Smoke-clouds curled around the bride who had trod that sward and borne her part in the suffering. Half blinded by the explosion, Dollard held Claire with his left arm and fought with his sword. As firm and white as a marble face, the face of the Laval-Montmorency met her foes. The blood of man-warriors, even of Anne, the great and warlike Constable of France, throbbed steadfastly in the arm which grasped her husband and the heart which stood by his until they were swept down by the same volley of musketry, and lay as one body among the dead. Perhaps to Claire and Dollard it was but sudden release from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and victorious howling. For La Mouche found Massawippa pointing as if she saw through the earthwork. The half-breed’s eyes glowed with expansive brightness, as a spark does just before it expires. Her childish contours were beautiful, and unbroken by pain. “Father,” said Massawippa with effort,--the chief was dead, having saved her from the Iroquois with the last stroke of his hand,--“do you see madame--and the commandant--walking there under--birches?” Her face smiled as she died, and remained set in its smile. There are people who steadily live the lives they hate, whose common speech misrepresents their thought, who walk the world fettered. Is it better with these than with winged souls? Fire and smoke of a great burning rose up and blinded the day beside the Long Saut. It was a mighty funeral pile. The tender grass all around, licked by flame, gave juices of the earth to that sacrifice. The wine of young lives, the spices and treasures of courageous hearts, went freely to it, and for more than two hundred and twenty-five years love and gratitude have consecrated the spot. XX. POSTERITY. THREE weeks after Dollard’s departure Jacques Goffinet took the boat and one Huron Indian whom Dollard had sent back with the boat and set off to Montreal to obey his master’s final order. No appearances on the river had caused alarm at St. Bernard. While record has not been made of the route taken by the Iroquois brought from the Richelieu, it is evident that they passed north of Montreal island, avoiding settlements. Montreal was waiting in silence and anxiety for news of the expedition. The first person whom Jacques encountered was the nuns’ man Jouaneaux, watching the St. Lawrence with uneasy expectation in his eyes. When they had exchanged greetings as men do when each thinks only of the information he can get from the other, Jouaneaux said: “You come from up river?” “From St. Bernard island,” replied Jacques. “What news of the expedition?” But Jouaneaux had widened his mouth receptively. “You are then from the commandant Dollard’s seigniory?” “The commandant is my seignior,” said Jacques. Jouaneaux laid hold of his sleeve. “Did Mademoiselle de Granville return to St. Bernard and take the little half-breed Sister with her?”