“The gods beckon,” she said sadly; “this life and love is all awry and we who are bound against our will must but abide the end.”
“Aye,” whispered young Dupre, from the warm depths of her shoulder, and his voice was like gold for joy; “aye,—the end.”
He rose swiftly.
“Forgive the passion that could forget the great business of the night,” he said, and they went forward, though Maren's fingers still rested in his clasp.
Through the thinning wood which neared the stream presently there came a glow and then the shine of a great fire ahead, with massed figures that leaped and sprang, fantastic as a witch's carnival, and a roar of frightful voices.
“Stay now, Ma'amselle!” begged Dupre, at last, for he had caught a sight that shook him through and through; “stay you here in the wood while I go forward!”
But his protest was lost on the maid. Eagerly she was pushing on, hid by the shadows,—nearer and nearer, until suddenly she stopped and stared upon the scene, the fingers in his clasp gripping Dupre's hand like steel.
“God! God! God!” breathed Maren Le Moyne at the forest's edge as she looked once more upon the face of the factor of Fort de Seviere.
Unspeakable was that scene. All reason had fled from the North savages.
What small veneer of docility had been spread over them by their three years' dealing with the Hudson's Bays and their intercourse with the quiet and tractable Assiniboines, had vanished. They were themselves as nature made them, cruel to the point of art.