Foret and La Chesnaye were watching from loopholes at the gates, and I
was all alert from my place in the bastion. The northern lights waved
overhead in a restless ocean of rose-tinted fire. Against the blue,
stars were aglint with the twinkle of a million harbour lights. Below,
lay the frost mist, white as foam, diaphanous as a veil, every floating
icy particle aglimmer with star rays like spray in sunlight. Through
the night air came the far howlings of the running wolf-pack. The
little ermine, darting across the level with its black tail-tip marking
the snow in dots and dashes, would sit up quickly, listen and dive
under, to wriggle forward like a snake; or the black-eyed hare would
scurry off to cover of brushwood.
Of a sudden sounded such a yelling from the New Englanders imprisoned
in the ship, with a beating of guns on the keel, that I gave quick
alarm. Foret and La Chesnaye sallied from the gate. Pistol-shots rang
out as they rounded the ship's prow into shadow. At the same instant,
a man flung forward out of the frost cloud beating for admittance. M.
de Radisson opened.
"The Indians! The Indians! Where are the New Englanders?" cried the
man, pitching headlong in.
And when he regained his feet, Governor Brigdar, of the Hudson's Bay
Company, stood face to face with M.
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