tonia, clung to her and gave Father Jogues and Van
Corlaer no time to stand aghast at the spectacle they saw. Crying and
trembling, she put back the sternness of D'Aulnay de Charnisay, and the
pity of Father Vincent de Paris, and pleaded with Father Jogues and the
Hollandais for the lives of her garrison as if they had come with
heavenly authority.

"You see them with ropes around their necks, Monsieur Corlaer and
Monsieur Jogues, when here is the paper the governor signed,
guaranteeing to me their safety. Edelwald is scarce half a year from
France. Speak to the governor of Acadia; for you, Monsieur Corlaer, are
a man of affairs, and this good missionary is a saint--you can move
D'Aulnay de Charnisay to see it is not the custom, even in warfare with
women, to trap and hang a garrison who has made honorable surrender."

A man may resolve that he will not meddle with his neighbor's feuds, or
involve a community dependent on him with any one's formidable enemy.
Yet he will turn back from his course the moment an appeal is made for
his help, and face that enemy as Van Corlaer faced the governor of
Acadia, full of the fury roused by outrage. But what could he and Father
Jogues and the persevering Capuchin say to the parchment which the
governor now deigned to pass from hand to hand among them in reply?--the
permission of Louis XIII. to his beloved D'Aulnay de Charnisay (whom God
hold in His keeping) to take the Fort of St. John and deal with its
rebellious garrison as seemed to him fit, for which destruction of
rebels his sovereign would have him in loving remembrance.

During all this delay Edelwald stood with his beautiful head erect above
the noose, and his self-repressed gaze still following Marie. The wives
of other soldiers were wailing for their husbands. But he must die
without wife, without love. He saw Antonia holding her and weeping with
her. His blameless passion filled him like a great prayer. That changing
phantasm which we call the world might pass from before his men and him
at the next breath; yet the brief last song of the last troubadour burst
from his lips to comfort the lady of Fort St. John.

There was in this jubilant cry a gush and grandeur of power outmastering
force of numbers and brute cunning. It reached and compelled every
spirit in the fortress. The men in line with him stood erect and lifted
their firm jaws, and gazed forward with shining eyes. Those who had
faded in the slightest degree fro