"And the wind blows straight for their camp, with the river on the other
side of it."

"We should fire the woods!"

"We cannot do better."

In an instant Du Lhut had scraped together a little bundle of dry twigs,
and had heaped them up against a withered beech tree which was as dry as
tinder. A stroke of flint and steel was enough to start a little
smoulder of flame, which lengthened and spread until it was leaping
along the white strips of hanging bark. A quarter of a mile farther on
Du Lhut did the same again, and once more beyond that, until at three
different points the forest was in a blaze. As they hurried onwards
they could hear the dull roaring of the flames behind them, and at last,
as they neared Sainte Marie, they could see, looking back, the long
rolling wave of fire travelling ever westward towards the Richelieu, and
flashing up into great spouts of flame as it licked up a clump of pines
as if it were a bundle of faggots. Du Lhut chuckled in his silent way
as he looked back at the long orange glare in the sky.

"They will need to swim for it, some of them," said he. "They have not
canoes to take them all off. Ah, if I had but two hundred of my
_coureurs-de-bois_ on the river at the farther side of them not one
would have got away."

"They had one who was dressed like a white man," remarked Amos.

"Ay, and the most deadly of the lot. His father was a Dutch trader, his
mother an Iroquois, and he goes by the name of the Flemish Bastard. Ah,
I know him well, and I tell you that if they want a king in hell, they
will find one all ready in his wigwam. By Saint Anne, I have a score to
settle with him, and I may pay it before this business is over.
Well, there are the lights of Sainte Marie shining down below there.
I can understand that sigh of relief, monsieur, for, on my word, after
what we found at Poitou, I was uneasy myself until I should see them."

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE TAPPING OF DEATH.

Day was just breaking as the four comrades entered the gate of the
stockade, but early as it was the _censitaires_ and their families were
all afoot staring at the prodigious fire which raged to the south of
them. De Catinat burst through the throng and rushed upstairs to Adele,
who had herself flown down to meet him, so that they met in each other's
arms half-way up the great stone staircase with a burst of those little
inarticulate cries which are the true unwritten language of love.
Together, w