“Very well, then. But you will remember, not a breath of my sworn purpose to any of the varlets within here.”
Jacques pulled off his cap, and holding it in air stood in the mute attitude of taking an oath. Dollard flung his fingers backward, dismissing the subject.
They entered the Château of St. Louis, where Jacques waited in an anteroom among noisy valets and men-at-arms. He was put to question by the governor’s joking, card-playing servants as soon as they understood that he was from Montreal; but he said little, and sat in lowering suspense until Dollard came out of the council-chamber.
What Dollard’s brief business was with the governor of Canada has never been set down. That it held importance either for himself or for the enterprise he had in hand is evident from his making a perilous journey in the midst of Indian alarms; but that he made no mention of this enterprise to the governor is also evident, from the fact that it was completed before Quebec had even known of it. His garrison at Montreal and the sub-governor Maisonneuve may have known why he made this voyage, which he accomplished in the astonishing space of ten days, both output and return. This century separates Montreal and Quebec by a single night’s steaming. But voyagers then going up-stream sometimes hovered two weeks on the way. Dollard had for his oarsmen four stout Huron Indians, full of river skill, knowing the St. Lawrence like a brother. He returned through the anteroom, his visionary face unchanged by high company, and with Jacques at his heels walked briskly across Quebec Heights.
Spread gloriously before him was St. Lawrence’s lower flood, parted by the island of Orleans. The rock palisades of Levi looked purple even under the forenoon sunlight. He could have turned his head over his left shoulder and caught a glimpse of those slopes of Abraham where the French were to lose Canada after he had given himself to her welfare. Not looking over his shoulder, but straight ahead, he encountered the mightiest priest in New France, stout Dollier de Casson, head of the order of St. Sulpice in Montreal. His rosy face shone full of good-will. There shone, also, the record of hardy, desperate mission work, jovial famine, and high forgetfulness of Dollier de Casson. His cassock sat on him like a Roman toga, masculine in every line. He took Dollard’s hand and floated him in a flood-tide of good feeling while they spoke together an instant.
“You here, commandant? Where are the Iroquois?”
“Not yet at Quebec.”
“But there have been alarms. The people around Ste. Anne’s[2] are said to be starting to the fort.”
“Jacques,” exclaimed Dollard, “you must hasten this affair of your marriage. We are here too long.”
“The sun is scarce an hour higher than when we landed,” muttered Jacques.