Produced by Al Haines [Frontispiece: "'You can tell me where they are,' she said softly, but very earnestly."] THE KING'S WARRANT. A Story of Old and New France BY ALFRED H. ENGELBACH, _Author of_ _"Poor Little Gaspard's Drum," "Lionel's Revenge," "Two Campaigns," &c., &c._ PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.; BRIGHTON: 135, NORTH STREET. NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1878 CONTENTS. PART I. THE TWO ORPHANS PART II. THE LETTRE DE CACHET PART III. THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE ILLUSTRATIONS LOI "'You can tell me where they are,' she said softly, but very earnestly." "The fiery little king of the kitchen bounded from his chair, sprang at him, and seized him by the throat." "Flinging away his sword, he knelt beside her." ELOI PART I THE TWO ORPHANS. [Illustration: Headpiece to Chapter I] THE KING'S WARRANT. THE TWO ORPHANS. CHAPTER I. At last England and France had formally drawn the sword which they had sheathed only eight years before at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the great struggle known in history as the Seven Years' War had begun in earnest. Yet although the old countries had until now managed to abstain from a declared and open rupture in the Old World, it had for well-nigh two years past been far otherwise with their great dependencies beyond the Atlantic. There, during the years 1754 and 1755, New France and New England had already been carrying on a deadly conflict, which seemed to increase in intensity and fierceness as the months rolled on, and in which for some time the royal troops of both kingdoms had taken a prominent part, notwithstanding the nominal state of peace between the mother countries. Some short-sighted men, indeed, tried to persuade themselves of the possibility that the colonists might carry on the war on the soil of the New World, without necessarily compromising the peace of Europe; but the European powers had their own apples of discord, and the ambitious designs of the Great Frederick had now set Europe once more in a blaze.