His voice broke, and he turned away. Well, he knew the combined obstinacy and ignorance of the typical Acadian peasant, such as in some sort Marin was, and he hoped nothing. Marin, on the contrary, not understanding the situation, would not give up, and, in the few remaining minutes left uninterrupted, worked his hardest. The temptation was sore indeed, and by the time his tormentor was summoned to accompany the deputies, Gabriel’s young face was pale and drawn with the struggle. “Tell me but one thing,” he said ere they parted, “is it well with her?” “Well? How know I?” retorted the Acadian, surveying the result of his work with mingled complacency and disgust. “Perhaps!” But for the tremendous pressure already being put upon his unhappy commander by the events of this fifth day of September, Gabriel would have gone directly to him, and despite his gratitude to Marin for past services, would have requested that he be detained until he should reveal the whereabouts of Margot. But Winslow, New England Puritan though he might be, was finding, in common with his English brother-in-arms at Fort Edward, “things very heavy on his heart and hands”; so Gabriel forebore to trouble him with his own matters. And if his superior’s heart was heavy, how much heavier was his—born and reared an Acadian of the Acadians, and now with personal loss and grief added to his other sorrows! Marin, though crafty and self-seeking, had not the daring to break his word, unsheltered as he was by Gabriel from the righteous wrath of his compatriots; so night saw him back within the stockade. He kept his secret, nevertheless, and neither persuasion nor threats prevailed with him. The rest of the prisoners were all strangers to Gabriel, and had never heard of him before; and for reasons of his own, Marin kept their previous acquaintance dark. As the days went on, and the prisoners increased in number both at Fort Edward and Grand Pré, the commanding officers grew uneasy. The transports that were to bear away the Acadian families with their household goods were slow in arriving, and it would have been easy for the prisoners, had they been men of courage and resolution, to overpower their guards and escape. Unfortunately the Acadian character possessed none of those qualities necessary for the preservation of freedom, or for the reclaiming of it if lost. Gabriel’s duties kept him constantly within the stockade; and the small force having no horses with them, and the village of Grand Pré, together with the other settlements, straggling for many miles, he had never been within a league of the house of Marin or encountered any chance acquaintance. The times were too strenuous, the crisis too tremendous, to permit of the least relaxation on the part of a loyal officer.