Big Etienne pointed in silence to the street before the three houses. There I saw our men drawn up in menacing array. In and behind the houses were crowded the dark masses of the New Englanders, punctuated here and there with the scarlet of an officer's coat.
De Villiers greeted me as one recovered from the grave. I asked eagerly how he had sped, and how the matter now rested.
"Success, everywhere success, Briart!" he answered, with a sort of controlled elation. "You held these fellows, while we wiped out those yonder. But it was a cruel and bloody affair, and I would the times, and the straits of New France, required not such killing in the dark. But they set fire to a house and barn that they might fight in the light, and so a band of them escaped us and cut their way through here,—what was left of them, at least, after they got done with you! And now their remnant is hemmed in yonder."
"We've got them, then," said I.
"Surely," he answered. "But it will cost our best blood to end it. They have fought like heroes, though they kept guard like fools. And they will battle it out, I think, while a man of them stands."
"Yes, 'tis the breed of them!" said I, looking across with admiration at the silent and dangerous ranks. "But they have done all that brave men could do. They will accept honourable terms, I think; and such we may offer them without any touch of discredit. What do you say?"
This was, indeed what de Villiers had in his heart. He withdrew his troops some little distance, that negotiations might be the less embarrassed; and I myself, feeling a fresh dizziness, retired to a cottage where I might have my wound properly tended. But barely had I got the bandage loosened,—a black-eyed Acadian maid standing by, with face of deep commiseration and holding a basin of hot water for me,—when there broke out a sudden firing. I clapped the bloody bandage to my head, and ran forth; but I saw there was no need of me. The English had sallied with a fierce heat, hoping to retrieve their fortunes. But the deep snow was like an army to shut them in. Before they could come at us they were exhausted, and our muskets dropped them swiftly in the drifts. Sullenly they fell back again upon their houses. I turned to my basin and my bandaging.
"That settles that!" said I to the damsel.
"Settles what, Monsieur?" she asked. But as she spoke I saw a look of sudden concern cross her face, a faintness came over me, and I lay down, feeling her arm support me as I sank.
Sleep is the best of medicines for me. I woke late in the afternoon to find my head neatly bandaged, and the dizziness all gone. Men came and went softly. I found that de Villiers was lying in the same house, having got a serious wound just after I left him. La Corne, a brave Canadian, was in command. The English had capitulated toward noon, and had pledged themselves to depart for Annapolis within forty-eight hours, not to bear arms again in Acadie within six months. We had redeemed at Grand Pré our late failure at Annapolis.