The Sun of Quebec: A Story of a Great Crisis

by Joseph A. Altsheler

He saw nothing from the peak except the green island and the blue sea all about it, but there was a singing wind among the leaves and it was easy for him to sit down on a rock and fall into a dreaming state. The good spirits were abroad, and it was their voices that he heard among the leaves. Their chant too was full of courage, hope and promise, and his spirits lifted as he listened. They were watching over him, guarding him from evil, and he felt, at last, that they were telling him something.

It is not always easy to know the exact burden of a song, even if it is uplifting, and Robert listened a long time, trying to decipher exactly what the good spirits were saying to him. It was just such a song as they sang to him before the pirate ship came, saving one strain and that was most important. There was no underlying note of warning. Hunt for it as he would, with his fullest power of hearing, he could detect no trace of it. Then he became convinced. Another ship was coming, and this time it was no pirate craft.

He roused himself from his dreaming state and shook his head, but the vision did not depart. The ship was coming and it was for him to receive it. The news of it had been written too deeply upon the sensitive plate of his brain to be effaced, and, as he walked back toward the house, it seemed to grow more vivid. He was too much excited to study that day, and he spent the time building a great heap of wood upon the beach. Even if one were helped by good spirits he must do his own part. They might bring the ship to the horizon's rim, but it was for him to summon it from there, and he would have a great bonfire ready.

The brilliance of the day departed in the afternoon, and it became apparent that the season of rain and storm was not yet over. Clouds marched up in grim battalions from the south and west, rain came in swift puffs and then in long, heavy showers, the sea heaved, breaking into great waves and the surf dashed fiercely on the sharp teeth of the rocks.

Robert's spirits fell. This was not the way in which a rescuing ship should come, under a somber sky and before driving winds. Perhaps he had read the voices of the spirits wrong, or at least the ship, instead of coming now, was coming at some later time, a month or two months away maybe. He watched through the rest of the afternoon, hoping that the clouds would leave, but they only thickened, and, long before the time of sunset, it was almost as dark as night. He was compelled to remain in the shelter of the house, and, in a state of deep depression, he ate his supper without appetite.

The storm was one of the fiercest he had seen while on the island. The rain drove in sheets, beating upon the walls and roof of the house like hail, and the wind kept up a continuous whistling and screaming. All the while the house trembled over him. Nor was there any human voice in the wind. The good spirits, if such existed, would not dare the storm, but had retreated to cover. All the illusion was gone, he was just a lonely boy on a lonely island, listening to the wrath of a hurricane, a ship might or might not come, most probably never, or if it did it would be another pirate.

The storm did not seem to abate as the evening went on, perhaps it was the climax of the season. Tired of hearing its noise he lay down on his couch and at last fell asleep. He was awakened from slumber by an impact upon the drum of his ear like a light blow, but, sitting up, he realized that it was a sound. The storm had not abated. He heard the beat of wind and rain as before, but he knew it was something else that had aroused him. The noise of the storm was regular, it was going on when he fell asleep, and it had never ceased while he slept. This was something irregular, something out of tune with it, and rising above it. He listened intently, every nerve and pulse alive, body and mind at the high pitch of excitement, and then the sound came again, low but distinct, and rising above the steady crash of the storm.

He knew the note. He had heard it often, too often on that terrible day at Ticonderoga. It could be but one thing. It was the boom of a cannon, and it could come only from a ship, a ship in danger, a ship driven by the storm, knowing nothing of either sea or island, sending forth her signal of distress which was also a cry for help.

It was his ship! The ship of rescue! But he must first rescue it! Now he heard the voices of the good spirits, the voices that had been silent all through the afternoon and evening, singing through the storm, calling to him, summoning him to action. He had not taken off his clothes and he leaped from the couch, snatched up a lighted lantern, stuffed flint and steel in his pocket, and ran out into the wind and rain, of which he was now scarcely conscious.

The boom came to his ears a second time, off to the east, and now distinctly the report of a cannon. He waited a little, watching, and, when the report came a third time, he saw dimly the flash of the gun, but it was too dark for him to see anything of the ship. She was outside the reefs, how far he could not tell, but he knew by the difference in the three reports that she was driving toward the island.