Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France) -- Fiction; United States -- History -- French and Indian War, 1754-1763 -- Fiction
After a little he came again, and laid a book on the improvised
table before me. It was an English Bible. Opening it, I found
inscribed on the fly-leaf, Charles Wainfleet, Chaplain to the
British Army. Gabord explained that this chaplain had been in
the citadel for some weeks; that he had often inquired about me;
that he had been brought from the Ohio; and had known of me, having
tended the lieutenant of my Virginian infantry in his last hours.
Gabord thought I should now begin to make my peace with Heaven,
and so had asked for the chaplain's Bible, which was freely given.
I bade him thank the chaplain for me, and opening the book, I found
a leaf turned down at the words,
"In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these
calamities be overpast."
When I was left alone, I sat down to write diligently that history
of myself which I had composed and fixed in my memory during the
year of my housing in this dungeon. The words came from my pen
freely, and hour after hour through many days, while no single word
reached me from the outside world, I wrote on; carefully revising,
but changing little from that which I had taken so long to record
in my mind. I would not even yet think that they would hang me; and
if they did, what good could brooding do? When the last word of the
memoirs (I may call them so), addressed to Alixe, had been written,
I turned my thoughts to other friends.
The day preceding that fixed for my execution came, yet there
was no sign from friend or enemy without. At ten o'clock of that
day Chaplain Wainfleet was admitted to me in the presence of Gabord
and a soldier. I found great pleasure in his company, brief as his
visit was; and after I had given him messages to bear for me to old
friends, if we never met again and he were set free, he left me,
benignly commending me to Heaven. There was the question of my
other letters. I had but one desire--Voban again, unless at my
request the Seigneur Duvarney would come, and they would let him
come. If it were certain that I was to go to the scaffold, then I
should not hesitate to tell him my relations with his daughter,
that he might comfort her when, being gone from the world myself,
my love could do her no harm. I could not think that he would hold
against me the duel with his son, and I felt sure he would come to
me if he could.
But why should I not try for both Voban and the Seigneur? So I
spoke to Gabord.
"Voban! Voban!" said he. "Does dickey-bird play at peacock still?
Well, thou shalt see Voban. Thou shalt go trimmed to heaven--aho!"
Presently I asked him if he would bear a message to the Governor,
asking permission for the Seigneur Duvarney to visit me, if he were
so inclined. At his request I wrote my petition out, and he carried
it away with him, saying that I should have Voban that evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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