The Heir to Grand-Pré

by John Frederic Herbin

They all listened for a moment, Marie's face pale with uncertainty and fear.

"There, there it is again!" the girl cried, and without another word she ran towards the bluffs. Pierre turned the head of the teams towards the island again, and giving some directions to Suzanne, took the direction now followed by his daughter with fleet feet. As he hurried along he thought of Len, and stopping for a moment, he put his hands to his mouth and sent his voice ringing out over the beach to the boat. Len stood up and saw the old man beckoning him. He also observed the figure of Marie making her way among the smaller boulders, and in another moment her flying feet carried her out of sight. He noted that for some reason the teams were returning and Pierre was now moving rapidly towards the point where his daughter had disappeared. He cried out that he could not leave the boat, for the tide was coming.

Marie was meanwhile approaching the place where she had detected a faint cloud of dust among the huge fragments of rock which must have fallen from the face of the island and rolled out on the rocky beach which formed this part of the shore, centuries before, perhaps.

Again she heard the man's voice, but louder now, as the sounds were brought to her ears from among the piled-up masses of stone. The voice electrified her into increased activity. There was hope in the sound to her, where previously the silence had filled her with a vague terror of something awful that would suddenly confront her vision. The slight sound of her light feet darting over the sand, or the beds of trap even, echoed back to her ears with a warning tone. Only once did she hear the voice again. It was yet some distance ahead, but it lent wings to her feet. Panting and pale in spite of her exertions, and with wide, scared eyes, and teeth set in determination to go on, though in expectation of something shocking to her senses at every turn of her path and around every projecting point of the cliff, she now approached an inlet or small ravine cut into the cliff about fifty yards, whose bottom sloped down from each side. After every rain a brook, fed by the waters caught on the island, would run down the cliff and find its way to the sea by means of this cove, lessening gradually till it fell drop by drop. At the head of this cove was a large vein of red mineral known as acadialite, which formed part of the cliff to a great height, following the irregular surface of the rock. This vein was in the bed of the brook, at this time with no water running. Through centuries the cove had been gradually deepened, the softer mineral yielding to the action of the elements more easily than other parts of the rock. The action of frost had loosened the adjacent stone, and in many places it was broken and ready to fall. The flow of the water had worn down the bottom of the cove, leaving a depression of some depth.

Marie was drawn to this cove because she knew of the large vein, and also because she was aware of the dangerous character of the place, made so by the looseness of the formation. She saw from the mouth of the inlet a large mass of stone that had recently fallen, piled up near the head of the cove. She examined it quickly from her position at the opening of the cove, and seeing nothing of Winslow she was about to pass on farther around the island, when her quick eye caught the faded colors of the coat which the young man had worn when he left the boat. It lay near the heap of stone, and a few pieces of rock had rolled upon it. At this discovery Marie cried out with terror at the first thought that came to her, that the voice she had heard was of the stranger now buried under the stone, and either unconscious or dead. Half fainting from the effect of this thought upon her, she had to force herself to return by the way she came, to meet her father and to hurry him on to the rescue. Her weakened strength did not permit her to move quickly, but she met her father but a short distance away, and after telling Pierre what she had seen she fell to the sand utterly helpless.

"Hurry, père, the gentleman may be saved yet!" she said, faintly.

"I will take you back to Suzanne first," replied the old man.

"Oh, no, père, I will be stronger soon. The running tired me." As she spoke she rose to her feet, though pale and trembling.

Pierre then hurried away, and in a few moments Marie turned toward the cove again. Just as she came in sight of her father, Len arrived with a rope in his hand, and the two men set to work at once to throw aside the stone from the pile which had fallen.