intended to tell the sentinels that D'Aulnay had sent him with a message
to the commandant of St. John. The guards, discerning his capote, would
perhaps obey a beckoning finger, and believe that he had been charged
with silence; for not having heard the churchman's voice he dared not
try to imitate it, and must whisper. But that unforeseen element which
the wisest cannot rule out of their fate halted him before he took a
dozen steps up the hill.

"Where is Father Vincent de Paris?" called some impatient person below
the trench. Five figures coming from the tree gained distinctness as
they advanced, but it was a new-comer who demanded again,--

"Where is Father Vincent de Paris? Did he not leave the camp with you?"

The soldier went down directly where his gray capote might speak for
itself to the eye, and the man who carried the stool pointed with it
toward the evident friar.

"There stands the friar behind thee. He hath been tumbled into the
trench, I think."

"Is your affair done?"

"And well done, except that some cattle ran mad among us but now, and we
thought a sally had been made, so we put out our torches."

"With your stupid din," said the messenger from camp, "you will wake up
the guns of the fort at the very moment when Sieur D'Aulnay would send
his truce bearer in."

"I thank the saints I am not like to be used for his agent," said the
man who had been upset with the torches, "if the walls are to be stormed
as they were this morning."

"He wants Father Vincent de Paris," said the under officer from camp.
"Good father, you took more license in coming hither than my lord
intended."

The soldier made some murmured noise under his cowl. He walked beside
the officer and heard one man say to another behind him,--

"These holy folks have more courage than men-at-arms. My lord was minded
to throw this one out of the ship when he sailed from Port Royal."

"The Sieur D'Aulnay hath too much respect to his religion to do that,"
answered the other.

"You had best move in silence," said the officer, turning his head
toward them, and no further words broke the march into camp. D'Aulnay's
camp was well above the reach of high tide, yet so near the river that
soft and regular splashings seemed encroaching on the tents. The soldier
noticed the batteries on their height, and counted as ably as he could
for the cowl and night dimness the number of tents holding this little
army. Far beyond them the palpitating