CHAPTER II.
AN ENEMY IN THE CAMP.
At sunset Roussilac, the commandant of Quebec, after receiving reassuring reports from the sentries and thus closing his official duties for the day, went aboard the man-of-war. Having personally superintended the shipping of the gangway, to satisfy himself that immediate communication with the shore was cut off, he withdrew to his cabin, which he occupied in preference to his hut upon the slope. Before retiring to his hammock, he mentally reviewed his position, the difficulties of which had not been lessened by the unexpected arrival of the Dutch ship.
It had never been the way of Holland to go out of her course to be friendly. The commandant could not forget that she had colonised large tracts of country further south; he knew that, like England, she aspired to extend her influence beyond the seas; and what more probable than that, snatching at the opportunity afforded by this alliance, her government should have commissioned Van Vuren to spy out the land and report upon its possibilities?
Already sufficient dangers threatened the fortress. Disquieting rumours had reached Roussilac of late. The Indians, it was said, were growing more restless and bolder because they had discovered the weakness of the French. It was certain that a band of five Englishmen had been seen in the district by Gaudriole, and these were probably the precursors of more formidable numbers. The islanders, Roussilac knew, had a knack of appearing when least expected; and Agincourt had long since shown the world that they were never so formidable as when few in numbers, short of supplies, and worn after heavy marching. It was this fear which had induced the commandant to adopt the plan of retiring to the ship each night, so that, whatever might befall his men upon the mainland, he at least would be in a position of comparative safety.
By this it will be perceived that Roussilac was not altogether of that stuff of which heroes are made. Nor was he a man of exceptional ability. He had fought his way up to his present post of responsibility with the aid of fortune and a natural capacity for obeying orders, although, while he had been ascending, he preferred to forget his Norman parents and connections, merely because they happened to be poor and humble folk. His mother's brother and her husband, the latter driven out of France for heresy, were living upon a small holding, little more than a day's journey from the fortress; Jean-Marie Labroquerie, their only son, had lately joined the ranks of his small army; but the commandant was too proud, or perhaps too cowardly, to acknowledge these kinsfolk, and in his heart he found the hope that Madame Labroquerie, his aunt, a woman of bitter memories, with a sharp tongue and a passionate nature, would never seek to reach the fortress and shame him before his men. The selfish spirit of Richelieu was working on in Arnaud de Roussilac, as indeed it worked through the character of almost all the creatures of the Cardinal.
Still perplexed by the problems of his position, the commandant recited the prayers without which no soldier of the age could have deemed himself safe from the perils of the night, placed his sword ready to his hand, and retired to his hammock, although darkness had scarcely settled over the land. In a few minutes he was asleep.
These early slumbers were rudely broken by a heavy hand which seized and shook him by the shoulder. The glare of a torch hurt his eyes, when he opened them to discover the tanned features of D'Archand, the master of the ship, between the folds of the netting spread to exclude the ever-hostile insects.
"An attack," muttered Roussilac, in the first moment of consciousness. "A plague upon these English."