at morning, his eager
face protruded, and his dark body swinging in time to the paddles, he
felt that the danger which his wife suggested was not only possible but
imminent. The seigneur was his friend, but the seigneur could not
disobey the governor's orders. A great hand, stretching all the way
from Versailles, seemed to hang over them, even here in the heart of the
virgin forest, ready to snatch them up and carry them back into
degradation and misery. Better all the perils of the woods than that!

But the seigneur and his son, who knew nothing of their pressing reasons
for haste, were strenuous in urging De Catinat the other way, and in
this they were supported by the silent Du Lhut, whose few muttered words
were always more weighty than the longest speech, for he never spoke
save about that of which he was a master.

"You have seen my little place," said the old nobleman, with a wave of
his beruffled ring-covered hand. "It is not what I should wish it, but
such as it is, it is most heartily yours for the winter, if you and your
comrades would honour me by remaining. As to madame, I doubt not that
my own dame and she will find plenty to amuse and occupy them, which
reminds me, De Catinat, that you have not yet been presented. Theuriet,
go to your mistress and inform her that I request her to be so good as
to come to us in the hall of the dais."

De Catinat was too seasoned to be easily startled, but he was somewhat
taken aback when the lady, to whom the old nobleman always referred in
terms of exaggerated respect, proved to be as like a full-blooded Indian
squaw as the hall of the dais was to a French barn. She was dressed, it
was true, in a bodice of scarlet taffeta with a black skirt,
silver-buckled shoes, and a scented pomander ball dangling by a silver
chain from her girdle, but her face was of the colour of the bark of the
Scotch fir, while her strong nose and harsh mouth, with the two plaits
of coarse black hair which dangled down her back, left no possible doubt
as to her origin.

"Allow me to present you, Monsieur de Catinat," said the Seigneur de
Sainte Marie solemnly, "to my wife, Onega de la Noue de Sainte Marie,
chatelaine by right of marriage to this seigneury, and also to the
Chateau d'Andelys in Normandy, and to the estate of Varennes in
Provence, while retaining in her own right the hereditary chieftainship
on the distaff side of the nation of the Onondagas. My angel, I have
been endeavour