She glanced at Dominique. He had filled a pipe, and, as he smoked, his eyes followed her uncle's gestures placidly. Scorn of him, scorn of herself, intolerable shame, rose in a flood together. "If my uncle behaves like a _roturier_, it is because his mind is gone. Shall _we_ spy on him and laugh?--ghosts of those who are afraid to die!" Father Launoy looked up from his breviary. "Mademoiselle is unjust," said he quietly. "To my knowledge, those servants of hers, whom she reproaches, have risked death and taken wounds, in part for her sake." Diane sat silent, gazing upon the river. Yes, she had been unjust, and she knew it. Felicite had told her how the garrison had rushed after Dominique to rescue her, and of the struggle in the stairway of the tower. Dominique bore an ugly cut, half-healed yet, reaching from his right eyebrow across the cheekbone--the gash of an Indian knife. Bateese could steer with his left hand only; his right he carried in a sling. And the two men lying at this moment by Father Launoy's feet had taken their wounds for her sake. Unjust she had been; bitterly unjust. How could she explain the secret of her bitterness--that she despised herself? Boats were crowding thick around them now, many of them half filled with water. The crews, while they baled, had each a separate tale to tell of their latest adventure; each, it seemed, had escaped destruction by a hair's-breadth. The Cedars had been worse even than the Long Saut. They laughed and boasted, wringing their clothes. The nearest flung questions at Dominique, at Bateese. The Cascades, they understood, were the worst in the whole chain of rapids, always excepting the La Chine. But the La Chine were not to be attempted; the army would land above them, at Isle Perrot perhaps, or at the village near the falls, and cover the last nine or ten miles on foot. But what of the Buisson? and of the Roches Fendues? More than an hour passed in this clamour, and still the boats continued to crowd around. The first-comers, having baled, were looking to their accoutrements, testing the powder in their flasks, repolishing the locks and barrels of their muskets. "To be sure La Corne and his militiamen had disappeared, but there was still room for a skirmish between this and Lake St. Louis; if he had posted himself on the bank below, he might prove annoying. The rapids were bad enough without the addition of being fired upon during the descent, when a man had work enough to hold tight by the gunwale and say his prayers. Was the General sending a force down to clear La Corne out?" "Diane!"