hich comes to
those who live much with nature, as sons of men going upon such mission
as did they who went into the far land with Arthur.

But the silence could not be maintained for long. The first flush of
the impression gone, these half-barbarians, with the simple hearts of
children, must rise from the almost melancholy, somewhat religious mood,
into which they had been cast. As Iberville, with Sainte-Helene and
Perrot, sat watching the canoes that followed, with voyageurs erect
in bow and stern, a voice in the next canoe, with a half-chanting
modulation, began a song of the wild-life. Voice after voice slowly took
it up, until it ran along the whole procession. A verse was sung, then
a chorus altogether, then a refrain of one verse which was sung by each
boat in succession to the last. As the refrain of this was sung by the
last boat it seemed to come out of the great haze behind. Verses of the
old song are still preserved:

"Qui vive!
Who is it cries in the dawn
Cries when the stars go down?
Who is it comes through the mist
The mist that is fine like lawn,
The mist like an angel's gown?
Who is it comes in the dawn?
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn.

"Qui rive!
Who is it passeth us by,
Still in the dawn and the mist?
Tall seigneur of the dawn:
A two-edged sword at his thigh,
A shield of gold at his wrist:
Who is it hurrieth by?
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn."

Under the influence of this beautiful mystery of the dawn, the slow
thrilling song, and the strange, happy loneliness--as though they were
in the wash between two worlds, Iberville got the great inspiration of
his life. He would be a discoverer, the faithful captain of his king, a
trader in provinces.... And in that he kept his word--years after, but
he kept it. There came with this, what always comes to a man of great
ideas: the woman who should share his prowess. Such a man, if forced to
choose between the woman and the idea, will ever decide for the woman
after he has married her, sacrificing what--however much he hides
it--lies behind all. But he alone knows what he has sacrificed. For it
is in the order of things that the great man shall be first the maker of
kingdoms and homes, and then the husband of his wife and a begetter of
children. Iberville knew that this woman was not more t