For a moment the horrified sun-worshippers lost control of their canoe, and it drifted jerkily toward the centre of the stream. Presently, recovering their wits, they plunged their paddles into the flood and held their responsive, graceful boat steadfast on the waves, seemingly in doubt as to the course they should pursue.
“Confound them!” muttered the Frenchman, who had leisurely recharged his musket. “’Tis strange how slow these bright-eyed devils are to learn! Do they want ten miracles, when one should well suffice? They seem to crave another message from the moon. If I could hit a moving boat-load, I’ll have no trouble now! They’re steadying my target—to the greater glory of my magic gun! Adieu—once more!”
Again the peaceful day protested loudly against de Sancerre’s noisy tricks, and the waters gained another victim from the worshippers of fire. There was no further hesitation aboard the great canoe. With paddles wielded by hands cold with fear, and arms bursting with the struggle to drive their boat beyond the fatal circle of a demon’s witchery, the sun-worshippers frantically urged their primitive war-ship upward against the current of this treacherous river of death. Laying his faithful gun upon the bank, de Sancerre watched his retreating foes for a happy moment. Removing his torn bonnet with a flourish from his throbbing head, he made a stately bow, unheeded by the terrified canoemen, and cried gayly:
“Adieu, messieurs! They’ll hear of you in France anon! And then beware! Adieu!”
With a light heart and feet which seemed to spurn the sloping bank, de Sancerre rushed toward the hut in which the woman of his love had been listening in terror to the scolding of his gun.
“Behold me, mademoiselle,” he cried, jubilantly, as he drew the trembling girl to his breast, “a musketeer who wastes no powder upon his foes! I kiss your lips, my life and love! The prayers you sent to Heaven, I well know, have saved our lives again! Another kiss—and so we will embark.”
CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH DOÑA JULIA IS REMINDED OF THE PAST
It was night; black, oppressively damp, with thunder in the air and fitful lightning zigzagging across the sulky sky. With deep sighs, the forest prepared for the chastisement of the threatening storm. A sound like the sobbing of great trees followed the distant grumbling of dark, menacing clouds. The flying, climbing, crawling creatures of the woods and swamps and river-banks had heeded the warnings of the hour and had stolen to shelter from the wrath of the fickle spring-time.
The majestic Mississippi, swollen with the pride of power, flowed downward in silence through the gloom to throw its mighty arms around the islands near the gulf. Now and again its broad expanse would reflect for an instant the lightning’s glare and then grow blacker than before, as if it repented of its recognition of the storm. Presently great drops of water pelted the bosom of the stream, and far to the westward the forest cried out against the sudden impact of the resounding rain.
For many hours de Sancerre had been guiding his raft with an improvised paddle, the blade of which he had made from the wood of a powderkeg, and the long afternoon, when it had run its course, had left the adventurers nearer to the gulf by many weary miles than they had been at embarkation. Worthy of the trust which the dauntless Frenchman had placed in it, the hospitable stream had gently carried de Sancerre’s raft down the watery pathway along which Sieur de la Salle had found the road to disaster and immortality.