“Dollard held Claire with his left arm and fought with
his sword.”
The fort could not be taken by surprise; it could not be taken by massed sallies. The Iroquois wrangled among themselves. Some were for raising the siege and going back to their own country. Their best braves lay in heaps. But others scouted the eternal disgrace of leaving unpunished so pitiful a foe.
Finally they made themselves great shields of split logs, broad as a door, and crept forward under cover of these to hew away the palisades. Mad for revenge, they used their utmost skill and caution.
It was at this time that Dollard, among his reeling and praying men—men yet able to smile with powder-blackened faces through the loop-holes—took a large musketoon, filled it with explosives, and plugged it ready to throw among the enemy. His arms had not remaining strength to fling it clear of the palisade’s jagged top. It fell back and exploded in the fort, and amidst the frightful confusion the Iroquois made their first breach, to find it defended; and yet another breach, and yet another, overflowing the inclosure with all their swarms.
Smoke-clouds curled around the bride who had trod that sward and borne her part in the suffering. Half blinded by the explosion, Dollard held Claire with his left arm and fought with his sword. As firm and white as a marble face, the face of the Laval-Montmorency met her foes. The blood of man-warriors, even of Anne, the great and warlike Constable of France, throbbed steadfastly in the arm which grasped her husband and the heart which stood by his until they were swept down by the same volley of musketry, and lay as one body among the dead. Perhaps to Claire and Dollard it was but sudden release from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and victorious howling. For La Mouche found Massawippa pointing as if she saw through the earthwork. The half-breed’s eyes glowed with expansive brightness, as a spark does just before it expires. Her childish contours were beautiful, and unbroken by pain.
“Father,” said Massawippa with effort,—the chief was dead, having saved her from the Iroquois with the last stroke of his hand,—“do you see madame—and the commandant—walking there under—birches?” Her face smiled as she died, and remained set in its smile.
There are people who steadily live the lives they hate, whose common speech misrepresents their thought, who walk the world fettered. Is it better with these than with winged souls?
Fire and smoke of a great burning rose up and blinded the day beside the Long Saut. It was a mighty funeral pile. The tender grass all around, licked by flame, gave juices of the earth to that sacrifice. The wine of young lives, the spices and treasures of courageous hearts, went freely to it, and for more than two hundred and twenty-five years love and gratitude have consecrated the spot.