“It has been still as the village street during mass.”
“What, then, have they done, those English? They must have taken the fort without firing a gun. And the Sioux-you have not seen him?”
“Nothing has passed the cave door, not even a chipmunk.”
He stretched his arms upward into the hollow, standing tall and well made, his buckskin shirt turned back from his neck.
“I am again hungry.”
“I also,” said Marianson. “I have not eaten anything to-day.”
Her companion dropped on his knees before her and took out of her hands the food she had ready. His face expressed shame and compunction as he fed her himself, offering bites to her mouth with gentle persistence. She laughed the laugh peculiar to herself, and pushed his hand back to his own lips. So they ate together, and afterwards drank from the same cup. Marianson showed him where the drops came down, and he gathered them, smiling at her from the depths of the cave. They heard the evening cawing of crows, and the waters rushing with a wilder wash on the beach.
“I will bring more bread and meat when I come back,” promised Marianson—“unless the English have burned the house.”
“No. When it is dark I will leave the cave myself,” said the voyageur. “Is there any boat near by that I can take to escape in from the island?”
“There is my boat. But it is at the post.”