me," she said, casting Crossman a look
whose intimacy made his blood run hot within him. "'The Black
Dawn'--_n'est-ce-pas?_ Though I _have_ heard him call me in the
night--by another name," with which equivocal statement she swung the
axe into the curve of her arm, turned on her heel, and softly closed
the door between them.

The Priest turned on him. "My son," his eyes searched Crossman's, "you
have not lied to me?"

"No," he answered steadily. "Once I called her the Aurora
Borealis--that is all. To me she seems mysterious and changing, and
coloured, like the Northern Lights."

"She is mysterious and changing and beautiful, but it is not the
lights of the North and of Heaven. She is the _feu follet_, the
will-o'-the-wisp that hovers over what is rotten, and dead. Send her
away, my son; send her away. Oh, she has left her trail of blood and
hatred and malice in my parish, I know. She has bred feuds; she has
sent strong men to the devil, and broken the hearts of good women. But
_you_ will not believe me. It is to Jakapa I must talk. _Mon Dieu_!
how is it that he let her come! You are a stranger, but he----"

"Jakapa wished for Antoine, and she was with him," explained Crossman
uneasily, yet resentful of the Priest's vehemence.

"I can not wait." The Cure rose and began repinning his clerical
garments. "Where is Jakapa? Have you a pair of snowshoes to lend me?
You must forgive my agitation, Monsieur, but you do not
understand--I--which way?"

"He should be at Mile End, just above the Bijou. Sit still, Father; I
will send for him. The wind sets right. I'll call him in." Slipping on
his beaver jacket, he stepped outside and struck two blows on the
great iron ring, a bent rail, that swung from its gibbet like a
Chinese gong. A singing roar, like a metal bellow, sprang into the
clear, unresisting air, leaped and echoed, kissed the crags of the
Bijou and recoiled again, sending a shiver of sound and vibration
through snow-laden trees, on, till the echoes sighed into silence.
Crossman's over-sensitive ear clung to the last burring whisper as it
answered, going north, north, to the House of Silence, drawn there by
the magnet of Silence, as water seeks the sea. For a moment he had
almost forgotten the reason for the smitten clamour, hypnotized by the
mystery of sound. Then he turned, to see Aurore, a distant figure of
scarlet and black at the edge of the wood road, shuffling northward on
her long snowshoes, northward, as