“I must ask you to help me. We must get the canoe into the water. They will soon tire of the assault and withdraw; then it will be 125 safe to take to the canoe. They cannot hurt you. We are protected by the bank.”
He helped her to rise, and she bravely threw her weight on the canoe, which Menard could so easily have lifted alone, and stood at the edge of the beach, passing him the bundles, which he, wading out, placed aboard. But suddenly he stopped, with an exclamation, peering into the canoe.
The maid, dreading each moment some new danger, asked in a dry voice, “What is it, M’sieu?”
For reply he seized the bundles, one at a time, and tossed them ashore, hauling the canoe after, and running his hand along the bark.
The maid stepped to his side. There was a gaping hole in the side of the canoe. She drew her breath in quickly, and looked up at him.
“It was Perrot,” he muttered, “that fool Perrot.” He stood looking at it, as if in doubt what to do. Up on the bank the men, Danton and Father Claude among them, were popping away at the rustling bushes. Suddenly he turned and gazed down at the maid’s upturned face. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “I do not think there is danger, but whatever happens you 126 must keep close to me, or to Danton and Father Claude. It may be that there will be moments when we cannot stop and explain to you as I am doing now, but you must trust us, and believe that all will come out well. The other men are not themselves to-night––”
He stopped. It was odd that he should so talk to a maid while his men were fighting for their lives; but the Menard who had the safety of this slender girl in his hands was not the Menard of a hundred battles gone by. So he lingered, not knowing why, save that he hoped for some word from her lips of confidence in those who wished to protect her. And, as he waited, she smiled with trembling lips, and said:––
“It will come out well, M’sieu. I––I am not afraid.”
Then Menard went up the bank with a bound, and finding one man already in a stupor, and another struggling for a flask, which Father Claude was trying to take away from him, he laid about him with his hard fists, and shortly had the drunkards as near to their senses as they were destined to be during the short space they had yet to live.