To de Sancerre’s chagrin and dismay, the brawny, brown paddler at whom he had aimed his musket had defied moon-magic at the dawn of day. The Count’s precious bullet had done no harm to the oncoming canoe, nor to the war-party which it held. Cold with the horrid possibilities opened up by his indifferent marksmanship, de Sancerre, with hands which trembled annoyingly, attempted to reload his gun in time to prevent the imminent landing of the howling bowmen. That his shot would have come too late the speed of the canoe made evident, when a crash, almost at his very ear, nearly deafened the astonished Frenchman for a time. Jacques Barbier, having checked momentarily by his marvellous skill with his musket the attack from the main-land, had come to de Sancerre’s defense in the nick of time. But the coureur de bois paid dearly for the support that he had given to the unnerved Frenchman. An arrow, shot by a dusky warrior more daring than his companions, had made answer to Jacques Barbier’s fatal bullet and had entered the Canadian’s breast just below his dangling tobacco-pipe.
“Mother Mary, that is enough!” groaned the coureur de bois, writhing upon the tousled grass by his horrified comrade’s side. “Courage, Monsieur le Comte! Let them have your charge! I have just life enough left to load my gun again. Wait! Your hand trembles! Bien! Fire!”
De Sancerre’s musket roared once again and his bullet found its way to the heart of a foe.
“Take my gun, monsieur,” gasped Barbier. “I made shift to load it—but, gar, this is death! Ugh!”
A hero at the end of his short, wild life, the coureur de bois lay dead upon the shore.
At that instant the waters of the gulf and the river’s mouth vibrated with the thunder of an explosion which, to the ears of the startled sun-worshippers upon the main-land and in the crowded war-boats, sounded like moon-magic gone mad with victory.
“Nom de Dieu, it is the cannon of a ship or my ears are haunted by Jacques Barbier’s gun!” exclaimed de Sancerre, eyeing the retreating canoes as he stealthily raised his head above the underbrush and then cast a searching glance toward the sun-kissed sea. To his amazement and joy, his gaze rested upon a clumsy carack, loaded deep, coming to anchor not half a mile below the island upon which he stood. A puff of smoke arose from the great ship’s bow at that moment, and again the astonished woods and waters reverberated with an uproar new to the ears of a hundred terrified warriors, who had come forth to recover a goddess and had been met with the awful chiding of the Great Spirit, who had sent a mighty vessel, larger than their wildest dreams had known, to carry Coyocop back again to God.
With his heart throbbing with many varied emotions, de Sancerre had reluctantly turned his grateful eyes from the sea, no longer a lonely, cruel waste of tossing waves, toward the forest to the westward, into which the land-forces of the disorganized sun-worshippers were scurrying in mad fear of an avenging deity, when he felt a light hand upon his arm, and, turning quickly, gazed down into the dark, glowing eyes of a maiden whose trust in the saints had not been betrayed.
“In the hut I knelt in prayer,” whispered Doña Julia, from whose face shone the light of a soul that had known deep sorrow and great joy, “when I heard my father’s voice, telling me that help was near. Oh, señor, the wonder of it all!”
“It looks to me a miracle, indeed!” exclaimed de Sancerre. “There seemed to be no hope when Barbier was hit! He died, señora, the death of a true man.”