The colonel let them take tante-gra'mère in. He was exhausted. One arm and his cheek sunk on the side of the boat, and they drew him across it, steadying themselves by the foliage upreared by the tree.
He opened his eyes, and saw rose and pearl streaks in the sky. The sun was mounting behind the bluffs. Then a canopy of leaves intervened, and a whir of bird wings came to his ears. The boat had reached dead water, and was moving over the submerged roadbed, and groping betwixt the stems of great pecan-trees,—the great pecan-trees which stood sentinel on the river borders of his estate. He noticed how the broken limbs flourished in the water, every leaf satisfied with the moisture it drew.
The colonel realized that he was lying flat in a boat which had not been bailed dry, and that his head rested on wet homespun, by its odor belonging to Louis or Jacques; and he saw their black naked arms paddling with the oars. Beyond them he saw Wachique holding her mistress carefully and unrestrained; and the negro in her quailed before him at the deed the Indian had done, scarcely comforted by the twinkle in the colonel's eye. Tante-gra'mère was sitting up meekly, less affected by dampness than anybody else in the boat. She had a fresh and toughened look. Her baptism in the rivers had perhaps renewed her for another century.
"Madame, you are certainly the most remarkable woman in this Territory. You have borne this night marvelously well, and the accident of the boat even better."
"Not at all, monsieur the colonel."
She spoke as children do when effectually punished for ill temper.
"Are you cold?"
"I am wet, monsieur. We are all wet. It is indeed a time of flood."
"We shall soon see a blazing fire and a hot breakfast, and all the garments in the country will be ours without asking."
The colonel raised himself on his elbow and looked around. Angélique sat beside his head; so close that they both blushed.