deep a humiliation. He flushed with
shame at the very thought. To be led back like the home-sick peasant
who has deserted from his regiment! Better one spring into the broad
blue river beneath him, were it not for little pale-faced Adele who had
none but him to look to. It was so tame! So ignominious! And yet in
this floating prison, with a woman whose fate was linked with his own,
what hope was there of escape?

De Bonneville had left him, with a few blunt words of sympathy, but the
friar still paced the deck with a furtive glance at him from time to
time, and two soldiers who were stationed upon the poop passed and
repassed within a few yards of him. They had orders evidently to mark
his movements. Heart-sick he leaned over the side watching the Indians
in their paint and feathers shooting backwards and forwards in their
canoes, and staring across at the town where the gaunt gable ends of
houses and charred walls marked the effect of the terrible fire which a
few years before had completely destroyed the lower part.

As he stood gazing, his attention was drawn away by the swish of oars,
and a large boat full of men passed immediately underneath where he
stood.

It held the New Englanders, who were being conveyed to the ship which
was to take them home. There were the four seamen huddled together, and
there in the sheets were Captain Ephraim Savage and Amos Green,
conversing together and pointing to the shipping. The grizzled face of
the old Puritan and the bold features of the woodsman were turned more
than once in his direction, but no word of farewell and no kindly wave
of the hand came back to the lonely exile. They were so full of their
own future and their own happiness, that they had not a thought to spare
upon his misery. He could have borne anything from his enemies, but
this sudden neglect from his friends came too heavily after his other
troubles. He stooped his face to his arms and burst in an instant into
a passion of sobs. Before he raised his eyes again the brig had hoisted
her anchor, and was tacking under full canvas out of the Quebec basin.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE VOICE AT THE PORT-HOLE.

That night old Theophile Catinat was buried from the ship's side, his
sole mourners the two who bore his own blood in their veins. The next
day De Catinat spent upon deck, amid the bustle and confusion of the
unlading, endeavouring to cheer Adele by light chatter which came from a
heavy heart.