“Oh, yes; Mignon knows the way; but we would have to follow him over the trees. I am afraid you could not jump from branch to branch; I know I could not.”
“Oh, I will tie a string to him and make him walk before us,” and with pretty prattle she entered into a conversation with the squirrel, telling him how they were lost and he was to guide them home, for she wanted to take dinner with mother. Mignon gravely listened and nodded his head as if he understood it all. Then he ran up a tree or two by way of exercise, frisked with another squirrel, peeped at Marie from all sorts of unexpected places, and ended his capers by jumping on to her shoulder when she was not expecting him, and pretended he was going to nibble her chin. Marie was delighted; Mignon had diverted her mind from her sufferings and Archange assisted by suggesting they should make a little house for him. Of sticks and reeds they framed it and plucking from the swamp lapfuls of ripe cat-tails they lined it with them, making a nest soft as velvet. This done, they had to fill a larder for him, and had a great hunting for all manner of nuts, and in this part of their work Mignon took great interest and pretended to assist, tho’, despite all warnings from Marie, he persisted in clasping in his forepaws the biggest butternuts and running away to bury them in out-of-the-way places. When she became tired with her exertions, Marie took a nap and Mignon curled himself up on her breast and snoozed with one eye open.
Weak in strength and sick from hunger, Archange, no longer requiring to keep up appearances, flung herself down near by and wept bitterly. Why did not father come? Were they to die there alone and from want of food? Should she not try again to find the way home? She stood up, as if to consider which way to try, when her head grew dizzy and she sank down and knew no more until she was aroused by Marie climbing over her and kissing her. She knew by the sun that it was late in the day, and rising, the sisters walked slowly and unsteadily seeking berries. They found a few only and they again tried to eat nuts. They could not. Tracing the edge of the swamp they looked for blueberries, but their season was past. Suddenly a low bush, dotted with red berries, caught their sight. They found the berries small and of so peculiar a taste that, had they not been ravenous for food, they could not have eaten them. They picked the bush bare and went to their bower, where they ate them. A feeling of satisfaction followed, and Marie grew quiet and contented.
“Sing to me, Archange: do?” and the little maid laid her down to rest and listen. Her sister sang one after another the chansons her parents had brought with them from Acadia. She ceased and marked the satisfied expression that had overspread Marie’s countenance. Her eyes were closed and her hands folded. “Sing the Cedars’ song?” she whispered, in the voice of one about to sleep. By that name was meant a hymn Archange had heard at Christmas tide, when for the first time to her knowledge she had been in a church, having accompanied her father to the small village of the Cedars. She knew not the words of the hymn, but had carried away the tune. High and clear rose in the air and floated far away across the desolate swamp the song in which so many generations of believers have expressed their love for the Holy Babe—the ancient Latin hymn, Adeste Fidelis. She sang the strain over and over again until a strange torpor crept upon her, and her voice grew fainter until it ceased and her head sank beside that of Marie’s.
All nature was hushed. The remains of trees, long since burned, now gaunt and white, stood in the swamp as sentinels to guard the sleeping babes, and the giant pines, beneath whose cover they rested, seemed to lift up their hands to Heaven in silent pleading. Slowly yet surely the berries of the dread ground-hemlock did their work; stealthily as juice of mandrake or of poppy. The leaden hours of the long September night passed and inky clouds blotted out the stars, and when the sun rose he shot out a shaft of purplish light, which revealed the faces of the sisters, calm and cold in death, with Mignon whisking his head against the whitened cheek of his sweet mistress.
There was a roll of distant thunder; nearer and nearer it came; it grew darker and the air was hot and stifling. The forest groaned, and then there was an appalling crash and a blaze of lightning clad the scene in dazzling sheen. There was the red glow of fire; the bolt had struck a dead pine and instantly the surrounding trees, covered with withered leaves, that caught like tinder, were in a blaze. The storm shrieked, the thunder made the earth tremble, the rain fell in torrents, but higher and higher mounted the flames. It was the funeral pyre of Archange and Marie, and when it died out not a vestige of them was to be found.