To the chief now spoke one of the band in the Micmac tongue:—
"Why not let the paleface talk to his young squaw? It will be the more bitter for them at the last!"
"No," said the chief, grinning; "it is as death to the palefaces to keep silence. But they shall have time to talk at the last."
Throughout the long journey, which was continued till midnight under the strong light of a moon just at the full, the lovers held no converse save in the mute language of eye and gesture, and that only during the rough marches from one lake to another. The greater part of the journey was by canoe. At night they were lashed to trees some way apart, and separated by the camp-fire. Crewe dared not address a word to Margaret lest he should anger his captors into doing him some injury that might lessen his powers of thought or action, and the girl, seeing that no immediate gain could be had from speech, dreaded to be smitten on the mouth in a way that might disfigure her in her lover's eyes. Only at times, when a wind would blow the smoke and flame aside, she looked across the camp-fire into the young man's face, and in the look and in the smile of the steady lips he read not only an unswerving courage, but also a confidence in his own resourceful protection, which pierced his heart with anguish. All night he pondered schemes of rescue or escape, until his brain reeled and his soul grew sick before the unsolvable problem. He could move neither hand nor foot, and just before dawn he sank to sleep in his bonds. Then for the waking girl the loneliness became unspeakable, and her lips grew ashen in the first light of the dawn.
Late on the following day the band drew up their canoes on the banks of the Shubenacadie, where its waters began to redden with the tide, and struck through the woods by a dark trail. The next day the captives were tortured by the sight of a white steeple in the distance, belonging to an Acadian settlement. Crewe judged this to be the village of Beaubassin. The surmise was confirmed when, a few hours later, after a wide detour to avoid the settlement, the flag of France was seen waving over the foliage that clothed a long line of heights. By this time the band was traversing a vast expanse of salt marshes, and after crossing a little tidal stream near its head, they turned sharply southwestward toward the sea. Presently the raw red earthworks of Beauséjour rose into view some seven or eight miles distant across the marshes. There, among his bitter enemies, Crewe knew he might find sure succor, if only the gallant Frenchmen could be made aware of what was passing so near them. He saw Margaret's eyes fixed with terrible appeal upon the hostile works, wherein for her and for her lover lay safety; and agonized to feel his utter helplessness, he raised a long and ringing shout which, as it seemed to him, must reach the very souls of those behind the ramparts. Margaret's heart leaped with hope, which flickered out as she saw the Indians laugh grimly at the foolish effort. To be within sight of help, and yet so infinitely helpless! For the first time the girl yielded to complete despair, and her head sank upon her breast. In the Journal of the Sieur Carré, at this time a lieutenant at Beauséjour, occurs this entry, under date of September 20, 1749:—
"Noted this morning a small party of natives moving down the shores of the river Tintamarre. Too far off to distinguish whether it was a war party or not, but this their order of march seemed to suggest."
After skirting for perhaps an hour a red and all but empty channel, which Crewe recognized by hearsay as the bed of the Tantramar (or Tintamarre, "water of hubbub"), the savages suddenly led their captives down the steep, gleaming abyss of mud to the edge of the shallow current, which now, at low tide, clattered shrilly seaward over clods of blue clay and small stones rolled down from the uplands.
Margaret awoke from her despair enough to shudder disdainfully, as her feet sank more than ankle deep in the clinging ooze, and to wonder why the Indians should halt in such a place. She met her lover's glance, and saw that he was singularly disturbed.
The place was like a hideous gaping pit. A double winding of the channel closed it in above and below. Some forty or fifty feet over their heads, against a pure sky of loveliest blue, waved a shaggy fringe of salt grasses, yellowing in the autumn air. This harsh and meagre herbage encircled the rim of the chasm, and seemed to make the outer world of men infinitely remote. The sun, an hour or two past noon, glared down whitely into the gulf, and glistened, in a myriad of steely reflections, from the polished but irregular steeps of slime. There was something so strange and monstrous in the scene that Margaret's dull misery was quickened to a nameless horror. Suddenly a voice, which she hardly recognized as that of her lover, said slowly and steadily:—
"Margaret, this is the end of our journey; we have come to the end."