ll show them that a bullet is harder than their hearts.”
“Ah, no—I cannot leave you now!” exclaimed the girl, shuddering at the prospect of a lonely vigil in the room where Noco lay.
“This is no place for you, señora,” said de Sancerre, grimly, glancing again at the river, down which a large canoe, manned by ten stalwart sun-worshippers, which rose and fell upon the favoring tide, was approaching them with its menace of death for de Sancerre and captivity for the girl. “Go to the hut at once! I shall not keep you waiting long. If the magic of my musket should not avail, we’ll test the friendliness of yonder trees. But, still, I think my merry gun will drive the cowards back.”
A moment later de Sancerre, humming snatches of the love-song which he had sung before the cabin of the goddess Coyocop, fingered his musket with impatience as he waited for the war-canoe to swing within easy range of a weapon with which he had had no long experience.
“Nom de Dieu!” he muttered, as he raised the gun to his shoulder and then lowered it again to await a more favorable opportunity for his initial shot. “They make a gallant show! Their sun-baked brawn and muscle form a target which would rejoice the heart of a coureur de bois.”
At that instant a cry of mingled rage and triumph arose from the paddlers as they discovered the picturesque figure, standing erect upon the bank in tattered velvets and toying with a curiously-shaped implement which had no terrors for their unsophisticated eyes.
“Ma foi, I think the time is ripe to do my little trick!” exclaimed de Sancerre, gayly, a smile of derision playing across his thin lips as the echo of his pursuers’ shout of delight and anger came back to him from the wall of forest trees. “My hand is steady, and my heart is light! You black-haired devil, drop that paddle!”
The mimic lightning made by flint and steel changed powder into noise, and as the river and the trees tossed back and forth the echoes of the musket’s roar, a dusky athlete, dropping his paddle with a moan, toppled over dead into the shimmer of the sun-kissed waves.
“Bien, ma petite!” cried de Sancerre, patting his smoking gun with grateful hand. “The magic of the moon is working well to-day.”