prominent features were gravely fixed, and her bushy hair stood
in a huge auburn halo around them. She wet her lips with that sudden
motion by which a toad may be seen to catch flies.

"Madame Marie, every one is running around below and saying that
D'Aulnay de Charnisay is coming again to attack the fort."

"Your pretty voice has always been a pleasure to me, Nightingale."

"But is it so, madame?"

"There are three ships standing in."

Le Rossignol's russet-colored gown moved nearer to the fire. She
stretched her claws to warm and then lifted one of them near her lady's
nose.

"Madame Marie, if D'Aulnay de Charnisay be coming, put no faith in that
Swiss!"

"In Klussman?"

"Yes, madame."

"Klussman is the best soldier now in the fort," said Madame La Tour
laughing. "If I put no faith in him, whom shall I trust?"

"Madame Marie, you remember that woman you brought back with you?"

"I have not seen her or spoken with her," said Marie self-reproachfully,
"since she vexed me so sorely about her child. She is a poor creature.
But they feed and house her well in the barracks."

"Madame Marie, Klussman hath been talking with that woman every day this
week."

The dwarf's lady looked keenly at her.

"Oh, no. There could be no talk between those two."

"But there hath been. I have watched him. Madame Marie, he took me up
when I went into the fort before Madame Bronck's marriage--when I was
but playing my clavier before that sulky knave to amuse her--he took me
up in his big common-soldier fingers, gripping me around the waist, and
flung me into the hall."

"Did he so?" laughed Marie. "I can well see that my Nightingale can put
no more faith in the Swiss. But hearken to me, thou bird-child. There!
Hear our salute!"

The cannon leaped almost over their heads, and the walls shook with its
boom and rebound. Marie kept her finger up and waited for a reply.
Minute succeeded minute. The drip of accumulated rain-drops from the
door could be heard, but nothing else. Those sullen vessels paid no
attention to the inquiry of Fort St. John.

"Our enemy has come."

She relaxed from her tense listening and with a deep breath looked at Le
Rossignol.

"Do not undermine the faith of one in another in this fortress. We must
all hold together now. The Swiss may have a tenderness for his wretched
wife which thou canst not understand. But he is not therefore faithless
to his lord."

Taking the glass and throwing on her wet