Fogs or storms, or dogged navigators disagreeing with and disobeying him, had robbed him of his destination; for news came back to France, by a returning ship, of loss and disaster and a colony dropped like castaways on some inlet of the Gulf.
The evening meal was eaten and sentinels were posted. Even petulant children had ceased to fret within the various enclosures. Indians and Frenchmen lay asleep under their canoes which they had carried from the river, and by propping with stones or stakes at one side, converted into low-roofed shelters.
Barbe’s tent was beside the spring near the camp-fire. She could, by parting overlapped blanket edges, look out of her cloth house into those living depths of bubbling white sand, so like the thoughts of young maids. Two or three fallen leaves, curled into quaint craft, slid across the pool’s surface, hung at its barrier, and one after the other slipped over and disappeared along the thread of water. A hollow of light was scooped above the camp-fire, outside of which darkness stood an impenetrable rind, for the sky had all day been thickened by clouds.
The Demoiselle Bellefontaine, tucked neatly as a mole under her ridge, rested from her fears in sleep; and Barbe made ready to lie down also, sweeping once more the visible world with a lingering eye. She saw an Indian creeping on hands and knees toward Tonty’s lodge. He entered darkness the moment she saw him. The girl arose trembling and put on her clothes. She had caught no impression of his tribe; but if he were a warrior of the camp, his crawling so secretly must threaten harm to Tonty. She did not distinctly know what she ought to do, except warn Monsieur de Tonty.
But on a sudden the iron-handed commandant ran past her tent, shouting to his men. There was a sound like the rushing of bees through the air, and horrible faces smeared with paint, tattooed bodies, and hands brandishing weapons closed in from darkness; the men of the camp rose up with answering yells, and the flash and roar of muskets surrounded Barbe as if she were standing in some nightmare world of lightning and thunder. She heard the screams of children and frightened mothers. She saw Tonty in meteor rushes rallying men, and striking down, with nothing but his iron hand, a foe who had come to quarters too close for fire-arms. Indian after Indian fell under that sledge, and a cry of terror in Iroquois French, which she could understand, rose through the whoop of invasion,—
“The Great-Medicine-Hand! The Great-Medicine-Hand!”
Brands were caught from the fire and thrown like bolts, sparks hissing as they flew. Her tent was overturned and she fell under it with the Demoiselle Bellefontaine, who uttered muffled squeals.
When Barbe dragged her companion out of the midst of poles, all the hurricane of action had passed by. Its rush could be heard down the slope, then the splashing of bodies and tumultuous paddling in the river. Guns yet flashed. She heard Frenchmen and Illinois running with their canoes down to the water to give chase. Farther and farther away sounded the retreat, and though women and children continued to make outcry, Barbe could hear no groans.
The brands of the fire were still scattered, but hands were busy collecting and bringing them back,—processions of gigantic glow-worms meeting by dumb appointment in a nest of hot ashes and trodden logs. All faces were drowned in the dark until these re-united embers fitfully brought them out. A crowd of frightened immigrants drew around the blaze, calling each other by name, and demanding to know who was scalped.