, "and you must look on it so.
I don't think you'll get any more."

Bye and bye the rain slackened a little. Some one began a line of a song,
but it did not catch. Nobody joined in, and the singer stopped. The
atmosphere was not favorable to any kind of music. The hours passed
slowly, but it was nearly midnight when the rain ceased, and a timid moon
came out to cast a few pale rays over a soaked and dripping forest. Most
of the men were now asleep under their covers, but not one of the five
slumbered, nor did Adam Colfax and a dozen others.

"Thank God, it's stopped at last!" said Adam Colfax devoutly--he was a
religious man, and his gratitude was not merely oral. "The clouds are
clearing away and I think we can soon see where we are."

"Yes, it will be much lighter soon," said Henry Ware, "but in the
meantime we are about to receive a visitor. Look!"

He pointed down the bayou toward the river. A light canoe was emerging
from the mists and shadows. It contained a single occupant, and came
straight on up the narrow channel.

The man who sat in the canoe was tall and thin and wrapped in a dripping
black robe. His head was bare and his gray hair fell in long, straight
locks. The moonlight fell directly upon his thin, ascetic face, and
something in the eyes that Adam Colfax saw, or thought he saw, sent a
thrill through him.

"Is it a ghost?" he asked of Henry Ware in an awed whisper.

At that moment the moonlight shifted and fell upon something metallic that
gleamed upon the breast of the mystic visitor.

"It is Father Montigny," said Henry. He, too, felt awe, not at any ghostly
apparition but because the priest had come suddenly at such a time.

"What does it portend?" was his silent thought.

Paddling with a strong hand the priest came straight toward them. The
moonlight continued to shine upon his face, and Henry thought that he read
there the impulse of a great mission.

CHAPTER XX

THE BATTLE OF THE BAYOU

The priest came directly to the boat, in which Henry Ware and Adam Colfax
were sitting--the remainder of the five were in the next boat--and held up
his hand as a sign of recognition and relief.

"Father Montigny!" said Henry.

"Yes, my son, it is I, and I give thanks to Heaven that I have found you
in time."

"What is it, father?" It seemed natural that at this moment Henry should
be the spokesman for the fleet.

"A great danger has closed upon you and all here."

"Alvarez?"

"Yes,