"A man like you, sir," said the Canadian, "need make me no explanation. I could hardly suspect a heart so noble and so self-forgetful of failing at all in the sentiments of humanity and gratitude. I am a soldier, and I know all the duties imposed upon one by military discipline. I have assisted at hideous performances on the part of our barbarous allies, which in my position as sergeant I might have been able to prevent had not my hands been tied by the orders of my superiors. It is a hard calling for sympathetic hearts, this profession of ours. "I have been witness of a spectacle," continued Dumais, "which makes me shudder now when I think of it. I have seen these barbarians burn an English woman. She was a young woman of great beauty. I still see her tied to the stake, where they tortured her for eight mortal hours. I still see her in the midst of her butchers, clothed, like our first mother, in nothing but her long, fair hair. I shall hear forever her heart-rending cry of 'My God! my God!' We did all we could to buy her back, but in vain; for her father, her husband, and her brothers, in defending her with the courage of despair, had killed many of the savages, and among them two of their chiefs. We were but fifteen Canadians, against at least two hundred Indians. I was young then, and I wept like a child. Ducros, who was nicknamed the Terror, foamed with rage and cried to Franc[oe]ur: 'What! sergeant, shall we, who are men and Frenchmen, let them burn a poor woman before our eyes? Give the order, sergeant, and I will split the skulls of ten of these red hounds before they have time to defend themselves.' And he would have done it, for he was a mighty man--was the Terror--and quick as a fish. Black Bear, one of their greatest warriors, approached us with a sneer. Ducros sprang toward him with his tomahawk uplifted, crying: 'Take your hatchet, coward, and you shall see that you have no woman to deal with!' The Indian shrugged his shoulders with an air of pity, and said slowly; 'The pale face is childish; he would kill his friend to defend the squaw of a dog of an Englishman, his enemy.' The sergeant put an end to the argument by ordering Ducros back into the ranks. He was a brave and generous heart, this sergeant, as his name attested. With tears in his eyes, he said to us: 'It would be useless for me to disobey my orders; we would all be massacred without doing the poor woman any good. What would be the consequence? The great tribe of the Abénaquis would forsake its alliance with the French, would join our enemies, and our own women and children would share the fate of this unhappy English woman. Their blood would be upon my head.' Well, Mr. Archie, for six months after this hideous scene I used to start from my sleep bathed in sweat, with those heart-rending cries of 'My God! My God!' shrieking in my ears. They wondered at my coolness when the ice was bearing me down to the falls of St. Thomas. Here is the explanation of it.