His figure seemed to grow larger in the mist, and the grey haze gave his hair a frosty coating, so that age and youth seemed strangely mingled in him. He stood motionless for a long time as the song went on:
“Qui vive!
Who saileth into the morn,
Out of the wind of the dawn?
‘Follow, oh, follow me on!’
Calleth a distant horn.
He is here—he is there—he is gone,
Tall seigneur of the dawn!
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.”
Some one touched Iberville’s arm. It was Dollier de Casson. Iberville turned to him, but they did not speak at first—the priest knew his friend well.
“We shall succeed, abbe,” Iberville said.
“May our quarrel be a just one, Pierre,” was the grave reply.
“The forts are our king’s; the man is with my conscience, my dear friend.”
“But if you make sorrow for the woman?”
“You brought me a gift from her!” His finger touched his doublet.
“She is English, my Pierre.”
“She is what God made her.”