the town; anxious, because no single word came to me of
Alixe or her father, and all the time we were pouring death into the
place.

But this we knew from deserters, that Vaudreuil was Governor and Bigot
Intendant still; by which it would seem that, on the momentous
night when Doltaire was wounded by Madame Cournal, he gave back the
governorship to Vaudreuil and reinstated Bigot. Presently, from an
officer who had been captured as he was setting free a fire-raft upon
the river to run among the boats of our fleet, I heard that Doltaire had
been confined in the Intendance from a wound given by a stupid sentry.
Thus the true story had been kept from the public. From him, too,
I learned that nothing was known of the Seigneur Duvarney and his
daughter; that they had suddenly disappeared from the Intendance, as if
the earth had swallowed them; and that even Juste Duvarney knew nothing
of them, and was, in consequence, much distressed.

This officer also said that now, when it might seem as if both the
Seigneur and his daughter were dead, opinion had turned in Alixe's
favour, and the feeling had crept about, first among the common folk
and afterwards among the people of the garrison, that she had been used
harshly. This was due largely, he thought, to the constant advocacy
of the Chevalier de la Darante, whose nephew had married Mademoiselle
Georgette Duvarney. This piece of news, in spite of the uncertainty of
Alixe's fate, touched me, for the Chevalier had indeed kept his word to
me.

At last all of Admiral Holmes's division was got above the town, with
very little damage, and I never saw a man so elated, so profoundly
elated as Clark over his share in the business. He was a daredevil,
too; for the day that the last of the division was taken up the river,
without my permission or the permission of the admiral or any one else,
he took the Terror of France almost up to Bougainville's earthworks in
the cove at Cap Rouge and insolently emptied his six swivels into them,
and then came out and stood down the river. When I asked what he was
doing--for I was now well enough to come on deck--he said he was going
to see how monkeys could throw nuts; when I pressed him, he said he had
a will to hear the cats in the eaves; and when I became severe, he added
that he would bring the Terror of France up past the batteries of the
town in broad daylight, swearing that they could no more hit him than
a woman could a bird on a flagstaff. I