The surprised lieutenant, after looking again about him, turned and bowed.
“What commands does Mademoiselle wish me to give? For my part, there seems nothing for me to alter.”
“If Monsieur will relieve the garrison, it would be well, since none of us have been off the bastions for a week.”
We can well imagine that there were deep and peaceful slumbers in Castle Dangerous that night, and let us hope that the cowardly soldiers had to take their turn at last at bastion duty. I cannot find in the history that they did, however.
Think of the pride and pleasure that Madelon’s father and mother felt in their daughter when the news of her bravery reached them!
What they said to her when she told them all about it, history does not say either; but the facts of the defence were written down as Madelon herself told them, in obedience to the commands of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Governor of Canada.
Even in those dangerous times, when one never knew what peril the next moment would bring forth, and women as well as men took their share in guarding homes and firesides, such wonderful bravery and determination in a girl of fourteen did not pass unnoticed. Through the efforts of those in power, Madelon was highly commended at the great French court over seas, and was granted a pension by the King, to be paid to her each year as long as she should live.
In another encounter with Indians many years later, she saved the life of a French gentleman whom she afterward married. All her life was passed in the midst of peril, and on no occasion when bravery was demanded was Madelon ever found wanting.
