Returning from a brief word with the ship-captain,—a very broad-bearded, broad-chested man, in a very rough blue coat,—Lieutenant Waldron passed us hastily, and signified that it was all right. With this sanction we pushed along the crowded deck in order to gain a post of vantage at the bow. The vessel, whose hold was now to be our new and narrow cage, was one of those ordinarily engaged in the West Indian trade. Our noses told us this. To the savours of fish and tar which clung in her timbers she added a foreign tang of molasses, rum, and coffee. As we stumbled up the cluttered deck, lacking the balance of free hands, these shippy smells were crossed in curious, pathetic fashion by the homely odours of the blankets, clothes, pillows, and other household stuff that lay about waiting for storage. Here a woman sat stolidly upon her own pile, with a mortgage on the future so long as she kept her bedding in possession; and there a youngster, already homesick, for his wide-hearthed cabin, sobbed heavily, with his face buried in an old coat of his father’s. For hours, in the bitter cold, we held our post in the bow of the ship and watched the boats go back and forth. Of the old mother of Petit Joliet we saw nothing. We judged perforce that she had been moved early and carried to the other ship, which swung at anchor a little up the channel. We were able—I say we, though Marc did all, I being, as it were, drowned in my own dejection—we were able to be of service in divers instances. When, for example, young Violet was brought aboard with another boat-load from the chapel prison, we made haste to tell the guards that we had seen his mother and sisters taken to the other ship. As a consequence, when the boat went back to the wharf it carried young Violet; so he and his were not divided in their exile. By the very next boat there came to us a black-browed, white-lipped woman, from whose dry eyes the tears seemed all drained out. She carried a babe-at-breast, while two thin little ones clung to her homespun skirt. As soon as she reached the deck she stared around in wild expectation, as if she thought to find her husband waiting to receive her. Not seeing him, she straightway fainted in a heap. It chanced I knew the woman’s face. She was the wife of one Caspar Besnard, of Pereau, whom I had seen taken, early in the day, to the other ship. He was conspicuous by reason of having red hair, a marvel in Acadie; and therefore my memory had retained him, though he concerned me not. Now, however, he did concern me much. A few words to the officer of the guard, and the poor woman, with her children, was transferred to where she doubtless found her husband.