ternoon a rumor of Clark's approach had gone abroad
through the village; but not a French lip breathed it to a friend of
the British. The creoles were loyal to the cause of freedom; moreover,
they cordially hated Hamilton, and their hearts beat high at the
prospect of a change in masters at the fort. Every cabin had its hidden
gun and supply of ammunition, despite the order to disarm issued by
Hamilton. There was a hustling to bring these forth, which was
accompanied with a guarded yet irrepressible chattering, delightfully
French and infinitely volatile.

"Tiens! je vais frotter mon fusil. J'ai vu un singe!" said Jaques
Bourcier to his daughter, the pretty Adrienne, who was coming out of
the room in which Alice lay.

"I saw a monkey just now; I must rub up my gun!" He could not be
solemn; not he. The thought of an opportunity to get even with Hamilton
was like wine in his blood.

If you had seen those hardy and sinewy Frenchmen gliding in the dusk of
evening from cottage to cottage, passing the word that the Americans
had arrived, saying airy things and pinching one another as they met
and hurried on, you would have thought something very amusing and
wholly jocund was in preparation for the people of Vincennes.

There was a current belief in the town that Gaspard Roussillon never
missed a good thing and always somehow got the lion's share. He went
out with the ebb to return on the flood. Nobody was surprised,
therefore, when he suddenly appeared in the midst of his friends, armed
to the teeth and emotionally warlike to suit the occasion. Of course he
took charge of everybody and everything. You could have heard him
whisper a bowshot away.

"Taisons!" he hissed, whenever he met an acquaintance. "We will
surprise the fort and scalp the whole garrison. Aux armes! les
Americains viennent d'arriver!"

At his own house he knocked and called in vain. He shook the door
violently; for he was thinking of the stores under the floor, of the
grimy bottles, of the fragrant Bordeaux--ah, his throat, how it
throbbed! But where was Madame Roussillon? Where was Alice? "Jean!
Jean!" he cried, forgetting all precaution, "come here, you scamp, and
let me in this minute!"

A profoundly impressive silence gave him to understand that his home
was deserted.

"Chiff! frightened and gone to stay with Madame Godere, I suppose--and
I so thirsty! Bah! hum, hum, apres le vin la bataille, ziff!"

He kicked in the door and groped his way t