Here, wrapped in his blanket, his feet to the fire and his head on an armful of hemlock boughs, Pierre slept as sweet a sleep as if in his bed at home. At dawn he woke with a start, just as the abbé drew near to arouse him. For a moment he was bewildered; then gathering his wits he sprang quickly to his feet, looking ready for an instant departure. Le Loutre was content and turned away. Not many minutes were consumed in breakfasting, and the raiders were under way by the time the sun was up.
All that day the stealthy band crept on, avoiding the trails by which communication was kept up between the settlements. Early in the evening Le Loutre called a halt, and Pierre, exhausted, fell asleep the moment he had satisfied his hunger. Next morning the sun was high ere the party resumed its march, and not long after midday Le Loutre declared they had gone far enough as they were now near the settlement of Kenneticook. There was now nothing to be done but wait for night. A scout was sent forward to reconnoiter, and came back in a couple of hours with word that all was quiet in the little village, and no danger suspected.
About nine o'clock the abbé gave his orders. Not a soul in the village was to be spared, and not a house left standing. The enemy were to be destroyed, root and branch, and the English were to receive a lesson that would drive them in terror within the shelter of the Halifax stockades. In a few minutes the party was on the march, and moving now with the greatest secrecy and care.
During that silent march, every minutest detail of which stamped itself indelibly on Pierre's memory, the lad clung desperately to the thought of all the injuries, real or pretended, which the English had inflicted upon his people. He dared not let himself think of the unoffending settlers trustfully sleeping in their homes. He strove to work himself up to some sort of martial ardor that might prevent him feeling like an assassin. Presently the rippling of the Kenneticook made itself heard on the quiet night, and then the dim outlines of the lonely and doomed hamlet rose into view.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SURPRISE.
The midnight murderers were at the very doors before even a dog gave warning. Then several curs raised a shrill alarm, and a great mastiff, chained to his kennel in the yard of the largest house, snapped his chain and sprang upon the raiders. The dog bore an Indian to the ground, and then fell dead, with a tomahawk buried in his skull. At the same moment the long, strident yell of the Micmacs rang through the hamlet, and a half dozen hatchets beat in every door. There was no time for resistance. The butchers were at the bedsides of their victims almost ere the latter were awake. Here and there a settler found time to snatch his rifle, or a andiron, or a heavy chair, and so to make a desperate though brief defense; and in this way three Micmacs and one Acadian were killed. The yells of the raiders were mingled with the shrieks of the victims, and almost instantly the scene of horror was lighted up by the flames of the burning ricks.
Pierre, with rather a vague idea of what he was going to do, had rushed to the attack among the foremost, and had plunged headlong over the body of the dead mastiff. In the fall he dropped his rifle, but clung to his hatchet, and in a moment he found himself in the hallway of the chief house. His perception of what took place was confused. He felt himself carried up the stairs with a rush. A faint light was glimmering into existence in the large room, in the middle of which he saw a man standing rifle in hand. There was a deafening report, and everything was wrapped in a cloud of smoke. Then a sudden glare filled the room as a barn outside blazed to heaven; and the man, clubbing his rifle, sprang at his assailants. Pierre did not wait to see his fate, but darted past him into a room beyond.