Angelique leaned over the sill and the chill wilderness of waters. The wind sung in her ears. She could not distinctly see Colonel Menard, and there was such a sound of waves that she was not sure it was best to try her voice against them. His man had an oar thrust into the broken window below, and was thereby able to hold the boat against the current. "Monsieur the colonel!" called Angelique; and she saw the swift removal of his hat. "Mademoiselle, have you been alarmed?" "Yes, monsieur. Even my father was unable to do anything for the family until you came. But it seems when we find one relief we get another anxiety with it." "What other anxiety have you now?" "I am afraid you will be drowned trying to carry us out." "My bel-o-ved, would you care?" said Pierre Menard, speaking English, which his slave could not understand, and accenting on the first syllable the name he gave her. "Yes; it would be a serious inconvenience to me," replied Angelique. "Now that is worth coming here for. De northwest wind, I do not feel it since you say that." "I was thinking before you came, monsieur, what if I should never see you again? And if I saw you plainly now I could not talk so much. But something may happen. It is so strange, and like another world, this water." Tante-gra'mere screamed, and Angelique disappeared from the window-sill. It was not the mere outcry of a frightened woman. The keen small shriek was so terrible in its helplessness and appeal to Heaven that Captain Saucier was made limp by it. "What shall I do?" he asked his family. "I cannot force her into the boat when she cries out like that." "Perhaps she will go at dawn," suggested Angelique. "The wind may sink. The howling and the darkness terrify her more than the water." "But Colonel Menard cannot wait until dawn. We shall all be drowned here before she will budge," lamented Madame Saucier. "Leave her with me," urged Peggy Morrison, "and the rest of you go with Colonel Menard. I'll manage her. She will be ready to jump out of the window into the next boat that comes along." "We cannot leave her, Peggy, and we cannot leave you. I am responsible to your father for your safety. I will put you and my family into the boat, and stay with her myself." "Angelique will not leave me!" cried the little voice among the screens. "Are you ready to lower them?" called Colonel Menard. Captain Saucier went again to the window, his wife and daughter and Peggy with him. "I could not leave her," said Angelique to Peggy. They stood behind the father and mother, who told their trouble across the sill. "That spoiled old woman needs a good shaking," declared Peggy. "Poor little tante-gra'mere. It is a dreadful thing, Peggy, to be a child when you are too old for discipline." "Give my compliments to madame, and coax her," urged Colonel Menard. "Tell her, if she will let herself be lowered to me, I will pledge my life for her safety."