“They come!” she cried.
Verily they came—a strange spectacle. Out of the woods and across the bridge poured a little horde of Acadians—all Acadians, Margot saw in one swift glance, many of them excited by the red French wine, but every man of them singing and shouting, as they tramped along laden with what was evidently plunder from the fort.
“Beauséjour has fallen—has fallen!”
Thus they sang, as if exulting in the defeat of an enemy.
The wife of Marin, almost as wild as the men, had loaded herself down with part of her husband’s burden, and her voice rang shrill above the tumult in response to Marie’s vociferous queries:
“Beauséjour has fallen, I tell thee. And the English have pardoned our men because they said they but fought under compulsion. All is well.”
“But whence came this, and this?” persisted the more practical Marie, pointing to the motley collection of food, wearing apparel, wines, and even furniture, with which the ground was now littered.
Questions for long brought no coherent reply, and it was not until late in the afternoon, their comrades having scattered in search of their respective families, that either Herbes or Marin was able to give a clear account of all that had happened.
It was significant of the religious dependence and docility of the Acadian nature that one of the first questions asked and answered should be concerning the fate of Le Loutre. At the query the two men, who since their vain trip to Quebec had wavered somewhat in their allegiance to the tyrannical abbé, shrugged their shoulders and spread their hands as those who knew nothing.
“But, Louis,” Marie cried, “it is important that we know, for without him are we not but lost sheep in the wilderness?”