"Save when you attack us without cause, we have no desire for your death," Mistress Pemberton replied. "Now you are no longer a soldier, striving to do us grievous injury, but a suffering fellow creature, and so long as it is in our power we will do whatsoever we may toward giving you aid."
The wounded man turned his face away, as if ashamed to look the good woman in the face, and after a time Mark questioned him as to how the chanced to be so near the house.
From his story, told little by little because of the difficulty experienced in talking, the facts were soon known.
He had been among the first to burst through the gate, and was not wounded until when the last shot was fired. Then instinct prompted him to gain a shelter under the wall of the building, where it would not be possible for those on the inside to see him, immediately after which he lost consciousness. During a long while he remained as if dead, and it is probable that the deluge of rain served to revive him after a time; but he was ignorant of having made any outcry. He remembered of realizing that he was alone, exposed to the storm, and the next knowledge was that the women were striving to nurse him back to life.
It was morning before the inmates of the dwelling gave much heed to anything save the wounded soldier, and then Mark, after cautioning the remainder of the family to stay inside the dwelling unless they heard his cry for help, ventured out into the tempest, which continued with but little decrease of violence.
The sun had not yet risen, and it the gray light of early dawn it was not possible to distinguish objects at any great distance. He had, in the immediate vicinity of the stockade, however, good proof of the violence with which the storm raged.
A portion of the palisade itself had been overthrown, leaving an opening through which the entire force of the enemy might have marched shoulder to shoulder. Trees were uprooted; the small boat, which had been drawn beyond reach of the tide, was now within ten feet of the battered gate, having been carried there by the wind.
That the buildings within the stockade remained un-injured was due, doubtless, to the thicket in the rear which served to shield them from the full fury of the elements.
Turn where he might, the same scene of devastation met his gaze, and he understood that if any of the Frenchmen remained on the island they would be powerless to depart, for their vessel could not have outlived the night.