"You wrong me, Monsieur!" she cried impetuously. "I did it to save you. You are a brave man, and would have tried to fight, and they would have killed you!"
He bowed stiffly and turned to the men.
"What do you want of me?"
"Your parole!" said Jean. "Give us your word that you will come with us quietly, making no resistance and no effort to escape." The Englishman shut his lips doggedly.
"Then you must be bound," said Mich' with curt decision. "We've no time to waste."
"Let me bind you, Monsieur," said Barbe, taking his wrists gently and putting them behind his back. "It is no dishonor to be captive to a woman."
With a silk scarf from her waist, and a feminine cunning in knots, she quickly tied his hands together so that he felt himself quite hopeless of escape. Then, in a cold wrath, he was led forward; with no constraint but Barbe's touch upon his arm. The ship, high on her stocks, came into view. And he understood.
Seating himself upon a log, with his back against a tree, Mich' passed a rope about his waist and made him fast to the trunk. There he sat and chewed his indignation, while his captors went in haste about their work. But presently he grew interested. He saw the blocks knocked out from under the little ship's sides, so that she came down upon the greased ways and slid smoothly into the flood. He saw her checked gradually by a rope turned once around a tree trunk, so that she was kept from running aground on the opposite side of the Basin. He saw a small boat dragged down from the bushes to the edge of the tide, and oars put into it. By this time he had revolved many aspects of the case in his mind. Then came to him Barbe and Jean.
"Monsieur," said Jean, "I regret to have inconvenienced you in this way. But you would without mercy have wrecked all my hopes. I have put all my means into this little ship, built with my own hands. My heart is set on removing from the land of Acadie, to live once more under my own flag of France. But I do not wish to take you a prisoner to Louisburg, or to put you to any further annoyance. To Mademoiselle Dieudonné you showed yourself yesterday a most kind and courteous gentleman. All Acadie knows you are brave. Give me your word that you will in no way seek to stop or hinder our departure, and let me set you free!"
"Give your parole, Monsieur!" begged Barbe, "or you will have to devote yourself to entertaining me all the way to Louisburg."