" the fellow said in the soft creole patois, "and to think
of her being shot like a dog!"

"And by a man who calls himself a Governor, too!" said another. "Ah, as
for myself, I'm in favor of burning him alive when we capture him.
That's me!"

"Et moi aussi," chimed in a third voice. "That poor girl must be
avenged. The man who shot her must die. Holy Virgin, but if Gaspard
Roussillon were only here!"

"But he is here; I saw him just after dark. He was in great fighting
temper, that terrible man. Ouf! but I should not like to be Colonel
Hamilton and fall in the way of that Gaspard Roussillon!"

"Morbleu! I should say not. You may leave me out of a chance like that!
I shouldn't mind seeing Gaspard handle the Governor, though. Ah, that
would be too good! He'd pay him up for shooting Mademoiselle Alice."

Beverley could scarcely hold himself erect by the fence; the smoky,
foggy landscape swam round him heavy and strange. He uttered a groan,
which brought Oncle Jazon to his side in a hurry.

"Qu' avez-vous? What's the matter?" the old man demanded with quick
sympathy. "Hev they hit ye? Lieutenant, air ye hurt much?"

Beverley did not hear the old man's words, did not feel his kindly
touch.

"Alice! Alice!" he murmured, "dead, dead!"

"Ya-as," drawled Oncle Jazon, "I hearn about it soon as I got inter
town. It's a sorry thing, a mighty sorry thing. But mebby I won't do a
little somepin' to that--"

Beverley straightened himself and lifted his gun, forgetting that he
had not reloaded it since firing last. He leveled it at the fort and
touched the trigger. Simultaneously with his movement an embrasure
opened and a cannon flashed, its roar flanked on either side by a
crackling of British muskets. Some bullets struck the fence and flung
splinters into Oncle Jazon's face. A cannon ball knocked a ridge pole
from the roof of a house hard by, and sent it whirling through the air.

"Ventrebleu!--et apres? What the devil next? Better knock a feller's
eyes out!" the old man cried. "I ain't a doin' nothin' to ye!"

He capered around rubbing his leathery face after the manner of a
scalded monkey. Beverley was struck in the breast by a flattened and
spent ball that glanced from a fence-picket. The shock caused him to
stagger and drop his gun; but he quickly picked it up and turned to his
companion.

"Are you hurt, Oncle Jazon?" he inquired. "Are you hurt?"

"Not a bit--jes' skeert mos' into a duck fit. Thought a cannon bal