"Madame Marie, you remember that woman you brought back with you?"
"I have not seen her or spoken with her," said Marie self-reproachfully, "since she vexed me so sorely about her child. She is a poor creature. But they feed and house her well in the barracks."
"Madame Marie, Klussman hath been talking with that woman every day this week."
The dwarf's lady looked keenly at her.
"Oh, no. There could be no talk between those two."
"But there hath been. I have watched him. Madame Marie, he took me up when I went into the fort before Madame Bronck's marriage—when I was but playing my clavier before that sulky knave to amuse her—he took me up in his big common-soldier fingers, gripping me around the waist, and flung me into the hall."
"Did he so?" laughed Marie. "I can well see that my Nightingale can put no more faith in the Swiss. But hearken to me, thou bird-child. There! Hear our salute!"
The cannon leaped almost over their heads, and the walls shook with its boom and rebound. Marie kept her finger up and waited for a reply. Minute succeeded minute. The drip of accumulated rain-drops from the door could be heard, but nothing else. Those sullen vessels paid no attention to the inquiry of Fort St. John.
"Our enemy has come."
She relaxed from her tense listening and with a deep breath looked at Le Rossignol.