And then there was silence between us, and we heard the mysterious and solemn voice passing, and dying away in the distance. My ears at last being released from the tension of listening, my eyes began to serve me, and through the branches I marked a grayness spreading in the sky. "We must be stirring, Madame," said I, rising abruptly to my feet. "Let us take our bread down to the brook and eat it there." But she was already gone, snatching up the sack of bread; and in a few minutes, having righted the canoe and carried it down to a convenient landing-place, I joined her. She was stretched flat beside a little basin of the brook, her cap off, her hair in a tight coil high upon her head, her sleeves pulled up, while she splashed her face and arms in the running coolness. Without pulling down her sleeves or resuming her cap, she seated herself on a stone and held out to me a piece of bread. In the coldly growing dawn her hair and lips were colourless, the whiteness of her arms shadowy and spectral. Then as we slowly made our meal, I bringing water for her in my drinking-horn, the rose and fire and violet of sunrise began to sift down into our valley and show me again the hues of life in Mizpah's face. I sprang up, handed her the woollen cap, and tried hard to keep my eyes from dwelling upon the sweet and gracious curves of her arms. "Aboard! Aboard!" I cried, and moved off in a bustling fashion to get the paddles. In a few minutes we were under way, thrusting out from the shore, and pushing through myriad little curling wisps of vapour, which rose in pale hues of violet and pink all over the oil-smooth surface of the tide. For some time we paddled in silence. Then, when the sun's first rays fell fairly upon us, I exclaimed lightly:-- "You must pull down your sleeves, comrade." "Why?" she asked quickly, turning her head and pausing in her stroke. "For two excellent reasons besides the captain's orders," said I. "In the first place, your arms will get so sore with sunburn, that you won't be able to do your fair share of the work. In the second place, if we should meet any strangers, it would be difficult to persuade them that those arms were manly enough for a wood-ranger." "Oh," she said quickly, and pulled down the sleeves in some confusion. All that morning we made excellent progress, with the help of a light following wind. When the sun was perhaps two hours high, the mouth of the Shubenacadie opened before us; and because this river was the great highway of the Black Abbe's red people, I ran the canoe in shore and concealed it till I had climbed a bluff near by and scanned the lower reaches of the stream. Finding all clear, we put out again, and with the utmost haste paddled past the mouth. Not till we were behind the further point, and running along under the shelter of a high bank, did I breathe freely. Then I praised Mizpah, for in that burst of speed her skill and force had amazed me.