turned from a certain cruise he would visit her again, for
he was such an enemy to her country that he was keen to win what did it
most honour. Gering had pressed for a marriage before he sailed for the
Spaniards' country, but she had said no, and when he urged it she had
shown a sudden coldness. Therefore, bidding her good-bye, he had sailed
away with Phips, accompanied, much against his will, by Radisson.
Bucklaw was not with them. He had set sail from England in a trading
schooner, and was to join Phips at Port de la Planta. Gering did not
know that Bucklaw had share in the expedition, nor did Bucklaw guess the
like of Gering.

Within two weeks of the time that Phips in his Bridgwater Merchant,
manned by a full crew, twenty fighting men, and twelve guns, with
Gering in command of the Swallow, a smaller ship, got away to the south,
Iberville also sailed in the same direction. He had found awaiting him,
on his return to Quebec, a priest bearing messages and a chart from
another priest who had died in the Spaniards' country.

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH THE HUNTERS ARE OUT

Iberville had a good ship. The Maid of Provence carried a handful of
guns and a small but carefully chosen crew, together with Sainte-Helene,
Perrot, and the lad Maurice Joval, who had conceived for Iberville
friendship nigh to adoration. Those were days when the young were
encouraged to adventure, and Iberville had no compunction in giving the
boy this further taste of daring.

Iberville, thorough sailor as he was, had chosen for his captain one who
had sailed the Spanish Main. He had commanded on merchant-ships which
had been suddenly turned into men-of-war, and was suited to the present
enterprise: taciturn, harsh of voice, singularly impatient, but a
perfect seaman and as brave as could be. He had come to Quebec late the
previous autumn with the remnants of a ship which, rotten when she left
the port of Havre, had sprung a leak in mid-ocean, had met a storm, lost
her mainmast, and by the time she reached the St. Lawrence had scarce
a stick standing. She was still at Quebec, tied up in the bay of St.
Charles, from which she would probably go out no more. Her captain--Jean
Berigord--had chafed on the bit in the little Hotel Colbert, making
himself more feared than liked, till one day he was taken to Iberville
by Perrot.

A bargain was soon struck. The nature of the expedition was not known in
Quebec, for the sailors were not engaged till the