There was a general restlessness on the prison ship. The English sailors wanted to go home. The Canadians had been patient since the middle of August. But this particular September night, as they drifted up past the rock, and saw the defenses of their country bristling against them, the feeling of homesickness vented itself in complaints. Jeannette was in her cabin, and heard them abuse Colonel Fraser and his Highlanders as kidnapers of women and children, and burners of churches. She came out of her retreat, and hovered over them like a hawk. The men pulled their caps off, drolly grinning. "It is true," added one of them, "that General Montcalm is to blame for letting the parishes burn. And at least he might take us away from the English." "Do you think Monsieur de Montcalm has nothing to do but bring you in off the river?" demanded Jeannette. "Mademoiselle does not want to be brought in," retorted one of the women. "As for us, we are not in love with these officers who wear petticoats, or with any of our enemies." "Spawn!" Jeanette hurled at them. Yet her partisan fury died in her throat. She went up on deck to be away from her accusers. The seamed precipice, the indented cove with the child's figure standing at the top, and all the panorama to which she was so accustomed by morning light or twilight passed before her without being seen by her fierce red-rimmed eyes. Jeannette Descheneaux had walked through the midst of colonial intrigues without knowing that they existed. Men she ignored; and she could not now account for her keen knowledge that there was a colonel of the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders. Her entanglement had taken her in the very simplicity of childhood. She could not blame him. He had done nothing but lift his bonnet to her, and treat her with deference because he was sorry she had fallen into his hands. But at first she fought with silent fury the power he unconsciously held over her. She felt only the shame of it, which the habitantes had cast upon her. Nobody had ever called Jeannette Descheneaux a silly woman. In early life it was thought she had a vocation for the convent; but she drew back from that, and now she was suddenly desolate. Her brother had his consolations. There was nothing for her. Scant tears, oozing like blood, moistened her eyes. She took hold of her throat to strangle a sob. Her teeth chattered in the wind blowing down river. Constellations came up over the rock's long shoulder. Though it was a dark night, the stars were clear. She took no heed of the French camp fires in the gorge and along the bank. The French commander there had followed the erratic motions of English boats until they ceased to alarm him. It was flood tide. The prison ship sat on the water, scarcely swinging.