"Give me that fusil," commanded Radisson. I took up the gun, which was ready loaded, and passed it to him. Lifting it, he fired in the air. There was no answer save a dull echo and the lap-lap of water on our sides. Black Michael went gray with sheer fright.
"Strange," exclaimed Radisson again, and even his deep voice was shaken. "What think you of it, Jean?"
I remembered later how then he turned to the man he hated above all others, and I respected him the more for it. Gib, for it was he whom Radisson addressed, leaned over and snatched something from the water.
"This, Sieur Radisson."
He held up a dripping object. We all stared at it, then I felt my heart leap, and I uttered a cry of horror—for the thing was the front cover of my father's Bible!
CHAPTER VIII.
DESERTED.
Even that hardened villain Gib was shocked at this discovery. He handed the soaked leather cover to me in silence, and when I raised my face I saw Radisson gazing at me, a great sadness in his eyes. I stammered out what the thing was, and thereafter silence fell upon us all.
I knew full well that some dire thing had happened before that sacred Bible could have been wrenched asunder in my father's hands, for seldom indeed had it ever left him. I stood up on the seat and shouted in a frenzy of fear, for that horrible fog set badly on my soul.
"Father! Father! Where are you?"