"Farewell."
Erect and proud, Onawa passed out with her awful sorrow, through the opening morning, and so among the trees, still dignified and unbending because she knew those calm black eyes followed all her movements. On she went into the increasing gloom, until the snow carpet appeared to grow hot, and opalescent colours fringed the trees, and sounds of sleepy music hummed around her head. The red and green lights flashed up and down; solitude closed behind her; the pine-barrens were on fire. The world was gone.
CHAPTER XXXV.
SWORDCRAFT.
The path taken by La Salle ascended and brought him finally to the crest of a hill. Here a wood of storm-beaten pines stood motionless in the white calm of the long winter sleep. Between the dimly lighted trees spread a narrow scar of black earth, which had been protected from snow by the funereal boughs above. The spot was as silent and as sad as a burying-place. It seemed to the priest that the balsamic pines might have been planted to neutralise any noxious odours emanating from the ground. He shivered at the thought, turned to retrace his steps and find an outlet which might lead him to the shore; but straightway a restraint fell upon his feet, and a thrill raced through his body, when he perceived that the place whereon he walked was haunted ground.
Before him stood a figure, white-faced and worn, clad in ragged garments, a man to all outward seeming no more sentient than the pines, for he moved not at all, nor did he speak, nor make a sign. As though rooted and frozen, he stood across the way, showing life and feeling only in his eyes.
"By all the saints!" the priest muttered. "'Tis but a half-starved Englishman."
Then he shouted his ready challenge to the silent man, who passed immediately with swift movements to the strip of bare ground, and, halting within touch of his enemy, addressed him sternly in the Gallic tongue:
"That you may learn, Sir Priest, with whom you have to deal, know that before you stands Sir Thomas Iden, a squire of England and a knight of Kent, a man moreover who has sworn to fight you fairly to the death. Remember you that night on which you put to death a boy in the forest beside Couchicing? That boy was my son, my only child. Sir Priest, you and I have crossed swords before this day. I was then a better man than now; but, with the help of my God and the spirit of my child, I shall lay out your body in this lonely spot for the winds to howl upon, and leave your eyes open for the crows to peck at. I pray you answer only with your sword."