"I will fetch Mademoiselle Zhone out of her house before madame and the children get in," said Pierre Menard promptly. "As for the delay, it is nothing, mademoiselle; we must get you all to land as we can."
"Monsieur, will it not be dangerous? I thought of her because she is so sick. But there is foam everywhere; and the trees are in your way."
"We can find a track," answered the colonel. "Push off, boy."
The boat labored out, and the click of oars in rowlocks became presently a distant thumping, and then all sound was lost in the wash of water.
Angélique went to the dormer window in the gable. As she threw the sashes wide she was partly drenched by a wave, and tante-gra'mère sent from the screens a shrill mandate against wind which cut to the bone. Captain Saucier fastened the sashes again. He was a crestfallen man. He had fought Indians with credit, but he was not equal to the weakest member of his household.
Occasionally the rafters creaked from a blow, and a wave rushed up the roof.
"It is rising higher," said Peggy.
Angélique wished she had not mentioned Mademoiselle Zhone. Perhaps, when the colonel had risked his life to bring the sick girl out of a swamped house, her family might prefer to wait until morning to putting her in the boat now.
The bells kept ringing, now filling the attic with their vibrations, and then receding to a faint and far-off clamor as the wind swept by. They called to all the bluff-dwellers within miles of Kaskaskia.
The children sat down, and leaned their heads against their mother's knee. The others waited in drawing-room chairs; feeling the weariness of anxiety and broken domestic habits. Captain Saucier watched for the return of the boat; but before it seemed possible the little voyage could be made they felt a jar under the gable window, and Rice Jones's voice called.