“Your captain, señor—you loved him?”
“De la Salle? I know not that I loved him. But I would have followed him to hell! There is a grandeur in my captain’s soul which draws to him the little men and makes them great. Aye, señora, by all succeeding ages the name of him who raised this wooden column, against which we lean, in honor must be held! The deeds of de la Salle shall live, when the feats of countless noisy boasters are forgotten. But, that I loved this mighty leader I cannot say. I’ve served in Europe under lesser men than de la Salle, who led me by the heart; while he, methinks, appeals but to my head. He rules us not with velvet, but with steel, this dauntless captain, upon whose martial figure I would that I might gaze. And that is best, in such a land as this! Followed by redmen and wild border outlaws, he could not hold them should he smile and scrape. And, at the best, he cannot trust his men. They grumble at their captain, because he has no weakness in their eyes.”
De Sancerre’s long speech, to which Doña Julia had listened with forced attention, had changed the melancholy current of his thoughts and restored the lines of firmness to his mouth, the light of courage to his eyes. The memory of the bold adventurer under whom he had served for many months, and the inspiring legend which he had read and reread upon the column at his back, had revived the martial spirit in his impressionable soul, and his face and voice no longer bore evidence of the bitter disappointment which had driven him to the verge of despair when he had made the discovery that Sieur de la Salle had abandoned his camp at the Mississippi’s mouth. With gun in hand, the Frenchman stood erect.
“Listen, ma chère, for I crave your counsel and advice,” he said, gazing down at Doña Julia. “We may be here for months before we find a means of rescue, either by land or sea. We’re worn with sleeplessness and toil, but, more than this, our bodies crave strong food. We’ve eaten meal and berries until I dream of Vatel when I doze—great Condé’s cook, who killed himself because a dish was spoiled. My gun could add a fat wild turkey to our larder; but the point is this: the musket’s noise might lead our dusky enemies to seek us here. I feared not their persistence ’til you spoke of it. This column and the arms it bears would make no great impression upon our foes.”
“Our only hope must lie in yonder cross,” murmured Doña Julia, devoutly. Then she gazed upward at the thin, white face of a man who might well call himself at this moment “a splinter from a moonbeam,” so thin and white he looked. The horror of her situation, should her brave protector fall sick from lack of nourishing food, forced itself impressively upon her mind.
“’Twill do no harm, señor,” she went on, “for you to snap your gun. In any case, our enemies, if they are still upon our track, would find us here, and if they hear your musket’s loud report, ’twill check them for a time. They’ll think the woods are haunted with demons threatening them.”
“Ma foi, they would be, had I the magic which I claim!” exclaimed de Sancerre, examining carefully the priming of his gun. “I think, señora, that what you say is true. If those brown devils are now upon our trail, our silence cannot save us. St. Eustace be my guide! We’ll break our fast at sunset, sweetheart, upon a bit of meat. I’ll not go out of sight. I’ve wasted too much time, for we must choose a lodging for the night before the dark has come.”
Reinvigorated in mind and body, de Sancerre descended the hillock from which the King’s Column and the Cross of Christ looked down upon an empire over which the reign of the proud pillar was not destined to endure. With eyes raised to heaven, Doña Julia knelt before the humble emblem of her faith, and besought the saints to guard her champion from the perils which might at this moment beset his steps. Then she arose, and, leaning against the wooden monument, watched, with ever-growing interest, the versatile Frenchman’s efforts to satisfy his craving for a more nourishing diet than his labors as a raftsman had permitted him to gain.
“Peste!” muttered de Sancerre, as he made his way through the long grass toward the forest trees, “this musket is heavier by many pounds than when the good St. Maturin turned my footsteps toward it. Unless your bullet, ma petite, should find its way to yonder sleek, but most unsuspicious, banquet, I fear you’ll grow too weighty for my hands. Laude et jubilate! The bird is mine!”
De Sancerre turned and waved his ragged bonnet toward Doña Julia, who had witnessed the success of his shot, and then, leisurely reloading his musket, made his way toward the precious trophy of his marksmanship. Suddenly he stood stock-still, his head thrown back, and his eyes staring at the forest in amazement. As if in answer to his gun’s report, there came from the distant trees the echo of a musket-shot, which thrilled the soul of the startled Frenchman with mingled hope and fear.